We ease out of May and lock-down, into summer and….. what? This morning: Violence. Masks. Division. Anger. It is easier to read about history than live through it.
Here we are.
Where does art fit in? Perhaps to you, now, art-making feels like an indulgence. Listen. Art is essential. It is feeling and perception made visible. Artists hear the world. Art does not just activate your time (where would we be now without our books and movies?) It expresses the time we are in. When historians look back, one definition of an era is the art. Speak, now.
We are right to make art, however and whenever we can. Maybe we won’t all change the world like Larry Kramer. Each of us has a voice, though. Use it. Make a mark. Make your mark. Build where you are. Share what you have.
For me, the over-load of news these past weeks and hours makes art/work sporadic. The focus comes in bursts. That’s ok. For brief moments I focus. Art grounds me in the real, the act itself. Between sessions I drift - on the internet, around the house. But then I return to my art table . The paints are waiting. A mark, another, and the ideas begin to flow.
any small spot, as long as it’s yours
An aside: I hope you have an art table that calls you.
No? Take an afternoon and make one. Now. Just a corner at least. One that belongs just to you. A place where your tools can sit out. Where you can think.
An artist needs a place to settle into the work. A work table is where your work waits for you.
Maybe this example helps. These sketches below are not final studies. I’m not even focusing on the figure now. But for three short hours I joined Catherine Kehoe’s on-line figure class. We did three sets of exercises - blind contour, "body bag,” and gesture. An intense, meditative afternoon. Then I drew last two studies, sketchbook explorations of trees. The life that surges up through trees feels important to me. Always has. I don’t know why. Something now about their growth, literally larger than ours -overarching, essential, unseen - feels important to express, especially now.
What is important to you? What feeling urges inside you? Experiment. Explore. Art-making offers infinite directions. Choose one. Take a step. (You can change. That’s ok.) Your art matters. Make art now.
Make art, because this is your time. Your response to it matters.
“So long as you write what you wish to write, that is all that matters; and whether it matters for ages or only for hours, nobody can say. ”