Lightning Strikes
Someone recently asked what triggered a desire to write fiction. I have to admit that is a complicated question for me to answer. My father always had a camera close at hand, so I saw images of mountains and sunsets during my early life. As a PK (Preacher’s Kid for those not in the ministry), I soon understood the role of the slide show in evening church services after darkness overtook the church. But things changed dramatically, in regards to art, with the opening of the New York World’s Fair of 1964-1965. Sometimes called the last great world’s fair, the gates opened on April 22, 1964. Art, both high and low, found a home in the various international exhibits. To be honest, I probably saw them, but was unimpressed.
Then, my father asked who wanted to go with him the the Vatican Pavilion. I think fatigue had taken most of us, but I had an opportunity to have dad to myself for one of the few times in my life and I volunteered. As a good Baptist, dad schooled my on my behavior in a Roman Catholic venue. The cathedral, whether it truly was or wasn’t, seemed so in my young eyes. I was in awe!
And then we passed into, as I remember, a long hall with a moving sidewalk, and we both stepped onto it for a slow ride past art. And such art! It wasn’t long before I came face-to-face with a magnificent view--Michelangelo’s Pietà. A ten year-old like myself had never seen such man-made beauty, and so close. It felt like I could just reach out and touch Mary’s hand. Oh, distance kept us all safely away from that glorious piece. I'm sure other famous art pieces made up more of that exhibit, but I only remembered one–THE One, the only Pietà. Since that day, I have carried a love of all fine art, even pieces I don’t understand. Over the years, I visited art museums in the Western hemisphere. I must admit to an affinity to every Pietà I come to see (check out the one on the campus of Notre Dame in South Bend), but none have come close to Michelangelo’s masterpiece. It will always touch my very soul. I remember my emotions, a short three years later, when I learn some madman took a hammer to that marble perfection. I know it was repaired, very well I understand, but I will always think of it as flowed now.
That event, that sighting of Michelangelo’s golden child, started me on a journey of loving all art, visual and written. Just a month ago I found myself in the Colonial Williamsburg Fine Art Museum. Some of you may know the feeling of awe that comes with that level of beauty, but every piece I have seen since 1965 falls short. Michelangelo gave us an example of a man seeing a 3-D image in a block of stone, and releasing it for the rest of us mere mortals.
M. Alden Phillips
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