Like most engaged citizens, I’ve been spending a lot of time and energy following the national elections. I wish I was less anxious about it. While it seems that the national fever for performative, rage politics has started to break, I don’t like the aftertaste. We are a nation unreconciled in many ways. That eats me when I let it.
Yes, I voted in my local election. I did what I could, but that feels like it isn’t enough. A lot of political platforms are based on that premise: you’re not enough. The world is rigged against me. It’s hard to constantly push back against that without submitting to its ultimate premise: I don’t matter.
Elections come and go, but light remains.
Making art in an anxious world is just part of the deal. It has ever been thus. Cave paintings were about recording survival in an uncertain, cruel world. The peace I crave is the peace I make, because it can’t come from a place of fear. It is, by design, an uphill battle. I don’t think any artist gets to see the completion of their work, their ideas are just picked up the next line. Big ideas take more than a single lifetime to articulate.
I want to feel comfortable now! Oh well. There is comfort in knowing whatever contribution I make is going to help the ones just entering the world. This is the idea of the eternal. My work and practice is to help the next generation plot the map a little better. Landscapes change, but light remains. That counts.