Art Is Happening In West Orange

Art is everywhere throughout West Orange and nearby Orange right now. There are exuberant outdoor murals on the walls of at the AMC Cinema, the West Orange Public Library, Luna Stage Theater, Orange Hardware and Harvard Press.

Sometimes the art comes to you: Doing some early morning weeding, I smiled as the 6:50 a.m. jitney, painted with images of elongated commuters, rolled by.

Over at Essex Green, the Art Stop kiosk asks you to pause and look at children's collages on your way to grabbing a coffee at Panera.

My dentist, back from vacation, has hung a wondrous painting, white boats coursing through deep blue waters, their multicolored sails piercing blue sky. "This is a good thing," I think, as the image takes me away from the business at hand.

There are group shows in the Valley Art District at the IronWorks and Oualie galleries that are well worth your time.

This evening from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. there is an opening reception for the New Jersey Arts Incubators' signature fall show, "Incubation," and from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Sunday, a reception for the three one-man shows at the galleries of the JCC on Northfield Avenue.

If you were away last weekend or too busy this week to have read preview stories about these gallery shows on Patch, catch up by looking at the last few pieces archived under Arts. Last week, Arts Beat took a day trip to Storm King, an outdoor sculpture park, at its most beautiful in fall, when the surrounding Hudson Highlands put on a show of their own.

You can take a minute to read these short articles, but much better, go and look at the art for yourself.

At the receptions you can meet and talk with the artists. Some artists like to talk or write about their work and are very good with words. You can ask questions and get answers.

But remember, artists — painters, sculptures, photographers, musicians, composers, choreographers, dancers — deal in speech without words. 

Put another way, if they wanted to be writers, they would write. Their language, their communication, is their art.

Artists circumvent the limitations of verbal language. Their expression is direct and strong.

It bypasses the brain's language center and goes right to the subconscious, to emotions, to the heart.

So, go and really look. Choose one work and just stare at it. Give it time to tell its story on its terms and give yourself time to think about it.

Thinking about Judith Targan's oils on wood at the JCC, the two paintings pictured here, were my inspiration for this week's column.

Here's another suggestion: If something speaks compellingly to you — something you want to dream on or think about — and if the pocketbook allows, buy it.

Years ago, I saved for three years to buy a painting to celebrate when I got tenure. Those days, teaching was an act of love; entry-level salaries were modest.

That painting has hung every place where I have lived. In a life of flux, it has been a constant friend. When I bought it, it could transport me out of myself and the everyday. 

It still does.

And, now, it is my time machine, taking me back to first seeing the art I had studied in school — not a picture of a painting, not a slide — but  the actual piece — with the hand of the artist reaching for me from history, for the first time.