I was crushed when Dolly Parton died last week.
That’s hardly a unique sentiment, of course. It was a good cry, though. I know there are angels on Earth, because I know Dolly Parton was one.
Dolly Parton was a higher-fidelity artist than just about anyone I can name. Lea and I saw her ten years ago, and the morning after I wrote:
I figure truly brilliant artists have to do “only” two things well.
Having a good idea is necessary, of course, but it might also be the lesser of the two things. The genius is usually in the expression of the idea. Whether an artist is a painter, a writer, a musician, or whatever, it’s transferring the profundity from the soul into the open that’s the real trick. When an artist can do that with sufficient fidelity—can make you feel what is certainly a genuine piece of what she felt in her soul in your soul—then I’m convinced there must be divinity in the art. There is no other reasonable explanation for the power.
I don’t know what I can say about her artistic genius that is profounder than that. As for what kind of person she was, we are definitely a poorer world for the loss of her ongoing example.
Thank you, Dolly. For everything.