Art, Courage, and Risk — by Donna McNeil
November 9, 2011
I was so touched by Donna McNeil’s address to the Juice Conference (a conference about the creative economy that took place in Camden, Maine), that I got her permission to print it here. She began by showing a film clip of Phillipe Petit walking on a wire between the twin towers in New York.
. . . Petit’s action resonates as a quintessential metaphor for risk . . . He embraces the unknown, finds invention and discovery, his own invincibility, and, if you will, his divinity. He gauges, then laughs at fear, conquering it with exuberance, exhilaration, defiance and joy. . .
Artists are some of the most courageous people I know. They live in RISK, resonate with it, use it. They choose a life that provides virtually none of society’s safety nets and they deliver a product that is so taken for granted, so impregnated within the fabric of our everyday, that it has become like air. Abundant, everywhere and often expected to be free.
