Conversations.

An artist recently said the purpose of art is to create conversation, and the more I have thought about it I agree. Whether by stirring or inspiring, angering or comforting, art has the ability to reach people in profound ways. "You've just got to come here this song". . . "That sculpture is a piece of crap" . . . "When I read this I wept" . . . are all beginnings of conversations.

Between artist and viewer, or fellow spectators, the conversations begin and lead to places unknown and unexpected. If perspectives are challenged, beliefs affirmed, then art has done its thing. In the end, the world is changed, people awakened, if only slightly, because the art caused a conversation.

Last week, I went to an amazing presentation by an artist named Diana Greene. Using twelve dresses stored in her attic, Greene used photographs and words to bring life not only to the dresses but the stages of life they represented. Whether her high school graduation dress or the one she wore when she met the man who would one-day be her husband, her wedding dress or the dress she wore to her mother's funeral, the performance caused us all to reflect on the clothes in our  "attic" and the important chapters they represent.

After the show, my wife and I went to a restaurant where we spotted a woman who had been at the show. Uncharacteristically, I invited her to join us, and we were soon talking about the show and the thoughts and feelings it provoked. Vividly, the art created a conversation between strangers.

This week, another art show will do the same. Entitled Finding Home: Portraits of Courage, the show uses photographs (also by Diana Greene) and the words of recovering addicts to paint a collage of the horror of addiction and miracle of recovery. Testaments of courage, the show would maybe be enough as that, but the responses have shown a power far beyond anything for which we hoped. The words and faces have started many conversations. The magic of art has begun once again. Who knows where it will lead. Who cares? It’s art, and its purpose is to begin a conversation.

Photograph: Anthony M. by Diana Greene

Finding Home is on display at the public library in Winston Salem (660 West 5th Street) and will be a book available by Christmas.