Artists as Culture Bearers

This has been a week of art for me. I went to see the Art-o-matic exhibit in Crystal City, Virginia with a friend on Thursday. It was quite the experience! Lots of art of all kinds: drawings, paintings, scultpure, photography, glasswork, written word, etc. I did not see any performance art because we went during the day, and the theaters weren't open.

While I was impressed with the vastness of the number of artists (almost 300, I think) and the space (2 full floors of a very large unoccupied office building), I was also impressed with the artwork. But I left with a lot of questions: What makes art "good art"? What is the balance point between the artist as an individual expressing themselves vs. the role of the artist to reflect on the culture around them? And what is the responsibility of an artist as a culture bearer? Does it matter what we as artists decide to put out into the world as a relfection of ourselves, and of the culture or communities we live in?

I will say that what impressed me about Art-o-matic (and not positively) was the plethora of what I call "angry art." (That's not all there is, but it did seem to be a predominant theme.)We create our reality by what we focus on, both individually and collectively. I agree that there are lots of things in the world that we need to comment on, and bring attention to, and work to change. I left the exhibit wondering if the "angry art" wasn't just creating more anger and negative responses in the world.

I understand doing art as a process for deep personal exploration and expression. All of my art is process art. I am a completely inner driven artist. I couldn't draw you (though my technical skills of observation and artistic translation have greatly improved over the years), but I could draw my interpretation of your soul. The pieces in the show at Peace and a Cup of Joe are all process pieces exploring various aspects of my life and psyche. It's all about process for me. I've even done my share of "angry art" pieces, like my "Angry Men" Series or my "Weeping Woman" series. They've helped me deal with some very deep feelings about personal issues, politics, etc. But I made the conscious decision not to put them out for public consumption because I don't want to create more of that in the world.

On Saturday, I went to Women's Caucus for Art of Greater Washington's Networking Day (WCA/DC). It was a fabulous event, with a presentation by Aziza Claudia Gibson-Hunter (Beyond Art: Myth and Meaning in the Career of an Artist). There was also a wonderful presentation on garnering community support and info on obtaining grants from the Philadelphia WCA chapter. After the presentations we all sat down to a delicious catered lunch where we had time to connect with friends, old and new. The day ended with an artshare where those who were interested had an opportunity to show some of their art and talk about their work. It was an excellent event, very well organized, in an absolutely beautiful setting (The Arts Club of Washington, on Eye Street), and chock full of useful information on the business side of being an artist.

While I could wax poetic on many parts of the day, I will only focus at this time on something Aziza said. She talked about artists as culture bearers. My ears perked up because obviously this is a topic very much at the forefront of my own experience as a professional artist. Within the context of creating a legacy as an artist, making sure to do all those things like documenting your work, journalling about the work (so your voice as the artist is heard when the work is later interpreted), archiving your work, Aziza talked about artistsd being culture bearers. We as artists have a voice in how the world is created, how the historic period we live in is interpreted, the meaning we (individually and collectively) place on events and happenings. She talked about the need to be discretionary about what we put into the world for others to see (and maybe even purge from our collections those pieces that do not represent us as how we want to be viewed/remembered).

On Sunday, I had my reception at Peace and a Cup of Joe. Check out the blog entry from that. Not only am I thinking about these issues of art as culture bearer, but so are many folks that commented on the show. And many of the conversations viewers had with me was how the art drew them and at the same time reflected the possibility of what could be, whether it was about environmental issues like fuel production in Hawaii or politics like issues in the Middle East. I appreciated everyones comments and reflections.

So to sum it all up, here's what I'm thinking:

Art is a way to both reflect on the world as we know and to create the world as we would like it to be. If we look around, we can all find things about the world that we might not like; maybe even something we are willing to take a stand about, or to take action to facilitate change; maybe we're inspired to create art about an important issue as a way to bring the issue to the attention of others. The way I see it, when I do art that has at it's core something about the world that I do not like, I want focus on healing or remedying the situation, rather than just recreating what bothers me from a place of rejection, anger, or fear. We are all co-creators. Let's create from a place of conscious intention. How about if we create what we do want, by focusing our energies with conscious intention toward positive healing and goodness in the world.