First Example: Have You Met Willy?
In one of his university lectures, Dan challenged his students to choose a marginalized person and then to create a work of art depicting the extreme beauty of the person. Dan Rogers accepted the challenge and produced the video below about Willy, a homeless person in Chicago. (Willy video)
Second Example: Don Hawkins on Pizza Night
A nonagenarian, Don Hawkins of Mineral Point volunteers at the Walker House on Friday mornings. According to the dictates of standard beauty, he would fall far from any beauty ideal, and not only due to his age and its obvious claims. He is short, bald, has spotted and wrinkled skin, walks cautiously, and exhibits a slight tremor when he holds items in his hands.
One Friday in June (2013), we were hosting pizza night at the Walker House, and we had fallen behind in making the pizza sh
ells. Ever the gracious worker, Don slipped on his apron, washed his hands, and proceeded to make pizza dough, warning us that he abhorred getting flour in his hair (remember, he’s bald). That night, Don came to enjoy a pizza and to talk to his friends at different tables in the dining room of the House.
At one table a woman said to him, “I hear you made some of these pizzas. Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“Did you make this one?”
Don leaned close to the woman, and eyed the pizza. “I’m not sure. How does it taste?”
“It tastes great.”
“That’s the one I made!”
Who can fail to see Don’s real beauty in this incident? His stroll around the dining room and his exchange with the woman – his actions – reveal his talent and give birth to beauty in his brokenness.
The only thing required of us to see this beauty is to set aside our standard beauty lens, the one where we freeze the person in a snapshot of physical characteristics and then compare the frozen physical characteristics to the ones of societal ideals like Mr. Universe or Brad Pitt. Our standard beauty lens aside, we can adopt an extreme beauty lens, that is, we can make the effort to look for the irrepressible talent manifested in the actions of the person with flaws and imperfections, the very items that make the talent and, hence, the beauty so special.
Extreme Beauty challenges us to view beauty in the brokenness of persons.
Third Example: “My Father’s Hands”
When Kathy’s father, George Moore, lay dying of cancer in 2002, she wanted to find a special way to let him know how much she loved him. One day, as she held his withered and broken hands, she was reminded of how much her father’s hands had done for her over the years. She calls the poem “a gift of grace.” Click here to read the poem.
Fourth Example: “Beauty Grenades”
Here is another example of one of Dan’s university students meeting the challenge of choosing a marginalized person and then to creating a work of art depicting the extreme beauty of the person. Jenny Severyn accepted the challenge and produced the poem, “Beauty Grenades,” a poem in free verse about Severyn’s work in a summer camp for physically and mentally challenged youth.
Fifth Example: “A Beautiful Mess”
Holly Mader attended the Beauty in Brokenness Conference at the Walker House in January 2014, and she shared a poem she wrote about the beauty and messiness of motherhood. Click here to read “A Beautiful Mess.”
