The way home was straight ahead, but I took a left turn yesterday, and boy am I glad I did.
We don't often take time in our busy lives to simply take time, to pause and do something that is different. We don't take detours on our way from one place to another; usually we don't have time for them anyway.
But I did take a detour on my walk home yesterday. I stopped dead in my tracks, backed up, turned to cross Western Avenue, and walked into C.X. Silver Gllery. When I left a half hour later, I felt refreshed, renewed in mind and spirit. I felt like I had gone to church.
Their exhibit of "Kiri-I Paintings by Hiroshima Youth of 1945" is simply beautiful. These works of art were created by Japanese schoolchildren in the aftermath of the atomic bomb attack. These students were challenged by a teacher to make something beautiful out of tiny strips of cloth; to create some order out of lives filled with chaos and to remember beautiful things about their lives before the bombing.
The works are small and when you look at them, you can see the strips of cloth and you can imagine small fingers paintstakingly gluing them into place, losing themselves at least for a time in a moment of art-making that helps them forget the excruciating emotional pain they must have been feeling.
The works depict many things - traditional Japanese figures, landscapes, dolls - and each conveys a little something of its maker. Some are whimsical, some are exuberant, some are wistful.
The whole effect is prayerful and inspiring - in a quiet, thoughtful way. To experience such beauty created from the ashes of a hell on earth is life-affirming and uplifting.
As I was there, I asked the folks at the gallery how attendance was for last Friday's shakuhachi flute concert with Elizabeth Rein Bennett and gallery opening where patrons got to meet Phyllis Rodin, whose collection of Kiri-I makes up the exhibit. I was told some 90 people turned out, and the gallery was filled.
I was pleased to hear that, but I was also pleased that I was the only one in the gallery at the time on Monday afternoon. The silence and solitude enchanced an experience which was wholly moving and prayerful.
The Kiri-I paintings are on view at C.X. Silver Gallery at 814 Western Ave., in West Brattleboro through Aug. 31. The gallery is open daily, from noon to 6 p.m. Call 802-257-7898 or visit www.cxsilvergallery.com.