Pick of the Week: Orr Street Studios

While visiting our friends the Horn's this weekend, Jon and Liz took us to an amazing new feature of Columbia, MO. The Orr Street Studios. It is a warehouse that a group of people have turned into artists' studios, to work and display their work. One artist, was commissioned to make all the doors to the individual studios, pieces of art in themselves. They are phenomenal! Every type of art, from sculpture, to photography, paintings and poetry are displayed.

After our short visit there is one piece of art that has really stuck with me, almost haunting, but also hopeful in nature. Forgive me for not knowing the artist's name. The piece stood apart for me so greatly, I didn't even think to look at its creator. It is a, big, square canvas, painted white. In the bottom left corner there are a pile, maybe 5 or 6, actual teddy-bears glued to the canvas. They are distressed, torn, dirty. They look like someone ran them over with the lawn mower and then drug them threw the mud. The white paint has been splashed across them and then extends to fully cover the rest of the canvas. In the upper right corner, a simple, wooden, toy airplane, also white, placed in an acceding fashion away from the teddy-bears, the canvas, and even the viewer.

It was creepy at first seeing something so iconic as a teddy-bear destroyed and mangled that way, but over the days I've been reflecting on the painting/sculpture, it is truly redemptive. It shows a picture of Innocents lost, crushed, literally ripped to shreds. Then, a pure, cleansing comes over the thing, and freedom is found. A flight of new and amazing beginnings that are still innocent, or innocent again perhaps, but it is a blameless, guiltless, emerging that is completely free of evil. Although I physically have no where to hang such a piece of art, I mentally and emotionally have been captivated by it, and it will be displayed as an example of the things I know to be true about life.

Orr Street Studios is a truly inspiring space, with so much potential to be the next hot spot in Columbia. Jon told us people are already renting out the space for parties and that possible expansion for a restaurant or coffee shop/cafe are in the works. Other ideas for converting some of the other abandon warehouses around the Orr Street studios into something redemptive and beautiful is also being talked about.

To learn more about the Orr Street Studios, and see more pictures, go to:
http://www.orrstreetstudios.com/index.html
*all photos from the Orr Street Studios website.