On the Easel Today: "Food Abandonment"

This painting is still in progress. It is part of the serious on justice and contemporary issues I am creating for my show in September.

Have we lost ourselves? Have we lost our humanity? For two hundred thousand years we have planted, hunted and harvested our own food. This is a painting I did from a series of photographs I took last fall. The apples had been ripe for weeks and nobody picked them. People in my neighborhood let fruit ripen and drop to the sidewalks to be stepped on. Beautiful, sweet apples and nobody cared to eat them.

People don't even know what to do with food on a tree. They have forgotten. I grew up planting and canning with my Grandmothers. I worked in their gardens. I grew up planting and harvesting on the family farm and family ranch. When the last American farm is sold to a mega-corp manufacturer of food and the farmers are gone, who are we?

We are no longer human, we have become nothing more than consumers and we are raised and conditioned to buy mindlessly and contribute to a bloated financial system that will destroy our planet in less than a generation.

And I get all that from a pretty painting of an apple tree....

Losing a Generation of Artists

I am a professionally trained painter and this weekend I had the opportunity to workshop with a man who is doing groundbreaking social art and teaching techniques to people across the world. I felt so much joy at being able to apply my skills learned in a college of fine arts to creating an instrument of change. People tell me all the time how much they respect me as an artist and how valuable my talents are. Is my talent truly valued by more than a small segment of society?

We are losing a generation of artists.

Mistakenly people see art as something one can do in one’s spare time. This is a common misconception and based on ignorance. Good art, let alone great art is not made in one’s spare time at an easel in a basement corner. Kitten paintings are created in studio basements. You know what that art looks like. The anecdotes of people writing a novel on their lunch breaks, creating a masterpiece of a painting in secret while they work their day job as a brain surgeon are the rare exception. Could you do your job well in only your free time? No good, let alone great art is created in basement studios and on weekends. . Face it, most Americans get home from work and curl up in a ball on the sofa with a preservative laden meal trying to recuperate enough to wake up tomorrow to face another day in grey office lighting and padded cubicle walls. They are padded for a reason.

Art is the antithesis of corporate conformity. Sadly becoming an artist has historically meant taking a vow of poverty but now more than ever the sustained economic downturn has played a role in the death of art as people choose between homelessness and practicing their craft. Art sales are stagnant. Arts funding is disappearing. Think back to the great artists you admire. They mostly lived lives of poverty but stayed alive thanks to the assistance of friends and patrons. Those patrons have disappeared. Making matters worse, the cost of a simple doctor visit is out of the reach financially for most artists and they don’t have an employer to help them cover the cost of health insurance. Something as simple as a cough or a cavity can create a health cataclysm for an uninsured artist. Women still make less than men and this is true in art as well. Female artists are disproportionately affected by a bad economy.

In the great depression we had a Works Progress Administration that comissioned artists to make public art. Some of the greatest American Art came out of the WPA. It sustained a generation of artists. Ever heard of Alice Neel or Dorothea Lange?

A generation of writers, painters, composers, musicians, potters, sculptors, dancers and innovators is being lost to a society that only values people with the ability to sit in a cubicle for ten hours a day and conform. Artists are far more valuable than any wall street broker or high powered attorney. Artists call attention to problems long before the mainstream sees things as problems. It happened with slavery, senseless wars, exploration, medical advances, oppressive governments, genocide and the issues threatening humanity today. The artists lost today will be a great loss for future generations. Art cannot be taught in books or broken down into formulas. Art making is story telling. Art is learned from others, from experience. Tenured professors are dying and fading away and young artists are left with few mentors.

There is a reason that society does not truly value artists. Plays, songs, and visual media all play a significant role in the acknowledgment of injustice, oppression and human self destruction and artists sow the seeds of reformation. Artists hold a mirror up to society and many times society recoils from what they see.

I knew I was an artist when I realized that I didn’t live and create but I live to create. Making paintings, sculptures and objects are part of who and what I am. I lay my head on my pillow with compositions in my head. I wake in the night to write down an idea. I greet the morning with thoughts of the progress on my next painting. I can no longer cease making art than I can stop breathing. Creating is the compulsion that sustains me and nourishes me.

Artists have a core sense of identity and purpose. Artists are the thin line that barely separates human from beast although the more I see of supposedly well educated humanity, the more beast-like I believe we are.

One of the first components of an undemocratic society is the oppression of and destruction of the arts. College fine art departments across the country are facing deeper cuts than other departments who generate more donors. Art professors aren’t being given tenure and basic needs in the classrooms are not being met. Compounding the problem, with little likelihood of being able to pay off crushing student loans after gradation fine art students are dropping out of college and taking low wage, low skill jobs or changing their majors to something more lucrative. Over 90% of people who graduate with a BFA will never practice their craft professionally.

