Art And Culture

NEA fellowships given to three local artistsWhile the arts world has focused in recent months ocongressional debate on the future of the National Endowment for the Arts, the NEA has been going about its business of awarding grants and fellowships. Earlier this month, it gave three of its most prestigious awards to Baltimore artists.The three -- photographers Lisa Lewenz and Jeff Gates and sculptor Linda Bills -- were among 177 artists nationwide to receive the NEA's Visual Artists Fellowships.

BAUDELAIRE said that poets are the universal translators because they translate the language of the universe, stars, water, trees, into the language of man. Though it was not my goal, in some ways it has been my destiny as a poet to be a translator.However, I do not think that the act of translation should imply the abandonment of personality or the culture into which we were born. In fact, in many ways I feel that my understanding of modern art is the product of the many years I spent trying to unlock the mysteries of my own culture, of pre-Colombian art.I worked to see pre-Colombian art through the eyes of a poet rather than through the eyes of archaeology or anthropology.