The artwork pictured on these pages was created especially for the 2005 HEART of the Community art project and will be auctioned at the Black and White Beach Ball on June 4, at the Atlantic Sands. The theme of this year’s HEART project is HEARTbeats, and the 17 artists who created this body of work have each contributed a bit of their own lifeblood, you could say, to keep the HEART alive.

I am always delighted to see all the HEART paintings as they arrive in the CAMP Rehoboth office. Each one is a separate thing, fashioned by loving hands and created to be able to stand alone, yet when viewed as a collection, as a body, we see them in a different light. Oh how I wish I could display them on a single giant wall, as a grid of little square paintings creating a much larger painting made up of many parts.

CAMP Rehoboth is like that, I think, many parts working to make a larger body. Actually, all organizations are like that. The very nature of an organization is the bringing together of separate parts to make a cohesive whole, whether it be the human body, a bee hive, our local churches, or the Boy Scouts of America. It is in our nature to organize, to be a part of something, to seek out one another—for safety, for camaraderie, for fun, for communion, for comfort, and for assistance when we are lonely or in need. Also in our nature, of course, is the need to be apart, the need for solitude, the space and time to learn who we are, and how to respond to the organization around us.

I don’t know if the world around us is more divided against itself than at times in the past, or not—a history littered with the old bones of countless wars would say no—but we certainly live in a time when our differences seem pronounced. In our country alone, the right and left seem to exist in completely different worlds, each listening to their own radio stations, and reading only books and magazines that agree with a particular viewpoint. Globally, ancient differences that harken all the way back to Biblical times still seem to control and shape the world around us. For most of us, it is easier to find those who are like us, and simply forget that not everyone thinks, believes, or feels the way we do.

The GLBT community is not immune from that, of course. The men quite often go one way and the women another. We talk about diversity all the time, and we wave the rainbow flag while we do it, but sometimes I think we don’t really want to think about what diversity means at all. A true celebration of diversity means that we honor opposite opinions and welcome difference for the richness it adds to our lives. We aren’t frightened or intimidated by other people’s beliefs, no matter how different they are from our own. There is a line in a poem I wrote many years ago that reads: "What happens Harlequin/when we move so far to the left/we collide with the right /around a round world after all?"

The funny thing is, when we stop with the rhetoric, and the politics, and the labels, and the stereotyping, and start to live from the heart we find that everyone carries a bit of the truth. The real choice for most of us is not the details of what we believe, but whether or not to be open or closed to the world around us. The real gift that gay people have to offer the world is the ability to make people see from a slightly different perspective. Our very presence in the world requires an opening of the mind, of the eyes, and especially of the heart—starting with our own.

I have wandered, I’m afraid, a little bit away from the art at hand...but then again, maybe not. Each one is a kind of open heart, a single HEARTbeat, a gift. Some of the artists are gay, some are not. All of them are gay in spirit and good at heart. My thanks to all, and especially to my HEART of the Community co-chair and dear friend Sondra Arkin for all the organizing she did on this project.

For a preview of HEARTbeats, join us at CAMP Rehoboth for the HEART artists reception on the Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend, May 28, from 4-6 p.m.  (Also, see the images below.)

For information about the HEART of the Community art project or the Black and White Beach Ball, contact the CAMP Rehoboth office.

 
Murray Archibald
A Little Love Scene
acrylic

Julie Baxendell
Heartbeat
conte and acrylic

Ronald Butt, Liza Fleming
A Lure: Allure
mixed media

Rodney Cook
Dol-Salt-Wa
watercolor on paper

Lee Wayne Mills
Sand Castles
mixed media, collage, w/gold leaf

Michael Muller
douleur d’exquiste du coeur
mixed media photo collage

Aina Nergaard-Nammack
Dancing Hearts
acrylic

Bob Rahamin
Rhythms
acrylic, gold leaf

Ward Ellinger
Synthesis
acrylic on paper

Kathy Fischer
Quiet Rhythm
pencil, charcoal, conte

Gary Fisher
The CAMP Koi-Carp with Heart
acrylic on paper

Terry Isner
The Heart of Rock’n Roll is Still Beating
acrylic on canvas

Dale Sheldon
Heart in the Sand, Afternoon Musing
watercolor

Patti Shreeve
Wave
polychrome pencil

Michael Weinert
Sea Inspired
oil on canvas

Randy Wise
A Rose—Two Tulips
watercolor