Back at the Dingo-Deli because it’s good to mix shit up; they are going to tear down the “old school” architecture immediately next to me and that foretells much dislocation and disquiet - literally · noise. I’m way past the delusion that i have any control over anything accept myself - having said that; i can say i once attended a late morning weekend meeting of the Northeast Community Planning Advisory Committee for the city of Los Angeles wherein, Mickey roused herself from her pondering the footprint of the Home Depot “big box” that was being shoved down the throats of most savvy citizens in this barrio against their wills · Mickey simply traced the footprint of the gazillion sq foot “big box” made a paper cut-out and rotated it 180 degrees - the corporate sponsors had no good argument for why the store had to face the boulevard snarling traffic, so to some degree Mickey improved the quality of life for many for a long period of time in Northeast Los Angeles just by being creative and looking at an old problem with fresh eyes.
My sense is that the ‘merican public is not so polarized as the stories depict, and if you could calmly interview even the most virulent racist citizen without judgement but with intransigent resistance to racial animosity, common ground could be discovered. Strife is in nobody’s best interest except those profiting from it, and that is only a handful of humans in every case. It is very hard to advocate for slow growth in a land where poverty has been imposed on an industrious and thrifty population by the machinations of greed and exploitation - s population who are then thrown a sliver of the cake, if only they would open up their land to well-healed travelers looking to spend the very least and get the very most. So we’re clear; i understand this dynamic very well because it is the same strategy i have employed in my later working years trying to maximize my savings in the service of creating the finest art i could conceive and execute - i overreached · hubris, conceit and emotional disorientation dictated my understanding of fine art was greater than market demand.
And if i could do it all over again, i would. “Not steering by the venal chart” of Leonard Cohen’s “Villanelle for our Time” has been an anchor of irrefutable logic in a world unmoored by the reckless humbug of a handful of human beings, but i had known this about where my allegiance resided for a long time. I would be lying to say “fame and fortune” did not animate much of my lonely hours carving, painting, drawing or writing, but after many decades and many encounters with “reality”, i am more grateful that my life has been improved through the process of creativity - the ineffable shift that comes from plumbing deep into one’s own soul to see more deeply than what is allowed or encouraged by the lives mapped out for us based on an “economy” that is transparently self-serving at best - vile and depraved at worst.
Where i used to believe that if i could formulate the correct perspective, or conjure the right sequence of sentences, the results would benefit all; now i am coming to believe that the best thing my ambition has accomplished is not for all mankind, but for my small corner of the universe. I cannot imagine what my world would have looked like had i not spent years of my existence searching for creative solutions to graphic, sculptural or literary puzzles. Nor is there solidarity within all ranks of all people - if you believe there is “no honor among thieves” try communicating with the egos of people who have staked their futures on landing a spot in the collection of “the” patron of the moment - smoke and mirrors is all there can be to popular taste - if you are in any way vulnerable to the whims of your buyer, as an artist you have already capitulated your free will · egos be damned.
Yet the peace of having sat in front to nearly any pastoral magnificence from the broken down corner of an abandoned lot in the densest decay of any city in the world to the pristine elegance of untouched nature in those few places on the planet that can still declare such - just to try and understand what nature is telling us as an insignificant, but highly destructive element in “paradise lost” is worth everything. If you won’t do it with paint or pencil, at least try to convey to your children the splendor of a birdsong, the importance of a worm’s wiggle, or the subtle shift in vibration as shade passes over a small area familiar to you - be aware, remain aware · struggle to help others be mindful of the beauty that we are born to and which for the sake of generations to come, and to which we owe our loving obedience, reverence and care.
jts 21/06/2020
http://stoanartst.blogspot.com
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