Reflections

Day one of this class when we each shared a little about ourselves a fire was sparked in me, and all I could think about was how much I loved each one of these beautiful people! I was bursting with love and optimism.

   This class rekindled in me something that has been important to me my whole life – social activism. I have become even more political than before and deepened my understanding and art practice.

   Because of our pechakucha slides I decided to read the complete “Social Contract” and finished it last month. I thought that it might give me an idea for a Acercamiento project. It ended up being a great idea and serendipitous decision because I then worked on a production of Shakespeare’s “Richard II” - which is basically all about the Social Contract! I am still marinating on how I can use ideas from the Social Contract to help influence an art project for political change in America.

   This class has inspired me to be bolder in my art ideas and encouraged me to engage with community.  I’m really quite shy, so the idea of talking to strangers sounds like a good idea, but is pretty hard for me in practice. I was able to place my shadow art piece on the roof because I talked to the people necessary to get it approved and help me do it, even though it was really scary and I thought for sure they would say ‘no’. And in fact, one of my favorite parts of our Tijuana trip was the times I was alone and spoke with Mexican people in my limited Spanish!  I was able to communicate with people and help my classmates who don’t know any Spanish. It was a very empowering experience.

   On Friday my Environmental Lighting class is doing a ninja light-art installation on the Broad and we are trying to get people to help participate. I feel much more confidant now that I will be able to interact with audience members and potential participants. My professor and I actually got in a disagreement in class yesterday about whether you could ask people walking down the sidewalk to please wait for a minute while we completed our look and took a picture. She said you CAN NOT ask people, that that would be a crime; but that it was ok to just kinda block them with your body. That seemed so wrong to me, from an art perspective, from an art activism perspective, from a human decency perspective. I asked her “why is it so wrong to ask?” How can communicating with people be wrong? They can always say “no” and then you say “ok” and let them go; and that blocking people with your body seemed much more rude than politely asking. She was very adamant and shut me down, so I had to just let it go, but it made me think about the video with J.R. where he said that the ethics of how you create your art is just as important as the art itself. My professor said that if you ask people to wait that you are making them an accomplice to your crime essentially. But this is how we can make street art with people, and not just for people, or on top of people. We should partner with the community and not just serve ourselves as artists and what we want to do, especially when we want to takeover a building. Amanda Palmer's book "The Art of Asking" is one of my items for the paradigm shift exercise, which is all about artists asking from their audience! I’m also certainly not afraid of questioning authority and standing up for what I believe in, haha!

   I have learned that even though changing the world, or some other goal, may seem so big and scary and unattainable, that if you look at case studies, it will actually really help you. And if you use proven strategies and tactics, that it will really help you. That you must set a goal and define the target before you begin. And that our biggest resource to revolution is time. I have been thinking about that a lot now. I already try so hard to balance everything in my life, to give priority to the important things over the less important things, and now I am thinking more about creating time to focus on social justice.

   I also found in this class that doing research definitively impacted my interest, understanding, and caring about a subject. From our small US/Cuba relations assignments to our research paper, I truly felt that I learned something and deepened my empathy. These are good strategies to employ in the future and I will have to remember that! I often think about the day when I will no longer be in graduate school and how I will keep my fire burning and keep being inspired and creating like I do in my classes at CalArts.

   Thank you Evelyn, Carolina and Rueben, and everyone in the class! I can’t wait to make more art with you!