Art in Tough Times

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

These Are Boom-times for Art

On October 19th, I went to Twitter and tweeted, "Thinking that art of all sorts, including comedy, will become more interesting during this tumultuous time." Some of the best music I ever loved emerged when my dad was unemployed during the recession in the '70s. "Saturday Night Live" was at its peak then, too, and rose like a phoenix during this unparalleled election season.

What a huge consolation-prize for having less money in our pockets or 401Ks -- to have artists be inspired by the calamities of this cash-crunch. (A colleague of mine created a Facebook group about his "201K," which I almost joined, but I became a Facebook fan of Suze Orman instead.)

This morning, I read about a "New Yorker" cartoon exhibit on money based on the collection of Melvin R. Seiden. The critic loved it, but wished the collection of cartoons had not ended with those of two years ago. The critic reminded readers of the hilarious/tragic cartoons that have been emerging in the magazine lately, including a recent favorite of mine, where a teacher tells the class that since the school can't afford Halloween pumpkins, the students will be carving raisins this year."

Gorging Won't Be an Option, But Feasting Selectively, Surely

Don't hard times beg for laughter? For escape from self-absorption, whether into transformative or easy entertainment? From an art standpoint -- including works like those of my friends Aimee Hertog or Allan Chapman or Saydi Kaufman or Riva Lehrer or Amanda Mathews -- during this period of economic famine, I think we're in for a treat for which we hunger!

Coincidentally, exactly a month after I first tweeted about art as a topic, I tweeted again: "Wondering who buys art in challenging times like these. Does art give comfort, and so more people buy it, or is it seen as a luxury?"

More of the people who follow me on Twitter responded to that tweet than to any other so far. The consensus was that they buy less volume, but that art, above all in times like these, gives them comfort and pleasure that they need to survive.

Revisiting the Artist

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...I Was As a Kid

A few years ago, I drew a picture of an open Caran D'Ache crayon box, containing 16 crayons. Instead of color-names for labels, they included the physical, educational, spiritual and cultural experiences of my childhood that I most valued, from toddlerhood to age 13. I consider them features of myself as an artist because all of them led to self-expression without self-consciousness, to joyful freedom.

The crayons were labeled as follows:

• G'yupapah
  
• Shlof mein kind
  
• Drawing
  
• Frog's eggs
  
• The stone wall
  
• Rocks
  
• Bike riding
  
• Swimming pool games
  
• Sashi moments
  
• Singing at seders
  
• Deb's paintbrush
  
• Rollerskating
  
• Skiing
  
• Disco
  
• Nature classes
  
• Mrs. Honan.
  

If I were able to create a columnar table here, I would, but since I'm not, I'll do my best to add, side by side, a translation where necessary; with whom I had the experience; and why it made the list:

• G'yupapah; a ride and the name I made up for it as a toddler; my oldest sister Deb invented it and provided it; felt in-flight
  
• Shlof mein kind; a lullaby; my father sang it to me pre-sleep; cherished 1:1 attention from him and how he would tell me stories then, too, always falling asleep himself mid-plot while sitting on the perpendicular bunk-bed below, which was empty, since my older sister didn't have to go to bed as early as I
  
• Drawing; by myself; with friends, Alicia, Amy and at Art classes; enjoyed portraying what I saw, pressing hard on the white sketch-paper and using vivid colors
  
• Frog's eggs; found them in a pond at the Stamford Museum and Nature Center and a Nature teacher agreed to keep them and let them hatch in the Nature Center; felt like a discoverer and marveled that my net actually yielded something special
  
• The stone wall; on either side of our driveway were woods, which included a Colonial-times stone-wall that my sisters, friends and I used to run back and forth across the top of and use as our jumping off point for swinging when we found vines, hanging from nearby trees; felt like the wall's rocks were part of our family and welcomed our playing on them
  
• Rocks; my nana gave me my first piece, clear, though rutilated, quartz and I began collecting in earnest with my friend Amy; felt like I could search for treasure everywhere
  
• Bike riding; with my sister Kathy, neighborhood friends; friends, Adrienne, Amy; made me feel free and that I was the master of my own fate and day
  
• Swimming pool games; with my sisters, friend J.J. and her little sister Erica; more freedom, and the fun of mixing non-verbal and verbal communication just by being under-water and then above the surface
  
• Sashi moments; when my 3rd grade teacher Rabbi Kosowsky encouraged all of us to be like the Biblical commentator Rashi and offer our own interpretations of paradoxical sentences from the Bible -- since my name is Sarah, whenever I provided an original interpretation, he referred to me as Sashi; felt creative, smart, proud, engaged in the learning, a sense of magic, coming from my own brain
  
