Category: art, james baldwin, lillian e smith Tags: art, james baldwin, lillian smith, Pingback: We Must Not Remain Silent: Lillian Smiths Address to White Liberals Interminable Rambling. The artist, in every society, butts heads with tradition and with societys desire to stand as a bulwark against the inner and outer chaos, protecting individuals from themselves in order for them to have a bearable life. Where are you making for? Affairs are now soul size. Before taking office, he first went to Lin'an (now Hangzhou, Zhejiang) to meet the emperor, and lived in an inn beside the West Lake to wait for his summons. They pulled wagons. The artist taps into the truth about the past and the present where others, as Baldwin puts it, find themselves unable to confront themselves: We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself the truth about his past is trapped in it, is immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self. Art is self-discovery as much as it is expression. The artist faces these traditions head on, in whatever medium they work within, and illuminates the holes in the reasoning that claims a tradition has been with us since time immemorial.

Look at the rhetoric surrounding abortion never being legal in the United States before Roe v. Wade. Though I understand and admire those whose work picks at art institutions and markets, I find myself exhausted by the idea of making work that aims to do that. The partnership of these two artists amplified the message with renewed force. Change), You are commenting using your Facebook account. The acknowledgement that traditions, whatever they may be, have not been around forever is a direct affront to societies, namely because it gets in the way of maintaining power and controlling a populace. It arises out a desire for the individual to dive into their own being and examine themselves, and this, as Ive written about countless times, is a scary process to undertake. Ive helped myself through writing and making art, and maybe I can help someone else when I make the decision to put my work out into the world.

Anxiety has become such a huge part of our experience that it would be almost strange to think that it might not have as much power over our lives as it does. In self-portraits I have made over the past few years, I have endeavored to portray my likeness as is, not in some flattering angle that makes me look smaller. When Harold and I first met in the late 80s we were both reading James Baldwin. Maybe my lovers war (Baldwin) is with art itself- the idea that art must serve some grand purpose besides existing. This is where we have been before. I think that the inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is the terror of being touched.

Writing this blog post now, in a time when the frozen misery of centuries seems to be breaking open; when affairs are soul size; when we contemplate Covid-19 and #BlackLivesMatter, and when we celebrate Gay Pride as well, it is the words and moral magnitude of James Baldwin who comes to mind. (LogOut/ Hannah Eve Rothbard, "Spring Again," 2021, Acrylic paint and mixed media collage on canvas, 20x28 inches. The confrontation of tradition proves difficult and an irritant to most of society because, as Baldwin writes, it is absolutely inevitable that when a tradition has been evolved, whatever the tradition is, that the people, in general, will suppose it to have existed from before the beginning of time and will almost be unwilling and indeed unable to conceive of any changes in it.. Thats not my niche. Viewed anew through the filter of 2020 and the sea change sparked by the death of George Floyd, these two artists partnership is a compelling testament in a long lineage of artistic expressions exposing the realities of the African American struggle for freedom.

On a recent episode of Dope with Lime, I spoke with Michael Bibler about a recent course he taught, Baldwins Queer South. We spoke about a lot of things, but one thing that got me thinking was the role of art and the artist in the world. Much of my work engages with urban design, policy, and theory. Baldwin calls the artist that incorrigible disturber of the peace who battles with society and its traditions. 2022 .css-1919qa6-Link-TextLink-TextLink{border-bottom-left-radius:0.125rem;border-bottom-right-radius:0.125rem;border-top-left-radius:0.125rem;border-top-right-radius:0.125rem;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;color:var(--text-default-base);-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1919qa6-Link-TextLink-TextLink:hover,.css-1919qa6-Link-TextLink-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); The Artist and Self-Reflection: James Baldwin and LillianSmith, We Must Not Remain Silent: Lillian Smiths Address to WhiteLiberals, We Must Not Remain Silent: Lillian Smiths Address to White Liberals Interminable Rambling, Broomhilda and the History of Slavery in "Django Unchained", Fences in George Takei's "They Called Us Enemy", The Master Race? Anything I have ever made fulfilled a need that I felt, and I share it online so that a corner of the Internet may engage with it and maybe find something they need. I was absorbed in Baldwins Letter to my Nephew, the first of two essays in his classic, The Fire Next Time.

"The Spring Rain in Lin'an" is one of Lu You's masterpieces, and has received many comments in the past dynasties. The artist accompanies us as we look at our reflection, and the artist taps into these tendrils, snipping them piece by piece, working diligently to eradicate them from our inner self. Through this act, the artist assesses how the traditions and society hinder us from becoming our true selves.

