Create and Participate
My work often feels like piracy, like trash collecting, like shamanism, like lots of things that are not exactly making art.
Just beyond the shoji screen of my thinly defended inner peace is a grand guignol. I frame the present political moment as a Zen koan, an absurd situation, provoking great doubt and pushing at the plasticity of my acceptance. I hope this exercise will to help us unravel greater truths about the world and about ourselves.
These days, I also examine my relationship to both meditation and paralysis. Often I see them trading places under the Bodhi tree, Ficus religiosa.
I am listening to Puccini’s Humming Chorus, the vigil in the opera Madama Butterfly, which… in spite of the prevailing sorrow, appreciates the cover of darkness and calm. This passage of music is often referred to as, “The long night of waiting…” Listening to Puccini. I have momentarily fled the political bouncy house, so inflated with hot air as to steal this present moment completely away, blasting the biomes of our daily lives with turgid gas.
Luckily, the nature of my artistic practice is not dependent on the weather. Being an artist working in collaborative social methods means cultivating daily willingness to allow ordinary men and women to speak for themselves; to mirror and acknowledge people who may not otherwise feel seen and heard. To my way of thinking, verification of creativity is interpersonal, pedestrian and quotidian. The kind of art that I make points at other people, instead of pointing at myself.
How can I contribute towards making the lives of people more interesting/creative/engaged today? Did I water the plants? Are people around me speaking to each other with respect and appreciation? These are questions I ask myself.
Creating opportunities for people to -create and participate- instead of consume, I use art to redistribute energetic connections within people and communities. Using this idea as an internal compass, I have undergone a personal re-valuation of what is “high” or “low” in art, and also in human experience. I see creation and participation as wealth, and conspicuous consumption as poverty.
By seeing art as social currency and a practical tool that allows people to make something out of nothing, I am interested in what art has done and can do for people who have challenges accessing social, economic or educationally driven upward mobility.”
When it comes to the coolness that is often linked to art and the status class of educated people engaged in the complex mental labors that critique, guide, and lead in shaping the culture and politics of society, there are many people who have that covered. I am interested in the people who seem not to be invited to plug in to the bigger equation and to people who some actively try to facto out. It is absurd to think that there are those who will try to deny the existence of others who came here by the same birth lottery as they did.
With the current political situation, even when I am not in community studio settings, I find my creativity going into overdrive. Creativity provokes and shifts points of view. I am engaging in what I call “gourmet time wasting”, hours spent creating detailed pattern drawings in my sketchbook. It is a stress response. I am aware that I am being called to do more, be more resourceful, show up more now. In order to maintain that level of energy on the social practice side of things, I have to balance it with creating my own private work. I find myself slowing down to speed up.
It is always interesting, what floats to the surface of the creative mind. Creativity is unusual stuff. It dares to doubt preconceived notions. It is always inventing new languages. It infiltrates. It agitates and terrorizes. It rearranges. It is subversive. Creativity is what I have to work with. It is the mother of invention. Sometimes, these political days, I even find myself a little exhilarated because I think about what a wild ride it is going to be and how it is going to challenge all of us to work differently. I think the challenges will make me a better artist and instruct me in new avenues of artistic service to the world.
The social service aspect of agencies/NGO’s attracts me like a magnet. I haves spent years trying to explain it to myself. It seems like the last place where someone would position themselves if they were concerned with making interesting art. In the end, once I stopped fighting it, I realized that the art was not my primary concern. I crave contact with the people. Knowing them. Watching the high beam headlights turn on behind their eyes when they are making something and getting a sense of rootedness and catharsis out of what they are doing.
Most often, I work within Chicago based social service programs, such as Envision Unlimited, El Valor, South Chicago Parents and Friends, Rebuilding Together, Chicago Women’s AIDS Program, Special Recreation Associations etc. From a funding point of view, the art programs I create, are often not the primary mission of the organizations that host them.
The vast majority of art/community studios I run are embedded as supplemental enrichment within Medicaid Waiver Developmental Training Programs serving people who are affected by a disability. I work there or park districts sites and public libraries. To many folks in the art world, this is hardly a prestigious place to call ground zero for your life work, yet I can’t tear myself away. The ground is so fertile here. It is the Studs Terkel in me. It never fails to impress me what whiz bang creations come out of people, even if you give them the most simple of materials. Especially when they are not people who identify as artists.
Illinois hasn’t received an increase in support for developmental training for people with disabilities in about 8 years., Agencies I consult for are paid for only 1,100 hours annually for developmental training. That translates to three quarters of a year for a client with regular, daily attendance. The other quarter of the year most agencies provide support for free. Really. Seriously.
Governor Rauner has said he is desperate to get out from under the Illinois consent decree and Jeff Sessions doesn’t like federal consent decrees. If/when changes associated with the president shift the federal Waiver to state block grants, that will be major cuts, many people will be affected.
Arts funding is currently on the new president’s chopping block. He has stated he plans to completely do away with the NEA with NPR. He has expressed derision towards people who have disabilities. He has a fundamental disconnect towards comprehending the obstacles facing people who are experiencing bedrock poverty. There is a new level of difficulty approaching.
Right about now is when I am deeply appreciative of having over 15 years experience doing this stone soup dance. It is freeing to know that my programs have never had lots of dollars, so I never became dependent on them. Having a positive environmental impact and inviting people to engage: I have been doing this for a long time now. So while I am very anxious about funding cuts, I have a black belt in conjuring.
I have been steadfastly gathering donated art materials for my programs all over the city, mostly from individual donors, designer showrooms and odd tributaries, like the remainders of estate sales. The materials used in programs come from everywhere. Lots of frequent flier miles. It keeps my materials budget as low as it possibly can be.
