De La Part De Qui Venez-Vous?
By whose invitation do you come? | MICHELLE MAY
This was a question proposed by Gertrude Stein when people rang her atelier doorbell for salon at 27 rue de Fleurus in Paris. Like a spy needs a password, a guest had to provide a name. The valuable art collection she and her brother Leo collected was the big draw. This formula, this Saturday evening social ritual reminds me of a local salon where photographers, artists, writers, filmmakers and those who love them meet "up the hill" in Worcester, Massachusetts. If you get the invite to sit at this kitchen table once a week, you immediately feel the increase in brain chemicals. Completely approachable and without pretense, this laidback gathering, where the regular bohemians stroll in with a bottle of wine or something for the table, a place where you can sit with the most magical assortment of creative minds for a few hours once a week. Socializing is good for your health and wellbeing. In my experience, Europeans seem to have this lifestyle element baked-in. I often hear comments about how different life is in America. Covid does not help. As humans, our risk for depression increases with time spent alone. For creatives, isolation can do a job on that neurotransmitter dopamine production, when our creativity tanks. Our neuroaesthestic well-being depends on the functions of interaction, making and visual processing.
Decades ago, what started as a few professors "up the hill" drinking wine and discussing photography after students left the studio has grown to an email list of hundreds. The intimate group has grown over decades, adding more creative friends to the menagerie. You never know who will walk in the door from a vivacious and powerful creative community that has formed around the jovial and empathic connectors who host. Committed to entertaining, a large portion of the kitchen pantry cabinets have become home to a stack of folding chairs that unfurl as new guests enter the room. First-time visitors become excited for a return, fueled by conversation and inspiration. Some leave charged, others challenged, some provoked and sometimes mildly vexed by the characters that surround the long wooden table marred by years of lively discussions about life, current events, music, art, travel, politics to cameras, James Taylor's mother and probably cheese.
Long New England winters and bouts of melancholy are battered away by social gatherings through cold blizzards and blustery storms. What do you do weekly to feed your soul, to lift your spirit to imbibe the social senses? Who do you know that enriches your life and inspires your dreams? Do you spend enough time with them? Humans need this interaction, and creatives may need it even more. Who are the people in your life that invite you and connect with you? We look forward to returning to some social normalcy, extending invitations to our lively friends and family and gathering around the table again.
Entrez-vous, or "Come 'ahn in, get a glass. What do you want — red or white? Sit down. I want to introduce you to someone. You are nevah gonna believe this..." [Channeling the one and only Stephen DiRado, whose work you should definitely check out here. ]
I have to believe Gertrude would approve. If you know his name, mention it at the door. In the meantime, we are here to introduce you to many people who may just feed your soul and nourish your limbic system.
