Usually I am an optimist about the artist life, that it is one way to throw other sufferers a rope onto the quicksand of dystopia. But lately I don’t know. In the U.S. even the artists decry art that reflects the human condition. “Political art”, as the gatekeepers say disdainfully. As if we, the visualizers of dreams are “above” politics somehow. Well, if artists are too aloof to contribute to how a society defines its power dynamics and settles its issues, then I believe they’ve taken arrogance (or timidity) to a new level of social madness. Something far out of the range of human, where it has always been a responsibility of the artist to bring people together. The timid artist is an oxymoron that is far too common today. No good can defeat dystopia if we cower behind the front lines of change, where soldiers fighting the good fight wait for the amperage to act. For instance, a place like Texas, losing its passionate artists to the profitable pull of oligarchial greed, will never evolve to a higher level of “understanding, learning and peace”. On the contrary, it can only get worse, as we live today, idling in traffic, fingering our smartphones to oblivion. Religion has lost the way. It doesn’t seem to want to help. Its ministers prefer to join the flock, worshipping Tuesday night potato chips and Netflix® on TV. The “narrow” path, and solitude, might be good for individual freedom—it might even point a few isolated humans to the philosopher’s stone. But it comes with a devastating price. The artist must call the slaves, as Rimbaud wrote, to “go over mountains and shores, to hail the birth of new labor, new wisdom, the flight of tyrants and demons, the end of superstition,— to be the first to adore!—Christmas on earth!”
Otherwise it’s all for vanity displayed on a stale, lifelong path to new shoes and death. I don’t want solitude. I don’t want vanity. Give me universal poetry and the abundance of earth and nature!
Basically, make artists hate again, but with abundant love. And that takes a lifetime of practice!
I wrote a letter to a painter friend about her aversion to political art here. Artists are the reflection of a society. If we just continue with the pretty flowers, then we just help perpetuate a lie. A big one. And what good is that for my granddaughters?

Thank you for listening and the kind words:)