That said, managing all of the donations and the pick ups is a challenge. It is a big part of what I do. To quote the wise words of a close friend and community activist, Martha Boyd, this leads to an unquantifiable amount of time engaging in “The Schlep Factor”: The acquiring, moving, managing, re-packing, re-moving, stashing, and finally using supplies and materials. It’s one of the crucial in-kind services that teachers and non-profit staff provide, usually in their personal vehicles. Amazing how many of these kinds of crucial tasks require people to command the use of decent wheels. How often this trashes your car and your private life. Without the materials, none of the rest of the work could happen. And funders typically ignore the ways we ~live the work~ and have to.
To assist with recruitment of free materials, I have made partnerships between organizations such as Zero Landfill and Envision Unlimited. Together we collect and give away several tons of art materials, twice a year. These drives provide art materials for hundreds of artist and teachers. It is nonstop action recruiting materials, sorting materials, getting them where they need to go, which is to any number of the 10 odd locations I move through weekly at any given point in time. This is before I even have any programming instruction or studio time.
The gathering and redistribution of great energy, great materials and great people is fundamental to what I feel I MUST do. I am an atheist, but it is my ministry.
My work is mostly anonymous. Unlike Theaster Gates, one of Chicago’s most famous artists working in social practice, I am not moving the entire contents of a once functioning community hardware store and bringing it to The Prada Foundation in Milan. However, I do gather donations of art supplies and building materials. I put them in the hands of people on the south side.
One of the highlights of last year was working as Artist-in-Residence in Hamilton Park. This experience came out of the Re:Center project, that is the new initiative activating artists in parks that are Cultural Centers. The Chicago Parks have some very high order thinkers working in their Arts and Cultural Department.
The Re:Center process was richly inspired by the WPA. That is why it was such a good fit for me. I believe in the interdependence of artists/gardeners/crafts people/actors/cooks and communities. Let’s remember that with the Federal Project Number One, the WPA employed musicians, artists, writers, actors and directors in large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects! Almost every community in the United States had a new park, bridge or school constructed by the agency. The WPA’s initial appropriation in 1935 was for $4.9 billion (about 6.7 percent of the 1935 GDP). Something to think about.
Hamilton Park in Englewood is hands down one of my favorite programs because it flies in the face of the media fear mongering, “if it bleeds it leads” style of telling the story of the Englewood community. In my experience, if I pass a group of local teenagers, boys or girls, they invariably say hello to me. If I am carrying boxes of art materials down the street, people offer to help me. this speaks volumes to me about the quality of the people I encounter. Daily kindness.
I co-teach at Hamilton Park with three teaching artist from the south side. These three artists have a developmental disabilities. They are artists that attend art studios I have created at Envision Unlimited developmental training sites. My co-teachers Celestine, Regina and Andrew are artists that have a developmental disability and are also greatly contributing to their community. They are also a part of several urban agricultural programs on the south side.
In dire circumstances, there is a fine line between optimism and foolishness. That said, I think it is always a safe bet to cultivate our gardens.
I am working with Hamilton Park, planning to bring back and expand a preexisting community garden. many folks in programs I run, volunteer in the two local community E2L gardens in Englewood which are lovingly managed and tended through The Angelic Organics Learning Center (non-profit educational organization partner to the Farm).
The Learning Gardens are part of the Eat to Live (E2L) project, a place for experiential learning and skills-building — also an Incubator Farm to help new urban farmers launch businesses. Food distribution from gardens goes to to neighbors, volunteers, seniors, shelters, assisted living residences, plus our alternative markets project (AMP) to stimulate more ways of getting healthy food into people’s hands and homes while supporting local enterprises.
Community education on growing, getting, preparing and eating more healthy food through partnerships with local orgs and schools so completely dovetails into what I am doing. I have deep excitement about my new relationship with them. Food for the soul and food for the belly are merging in hands on practical ways.
Since we are discussing the green aspects of the work, I should mention that a woven willow sculpture is being discussed for the evolving project I have at West Pullman Park this year. It is a nonstop flow of meaningful things to do.
People ask me if I am blind to the fact there are challenges on the south side of Chicago. My usual reply is to ask them how much time they have actually spent doing anything in any of the south side neighborhoods. The south side is expansive and diverse. In spite of working all over the city’s southern communities for well over a decade, I make new discoveries of amazing citizens, architecture and cultural weekly.
In spite of what our new president may be saying about Chicago, the real weapons in many of our communities are not guns, it is bedrock poverty. Bedrock poverty is fueled by the non-equitable distribution of public transportation access to all the citizens of the city. Public trans gets people to work. But, all I can do is wake up and point the finger at myself. What can I do? ~Offer people local access to interesting things to make and do and grow.~
I am especially appreciative of opportunities I have to work with children. Invest in youth and education, especially through cultural/agricultural/culinary access, and you can prevent many of the problems of tomorrow.
This year, I have been conducting regular arts and social entrepreneurial programming in Andersonville, Auburn Gresham, Back of the Yards, South Chicago,Westtown, West Englewood, West Pullman, Pill Hill, as well as New Lenox IL. Also workshops on farms, in storefronts, in libraries, community centers.
Just last summer, I did over 30 summer beachfront workshops at the South Shore Cultural Center creating ceramics and dyeing textiles with community groups. The outdoor workshops are a major facet of my summer offerings. l hope to do at least as many this year. In the fall, I organized a crew of 75 people, mostly from south side communities, to march in full skeleton regalia at the Halloween Gathering Parade. Quietly, I continue to appear one day a week at Hamilton Park in Englewood. Most of what I do is unseen. I like it that way.
The revolution will not be televised,