Found Art Friday 221

Dear ones,
Why is it that someone always wants to take over the world?  Instead of sharing it better.
It's come to this, has it?  Sigh - and take another deep fortifying breath.  Clearly, Art Ranger is not yet able to get back to her art of the everyday, the muse of the mundane, because daily the assault raids riddle our consciousness with a substrate of foul doings upon our nation.

We feel as though we are in a Bruce Lee movie, counteracting punches at a frenetic rate, just to keep up with the information storms at bay, so painful to bare.

borrowed internet lady

  A true farce is afoot and it is not fun, yet, at the same, it is utterly absurd.

Perfectly apt at this moment, 121 years later

About three weeks in, we must frequently wring forth the energy of the many protests in order to RESIST AND PERSIST while trying to counteract the dystopian meltdown. In fact, we put on our "pussy hat" and use it as a sort of thinking cap, with antennae. We need to pull from the power of this yarn we are making together.  And we mean yarn story and yarn fiber, both. We shall knit strong and flexible communications. Strong tendons and tendencies to share our research and love whenever possible.  Citizenship is action, is commitment, is connection.  

Crafts people restoring Afghanistan

Citizenship:  what you do when what you thought this meant, is no longer.

While the last gaspers clutch their waning wands and (tiny hands) and whine about (who) we the people actually are and what we stand for, we are watching and we are taking action. And we are not going back to the antique stupidity of pre Roe v Wade. No siree, we are not! 
And we are not going to let Senator Elizabeth Warren or Coretta Scott King be silenced by a patronizing patriarchy. OMG!  

Alberto Giacometti sculpture, Hirshhorn Museum viewed on inauguration day

Also, when you are “hanging out with a million women”, you are continuously and vibrantly aware that a person with sexual predator (symptoms/tendencies/utterances) is unfit for the job of Leader of the (free) world! 

Not a single woman of my generation that we have ever had an in depth conversation with, is not experienced with some kind of sexual harassment and/or rape. Violations such as these take years or lifetimes to reckon with. Therefore, it is hard to over state how repulsed and/or angry or traumatized many people feel to have this warped man in charge of our nation’s house.  (Actual vomit might come up at any time in reaction to his image) as this pathological liar, imposter, fits the predatory profile perfectly.

What his detesters (and supporters) are all having to live through is a very rapeful mode of operating a regime.  Mr. the-buck-stuck-here (or there): has not only revealed a pattern of disrespecting and abusing women, but he equally violates the Mother Earth with every step he takes, every so called "policy" he tries to enforce.  His rapefulness (in tandem with his narcissism) reverberates through and through: every "executive order", every hire, etc., etc., whether it is banning people from the largest religion on earth from entering our country, or his ludicrous and corrupt choice for Department of Education, or pretending that there was/is no protest surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline.

DT stands for Damn Toxic!

The barging in, acting entitled to grab whatever (it) wants, never a two-way street, is how he is attempting to do our business of international diplomacy (eww!). No wonder Melania wore a frosty blue thick felt protective outfit. She is the underside of a glacier, frozen: hence their  frosty/creepy first dance.  In essence, every step he (it) takes on this earth hurts.

Jimmie Durham's installation in front of Hirshhorn Museum  - yah!

What might the 73 year old Angela Davis, the 80 year old Gloria Steinem have in common with the 40 year old and 55 year old mothers, and the sixteen year old daughter sharing the Holiday Inn room in D.C.?  One thing could be a desire for bodily integrity from a human rights perspective. A right to choose what goes in and on in there. As Steinem said, “We are united here for bodily integrity. If you cannot control your body from the skin in, you cannot control it from the skin out, you cannot control your lives, our lives. And that means the right to decide whether and when to give birth without government interference.”  

Like a wild yeast, it grows - the resistance!  Love is love is love is love ......

Insert song from the Musical HAMILTON

As an educator steeped in the ideals of “critical thinking”, it’s going to be excruciating to live through such a dire void coming from the head “dude”.  About The Wall: “Dude there are some bad dudes out there. You’re gonna pay for it.”  In other words, he's gonna try to ram it down our throats, with his 100% flawed ideology.  Diss the people of Mexico, rape the land, destroy the habitat and waste the resources all in the name of keeping people out who make america, uh, America?  Most people know this already: that the wall is a fake meaningless sardine can, in fact often a ladder, in comparison to the wilderness and the human will to strive/survive. Then there is the simple math of international trade. Here in California, it is no mystery, who is doing what work.  And who pays their taxes.

Viet Nam Memorial - also viewed on inauguration day.  Powerful and poignant reminder of hubris, of arrogant top-down broken ness and its far reaching consequences.

45 and his henchmen also fit the definition of kleptocracy perfectly.  Rape and pillage. Slash and burn all day every day is what this shock wave feels like.  Best kept on a golf course swinging clubs (making "deals") while wearing a hideous hat. 

During our travels, we were compelled to carry a copy of George Orwell’s Animal Farm, first published in 1946 in our bag for inspiration/artistic discomfort. Famous quote therein: “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL EXCEPT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS”.

Orwell also draws a character named Squealer: “He was a brilliant talker and when he was arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of Squealer that he could turn black into white.”

So what happened to the Russia meddling in the election story?

The gullible factor is central to the parable, as are the sleight of hand distractions that send us fibrillating. The stealing starts with: “so the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had disappeared..”

Jannis Kounelis sculptural installation, also viewed at the Hirshhorn Museum, Inauguration Day

other signs we enjoyed
MAKE AMERICA

AMERICA AGAIN

MAKE AMERICA MEXICO AGAIN

MAKE AMERICA THINK AGAIN

Kindness is Everything

LOVE IS REVOLTING

QUALITY MEN ARE NOT AFRAID OF EQUALITY

Today, our willingness to envision something called “pussy power” is slightly revolutionary and exceedingly important. It involves women pridefully taking control of their bodies and the vocabulary around it, once and for all, by owning this word and transforming it into sacred peaceful place. In the 1970s or 80s or nineties many of us kept all that private whether we embraced this area of our body, or not, and the entire history of "Our Bodies Ourselves". Now we must use this internal muscle and grit to wrestle the powers back to the people of this country, the very fabric being cut and torn, yet re-woven as we speak.

Breathing slow     breathing low    breathing deep.

Fight the Kleptocracy!

Find your center of gravity and block.  A demagogue will eventually step or slip in his own glue/ merdre.  

How can we focus our powers?  Our love for all kinds of humans, for a planet and its future. We grow our minds. We speak our minds. We sing songs about it. We dance about it, we paint, we rant, we write, we rise up. We knit us together sharingly.

 
Paraphrasing Angela Davis post- March (who was on our return flight to SFO) : "This was extraordinary expression of democracy. Now we must draw from this energy to continue our work. We are going to have to march when it isn't about  me '". And this happening greatly. We feel a heartening entrepreneurial spirit of outrage and action unfolding.

More resources to gird ourselves/ knit yourselves together amidst the assault:

 

Goria Steinhem's speech

Angela Davis'

An Anthem: The Flash Mob Song: I can't Keep Quiet

BEST SO FAR: GREAT ESSAY  “I will March for your daughters”

Highly recommended: Ursula K LeGuinn's words on studying peace

Digest of Daily Disturbing NEWS