Christ Appearing to Saint Martin in a Dream by Francesco Solimena

As Hurricane Isaac approaches the Gulf Coast, I am reminded that seven years ago this week Hurricane Katrina devastated much of the same coastline. It also reminds me of a story from 2005 that made one work of art in our collection become especially meaningful to me.

Each time I teach new volunteer orientation, I encourage the volunteers to find a work of art in the collection that “speaks” to them and to learn more about it. It can be for any reason: the landscape brings back memories of childhood vacations, the thick brushstrokes and colors amaze them, whatever it is. I suggest this so they will be able to share the permanent collection with visitors with real, heartfelt enthusiasm. When we share our own stories, it draws the visitor in and helps make art more meaningful.

For me that work of art is Christ Appearing to Saint Martin in a Dream by Francesco Solimena, a painting given to the Museum by Florence G. Montgomery in 1959. The painting refers to the legend of the Roman army soldier Martin of Sabaria. One cold day at the gates of the city Amiens in Gaul, Martin came across a shivering, half-naked beggar. Martin removed his cloak and cut it in two and gave the beggar half. In Solimena’s painting Christ appears to Martin while he sleeps, wearing half of Martin’s cloak as if he were the beggar transformed. The image alludes to Matthew 25: 40, “The king will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’ “

Why does this work speak to me? Like most of the nation, on Monday, August 29, 2005, I sat glued to the television screen. Hurricane Katrina had crashed into Louisiana, then Mississippi, with 125 mph winds pushing walls of water miles inland. When the waters retreated, the devastation was unthinkable. I had never seen anything like it. Over the next week, I was torn emotionally by the scenes of destruction: piles of matchsticks that once were homes; cars and boats in piles miles inland; skyscrapers with their windows blown out; and, worst, people in the streets crying over loss and need. I felt compelled to do something to help.

Two weeks later I was on a small plane to Hattiesburg, Mississippi, as a newly trained disaster relief volunteer with the American Red Cross. I had never done anything like this before, and I was nervous. Another volunteer from Raleigh and I hopped a ride from the airport to Biloxi with a nurse heading that way. As we drove south, and the destructive path of Katrina became more and more obvious, my head swam with questions: “Have I made the right decision? How can I make any difference here? Am I really meant to be here?”

After a restless night on a cot among hundreds of volunteers in an aircraft hangar in Gulfport, I met my group leader to head out for our first day of work. A dozen of us piled into a van. As we approached the building that would be our Family Services assistance center for the next two weeks, I saw the sign out front—Saint Martin’s Community Center.

I had always admired Solimena’s painting, but now when I see it, I am reminded that I was exactly where I needed to be.

Robert L. Mlodzik is visitor services manager at the NCMA.

Walker is the author of one of my favorite books, The Color Purple. In The Color Purple, Celie, a poor African American woman living in rural Georgia in the 1930s, struggles her way from a place of loneliness, abuse, and being a victim of circumstance to a place of acceptance, finding self-worth, and personal liberation. It’s about overcoming the obstacles in our lives and learning from them. It’s about creating a reality for yourself, not accepting the one that others have forced upon you. Most important, it’s about realizing we are all flawed and, in that understanding, being willing to forgive others for their mistakes.

Although I am a white male, I never took away from the book that it was a “black person’s story.” When I first read it in high school, it had an impact on me because I could identify and empathize with many of the feelings and hardships Celie experienced. They were personal trials many of us have lived through—issues of power and control, of being made to feel less than or unworthy, of learning to trust in your own strength, not what others say you can or cannot do. Celie’s challenges were human challenges. Through her art Walker was able to connect to me as a person.

Each time I walk through the 30 Americans exhibition, I experience that same connection. Although 30 Americans is a collection of works of art by African American artists, the subject matter is often universal. Anyone can identify with issues of race, gender, identity, and history. I, too, ask questions: “Why was I born a male in the United States in the 1960s?” “If my grandparents were Polish, Irish, English, and German, where do I say I come from?” “How does this vessel that houses my soul define me and what I can achieve?” “What is my purpose in the big picture?”

I know that art makes us better. It enlightens us, challenges us to think differently, to question why certain subjects make us uncomfortable, to question what we believe—versus what we were taught to believe—and it makes us explore parts of ourselves that we may have otherwise ignored. It educates us about our history—the achievements and the failures. It reveals truths about the human condition, both our limitations and our amazing potential.

This post is one of a series on staff perspectives of 30 Americans. Robert Mlodzik is Manager of Visitor and Volunteer Services at the NCMA.