Through her work as a film-maker, Maggie Whittum helps the rest of us make sense of this upside-down world we find ourselves in. And she reminds us that, unfortunately, this disorientation is familiar to people who survive stroke.
Andrew Simonet, founder and director of Artists U, recently wrote an essay entitled, “This is What We Train For.” Here is an excerpt:
Artists navigate the unknown. We go in our studios and ask new questions, pushing away from shore and into uncertainty. In this time of roiling uncertainty, we know how to stay awake and responsive, and how to help others do the same.
Artists build possible futures. This moment desperately needs futures beyond the sobering medical news and the jarring contortions of policies and markets.
We are connectors, conveners, community builders.
We understand rhythm, flow, and negative space. Not everything we do right now needs to be doing. Silence is a way of telling. Stillness is movement.
We bear witness. We listen to and reveal what it is like to be alive right now.
We use what we have on hand to build what we need. We make sculptures from discarded materials, dances out of everyday gestures, music from found sounds. At a time when many are lamenting what is being taken away, we know how to begin with what we have.
We create the images and songs and dances and stories that are needed, that comfort and challenge and inspire, that return us to our deeper selves or urge us forward into transformation.
We build alternative economies based in collaboration, barter, D.I.Y. resourcefulness, and repurposing what others do not value.
We challenge assumptions and reframe the world. How we see this current emergency and how we see ourselves within it will determine how we emerge from it. Artists look past the noise to deeper, more radical possibilities.
How might we tap into that energy in health and health care? Where do you see examples of people creating new pathways, processes, and tools?
Please share in the comments.
Featured image: A still from Whittum’s video, “Surviving A Pandemic Is like Surviving A Stroke.“
Spent the night trying to think through exactly this … watching my artist friends struggling … they are often exquisitely attuned to pain, and of course living on a financial edge. For the performing arts, we know theatres won’t fill this Autumn with their usual (older) audiences. I see a lot of drawn faces, with that expression of “I don’t want to look.” Your post provides a way forward … a way to say, let’s join up and create something. Instead of looking away from the car wreck, let’s design an alternative to cars … whatever it may be.
I love that line: “Instead of looking away from the car wreck, let’s design an alternative to cars … whatever it may be.” That’s the spirit I keep trying to tap into as I sit down to my work every day. Thank you!
I find myself drawn to people who are not only creating beauty but also sharing their craft, their tools, their tips. Holly Carlisle is an artist who works with living things (flowers) — photographing, painting, collecting, arranging. There’s a wildness and a specificity about her work that I love but have never tried to recreate in my own amateur bouquets. Now I can because she is holding class on Instagram live, teaching us how she looks and *sees* beauty in what she can find in her yard or on her street.
What are other skills we can learn from each other? And teach each other? I’m interested to hear about artists who are sharing their craft & their work AND people who work in health & health care, btw. I think we can mix the genres 🙂
Thanks Susannah for opening up this conversation. My own art is often connected with many of the thoughts you share here. Ecological thinking, the connection of body and nature, the representation and construction of the territory, they all have a space in my paintings. This last month of quarantine, I began a series of paintings experimenting with new ideas and techniques in what I call the quarantine series. Some of those are in my instagram https://www.instagram.com/bacigalupe/
Art can aid us to think in times of uncertainty and fear.
Wow! I love this new exploration you’re doing. Thank you for sharing!
Seth Godin’s daily blog is one that I read almost religiously. The Fremen principle is one worth your time.
The first line resonates with the sentiments expressed by Maggie Whittum and Andrew Simonet:
“If you want to know how to work with new or limited resources, find a population that’s used to not having many alternatives.”
(And I have to give credit to my younger child for recommending a few years ago that I finally read DUNE, by Frank Herbert. I can’t call myself a nerd without knowing who the Fremen are.)
I almost missed the video, not realizing you were bringing together two threads here, so I’m glad you pointed that out on Twitter.
One of the themes that arises in the juxtaposition of a moving & vulnerable expression of pain – as articulated by Maggie – and the value(s) of art – as articulated by Andrew – is the relationship between pain and art: Pain can give rise to art, and art can serve to express and alleviate pain.
This connection is expressed more eloquently in a passage in The Emotional Connection Between Art And Pain:
I hope that the COVID-19 era will usher in greater vulnerability and compassion, offering us all an opportunity to recognize, express and appreciate our shared humanity, including the pain. It could easily unfold in the opposite direction .. but perhaps artists will help steer us right.
Joe, I am so grateful to have you as a thought partner! Thank you for adding these ideas & that quote. I share your hope for a renewed sense of compassion in the US and worldwide.
This is beautiful. Thank you for the reminder of the gift of artists.
Maggie sent me her video and I knew I had to share it. And Andrew’s words resonate, always.
If you have time, what poets, painters, writers, and other artists are YOU turning to? Whether or not they are responding directly to the pandemic?