Art. and Occupy.
December 6, 2011
”Painting is the opposite of death, it permits one to survive, it also permits one to live.” -Joan Mitchell
The first work I made came at a point when had thrown up my hands completely because I knew I had no answers.
That made space for me to stop struggling long enough to sense a quiet, sudden impulse, “Why don’t I sit down and smear some of the kids’ yellow tempera paint around?” I think the nearly subconscious thought process was as simple as “Why not? It’s not like there’s anything I can do to fix things right now.”
Who knows how many times I have just swatted away such seemingly inconsequential impulses? But this time, because I was crouching in a place of utter admitted helplessness, I didn’t swat it away.
When I am in that space of helplessness and nakedness, picking up a brush and keeping it moving is the least-cynical thing I can do.
I don’t always know what to do. I don’t always even know what I believe in.
But what I believe most is that cynicism never solved a problem, and that moving away from it always helps.
I believe the deepest and most transcendent work comes from that place of admitted naked powerlessness, not with the idea of making something important, but with the idea of doing what I can. At those moments picking up a brush is about choosing life or death. Sometimes it is as simple as I will move or I won’t, I will make a mark, or I won’t. It’s as if the mark-making is an acknowledgement: ”I am still here.”
The best advice that can be given to someone in despair is “make something,” and failing that, “move your body.” “Help someone” is good too, but can seems out of reach when we are empty.
If you are hurt or confused, make something. Not because the thing you will make is important, but because you can.
“When we die, we will die with our arms unbound” ~The Decemberists
When people say they don’t understand the Occupy movement, I think they must not know the place I describe in this post. But I think the people in the streets and in the tents do.
My guess is that the people at Occupy have been in this place, or can truly empathize with people who have: ”I cannot fix this. There are too many things wrong, and I am powerless in the face of it.”
We have lost all influence upon candidates and elected officials. Civil liberties are undermined more every day. Average people have no means of redress for our grievances, no real representation in the halls of power, and we know that is getting worse, not better. What passes for capitalism in this country smells more and more like fascism.
People have started responding this way: ”There is nothing I can do, but I will not just lie down and be still in the face of all of that. It is unthinkable. If all I can do is stand in the street, then I will stand in the street. Because I can.”
I respect that.
And surprisingly, people are finding, “I stand here too.” And it has become not “I am here,” but “We are here.” Which is something else altogether. The nonviolent but determined “we” is so threatening that militarized force is called out against people who are just standing or sitting or talking or drumming or marching or sleeping, simply because they are assembled together. The threat to the status quo is the specter of a nation that realizes it is NOT divided right down the middle and thus paralyzed. We have common ground. We can be a nation UNITED for the common good. That is powerful, not because anyone individually set out to change the world or spur a revolution, but because it is the truth. Maybe we really ARE one nation, indivisible, and maybe there IS such a thing as common good that can stand alongside individual striving, just as the founding fathers believed. The threat is that more and more of us are realizing we really are all in this together.
