Finding another path every day

Last night after an exhilerating day studio and work Turu and I went to friends' house to see "the Ground Truth", a documentary about US veterans after their service in Iraq. It was bone-chilling, but more surprising was the response by those around me: "What can WE do?"

It struck me that the question was not asked in ernest, and not asked five or six years ago when the war in Iraq began, but asked in the safety of a New York apartment, because it seemed like a correct question to ask in a group of white, urban, educated types. At least that was my perception.

It also struck me although we were watching a film about the Iraq war, there were a multitude of connections with the Apartheid government in South Africa. No one asked about my experience in Capetown; they could not hear the connections I was trying to relate. I tried to relate the images of bodies being mamed, interogated, shot at, humiliated, yelled at, to experiences I heard firsthand from people I met in Capetown, but that analogy seemed to get lost in the ether...

I remember very clearly in the Holocaust museum the phrase "not to speak is to speak, not to act is to act". Until enough people stand up and say NO, human rights abuses will continue and continue.

But to the question "What can we do?"...how do I answer? By building a green building in the middle of New York? By creating artwork that looks a certain way, but is actually something else, with a twist? By reading the New York Times in the country? What can one do?

I asked myself that a lot when I was in Capetown, and now that I'm back in New York it seems like just a relevant question. How does one process the daily knowledge of pain and destruction? How does one begin to stand up to what they know is wrong? I am beginning to create a principally feminine world in my studio to engage sides of myself that have been choked out of me for years and years. It feels decidedly me, for now.

It is one's choice how to live one's life. I know I have made my choice. My own psycological mark, my choice to actively live my life as an artist, not to be swayed by "cool", not to live so much at the whims of others. To have a spine. To use my voice, to not be afraid of my power.