November 15, 2015
stare and stare at these paintings, make a choice to add paint, increase opacity, move a line, stare again and question and re-form my understanding of the work and my own approach to collaboration – what is changing? why and how the change? How can I follow – willingly submit to change myself, when I cannot see the future?
I started working with bells as a response to the great political divide of the Canadian Election. Alarmed, that we are so susceptible to fear-mongering, that my country has turned so dark, that art, science and all religions but one – or two when convenient, have been muzzled by oil and money…
Always another voice that insists on clear answers, ‘What am I trying for here? Does this work resonate outside of my little world? What is my statement? If challenged, could I defend the value of this piece? I don’t know. I’m only sometimes clear with my thinking.
But we rose and chose something different by giving Justin Trudeau a majority. He and the elected have been swift to change our course to one of mutual respect. We gave a gender equal cabinet. We will answer for our history with our First Nations. our Scientists, civil servants, citizens are encourages to engage, witness, and collaborate with the Government of Canada. Trudeau has invited representatives from each party and to Paris for the Climate Conference.
Discernment = Self respect. There is no other way to choose well than from a position of strength and humility, which is perhaps the greatest form of strength. Always the painting is stronger, more alive than I. Always it wants something I can barely imagine to happen. My response is to simplify. Simplify again.
Paris. Last night at least 127 people were killed and many more injured by a terrorist group. In Paris. The western world weeps and buckles down into fear: close the borders! Protect our own! But there are bombs also in Syria, in Bagdad, in Beiruit. We do not respond to these by changing our profile pictures in solidarity…
I look up after pause moments (knitting a scarf with cables so I need to count: perl three, knit three, perl three, four rows, then knit one, perl three, knit three. It’s four feet long now…), and I notice that there is a pattern also in the drawings on each canvas. The bells are progressively getting louder, their mouths wider…
You can add up the parts, But you won’t have the sum, You can strike up the march, There is no drum. Every heart, every heart To love will come, But like a refugee. – L. Cohen, “Anthem”
We shall see where change takes us. I go willingly.