Art as Solace
Photo/Courtesy of The Lilley Museum.
Photo/Courtesy of The Lilley Museum.
By Vivian Zavataro
“I can hear an accent, where are you from?” That is a question I get incredibly often and a very hard one to answer…Being born in Brazil to a big Italian family and leaving my birth country in my early twenties can complicate that response. When I think about my identity, my roots in a way, I always find myself in this hybrid mess. However messy this selfhood can be, it is always connected to art, culture, and traditions. What does it mean, to me, to be Brazilian? Italian? American? I think about visual aspects of my combined national identity, sounds, tastes, connections. I relate to the patterns created by Brazilian folk artists, the melody of Bossa Nova, Italian, and Brazilian popular music. The flavor of my nonna’s pasta, the smell of a good feijoada (a Brazilian traditional bean stew), and the sweetness and comfort of a brigadeiro (Brazilian dessert) or a well-made panna cotta (Italian dessert) can provide me. The delight of watching La Bella Vita (Life is Beautiful, an Italian comedy drama film) and listening to a familiar language, brings me back to a noisy and loud Italo-Brazilian household. I re-read books that warm my heart, such as The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett, Le Petit Prince (The Little Prince) by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, and Primo Basilio (Cousin Bazilio) by Eça de Queirós. It is when I feel nostalgic, sad, or even lonely that I have the necessity of connecting with my own roots, these culturally compounded roots. I rely on music, literature, movies, and food to put me back on my feet, to give me a little push to keep me going.
So, when this pandemic started, I kept pondering on my personal idea of self and how I could maybe relate what I feel to others. How could we as a community keep our connection and identity while apart? ART, that was the answer. Artists, in the broadest sense (writers, musicians, visual artists, etc.), are capable of seizing a moment in time. Their creations can be associated with cultural traditions, connection, and community. I am not unique for seeking refuge in art. It’s in times of crisis or social rupture that humanity turns to art as solace. Music, movies, and literature could make it easier for us to endure the unavoidable social isolation.
When we closed our doors at The Lilley Museum of Art at the University of Nevada, Reno, I wanted to make sure that our patrons were still connected to the visual arts as well as spoken word and poetry. I started to think about the core of what it means to be a museum. What are museums? To whom are they for? Ideally, these institutions should be in service of their local communities, they should be connecting their audience with art, history, science, and inspiring ideas. How can museums fulfill their function while closed to the public?
Photos/Courtesy of The Lilley Museum.
Museums all over the world started dedicating their staff and resources to transforming their physical experiences into virtual ones. Following trends from around the world, we embarked on the boat of the hashtag “museums from home” and made it our own. #TheLilleyFromHome featured pieces from our collection with perspectives from our local community. One of my favorites texts is from Emile Perrotte, a local second grader; he describes two vases from our exhibition To Have and To Hold, giving us a chance to see these pieces through his eyes.
I think these vases are cool because they have a lot of imagination. The two specific birds look like peacocks. It reminds me of this dragon that has a lot of feathers, called Quetzalcoatl. There is a story of this one boy. He had a dream that he was on a ship and the ship wracked. A Quetzalcoatl came and saved his life and he didn’t even realize it as these dragons are so quick. I really like that story.
I also think that there is a lot of life in these pieces. I really like nature, my friends do too. Sometimes we play nature games and they have taught me so much about it. There is so much details on these vases, but when you first look at it you just see a couple birds, leaves, branches, and flowers. When you look close at it, you can see the strokes of the artist’s paintbrush and the sculpting they did.
There is also Chinese writing on them, I don’t know what it means, but I have a Chinese friend and she might be able to tell me what it is saying. I think it might be a story about the birds flying through the sky, then landing on a branch. The two colorful birds were magical and I am not sure what else it would say, but I think they are telling a pretty good story and it would be cool to read that.
His text, together with the artworks, gives us a fresh view on art, maybe even connecting ourselves with our inner child and showing that one does not need to be an art historian or a scholar to appreciate and understand art. It also shows that from an early age we are inherently conscious about how art can connect and form community.
For a couple of months we also featured poets, who shared their creations via our social media platforms, giving us the opportunity to experience this pandemic from other points of view. These poems are examples of how we can relate to each other, regardless of our background or even political opinions. Art can give us the possibility of understanding ourselves and the world around us. In a way, when hearing a poet, listening to a visual artist’s creative process, or even seeing their final product we can witness their reality as our own. We create a bond and have the power to initiate internal and communal healing in times of difficulty such as this one we find ourselves.
Daniel Enrique Perez. Image courtesy of Vivian Zavataro.
Ximena Keogh Serrano. Image courtesy of Vivian Zavataro.
Therefore, even from afar I have no doubt that art can be a vehicle of transformation and affirmation of a society that looks for new paradigms of self and happiness. Even after almost a year since this pandemic started, we know we can still find one another through art, murals, music, poetry, this writings series, etc. We are all eager to see the day in which we can hear spoken word and poetry in person, go to a concert, gather with friends over drinks and food. Those days are close, but the silver lining is that we have learned that our connectedness runs deeper and beyond social interactions. We can still relate to each other through our collective experience of our local and individual identities—art makes this possible.
Vivian Zavataro is the Director of The Lilley Museum of Art, within the Department of Art and School of the Arts at the University of Nevada, Reno. She has traveled the world working for museums, galleries, and contemporary art exhibitions in order to broaden her knowledge and experience of the art world. Her goal is to facilitate interaction between art and the public. Diversity, inclusion, and creativity are essential aspects of her practice.
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