Perhaps this is the moment Baldwin urged his nephew to believe in when he said: The very time I thought I was lost, my dungeon shook and my chains fell off.. The frozen misery Photojournalist Steve Schapiro convinced LIFE magazine to let him travel with Baldwin through the South, where he captured pivotal actions unfolding in the movement. I am reminded of the the lines from Christopher Frys play The Sleep of Prisoners: The human heart can go the lengths of God

The longest stride of soul we ever took. In poems I have just started to write, I argue with my instincts to take everything out on my body and the shame of feeling like I am a work in progress. I just dont feel that thats my job. The thunder is the thunder of the floes, For only the poet, Smith states, can look beyond details at the total picture; only the poet can feel the courage beyond fear. The poet seeks to expose the inner truth, challenging the supposed traditions. Unlike most people, I do not interpret that advice literally. Hannah Eve Rothbard, "Superblock," 2021, Acrylic paint and mixed media collage on canvas, 30x30 inches. Baldwin is often referred to as the scribe of the Civil Rights movement. Please do not use without written authorization. and How We Need to Think About the Past, American History and Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird". The hopes and desires we partake in exist in response to everyday reality, they are not everyday reality. We must dream and hope in order to look at ourselves and our collective past; when we fail to do that, we fail society. The nuances of a comma or an indentation make all the difference, placing space to reflect at the precise moments and demanding attention at others. I post pictures of my artwork on Instagram, but I do not have a lot of followers, so what is the purpose? I find it exhausting to make work that is not authentic to me; though, I also recognize the naivety of putting out work thinking it will not end up part of the flawed markets and institutions others criticize. Comes up to face us everywhere, The dangers of being an American artist are not greater than those of being an artist anywhere else in the world, but they are very particular. Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lovers war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real., The terrors homosexuals go through in this society would not be so great if the society itself did not go through so many terrors which it doesnt want to admit.

We know, in the case of the person, that whoever cannot tell himself [sic] the truth about his past is trapped in it, is immobilized in the prison of his undiscovered self We are the strongest nation in the Western world, but this is not for the reasons that we think. Theres a lot more that I could say here, but Ill leave it at that for now.

Nothing changes? These are but a few examples where artists poke holes in supposed traditions. A Letter to My Nephew, reprinted in The Progressive. Lu You was 62 years old when he wrote this poem, and had been idle for 5 years in his hometown of Shanyin (now Shaoxing, Zhejiang). But the price of this is a long look backward whence we came and an unflinching assessment of the record. And anything else that could be handy for camping or creating a new civilization. How James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time still ilghts the way to equality, The Guardian, April 4, 2017an, The Fire Next Time, James Baldwin and Steve Schapiro (Taschen), Cornel West on Why James Baldwin matters more than ever, Go the way your Blood Beats: James Baldwin on same-sex love, Different kinds of war: Reflections on Memorial Day 2020. But will you wake for pitys sake! No one was selling tickets. From this standpoint, the artist can be anything from a poet and novelist to a historian or literary critic.

I cant say Ive found mine yet, but I know I love making things, and in doing so will my purpose find me. Be the first to respond and start the conversation. Maybe I just want people to have a deeper appreciation for the handmade so that they may value other people a bit more. Or maybe I just like making things. Thank God our time is now when wrong Rather than the old maxim art imitates life, Smith flips the phrase around, claiming that men imitate art because our reality stems from the dreams we imbibe from the artists. Anxiety today could be considered a universal experience. As usual, let me know in the comments below, andmake sure tofollow me on Twitter at @silaslapham. He mentioned James Baldwins The Creative Process, and after our discussion, I went to read Baldwins 1962 essay, and I revisited Lillian Smiths The Role of the Poet in a World of Demagogues, a speech she delivered in 1965 after being the first recipient of the Queen Esther Scroll, awarded by the Womens Division of the American Jewish Congress. Both Baldwin and Smith explore the artists role in the examination and formation of society. Its a trauma because its such a traumatized society..

When he entered Beijing again, the high spirits of the poet in his youth and the frivolity of Qiu Ma in his prime were all tossed away in the ups and downs of his life. And if you cant be touched, you cant be changed. So many thousand years to wake, The decision to share my art with others inherently connects it to society, even if I made it for myself. These questions always bring me back to my simple love for making things. The entrance gates had been torn down. Baldwin extends this self-reflection to the nation and society, arguing that unless the nation can fully examine itselfits strengths and weaknessesthey will falter.

