Just to clarify about Andy Juscik's reading and booksigning in Whiting at Studio 659 located at 1413 - 119th St. The correct date and time, as opposed to the one that was a figment of my tired imagination last week, is 11 a.m. Sept. 18.
Andy will read "Tear Catchers" as well as do some cartooning for his young audience. While you're there, you'll see the latest exhibit, which is very "cool." It's the Refrigerator Art Exhibit, which is exactly what it says it is. Contributors have brought in their kids' art works that have been displayed at home on the refrigerator. It makes quite a unique collection and it's fun to see kids' drawings of the real world according to their own reality. Naturally their works are treasured by their family but at Refrigerator Art Exhibit, they can be shared with the public.
Art in any form seems to have healing powers. I read recently that one of the ways to calm down Alzheimer's patients is to have them color or draw. Art is used as therapy for those with autism as well. The visual arts don't rely on your ability to speak; it doesn't rely on your skill or experience. It's the chance to express oneself, a definite human need. Creating a piece of art can be relaxing and sets you in your own private world of imagination.
I think I truly saw the power of art when we visited Theresienstadt, now Terezin, right outside of Prague. Theresienstadt was used as a Nazi camp where Jews were kept before their final destination ... Auschwitz. Originally this pretty little town had been founded by Austrian Emperor Josef II in 1784 in Czechoslovakia. He named it after his beloved mother, the Empress Maria Theresa.
It was also the model ghetto presented to the International Red Cross by the Nazis to show how well the Jewish population was being taken care of under the occupation. The Nazis built false bathing facilities, fake dormitories, held bogus soccer games and made phony home movies of idyllic life there. The Red Cross was never taken to the real barracks where hundreds of prisoners were kept. The Red Cross bought exactly what the Nazis were selling and came out of Czechoslovakia to tell the world that all was well under Nazi occupation there.
Many pieces of art by the young Jewish children held there are now on display in the Theresienstadt Museum. Sadly under their name and ages, it is written that most were killed at Auschwitz. Adult artists were kept busy creating beautiful landscapes of the camp, full of happy prisoners, all getting enough to eat and living a rather carefree life. But these same artists kept another hidden set of drawings. These were dark, desperate and depicted the madness that was the real Theresienstadt. They showed people starving to death, the inhumane conditions and the execution of old men and women. Many of these drawings were smuggled out of the camp and are back there today on display.
These drawings say more than any words could describe. One must never underestimate the true power of art.
