Art as Mnemonic Device
There is much of interest - for the artist - to discuss around the concept of ‘audience’, if you remove talk of money or power. For starters, if you fear that your audience turns away from genocide, do you really want them viewing your work? It’s not outrageous to ask the question ‘if someone can turn a blind eye to kids getting blown up, do I want to offer anything up to them, and do I care what they think about what I create? Does their opinion, their admiration, or dislike, mean anything to me?’
It’s something I’ve asked myself often this past year. Almost everybody I’ve ever known is publicly going along with the wholesale murder of Palestinians. They know their governments and mainstream media are lying to them, yet still they hold their position. I’ve considered that maybe they are frightened to speak up. Fair enough, but still, if this is the case, do I want to create with them in mind, and is their opinion worth anything when it comes to my art?
Probably not, on both counts. So, without an audience, what is art for? Well, plenty, I believe, and this particular piece explores one avenue of thought.
At this point you may ask, if you’re truly investigating this, why put your art on this blog, or on Instagram. Well, consider my missives as something like the Voyager 1 'Golden Record’, sent out into space with the hope that compassionate, intelligent life might just intercept, and bother to interpret. I’ve no idea if that will ever be the case, but I do have hope. As Angela Davis says,
“I don't think we have any alternative other than remaining optimistic. Optimism is an absolute necessity, even if it's only optimism of the will, as Gramsci said, and pessimism of the intellect.”
As a result of this, and of studying indigenous art, I’ve started to use art as a mnemonic device, to help me remember important lessons. The art is made to fit on my wall, or shelf, and it hangs there so I remember. Kind of like how some indigenous cultures make art to aid them in remembering their rituals, stories, and other matters that their community considers important.
This is an image of Mum, our dog Dino, and I. It’s made on recycled canvas, hence the rough surface visible under the sky (first lesson from Mum contained in this piece of art; don’t waste anything, don’t throw it away, reuse it). The art shows us on the beach in southern England, probably Camber Sands, or somewhere near Dymchurch. The beach is made of sand I collected here in Toronto, and in the Sahara (the red sand acting as shadow is from the Sahara.) So that act, of using this sand, links key parts of my life, here, in the UK, and in the many journeys I’ve made in Africa. I smile when I see the sand, I think of the Toronto Islands, which I love, and my Marathon des Sables runs, and those long ago family holidays by the English coast. All good memories.
Mum had a great belief in truth, which she passed onto me. Mum tried her best. But our true English culture, evolved over millennia of living in and learning from the land, has been ripped apart by colonists such as the Romans, the French, and the Dutch. That means, all the little natural rules that help one negotiate all of life’s issues, the checks and balances that keep all in natural order, and keep us true to our role as guardians of the land, they have pretty much all been wiped away by those who care for little but power. But Mum was close enough to the ground to listen to echoes of what had gone before in our country, in our world, and she passed on many important lessons to me that - now I have studied indigenous culture for a few years - I see much wisdom in.
The first was, you must tell the truth, and respect the truth, and by extension, you must respect the correct use of language, and meaning. I didn’t always do that, but I knew that it was the right thing to do, even when I failed, thanks to Mum’s teaching. I have come to a point now where I try always to live in truth, and I see a great similarity in how my Mum went about life and how some indigenous people here in Canada go about life. You see, the dominant Western viewpoint is that words are used to deceive the self or others. It’s a terrible thing to realize, but when you see it, you see it. An obvious example is people saying it is anti-Semitic to disagree with Israel. This is such a gross abuse of truth, language, and meaning, I can hardly believe that anybody buys into it. Sadly they do. By contrast, the dominant indigenous viewpoint is that words are sacred, and that truthfulness is essential. I am very proud of my Mum to have understood this core fact of life, even if the mainstream society around her did not. So I created this art partly to always remember this lesson that Mum passed onto me. Truth, words, and meaning, are sacred.
Another thing Mum had in common with indigenous culture was that she didn’t mind me going off into the woods on my own from a young age. She said that as soon as I could crawl I would go to Dino’s bed in the corner of the kitchen and stay with him there, and that whilst I couldn’t talk to humans until I was 3, I was communicating with Dino and the birds from the age of 18 months. That she even understood that this is what I was doing is amazing. Many would just dismiss it as childish nonsense sounds, but Mum knew I was communicating.
Traditionally, indigenous parents would send their children off on vision quests each night into the forest, from the age of 6 onwards, as a way of developing courage, and knowledge of nature, and themselves, among other things (sorry to simplify, there is much to vision quests). Mum didn’t seem to mind when I slipped out the house after breakfast from the age of 4 onwards to go to Cuckoo Woods, and the Sheep Wash field. When pressed by police who at one time brought me back home, she said she couldn’t stop me, that I’d just go and not tell her. Maybe this was true. She was a simple, honest, lady and I was a somewhat wild spirited boy who, no doubt influenced by Dino, would bolt whenever an open gate was sighted. But also perhaps Mum was heeding the call of an echo of old fashioned knowledge deep in her, that it is right for kids to wander in nature, to learn from it, to overcome their fear of it.
The art isn’t finished yet, the faces are clumsy and I certainly don’t do my Mum or Dino justice. Maybe I will do so, someday. There is no rush, it is not for sale, it’s going nowhere. The art is there to remind me of all I have just told you, and at times I also think of Dino’s very soft ears, that I used to love to snuggle with my face, and I wonder what it was I learnt in those woods, wandering for much of the day alone, and from Dino. I have no firm answers to that. I try to communicate with nature these days - trees mainly - but I can’t say I have any great success that I have recognised so far that I can communicate to you, apart from the good feeling of trying. Perhaps that good feeling in itself is a form of communication. I've a lot of catching up to do.
I delight in the memory of stiff winds off the English Channel, blowing the cobwebs away, of sand in my sandwiches, of Dino snuggling up, and much time spent alone in nature.
The 'Golden Record' message for aliens, this time around? The importance of truth, and meaning. The dominant worldview will only get more deceitful, until it all collapses (and they will take us all down with them, I think that is certain). What is the point of truth if the power mad seem intent on destroying us all? To keep the concept of truth alive in spirit, if not flesh, so that if something revives after the devastation, the spirit will be there to inform them of what millennia of human beings discovered about living a true, harmonious, life on Earth.
