NACC finds =ibrium

The Niagara Arts and Cultural Center opening Saturday was a great time but the highlight to us was Dave Riffel’s balancing act.

Riffel’s exhibit featured photos as well as a chance to participate in rock balancing.

A decade ago we visited California and stayed at an AirBnb near Fort Bragg called Pegasus ranch. The proprietor had a thing for rock balancing. At the time, I remember thinking it was magical. Somehow the mystical side of it never came to me.

Riffel’s exhibit on the second floor of the NACC, both his photos and the musical immersion in meditative stillness brought memories of that California place flooding back.

On the floor of the exhibit are leaves and rocks. The leaves invite visitors to write a word and add them back to the pile, a symbol of our impermanence.

Unless you are perfectly still, and one with your breathing, movement and purpose, you will never balance a rock.

The exhibit also includes a pendulum that shows inexact waves exhibited with a simultaneous swing find a pattern of rhythm.

After we looked around for a time, Riffel gathered everyone of a brief meditation on om as well a breathing exercises and a bit of talk about inner peace and a finger labyrinth.

“Be still and know that I am.”

We also spent significant time enjoying the Buffalo Niagara Artists Association member exhibit on the first floor. Some of the art, particularly landscapes, is spectacular.

The Niche Gallery in the 1st floor hall contains a display of diminutive photos by Laura Chenault taken with an instant toy camera, juxtaposing the power and magnificence of the Niagara River with the seemingly ordinary and diminutive film images.