UVa art piece simply great

Charlottesville Daily Progress
Published: May 2, 2008

Robert Fulghum returned to kindergarten for inspiration — why not UVa?

A University of Virginia group staged what used to be called “a happening” this week, based on a theme as unpretentious as show and tell.

Like Mr. Fulghum’s “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” series, the UVa event was both simple and simply profound.

The gathering, which attracted some 70 participants, was designed to bring people together and spark connections and interactions. Each participant was asked to bring a small item of special significance, present it and explain it. Resulting conversations about the objects were expected to spark fresh ideas and perhaps even new relationships.

The whole exercise was to be considered a piece of public art. The event was put on by UVa’s Art in Community/Community in Art class.

In a world where electronic communication has replaced human contact, and connectivity (a techno-term) has supplanted connection, it may be necessary to stage events that get people talking face-to-face.

And while the people who showed up for show and tell clearly already were inclined to favor personal connection, their efforts were as much a model as a metaphor and art happening. They were reminding us that personal connection matters — and that a satisfying connection can emerge from something as simple as chat about a toy, a book, a piece of music.

That’s a great lesson, for kindergartners or adults.

Clean up the mess

Winchester has a good idea.

Instead of simply requiring owners to clean up graffiti on their property, the city is considering offering help.

City Council will vote next month on whether to provide $50 in assistance to residents to help them clean up graffiti. Sixty-two properties in Winchester have been vandalized in the past four months by gangs engaged in “tagging.”

It’s not the owners’ fault that their properties are vandalized.

It ought not be their responsibility to erase the graffiti.

Graffiti is a civic problem. It requires a civic solution.

Charlottesville requires the owner to take care of graffiti within five days. If that does not occur, according to the city’s Web site, city workers will remove the graffiti or paint over it “with the best paint match available.”

But the city will do the work “free of charge.”

That offer may be better than Winchester’s — as long as the property owner is not otherwise penalized, formally or informally, for having a “violation” on his record for failure to clean up somebody else’s mess.