How Art Teaches Us How to Change

I always get frustrated at the fact that one of the first things that gets cut when schools are trying to save money is the arts. I majored in theater and know the love of being on stage. I’m a writer of both poetry and fiction. I’m an artist. For me the arts are not a luxury they are a way of life. The arts in its many forms can not only entertain but it can teach. It can make you think.

Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin is widely considered to be a major influence in starting the American Civil War. John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath created major controversy in its depiction of migrant farm workers. George Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess for all its faults did provide for African Americans the showcase to prove they could be a force to be reckoned with in the entertainment business. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American woman to be performed on Broadway. Andrew Wyeth and Norman Rockwell showed that art and the common man belonged together. Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie brought an awareness of the working man’s condition to the world of song.

The arts like anything else can be turned and used for propaganda. The arts can also be a powerful tool to teach and bring to the forefront the issues and problems of real people. By its very nature art changes and evolves. A few years ago the idea of doing art on computers was laughed at. With the arthritis in my hands it is the only way I can do artwork these days.

It is in this ability to change and adapt that art has the most valuable lesson for today’s world. We must change and try new ideas if we are to conquer the problems facing us today. The ideas of the past are not working. I work in a small town hospital. I know from first hand experience that there is a health care crisis. I see people struggling to find jobs and to pay their bills. FDR realized with his New Deal that it is the common man who suffers most in economic down turns. We must change and we must push our representatives to change. The policies of the previous eight years have been proven not to work. It is time for the common man to be represented and given the chance to live the American Dream.

As readers of this diary know I was the caregiver for my mother for six years. We lost Mom in May. We had lost my Dad in May of 1999. Both of my parents loved my artwork and I frequently did pictures specifically for my Mom in the last couple of years. My Dad was a major reason that I pursued the art as he was one of my biggest cheerleaders. The last picture I did before my Dad died was one I called Gathering Moonlight. The picture illustrates a scene in one of my short stories. My Dad loved the picture. I have been reworking old pictures as the models and technology has advanced with computer art and I want the pictures to reflect those changes and the new techniques I have learned. I always hesitated to redo Gathering Moonlight because of the emotional connection it had for me as the last picture Dad saw before he died. Last night though I asked myself the question what would you do if Dad were still alive? The answer was that I would redo the picture and show it to him. So for Dad and Mom here is the new version of Gathering Moonlight. You have to be able to change. The past formed our present and what we do in the present will form our future. If we don’t want to repeat the errors of the past we must change now or there will be no future. This is the lesson we can learn from the arts.

Perchance to Dream

I have always had problems with insomnia. On weekdays when I know I have to be at work I’ll go ahead and take the Ambien so I can at least get some sleep. On weekends or days when I don’t have to work I’ll just do the best I can. Often times it means that I get up in the early hours of the morning and go on the computer. Pixie is my companion at those times as she is a little night owl. Merlin just takes over the whole bed and goes back to sleep.

I have been going through a bout of really missing Mom the last couple of weeks. I have been dreaming of her the last couple of nights. After the nightmare of a couple of weeks ago I was hoping not to dream of her but the land of dreams follows its own rules. I’m beginning to suspect that Pixie is avoiding sleeping at night. Mom would proudly tell me in the mornings how Pixie would “sleepy time with Grandmother all night” although I knew she had been up prowling when Mom was asleep. She would come upstairs to my room to eat on the off chance that the upstairs kitty café was serving a different menu from the one downstairs.

Last night Pixie cuddled up next to me for over an hour although neither one of us slept. She catches up on her sleep during the day. She still keeps watch on me at three in the morning, the time we believed that Mom died. She needs to make sure that I don’t leave her like Mom did. She comes in several times during the night to check. I think that is her way of dealing with the loss. She has chosen me to be her new person and she checks up on her person frequently. As time passes maybe she will be a little more secure and actually curl up on the bed and sleep.

The night before when I dreamed of Mom it was a dream where I knew she was dead and shouldn’t be where she was. I was trying to get her back where she belonged. She could only go through the motions silently visiting that way. Last night I dreamed again of Mom but this time she came for a visit to comfort me. We spent a day with me taking her to the stores on the shopping trip that she wasn’t well enough in life to go on. The next morning in the dream I was finding evidence that she had really been there. I was the most comforting dream I have had since she died. I hope Pixie has comforting dreams like that. She really misses her Grandmother.

I think it is significant that I had that dream right after I started a prolonged creative streak and have been doing a lot of art work. I am even embarking on a new short story for the first time in four years. I think Mom knows I miss her and she wanted me to know that she is still with me. I am still finding my way after being a caregiver for six years. I think Mom was trying to tell me last night that she appreciated my being here with her and that she will always be with me in spirit.