I write about love and music and not much else, but somehow these subjects reveal so much about myself to me. That is, after all, why I went to art school. It is because we have an opportunity that no other nation has in moving beyond the Old World concepts of race and class and caste, to create, finally, what we must have had in mind when we first began speaking of the New World. I think it is time to start sharing my poems. Three years of art school have led me to wrestle with the question of whether art really does anything. Woodstock Music and Art Fair I am affected by the same circumstances as those sharing this planet with me at this moment in time, so my self-exploration must be relevant to others. The thaw, the flood, the upstart Spring. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. This is what we need to do. (LogOut/ The author discusses their own experience with trying this advice with disastrous results. The stars and planets were in alignment on August 15, 1969. These dangers are produced by our history This continent now is conquered, but our habits and our fears remainAnd, in the same way that to become a social human being one modifies and suppresses and, ultimately, without great courage, lies to oneself about all ones interior, uncharted chaos, so have we, as a nation, modified or suppressed and lied about all the darker forces in our history. Dark and cold we may be, but this

(LogOut/ In addition to being entertained, I was reminded of a post that I wrote for my blog, The Writer's Scrap Bin, over five years ago on the same writing advice.

One might say my artwork comes from a selfish place, or maybe the more forgiving word is empathetic. And if you cant be changed, you cant be alive.. .css-1sq3fp7-TextLink{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1sq3fp7-TextLink:hover,.css-1sq3fp7-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-2zzn7c-TextLink{color:var(--text-default-mute);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-2zzn7c-TextLink:hover,.css-2zzn7c-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1dxw7b6-TextLink-TextLink{border-bottom-left-radius:0.125rem;border-bottom-right-radius:0.125rem;border-top-left-radius:0.125rem;border-top-right-radius:0.125rem;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;color:var(--text-default-mute);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1dxw7b6-TextLink-TextLink:hover,.css-1dxw7b6-TextLink-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}How does it work? Although his ambition to restore the Central Plains has not faded, he is increasingly despairing of the weak and dark Southern Song Dynasty. Of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move; Huang Chang once said that "A small building listens to the spring rain all night", "Fourteen characters paint the spirit of Jiang Nanchun". Baldwin points out that the artist must never cease warring with [society], for its sake and his own because the artist, through the work, looks into themselves, making sense of the internal and outward chaos surrounding them. At 20 years old, I wrote my first poem and rediscovered the blissfully frightening feeling of starting something new that I knew nothing about. Questions I have directed toward society rarely make themselves explicit in my work. Like Baldwin, Smith comments on the role of the artist in confronting the internal and outward chaos, specifically the chaos enacted by the demagogues that individuals internalize. The discovery of ones sexual preference doesnt have to be a trauma.

Xenophobia and Racism in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby, Frederick Douglass' "What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?" I cite them as influences for my aesthetic choices so that someone may step up to one of my paintings and admire it for its beauty, its craftsmanship. The artist becomes our guide on the path, helping us see the dilemmas within ourselves and confronting them. Baldwin the consummate artist, intellectual and moral genius did war with his beloved society because he longed for what he hoped it could become. Harold was reading the essayThe Creative Process (Creative America, Ridge Press, 1962) and was appreciating Baldwins articulation of the artists role within society as the incorrigible disturber of the peace a mantle not taken on in some deliberate sense, but more by the fact that artists derive their creative fuel from probing their interior and following its dictates, which often leads them into territory at odds with social norms. I make art for myself but believe others may benefit from viewing or engaging with my self-exploration, the pursuit of my aloneness and my attempt to make vivid my experience, as James Baldwin so accurately puts it. Change). Baldwins statement that the truth about us is always at variance with what we wish to be resonates with me completely. When the artist isnt there, we must be the ones to delve within ourselves, alone, working to pull out the deep rooted infectious tendrils. What are your thoughts? What if I say something important, but no one sees it? Martin Luther King, Jr. reminded us: The arc of history is long, but it bends toward justice.It does seem like that arc is bending now, pulled by the groundswell awakened at last by the undeniable truths of our history that simply cannot be hidden anymore. Nowadays it seems as though if you arent anxious, you are considered to be the exception rather than the rule. Always relevant, always revealing, always riveting. The sea change were seeing in this country and the world is unlike anything weve ever known. It takes All Rights Reserved. No more water, the fire next time!. For an artist, the record of that journey is most clearly revealed in the personalities of the people the journey produced. My artwork has been an ongoing process of reconciling what I feel versus who I want to be- someone who is unaffected when others hurt her, who is strong and secure. What we see reflected back at us, the dilemmas of the world, come from our deepest roots, from the shadowy, unconscious part of our nature. They come what has entered our beings since our entrance into the world. Baldwins incisive words and Schapiros magnificent black and white photographs were brought together in a new release of The Fire Next Time (Taschen, 2017).

Look at the ways that people attack Nikkole Hannah Jones and the 1619 Project. The enterprise Look at the individuals claiming Kiku Hughes was being ahistorical in Displacement when she included LGBTQ individuals in the Japanese incarceration camps. God gave Noah the rainbow sign. The artists serve as the ones to initiate this reflection, bringing individuals to that point through the work artists create. In the spring of the thirteenth year of Chunxi (1186), the author entered Beijing by edict and accepted the post of governor of Yanzhou. She writes, Of them all, perhaps the most dangerous demagogues are those that crouch in our own minds, whispering lies at a time when we so desperately need to hear the poets deep truths. Smith constantly writes and speaks about the need for individuals to self-reflect on their own positions, interrogating the demagogic and white supremacist rhetoric surrounding them.

