The Art of Diving into Vision
YES WE CAN! ……..On the evening of Tuesday Nov 4th 2008, the smog choking our minds was lifted revealing deep dimpled smiles on the faces of many who have been weathered by worry. Strangers hugged in the street in the midst of festive jubilation! Even the cops managing the mayhem enjoyed themselves and internationally there was celebration. After dancing to old punk music in a fancy fly gelato shop I could breathe more easily; for the last eight years I have been building the future with a bolder on my chest.
Now, the air is a twinge yellow and full of possibility. I want to grab a boom-box and a Stevie Wonder mix-tape, or even the best of the Bee Gees, chill in the park with neighbors, have a BBQ. I want to rap in afternoon sun with friends and strangers about our visions for a peaceful, equal and creative world. Visions no longer seem like pipe dreams, but tangible, buildable structures.
YES WE CAN! It has been chanted by so many, from the United Farm Workers mobilized by Caesar Chavez and Dolores Huerta, to a nation of people believing that we can change America by voting for an intelligent, caring and in touch African American President. But this is only the beginning. Barack Obama will not change the American society, we will. It is now our responsibility to use vibrant imagination to create a society with the strength to unify the many states of being within the boarders of these United States of America, and YES WE CAN! Rising from the ground under LA’s traffic, I hear lady liberty singing “How Deep is Your Love”. Let’s show her through our freedom of expression!
What are these states? They are physical states with local governments, state constitutions and boarders; but they are also states of mind, states of thought and differing opinions. They are different social and ethnic cultures. They are different belief systems within the body of one person, whether they are of mixed racial or cultural background or simply complex in their ideologies. The arts have always and will always be a bridge to unify these states of being. All artistic media from music to visual art to dance, have the capacity to show us both microcosm and macrocosm. Artist, activist and writer Luis Rodriguez, writes in the introduction to his book Hearts and Hands,
The development of a worldview is almost always linked to art … to the intersection of external and internal energies that impel us onto a creative terrain where spirit and body, the conscious and the unconscious, the universal and the singular, the personal and social live through us in a delicate dance.
Through participating in creative exploration we have the opportunity to develop an understanding of ourselves, our cultures and how we relate to the world around us. As audience members we learn about other people’s selves and their cultures. The arts provide a place for unifying self with self, self with god self with community and communities with other communities. Is it possible that through the arts we can learn to embrace a new national collective identity, a new sense of “US”? Can we through the arts create a new United States of Being, American? I think YES. This art need not be political, but simply authentic in its dream.
It is essential to remember that every person is creative in their own ways as life itself is a creative process. Thus every person can claim the role of artist; the way they live their lives, along with the things that they make, is their art. As artists we have three central responsibilities to attend to in our art, 1. to remember the past, 2. to make sense of the present and 3. to vision the future. The past eight years we have been in an age of making sense of the present, of explaining and griping, complaining and educating about the state of the world through the Bush administration’s reign. We have spoken out against war and human rights abuses. We have spoken out about the energy crisis and the greed of the corporate machine. We have risen up against the Prison Industrial Complex and the criminalization and incarceration of youth. And our work has informed the populous to step up and make changes! The renewable and green energy movements are building momentum and popularity. Our hard work has set an atmosphere in which Barack Obama, a man of mixed race, could not only run but be elected as the first African American President! These are big steps forward into a society of equality that awaits us, but we have also taken steps back. Last spring through a supreme court ruling, the State of California legalized gay marriage, but on November 4th 2008 through ballot measure “proposition 8”, the State of California revoked the right for same sex marriage. Is it ever just to take away rights from a citizen? Where was our vision then?
It is essential that we continue to reach for our ideals and share rights, even when we are stretched as a society out of our comfort zone. The great early 20th century anarchist and woman’s suffrage activist, Emma Goldman wrote about the USA saying that “Few countries are as unsafe for the man or woman of independence and idealism.” While I believe this still to be true, our idealism is essential now more than ever as it is strength of idealism that has brought us this far and will create the safety necessary in which to continue the dream. It is safe to continue to harp on the negative, but now is the time to move out of griping about the past and into visioning the future. By no means should we abandon the causes we have been focused on nor forget our histories of struggle, but we must move passionately out of thought into action, from laundry lists of complaints into building proactive solutions. In the infamous words of Gandhi, it is time to “be the change we want to see in the world“. It is time to walk into the paintings of Vision!
This is scary, like diving off a cliff into dark placid water. We have no framework for true vision because our visions have not yet existed! Perhaps if we dive in good form, and trust gravity to carry us gracefully into those waters, we will find them truly delicious and full of underwater worlds we never imagined!
As it is time to focus on the future, it is now time to not only empower young people to discover their voices, their cultures and claim their identities, but also to claim their visions for the brightest future they believe possible! As arts educators, it is our duty to provide them with tools to authentically express themselves, but more importantly to usher them onto stages from which to express their experiences and dreams. We must assist them in finding the materials necessary with which to build those dreams!!
YES WE CAN and YES WE HAVE spoken, yes we can unify and yes we can create a vibrant culture of positive action embracing the complexities that we are! Yes we can and now more than ever yes we must create art of Vision. The facts are on the table, what will we make with them?
I say YES to the new US the new unity of the many states of being. I look forward to experiencing and participating in what we make together in those uncharted waters!!
Let’s dive in… 1, 2, 3…. GO!
well written and beautifully illustrated.
deemadabis - November 21, 2008 at 9:04 pm |