• Singing at seders; with my sisters, mother and father; enjoyed the sound of all of us together; and also was proud to know all the tunes and words for what we sang
  
• Deb's paintbrush; my oldest sister never knew I was borrowing it, as she was away at college, but I felt like it was extra-special, since it was hers
  
• Rollerskating; by myself, once with my father and once alone, without my mother knowing, in Central Park, when there was an area in the late-seventies, where people skated to disco in a big circle; she thought I was going to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -- don't know how she failed to notice the bulky knapsack I wore (with my sneaker-skates inside); felt like I was flying with musical accompaniment
  
• Skiing; with kids from the Stamford Jewish Community Center; again, felt like I was flying, and felt stylish in my ski-clothes
  
• Disco; listened by myself, but once, entered and won a middle-school, line-dance contest with my friend Amy; felt transported from wherever I was into the rhythm and cheerful beat
  
• Nature classes; by myself and whoever else took the classes; loved walking the trails and learning how to identify the local trees
  
• Mrs. Honan; Mrs. Honan was probably my first crush, but perhaps more important, she encouraged and welcomed my creativity, e.g., when my friend Adrienne and I wanted to paint the grooves of a series of worm-hole scored twigs that we had found outside our school in order to sell them for profit, and she was also the Science teacher I had when I won Honorable Mention in the Connecticut State Science Fair, for "Problem: Energy Crisis. A Solution: Wind Power."
  

Looking at this list and why the items made the list offers clues to the artist I want to be as an adult; when I cull key words from the list above, I see that for my art, I value:

• Feeling like I'm flying (without a plane)
  
• Attention
  
• Physically needing to press with my hands to produce art
  
• Vivid colors
  
• Discovery
  
• Being close with nature (e.g., "Felt like the wall's rocks were part of my family....")
  
• Treasure-hunting, with treasure being relative
  
• Freedom
  
• Control over my days
  
• Verbal and non-verbal communication opportunities
  
• Magic
  
• Originality
  
• Learning engagement
  
• Musical transportation, i.e., feeling transported by the beat
  
• Liturgy
  
• Singing in community
  
• Symbols of artfulness (e.g., my oldest sister's paintbrush, which had various colors caked onto the wooden part)
  
• Feeling stylish
  
• Being encouraged in my creativity.
  

Ignoring Today's Inspirational Message...

The postings on this site are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

...to Stay in the Present

Every morning, I read an inspirational message and today's was about not peering too far into the future. Oh, well....

Before I jump into working on my last big paper of the semester, I want to indulge in cataloging some of the fun things I hope to do for the upcoming break between this semester and next -- December 23rd-January 22nd:

• Taking our niece Zoe to a Broadway play - Done
  
• Going to our friends', Fred's and Geoff's, holiday party - Done
  
• Swimming at least three times a week, if not five or six, including three steam-blasts in the steam room afterward - Done
  
• Choosing and downloading my Chanukah gift of many iTunes - Done
  
• Welcoming Pat's adopted Tasmanian Devil into our home, or at least the toy-version, which is her most-wished for Chanukah present - Done
  
• Seeing my childhood friend Sarah, just for fun; it has been since Rosh Hashanah! - Done
  
• Going to synagogue more often; it always lifts me, and we're too often too tired to get to the city on Friday nights after a long week
  
• Seeing "Milk;" "Frost-Nixon;" "Slumdog Millionaire" - Saw "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire"
  
• Catching up on all the magazine articles I started that have waited in a stack patiently on my nightstand, and that are knocked off by Toonces nearly every dawn as she seeks our attention - Done
  
• Finishing Watchmen and Doris Lessing's cats book, and reading Three Cups of Tea and The Zookeeper's Wife - Read Doris Lessing's and Watchmen and opted not to read the other two at this point
  
• Figuring out a writing project for fun -- maybe more blogging, maybe a magazine article, maybe the start of a book(!) - Sent a query letter to a magazine for an article I could write
  
• Seeing the Calder exhibit at the Whitney - Doing soon
  
• Doing some more drawing - Done.
  

That was a fun catalog to create and now, back to the present, which isn't so bad either:

I've got a purring cat curled on my lap; am wearing my favorite, softest, most comfortable sweater for cold weather; already have read the interesting parts of the Sunday "New York Times," including the Modern Love article and the front-page story on the "first friends" of the Obamas, and how they hope and plan to keep their friendships active once Barak Obama becomes president; and now, I get to finish showing off what I gleaned from what I read all semester in six-eight pages, three of which I wrote last night; and then I get to work on refining a set of FAQs further for work that are going to be appreciated by their audience; and in-between, I probably get to talk to family or a friend or two by phone...and maybe, I will get myself out for a swim on this sunny, chilly day -- a swim indoors.