.css-1puhnsk-Text{display:inline-block;overflow:hidden;position:absolute;white-space:nowrap;border:none;-webkit-clip:rect(0,0,0,0);clip:rect(0,0,0,0);height:1px;margin:-1px;padding:0;width:1px;color:var(--text-default-base);}By .css-16y60jz-TextLink{font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5;color:var(--text-default-base);-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-16y60jz-TextLink:hover,.css-16y60jz-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1cqcain-TextLink-TextLink{border-bottom-left-radius:0.125rem;border-bottom-right-radius:0.125rem;border-top-left-radius:0.125rem;border-top-right-radius:0.125rem;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.5;color:var(--text-default-base);-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1cqcain-TextLink-TextLink:hover,.css-1cqcain-TextLink-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Stephanie Hoogstad.css-zi41ep{font-size:0.8125rem;line-height:1.5384615384615385;color:var(--text-default-mute);}.css-k4hbk2-Text{display:inline-block;font-size:0.8125rem;line-height:1.5384615384615385;color:var(--text-default-mute);}.css-1fkqll5-TimeAgo{display:inline-block;color:inherit;}6 days ago in .css-yn6q8s-TextLink{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-yn6q8s-TextLink *{display:inline !important;}.css-yn6q8s-TextLink:hover,.css-yn6q8s-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-1rec7bi-TextLink{color:inherit;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-1rec7bi-TextLink *{display:inline !important;}.css-1rec7bi-TextLink:hover,.css-1rec7bi-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-wd7xqx-TextLink-TextLink{border-bottom-left-radius:0.125rem;border-bottom-right-radius:0.125rem;border-top-left-radius:0.125rem;border-top-right-radius:0.125rem;display:inline;color:inherit;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-wd7xqx-TextLink-TextLink *{display:inline !important;}.css-wd7xqx-TextLink-TextLink:hover,.css-wd7xqx-TextLink-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}Journal. For all of its faults, Baldwin sees hope, proclaiming that we have an opportunity which no other nation has moving beyond the Old World concepts of race and class and caste to move towards what the ideals the originators of the United States professed, for all not just for some. Hannah Eve Rothbard, "Superblock No.2," 2021, Acrylic paint and mixed media collage on canvas, 30x30 inches. However, the cost of this endeavor is a long look backward whence we came and an unflinching assessment of the record. This is where we are right now. Until we look at the past, examining it and peeling it apart, we will not move beyond the Old World concepts. This fear of looking backwards, while the artist does just that, makes the artist a pariah to society because the artist, through the process of examining the chaos, brings light to the things we must confront, bringing them out of the shadows into the light where we can confront them. People carried tents, backpacks, coolers, blankets, children, and pets. More stories from writers in .css-zyk4uc-TextLink{color:var(--text-default-base);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-zyk4uc-TextLink:hover,.css-zyk4uc-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}.css-hp162s-TextLink-TextLink{border-bottom-left-radius:0.125rem;border-bottom-right-radius:0.125rem;border-top-left-radius:0.125rem;border-top-right-radius:0.125rem;display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;color:var(--text-default-base);-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.css-hp162s-TextLink-TextLink:hover,.css-hp162s-TextLink-TextLink:focus{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Journal and other communities. All content 1946-2022 Harold Feinstein. Never to leave us till we take It was free. The closing line of a poem ties up loose ends; it gives me the closure others could not. While Baldwins words have obvious resonance with this moment in history, they have always been relevant to the American experience in particular, and human experience in general. Change), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Is exploration into God. They are not unique in this discussion, by any means; however, I find their exploration of these themes important for us to think about. A new generation of inspired young women and men are now growing a new movement; seeded by those before them, who, like Baldwin, have left their mark on the consciousness of individuals and the collective. Is no winter now. As an African American man, a gay man, a writer and social critic, a stinging and loving voice of truth during the Civil Rights movement of the 60s, an intellectual giant with an unwavering moral compass, Baldwin, in my thinking is someone whose integrity and breadth extends across time, generations, and social issues.

They exist within us, growing tendrils that burrow into our very being. In the midst of boredom, he wrote this masterpiece that has been passed down through the ages. When I question the national and governmentally subsidized preference for suburbia over cities, it is rooted in my own deep sadness over the environmental crisis and over a manipulated consciousness which tells us we should isolate ourselves in communities of only people like ourselves. By Arlo Henningsabout 24 hours ago in Beat. About a month ago, I read an article on here by Following the Flow called "Why 'Write Drunk: Edit Sober' is Terrible Advice".