The Naperville Woman’s Club recently held our 65th Fine Art & Artisan Fair at Naper Settlement. As a member, I’m proud to say that we’ve been able to attract some outstanding artists each year. But will this always be the case? Machines are gradually taking over what humans have created for centuries.
Today you can enter in a program asking for just about any visual and the finished piece is magically created before your eyes by pulling images off the internet. But is that art? Can technology capture the emotions, the interpretation, the corresponding brush strokes, colors and technique that truly makes it art?
What makes artists different from a computer is the fact that they feel emotions, see beauty and capture the soul of a subject.
During the NWC Fine Art & Artisan Fair one exhibitor showed Victorian dollhouses on a grand scale. The artist painstakingly added incredible detail—brass doorknobs, real shingles, hardwood floors. While most of the NWC members are of a certain age, those houses brought out the little girl in all of us. And I don’t know why, but for some reason many women just like miniature reproductions.
We all wanted one of those houses. One of our members bought the purple house (since purple is the NWC color) and donated it to the club. The house is dedicated to that member’s step daughter Kate who passed away from cancer. And the house is now grandly on display at the NWC clubhouse complete with a small grey cat sitting on the steps as that was Kate’s first.
When we look up at the house it elicits many different emotions for all of us made even better by knowing it was a labor of love by one or our artists.
The Naperville Womans Club was founded in 1897. NWC focuses it philanthropic activities on art, education and community service. NWC is a member of the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, an international organization. For more information on NWC, visit napervillewomansclub.org.
—Susan Stockton,
NWC VP Communications
and Public Relations
