Ink & Spine

I don’t like work… but I like what is in work – the chance to find yourself. Your own reality – for yourself, not for others – which no other man can ever know.
– Joseph Conrad

Sometimes I imagine a tattoo entwined with nocturnal leopards, tawny cheetahs, a scarlet macaw or lilac breasted roller, with a green tree python slithering up my right bicep. But a few days ago, I leaned towards getting the rhomboids between my shoulder blades inked with mayday, mayday, mayday in a gothic font, alternating black and blood red. You see I spent all last month procrastinating a catalyst for my April post. I pondered right past the rise of Easter, the negativity of Tax Day and the uncertain future of Earth Day, until I whipped up an epiphany. May Day! But by the time I developed a thread to twine that pagan celebration of delight into a coherent piece, even that slipped by. At last – I eek out some ink.

 The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history.
– Robert Rauschenberg

With the proposed elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, this year’s Biennial at the Whitney Museum in New York, curated by two people of color, made “an exciting, powerful case for art.” (Roberta Smith, NY Times). If anything positive has come out of the first unhinged 100 days of brand hypocrisy and corruption, we could single out the finest accomplishment of the new President. “He has inspired a record number of people to become politically engaged artists. The spontaneous creativity of the Resistance, led by ordinary citizens expressing themselves with extraordinary imagination, has grown day by day to become the most powerful cultural force of the century, and it – not … vacuous, vain avarice ― will shape the future of our nation.” (Tom Toro, New Yorker)

Throughout world history, art serves as a vehicle for social change. Artists wield cameras, layer paint, choose words, imagine anthems and belt out protest songs.“We the People” the 2017 inauguration poster created by “Hope” street artist Shepard Fairey, features Muslim, Latino, and African–American women.  A voice of social conscience, artists challenge you to engage.

Consider Picasso’s Guernica – a response to the bombing of a rural village in Spain by the Nazis, or Diego Rivera’s murals in the wake of the Mexican Revolution, or South African Willie Bester’s assemblages and installations that illuminate the inhumanity and injustice of Apartheid, or the Anti-Fascist posters of John Heartfield. What about the American feminist art of The Guerilla Girls, Martha Rosler’s anti-policy slogans, or the conceptual work of Barbara Kruger addressing the influence of mass media on gender roles, social relationships and power? From Vietnam to AIDS, Civil Rights and Women’s Rights to LGBTQ rights, and all manner of humanitarian rights, artists and writers respond to civilization gone wrong.

What does the artist do? He draws connections. He ties the invisible threads between things. He dives into history, be it the history of mankind, the geological history of the Earth or the beginning and end of the manifest cosmos.
– Anselm Kiefer

Whether politically charged, spiritual, or both in the case of Kiefer, art emerges against a backdrop of history. Even poets, novelists and writers of memoir cannot escape the influences of culture and the past. The wandering poets whose transcendent language lifts us up, whose insights and intricacies appear and disappear, whose blueprints remain a secret – even they compose along the banks of time.

Strange how it takes a provocative act, an injustice, a perplexing question, a haunting, or the need to be heard – to fire us up. To eek out some ink. A famous Chinese wandering poet from the 8^th century Rihaku (aka Li Bai or Li Bo) discovered how to tap a creative vein. According to the Wandering Poet brewery, he would drink a bottle of sake and write a hundred poems. No, I am not advocating this ritual, although I have a half empty bottle in the fridge – weird. And those black sea urchins? A few years ago, I tangled with one while diving in the warm Caribbean Sea. After it shot its venomous spines into my foot, I could have used a splash of sake to coax the sharp needles out, but instead I doused them with vinegar. And for sure, I could have used a chilled glass of the rice brew to ease the sting. Ah, human behavior in all its glory!

As for destructive human behavior, you’ve seen what can happen in 100 days – on land, under the sea, in the atmosphere? Before the next 100 days diminishes our universe and unravels our freedoms, let’s turn it around with a dynamic surge of creative activity – political activism or personal discovery. What will it take for you? What will it take to get some spine – for you to tap some ink?

The most difficult thing is the decision to act, the rest is merely tenacity.
– Amelia Earhart

Yes I know – I procrastinated so long I even missed my May Day deadline. But hey, I’m just in time for Cinco de Mayo. I inked it! So forget the sake, celebrate with a margarita – virgin or tequila. Write some wandering poetry, raise some consciousness and stir up real change. Creative human behavior offers the chance to find yourself.

PS If you want to keep up the spirit of Cinco de Mayo through May, please check out my upcoming workshop at the Bowers Museum starting May 6 – In the Spirit of Frida Kahlo: Personal Vision Workshop – Portraits of the Self and Others. You can photograph or tap some ink. Register Now