Grady Harp

Looking at visual art and written art and musical art through my critic’s or reviewer’s or curator’s eyes has always seemed a humbling cachet to me – not unlike my life as a surgeon. Entering the incised body, feeling the inner pulse at the core of being while delicately tracing organs and vessels and nerves, correcting what disease has attacked, is quietly challenging. Yet discovering that amorphous creative spirit of the mind is more bracing, filled with obligation to an idea born of another’s life. Writing my own poems is removing protective layers, knowing that others will gain access to private places and thoughts, and that for me is art once liberating and terrifying, and places Art in context.