ON THE ROAD: WEEK 4 & 5 (February 15th- February 28th, 2017)

Since February 15th, I've visited Santa Fe, the Grand Canyon, Las Vegas, San Francisco, and Salt Lake City-- all new places to see. It has been quite the adventure. Santa Fe was like no place I'd ever seen before. Mountains served as a backdrop while the St. Francis Basillica basked in the golden light of sunset. Truly breath-taking.

We visited the Georgia O'Keefe Museum while in Santa Fe. Upon entering the museum, I knew very little about the "Mother of American Modernism," but upon leaving, I felt inspired by her precision in her exploration of the abstract. I was particularly struck by her paintings entitled "Flag Pole" and "Flag Pole with White House". Painted in 1925 and later in 1959, the paintings are composed of the same elements (flagpole in center with a house in the background, a moon in the sky, a black arrow, etc.), however, the subject has been completely reimagined in brush stroke, color, and size in order to create something new. Examining O'Keefe's revisiting of the same subject, for the first time, I felt connected to the art of painting.

The craft of acting is all about repetition, from rehearsal to performing a show 8 times a week in the Big Leagues. Acting is about discovering something new within the repetition. As an actor, I revisit the same material over and over, digging deeper in order to find the truth of a living, breathing moment on stage. I've always felt that visual art was on a pedestal above me, unreachable by my unskilled hand, but as I examined O'Keefe's reimagining of "Flag Pole", I realized that her art is not so distant from my art. At the heart of it all, we are all seeking some sort of truth-- whether it be about beauty, perception, or humanity, artists seek truth and attempt to share that truth with the world.

In a world in which truth is endanger of becoming extinct, I vow to be a seeker and preserver of truth and what it means to be a human being-- messy bits and all. Viola Davis, eloquent queen that she is, said it best at last night's Oscars:

"I became an artist—and thank God I did—because we are the only profession that celebrates what it means to live a life."

From my hotel room in Salt Lake City,

Kelly