Beat Down

This was a call for chapters in a local anarchist's zine. The call was for writing about hoe homogenic America has become. This was my reply to the call

I think life is designed to beat you down.  We as humans don’t help much in trying to break free of life’s hardships.  I think it’s because we think by regimenting everything we can, life will be easier and less exciting. Meaning, more safe.  In the wild world before we regimented and named everything, when one felt adrenalin, it was a time to start fighting or flying.  I believe this solution has put a damper on intuition and good ole’ creativity. 

 

     Now we have adrenalin junkies doing ex-stream sports for a rush and people safe and cozy in their own homes enjoying other people’s follies while growing fat, safe and happy.  Boring. 

 

     I can only speak from my own experience when it comes to escaping this boring yet thought out lifestyle.  My solution is as follows: Create, create, and create!  Not just new realities (escape hatches) but new ways of seeing the life around you.  If you help create / describe your reality, you not only help yourself but also help others see their reality in a better less controlled environment. 

 

     By creating, you are keeping something for yourself to meditate on.  My idea was to keep something for myself so I didn’t get too far sucked up into this world with all it’s thought out actions and predictable outcomes.  I know it can be seen as a product of paranoia but that is the least of my troubles. 

 

     Creativity, art, questioning is a great way to get out from under the thumb of the ‘man’.  Hell, being able to describe the thumb of the person so trying to hold you down is an easy way to break away his attention to the point that you can do whatever you want when he is busy trying to figure what you are speaking of.

 

     I learned very early on that one must do the bear minimal to stay afloat in this mest up world.  School was a matter of turning in work on a given time schedule, passing a few tests and moving on to the next grade without too much scuffle in between.  Creativity, art was a whole nuther thing.  That was work.  What the hell was art? Where was my voice.  How were artists making art in other places and what have they done in the past.  Who was I?  What is my contribution to all this ‘world’ of art?  Does my ‘ethnicity’ play too much into this?  If so; How?

 

     I made it to college, found teacher I respected, did the best to show them that I understood what they were teaching me.  Made grades that showed they understood I was following what they were laying down.  After that, It was all me.  I got home from college and ran my own experiments, painted my own way.  I ‘spoke’ in a voice that was all mine, shared it with few, and described it to less.    

 

     After graduating college in 1993, I showed relentlessly in survival galleries in Phoenix.  That work was all mine.  Nothing learned from the school that gave me a degree, except the work must always flow.  The work can’t stop.  To be an artist is to be a maverick with his/her own agenda. His/her own time schedule and own personal best marks. 

 

     I know art can be described as many things.  Art can be craft, decoration, resistance messages, and maps of where we are and where we might end up and so on...  But once again, I recommend not buying into any one reason or description for art.  Make it your own.  Keep something for yourself and maybe share with others

 

     To be alive right now is like school, a bunch of boring needs that have to be met.  Punch in your data, money, and time and get your predictable results.  Boring.   Being an artist is like being your own captain of your own reality.  It’s keeping something for you.  Its helping others see past their day to day hell.  It’s allowing you enough time to dream, create and exist in this seemingly monotonous drive to keep everything safe and non-exciting.