Diane Akerman
Touch is a very important part of our lives each and every day, without touch we would have very little direct connection to the world around us. Without touch everything would seem distant and isolated, we would feel no emotion, no sense of possession, nor love. Art needs to be touched. When you look at a painting or a work of art from behind bullet proof glass you get no real connection with it, but when you can touch and feel and fully experience a piece of art it becomes real to you, you become immediately connected with it. We get a whole new direction and view of art if we can reach out and feel it. Touch is the eyes of our hands, what ever we touch our brain responds to, this gives a whole new layer and meaning to an art piece if it can be touched.
Christoper Turner
We all have things that mean something special to us, a token, a coin, necklace, etc. These are tangible things that we keep with us to remember something, someone, a place, an event, or something similar. These things are important to us and play a large roll in our lives. Mementos can play a huge part in an artist's work. It can bring about a memory or something significant to the artist that can play a large roll in the type and quality of art they produce. Like with these orphans and the mementoes their birth mothers left them, we, as artists, need to take our own mementos and remember what they are there to represent and incorporate those things into our art.
