I admire Jenny Holzer. She’s a few years younger than me and has made a lot more noise and money than me but that’s okay. I’m glad she’s out there being famous in a good way. I also like who ever painted the kitty plate, it just suits me.
Like many women, I’ve had a real crisis of faith since Friday June 24, 2022, when the US supreme court went full on fascist and over-turned Roe v Wade, and now is setting it’s sights on other civil rights. Every marginalized person should have serious concerns for their well-being. What the patriarchy of rich white supremacist misogynist posers claiming to be conservative “Christians” know about democracy and or Christianity couldn’t fill my jar of brush wash. But this is supposed to be about ART… Why we make it, why we need it…. Sigh.
I haven’t been able to paint. I’ve been stunned. I’ve let the depression come and smother the anger. My mind is full of blank canvasses and empty jars of non color. I even tried to distract myself by watching the Colorado Avalanche win Sir Stanley’s cup to no avail. It is times like these I wish I were young enough to climb up to the bill boards and plaster messages over the crass commercialism of gambling websites and sales of illegal explosives. The 4th of July needs to be cancelled for lack of Independence.
Right. This is supposed to be about Art. How to make art when you’re thrown back into a time when your voice was simply not listened to, not heard, trivialized, mocked, disregarded. How much more terrifying for people of color and LGBTQ who are so creative and artful and suddenly the target has reappeared on their backs and foreheads!? We have to make our art. We have to make our voices heard. We have to stand up against them. I hate the thought of being owed down, just a statistic in this cyclical terror that keeps resurrecting in new ways. But what else is there to do?
The beauty of Art is supposedly within the eye of the beholder. It is that eye within us that is both the se-eer and be-er. Yet, there are many different kinds of art and many different kinds of beholders. So, one person's beauty can be another person's horror. In other words, Art is largely what we the beholder believes it to be. However, there are also other kinds of art than fine art that is created to enhanse the world of the see-er. Unfortunately, the decision by SCOTUS to overturn Rod and bring America back to the Stone Age of social awareness and social justice to over 50% of Americas, all of them female, was accomplished in one fell swoop but…