The Batik Workshop at the Mercer island Jewish Community Center was a success - there were ten students! In two hours everyone got a piece done. First everyone practiced using the Tjanting tool and brush on practice sheets, then moved on to the Challah cloths, I had dyed a stack of them in Turquoise, and had a stack in white and linen. Most people wanted the linen which has a natural color to it, or the white, I was surprised not more turquoise. I had some examples of turquoise-based pieces dipped in fuchsia and the beautiful purple color it makes, and one dipped in avocado green. Several people wanted that purple color (not green) so I made a bucket of fuchsia for submersing their pieces. Most people painted with the dye using squirt bottles. It looked so good! I know once they boil and wash their pieces it will not be so bright but it'll still look good. Hopefully when people boil out their pieces at home they'll take a photo and send it to Madeline so she can post them and somehow we can all look at them! That's my favorite part is to see how the batik turns out in the end. This is why a three day workshop for batik is essential - so we can get those two layers of wax and two dye baths in and experience the boil out in the end together, and that takes 2-3 days.
It feels good to share this art form with people and how comfortable I am with the batik now! Always it brings me back to my magical time in Indonesia 30 years ago when I experienced the batik first hand being made, and all the batik galleries and the batik I bought! Clothing and art. I still have a patchwork batik vest from then that my daugher wears now. I had no inkling at the time that I'd ever be doing batik because it seemed so complicated. I had bought a box of Tjanting tools and have them still, and have used them now. When I reminisce about 1992 I remember how life used to be - anonymous, no 24 hr social media surveillance for instance. How to deal with today's expectations and reality? I am on the periphery with social media, minimum engagement and click on positive things like art and travel and philosophy and consciously have made a decision to stay away politics and religion. People who are caught up in the illusion of us and them I've been forced to unfollow/snooze now. Life is too short for this, and is it not hard enough without having to be burdened with some otherworld problems that has nothing to do with one's reality? That is the problem with internet - the idea we are all one and connected and need to be on the same page as the rest of the pc world. That's a horrifying idea! I am able to be objective because I come from the TIME BEFORE. But just like the time before it is still true this - Beware the false friends or those who wish you evil with a smile on their face - they are everywhere now with internet. Remember that it is only good housekeeping to remove corruption from your life, in whatever form it takes ie; people, ideas, substances. They are not there to serve you but to tear you down. Remember Misery loves company and will stop at nothing to have its companion.
“The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those who speak it.”
—George Orwell
However, it's easy to surround oneself with the like-minded, the open-minded, critical thinkers, philosophers, the curious and those who practice empathy and forgiveness. There's no room for the grotesqueries of rudeness, ignorance, those preaching political or religious zealotry, and any other aggressive acts against civilization and humanity. Artists don't have the patience or the energy to spend with that kind of company for they see it is useless and wasteful to their creative energies. Some choose to change the trajectory of their life by indulging in senseless and useless distractions, creating a purgatory of quicksand, a slow sinking of what could've been into oblivion. Losing the soul into the depths of another person's misery.
I think it is the job of artists and artistic writers to NOT be a part of this world, that is the true objective of the Artist's life. Artists must stay objective in order to keep their head in the clouds in order to bring out new ideas, to bask in the ah-ha softness of creation and awareness. This cannot be done if one's inner eye is clouded over with subjective black and white flag waving attention seekers and disrupters of the peace. Artists must spend their time wisely which may seem irrational to the unknowing. It is a lifetime of discipline to realize thoughts into this physical reality by the medium of art. It is almost a form of magic to manifest art. We manifest what we put our attention to.
The calling an artist experiences can be so loud it makes everything around it fall away, nothing really matters but this. The calling subsides as one grows older, nearer to death, that is. Hopefully the artist didn't ruin their lives leaving their aging self with a broken lonesome isolated unstable world - for many do this - not waking up until it is too late. Oh, the horror.
Often to the artist it seems everything is filler from trying to get from point A to point B - all the things that are so important and worthwhile are fillers for despite it all the prerogative always is to get away from life so one can finally work on their art. Sometimes that seems very far away! There is always a fantasizing happening in the back of the mind about what I'm working on, what to do next - it is a never ending grasping.
I am resolved to revolve my world around shortening the distance between the responsibilities of life and creating art and writing, to keep it within reach at all times, to keep it interwoven with my daily actions. The Alpha Freewrite I just ordered can be in my purse, the sketchbook and pencil, the legal pad for lists.
Teaching art is good works as it's part of the calling too, on another level. Like teaching this class today reminded me that it's always there, and it's there for everyone, and it's the most natural thing and it is the human's natural state to make art, and to share and teach. Teaching art classes to kids is the most satisfying experience of them all, because it's opening doors and teaching skills to young minds that need to create and express themselves.
Art should be and remain for its sake alone and always remain objective and open to interpretation from the viewer. That is why to me, manipulating art in whatever form be it painting or performance art, into propaganda, is manifesting evil from purity. It is done only to capture those who cannot think for themselves, to seduce them to think a certain way, to join a team. It's expecting those to agree and if they do not then they are "other", they are the evil ones for not joining the team. Those who fall into this path of being manipulated change the trajectory of their life to evolve only around this belief system, they lose their soul as they live only for and make decisions only for and about their team, blocking out all other perceptions. That is part of the obligation after all, the silent agreement in being part of the team. This is how one blocks out one's very soul, by forgetting one's true objective in life by living in the past, living under an idea dictated to them, this is forgetting the soul. It's sullying one's experience of life, squashing it down into a cesspit of rules and regulations. It is a quicksand one can only hope, when realization sets in what they have done to themselves, that a helping hand will be there to pull them up and out of it when the time comes.
"Orwell wasn’t exaggerating. He was describing exactly what we see today. The moment you speak the uncomfortable truth, you become “problematic.” Not because you’re wrong, but because you’re exposing the illusions people are emotionally attached to. A society built on denial will always treat honesty like an attack. The truth doesn’t make people angry but their attachment to lies does. And the more chaotic the world becomes, the more violent the reaction toward anyone who refuses to repeat the script. That’s why truth-tellers get hated first and respected later. Every generation has its heretics until time proves them right."