a Penland Line Spring 2007
Continued from page 1
you not also possess a sensitivity to cul
ture and the v^^orld, an idiosyncratic take,
a distinctive delivery? Isn’t it this, your
eye, which you possess who knows why
and may sometimes wish you didn’t, that
enables you to perceive the strange, the
other, the ill, the weirdly beautiful, the
simply beautiful when it’s obscured by
ugliness? Isn’t it this that provides both
you and your audience a way to compre
hend such things? There are people who
do not see acutely, and people who do
but cannot speak—because they don’t
have the language, or life has ripped out
their tongues. Do you have a responsibili
ty to speak? Isn’t it up to you to reveal the
beauty and normalcy in what’s odd,
excluded, unseen or imloved, to identify
what is abhorrent but still accepted and
declare it unacceptable? To speak the
truth?
You are perhaps luckier than people
with other callings. When the world
seems too diseased, you can retreat to a
zone of health: your studio. There you can
start the healing by simply crafting a
beautiful object. Can there possibly be
anything wrong with adding to the
world’s limited supply of beauty? But
does this reduce your work to pain man
agement? Would that be OK—or
enough? Suppose you do make art that is
political—let’s say.
Glass artist Mark Angus reinterpreting the book form as a glass sculpture. Mark’s class
during the Crcft and Social Conscience session explored stained and painted glass as a
medium for visual narratives.
apparently abstract
photographs in
which each of ten
thousand dots, seen
close, is an exhaust
ed person laboring
up the wall of an
open-face mine.
The aestheticization of suffering: what are
its ramifications? Is it exploitive or
demeaning to the sufferers? Or is it
urgently necessary to relieve them? If
your art is confrontational—and assum
ing that you can find a place to show it—
will it move others to action, or just agi
tate them? What if instead of cultures or
continents, you try to save a tree? Or
yourself? Is any purpose served by your
remaining in pain?
Engagement, or withdrawal? But
might these paths criss-cross rather than
lead in opposite directions? A retreat to
the studio, to focus on your craft—or less
grandiosely, to feel better—may seem a
rejection of the world. But couldn’t this
be an intentional choice for the smaller
gesture, the humbler persona, the more
agile stance? Can accepting your small
ness in the world free, even empower
The dangers of political
action are the samejor writers
as for artists; alas, these
include making bad art.
you? Can’t it affirm this central mystery:
that, even beleaguered, nature goes on?
Doesn’t it acknowledge that ideologies
and strategies, in proposing to explain
everything, explain too much away—and
that explaining everything may simply be
impossible? Your work may seem apoliti
cal or abstract or personal. Does that
strip it of truth or prevent it from evok
ing response? Could its personal nature
give it power—because viewers experi
ence what you experience, and you can
help make sense of
that?
But what if you
wake up the day after
some holocaust and
must admit that
despite your premo
nition it was coming,
you sat alone in your
studio—perhaps listening to the news—
only making things of beauty?
Calculations of risk and resistance.
This is a time of extreme polarization.
Cultures, nations, political parties—even
neighbors—are at odds. Suspicion and
paranoia are engendered by governmental
misbehavior. People feel insecure, fearing
illness, fearing aging. In this environment,
making activist art might have frightening
ramifications: loss of money, freedom, hfe
and limb, even loss of friends. How far
are you willing to go? Who will go there
with you? How might your resistance
strengthen—or weaken—you? Will its
possible motivating impact on others jus
tify your risks?
The dangers of poUtical action are the
same for writers as for artists; alas, these
include making bad art. In the dark days of
1939, when fascism was rampant and war
looming, E. B. White heard the news that,
...a certain writer, appalled by the
cruel events of the world, had .
pledged himself never to write any
thing that wasn’t constructive and sig
nificant and liberty-loving. I have an
idea that this, in its own way, is bad
news....Even in evil times, a writer
should cultivate only what naturally
absorbs his fancy,
whether it be freedom
or cinch bugs, and
should write in the way
that comes easy...In a
free country, it is the
duty of writers to pay
no attention to
duty....A despot does
n’t fear eloquent writ
ers preaching freedom
— he fears a drunken
poet who may crack a
joke that will take hold.
Polarization, meanwhile,
not only results from
political crisis, but causes
it. Surely duality is one
source of the world’s
current troubles: “You’re
with us, or against us.” If
political anger propels
your art, can it reach
people with other views—or only rein
force those who agree? Can you find a
way to speak through your work that sub
verts duality?
When people feel immobilized and
isolated, is simply doing your work an act
of resistance? Or must it also be seen,
given the chance to affect others? If it
broadens viewers’ perceptions, can it
actually change their behavior? Can
speaking truth encourage others to not
feel too crazy or scared or alone to act? Is
provoking others to action your responsi-
bihty as an artist? Is it a responsibility you
can decline?
How big is too big to think about
what you do?
A strategy to redeem lives—start
ing with your own.
With its origins in tradition and the
utihtarian, and its grounding in materials
derived from the earth, craft easily
enough takes on a social dimension. Craft
is unintimidating, but also inspiring.
Anybody who has visited Penland, where
it seems as if every other hinge and door
knob is a unique and good-natured work
of art, knows the lift of spirit which can
occur where beautiful objects and their
making are revered. This elation may not
be pohtical, but it is freeing. Some media,
like drawing and printmaking, easily
incorporate overt messages through rec
ognizable words or images. Others can
generate solutions to real social prob
lems—say, an elegant design for cheap
bamboo wheelchairs, for countries rid
dled with landmines. Other media take
easily to recycled materials, so regardless
of exphcit meaning can imply a narrative
of survival. Craft
can engender
group activity
and catharsis—
through commu
nity quilts like
the Names Project,
for example, or
the anti-hunger
Empty Bowls
Project.
Amidst ram
pant ugliness, can
creating beauty
generate a cul
ture of resis
tance? The world
needs people
who can feel.
Doesn’t art make
feeling people? Is
it your job to
model fearless
ness for the
world, even by simply doing your job?
Opportunities abound to join organized
efforts for social change; your contribu
tions to those could be valuable. But isn’t
it possible that you are needed more
urgently in the studio than in the streets?
—Jonathan Lerner
This altered player-piano roll was part of an
installation by Laurencia Strauss, who was
student in Laura Vickerson’s class titled a
Site/Space/Surroundings.