These are strange times. Uncertain and bewildering times, fraught with dread and ripe with potential. In moments of reckoning, revolution, and re-creation, I feel more than ever the importance of art.
Art is both trivial and essential. Simply put, a painting is colourful mud smeared on fabric, pretty and trite images for our fickle amusement. And simultaneously, it has the potential to move mountains, individually and culturally. It can heal emotional trauma, cure illness, and bring renewed vitality and joy. It can awaken and empower both the artist and the viewer and connect straight to the subconscious. It can speak truth and shine light on critical issues. It can start revolutions, shift paradigms, and offer visions of grand potential and solutions, paths toward healing and wholeness.
Sometimes I wrestle with the “whys” of art-making, wondering if I should instead be dedicating this enormous amount of energy into something more “important.” Is my precious time better spent planting a garden, marching in the streets, feeding the homeless, chaining myself to old-growth trees, raising children?
And while all of these noble acts are vital to the forward unfolding of humanity and the world, paradoxically, art remains the most crucial thing that I can do personally. Art propels me out of bed in the morning, whispering me awake with purpose. It fills the pause between my in-breath and out-breath and the quiet lulls amidst other chores and responsibilities. Since my earliest memories I have felt creative fire in my belly and fingertips, and the burning and relentless urge to make art and share it with the world. I have learned to trust the mysterious compass of my heart and intuition, to navigate my imagination as well as the grander trajectory of my life. In my bones I feel a sacred duty to play my small part in our collective evolution.
Throughout history, society has looked to the arts to guide and inspire our individual and collective narratives. Artwork has the capacity to be an anchor in the storm and a touchstone of beauty amid an otherwise bleak reality. While the world is at the precipice of momentous change, artworks have the potential to be maps that can help guide humanity into new and positive ways of seeing and being.
And so I offer my art to you, from my heart to yours, with the prayer that it may touch some part of you and spark your own creative passion. May it fan in you the flame of peaceful revolution and timely change. We have so much work to do, and while I don’t presume to know what your unique piece of the puzzle is, I am grateful to you for playing your part. Only you know what makes your spirit sing, and only you can claim it for yourself in order to share it with the world. Thank you for smiling at strangers, for growing food, for nurturing children, for pioneering political reform, for creating music, for writing love letters, for making artwork.
We are all in this together, and it is my deep honour to dance alongside you on this epic and mysterious adventure.
