MAPPING OUR OWN IDENTITIES

Eleven artists corralled by curator Ilana Manolson simmer on the walls of the Concord Art Association until May 18; or, rather, they offer their mapped views of their contemporary universes, as they see them.

They might look arcane at first glance — but don’t be intimidated. We all have one in some back pocket of our consciousness, so folded and creased that we’re shy of displaying it in public. Perhaps now is the moment, prodded by these venturesome souls, gifted artists, to notice parallels between their elaborations and ours.

As I stood puzzled in the main hall of this multi-floored exhibit, a child showed me the way. She ran up to Heidi Whitman’s intricately assembled “Game of Chance,” pointing and exclaiming, “A playground!”

Once I had that definition, or a definition, out of the way, thanks to a little kid who was probably still struggling with reading, I could appreciate her take, a take she drew instinctively out of some hip pocket of her experience and, not coincidentally, out of some hip pocket of mine. Thanks to the wisdom gifted me by the moppet, I did read and I did think, but not exclusively, and not before I looked and saw some shadows of my own “playgrounds” in Whitman’s.

James Foritano