"Aloha ___________ !
Please forgive my lateness in writing you this thank you, but better late than never, I suppose. Maybe you'd understand the difficulty in expression via words rather than say, a sculpture or a painting! That being said, I'd like to still try: I did want to thank you for welcoming my friend and I into your conversation about art. Of course it was a great surprise for us to be offered such an intimate opportunity–I had a blast!
Aside from that, I think I was just relieved to come across someone so accessibly and enthusiastically representing artists. In the past, I've found people removed maybe both physically and emotionally and how can anyone ever feel connected to a work if that's the case? To be emotionally invested makes all the difference. I guess I still have this crazy, romantic hope that people still do things out of passion, which seems to be your case? It shows, so I just wanted to offer a little thanks.
Genuinely,
Emily Ballas (from Philly)
“Even as it applies to the individual, art is a heightened mode of existence. It gives deeper pleasures, it consumes more quickly. It carves into its servants’ faces the marks of imaginary and spiritual adventures and though their external activities may be as quiet as a cloister, it produces a lasting voluptuousness, over-refinement, fatigue, and curiosity of the nerves such as can barely result from a life filled with illicit passions and enjoyments.”
– Thomas Mann, Death in Venice