Memorable moments captured for others to share

I was driving into work one morning last week. It was gray and blue and drizzly and I was sort of feeling the same way. Then, as I turned onto Depot Street, I caught a glimpse of the Capri Theater's marquee. It was turned on, glowing warm reddish-orange in the gloom and I felt the most wonderful feeling of contentment wash over me. And ambush of ambiance.

It happened so quickly and so completely that it made me wonder why.

What was it about that bright neon on a cold, gray day that made me feel life was worth living after all?

After a morning of pondering I remembered -- my husband and I spent our 10th anniversary in a bed and breakfast here in Shelbyville. That night, we walked through a misty, drizzly, cold gray dusk to the Capri to see a movie. It was a no Kids weekend, very romantic and comforting and cozy and one of my best memories in our 23 years of marriage. Thirteen years later, and that image, like a color-touched lithograph of color against grim black and white, still evokes that comfort.

Our lives are filled with moments like these; we just need to learn how to recognize them. That, I think, is what art is all about -- not only seeing, hearing, smelling, touching and tasting these moments, but sharing them as well. What every artist, whether an actor or watercolorist, sculptor or musician, is trying to do is recapture what she felt at a particular moment in time and share it with us. The artists want us to feel it too.

The great artists are the ones who succeed.

I remember seeing a copy of Jacques-Louis David's painting, The Death of Marat. (For a good version of it, visit http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/cas/his/Cor.... Neither David nor Marat were exemplary people. Jacobins, they held prominence in France's reign of terror and Marat himself is supposed to have signed death warrants on at least 300 people. He was a journalist who wrote fiery passages about the power of the revolution. But in the painting -- you don't see that. You see what David -- a friend of Marat's-- saw in his own mind, after hearing the news of the assassination. You feel both his sorrow and his outrage at a life interrupted. When I first saw the painting, I was half in love with this tragic creature, murdered in his bathtub. Even after I realized he was not a lovable creature at all, I am awed by the power of the painting. David let me share that.

The first concert I ever went to was John Denver, and yeah, I get kidded about that a lot. I don't care. I had been to Colorado, I had seen the Rockies, and when I heard that clear, smooth voice singing about "The Eagle and the Hawk," I felt myself transported back to the startling landscape of Pike's Peak and the Air Force Academy campground and I could feel the sharp bite of the mountain lake we swam in and smell the hay-dusty hides of the horses at the dude ranch. To this day, when I hear a John Denver song, I am 13 again, and my horizons go on forever, filled with eagle's cries and cold, clean air. John let me share that.

In the Little House on the Prairie series, Laura Ingalls Wilder shares with words. You can taste the butter melting on the homemade biscuits and feel the buffalo grass snagging at the hem of your sprigged muslin dress. You can smell the cracklings at the hog butchering and feel the polished wood handle of Pa's ax.

I think it is the most frustrating thing in the world to have some treasured feeling -- some emotion or expression that you are compelled to share -- and can't. I'm about as tone deaf as a human can be and still have ears and vocal chords, and if I tried to express myself through dance, someone would call 911 and report a seizure.

I can doodle, but I can't create great masterpieces in oil, or I would capture that eerie, but comforting, glow of the Capri's sign in a sullen dawn. If I'd been thinking, I'd have grabbed my camera and caught the moment that way.

Photography is probably my favorite outlet and I get such a rush when I hear from people about my shots, such as the one of Watch it Now winning the World Grand Championship, and when they tell me how I made them feel. The shots may be technically imperfect -- I'm more of a writer than a photographer -- but I know that at least this one time, I've shared the moment.