We have only ourselves to blame. Americans are so busy buying matching throw pillows and filling their three car garages with SUVs they have neglected to spend their extra income on things of substance. A night at a small theater will be remembered forever, a visit to an art gallery could result in the purchase of a small piece that brings you joy and reminds you of what is important. Attending an outdoor concert with friends will nourish your soul. Observing the human body in a live dance performance will remind you that you are alive.

There will always be people who make art but will there be artists?

Please help save the arts. Support public art programs and keep art in grade schools. Fight to keep the NEA strong and bring back the Works Progress Administration. Artists can’t collect unemployment. Visit galleries and buy something. Befriend an artist, visit their studio and buy something. Most artists have pieces for sale well under $100 stashed away in a studio corner. Keep local artists housed and fed by supporting them. Attend concerts, small theater, and recitals. Give generously to preserve art nourish artistic knowledge. Art is an investment in all of our futures.

**This artist will trade art and writing for dental work, food, clothing AND shelter and even money...

Grow A Pair Democrats

I can’t believe what is going on in the key leadership of the Democratic party. Are they even speaking to each other or the administration? It's not very lady-like of me to say but someone has to say it; it’s time for the party to grow a pair.

The Democrats are sitting around shrugging their shoulders at what is going on. They give intellectual reasons for their policies but fail to sell it emotionally to the American voter. They are far too busy explaining things and agreeing that issues are complicated rather than selling it. We all know that good policies will help the very people that are throwing fits and attending tea parties. Attempting to reason with them is like trying to reason with a rabid dog. Give credit where credit is due. Repubs stay on message and make sure it’s emotionally appealing. Republican propaganda is winning.

The Obama administration allowed certain Democrats and Repubs to stall healthcare and play around while the administration played nice. It’s time to stop playing nice. The obstructionist party will never negotiate. The Republicans would strangle and drown their own grandmother if it meant they could keep any Obama policy from going through.

Democrats should not wait for Brown to come in. It’s time take off the gloves and pass what small shreds of this bill are left in the next two weeks. As is the bill will still improve access to healthcare for millions of Americans even if they aren’t paying any attention anymore.

Once that is done the administration can invest real political capital in what Americans care about right now; Jobs.

Dirty Little Confessions of a Closeted Environmentalist

A year ago this January I sat on the wood pew in the back row of my church for an evening presentation that changed my life. I wasn’t there to hear the usual religious message. I was there to hear Tim DeChristopher. Tim had gotten himself into a bit of trouble trying to stop some oil and gas leases in my home state of Utah. I was intrigued why he risked so much to stop a few leases. Why did this guy care? I sought the answers to my questions and it changed my life forever.

I realized something horrible has happened. There has been a shameful disconnect and I am just as guilty as the next person. I knew that the environment was really important. So important that other really important people are taking care of all that really important environmental stuff; right?

Wrong.

Since that night I immersed myself in environmental policy and science. I attended the Power Shift Conference in Washington DC and paid very close attention to the climate change policy discussion. I marched in DC with Tim DeChristopher, Wendell Barry, Bill McKibben, Terry Tempest Williams, Robert Kennedy Junior and James Hansen. They are all really important people in the climate change movement but the masses must mobilize to put the brakes accelerating CO2 levels. I thought that people getting arrested protesting climate change were all nuts or overreacting or just misguided. I was wrong.

Call your senator and congressperson and tell them you are very concerned and you want to know what they are really doing to stop this climate catastrophe. Ask them about the McDermott bill. Take a hard look at the priorities of the company you work for and start asking questions.

If you truly love people you will understand and communicate what is at stake. Then do more than make phone calls; Attend rallies, write letters, consider organizing your own action. Acts of civil disobedience are not only a consideration. Civil disobedience is called for when lives are at stake.

When you shop spend your dollar on products with little packaging and buy from companies who have sustainable product production. Reward ecologically-minded companies with your business. Take meaningful steps by taking to the streets and changing the way you live. Join in taking back a planet from the hands of madmen.

Survival is not negotiable.

Some websites with more information:

Peaceful Uprising

Wake up, Freak out, Get a Grip:

Green for All

:www.IPCC.org

Wall Street Journal, the latest science

Greenpeace; a time comes when silence is betrayal

http://350.org/

The Story of Stuff

James Hansen Blog

James Balog Extreme Ice Survey

The Yes Men

The Age of Stupid