Art is Dangerous

Someone asked me how art, or being an artist, is directly tied to liberation, and I responded that some of the first people a dictator kills when they take over are the poets and artists. That’s because a poem can start a revolution. An artist and art is of the moment. Policy and governments are often too late in responding, it’s always after the fact and very rarely before, but artists are on the ground.

In therapy or a relationship, you need to be ready to do the work of opening up, art on the other hand can crack you open with no warning. You can walk into a museum and see a painting of a rock and start crying and not know why. Art finds you. It sees you. It finds the cracks in you that you didn’t know existed, and it opens them. A play can do this. A novel, a book, a poem, a painting, a dance in the street.

Most importantly, there is nothing in this world that wasn’t born of creativity. We are creative beings. Everything you encounter and use on a daily basis was imagined and then creatively brought into existence, for better or for worse. These might be things that rub you the wrong way. These might be things that, in the long run, caused harm, but they are and were born of creativity.

You have this gift in you to create in this same way. Create I tell folks, create, because it is your birthright. Create, because you are a child of creativity. Create, because if you don’t, someone else will, and that creation might be in service of you or might be a harm to you. I need you to create. I invite you to create. Create from your joy. Create from your love. Create from your curiosity, and know I will keep doing the same.

Engaged Liberation is a labor of love.

But it is labor. If you love it, support it for less than $5/mo. Thank you!