From Our Director: Coming to the Mountain

Coming To The Mountain
By Judith Dupree, MECAC Director

Those of us who live in far east San Diego County (Mountain Empire) have found all sorts of benefits and delights in being part of small communities. The long trip home from everywhere is fully justified by the aura that enfolds our jagged senses when we turn off the freeway and know we’re home. This we celebrate together, often without saying it; no more than a sigh suffices. There are real bonuses to being boondock’rs. We celebrate the clean air, the clear night skies, the special people around us, the balance we find here, despite this frenzied world. And much more.

But – there’s always a flea or two on the back of each critter. The flea for me, and apparently more than a few others, has always been lack of accessibility to the arts. That’s more than one flea; that’s a hound-dog full! That’s a mobile itch that I, for one, can never quit scratching. Music, drama, visual arts, writers’ workshops, learned speakers and doers of various genres, museums, galleries. A multitude of stimulating events remain tantalizingly far away, exhibits and concerts, etc., come and go, usually without me. Always I/we must weigh the extra time and travel costs, and sometimes the uncertainties of weather.

So . . . (Dare I mix my metaphors? Aw, writers do it all the time.) So, we decided, a few of us who were tired of scratching, to make lemonade of our lemon. (One big lemon can make a ton of lemonade. Fleas don’t like lemonade, of course, so you do see the connection, right?)

In all seriousness, I want you to know this: Art has begun to “intrude” in the back-country. MECAC has begun to flourish, because we base it as much as possible on the needs of the community. A known need, to many, a perceived need, to us: Where there is little or no awareness of the poverty of no-art, we pledge to help create awareness. We have begun to offer tastes of art at both youth and adult levels.

In fact, our children’s program is called just that: “A Taste of Art.” We want to “spoil” our kids out here: Art as lemonade? We want to go at the fleas –the inanities of modern life that stifle their inborn creativity. Yes! Just watch Myrna Mora, our Youth Arts Coordinator, with the kids!

We’re excited, we’re busy, we’re learning steadily, we’re avid for adventure. We want to prod the rest of the good folks out here – want to tell you that if you haven’t “itched” for art, it’s time. There’s something in everyone – everyone – that needs a touch of the esoteric to balance out the 9-to-5 practical, often drudging (and begrudging?) daily-ness that we settle into and call normal. Uh-uh; not meant to be the norm! Not even out here in our boonies!

Here’s what I most want to tell you: We are, each of us, created with an infinite capacity to appreciate and describe the indescribable, which discovering and enjoying and, yes, even practicing the arts do for us. It’s an endless, timeless amalgam of the rational [left brain] with the intuitive [right brain]. Something about the synapses connecting, maybe, and voila, Rembrandt! Degas! Beethoven and Bernstein. Uncle Hank with his carving, Cousin Rachel with her quilts, the kids next door who take piano or voice lessons! Voila!, each!

And voila!, Judith, Susanne, Dianne, Mary, Myrna, Marshall, Stephanie . . . Voila!, Norm, the plein air “master,” and all the other itchy, arts-hungry people who’ve joined in! May your tribe increase. And your itches become “Aaah’s!” Have some lemonade; there’s plenty to go around.