I Am Not an Artist of the Empire
BOUND
BOUND represents my transfiguration into the Radical.
One of the definitions of the word bound is “To be in a place where there are certain limitations and/or restrictions”, a prime example is when your freedom of action is circumscribed by the empire.
I came into my own during the 1960s. I was a young housewife and mother living in the suburbs of Boston, but in my head and heart I was a freedom fighter. A cultural warrior documenting the strength, dignity and beauty of people dying while struggling for justice. In those days when I approached my easel, I was on the front lines. I vividly recall applying for an SBA loan to assist me in opening a studio Gallery. I was turned down by a local bank. The ruler in the dark suit seated behind the desk uttered “We don’t loan money to artists” all the while moving papers around on his desk. He was letting me know that I had been dismissed.
I am making this my moment of protest as I have become more artistically and individually mature—connecting my voice to the folk’s voices. Years ago, my attention was diverted and so focused on the empire that I missed the signs of hope, love and charity as actions, not just words. I feel that the empire overwhelmingly had influenced my inner consciousness. I used the same unjust mannerisms as that of the empire in critiquing myself and others. I can no longer accommodate the power of the rulers. Quite frankly, what I take in and what I put out is a breath of life that transcends the spiritual gospel of oneness. “I cannot breathe” is not solely about the sanctioned murder of a black man. Till now, it has been about the struggle to breath from a dark dingy death pit on the bottom of some slave ship. We, the folk, have not taken a real deep breath in our collective lives.
I do not care anymore about art as a product. My only concern, now, is the process which makes my oeuvre difficult to sum up. As a young artist my standards were based on the methods of the modern ruler, and, I looked forward to a bohemian expression embracing tragedy and hard living. Now as I’ve matured into a Cultural Carrier for my folk, I have plugged back into the duality of who I am personally.
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I am no longer an artist of the empire.
I am keeping tabs on the systemic assaults by the blood thirsty avatars of cruelty and death. I am watching and listening to the extraordinary stories of people who are rising and transforming sites that were intended to be fields of death, repurposing them into fertile grounds of new life and new beginnings. I hear the birthing sound and feel movement that is filling me with the promise of a new 21st-century of freedom where I raise myself and my folk up from the disposable waste of the rulers and guardians of a radical capitalism into essential players who can shape lives and help forge the best of our culture.
THIS CREATES CHAOS
CHAOS represents the ancestral breach that I must forge.
Chaos is defined as “A formless matter supposed to have existed before creation of the universe. Or as complete disorder and confusion.”
I ask, am I supposed to believe that we belong to the rulers? Is the goal of my labor to build up their world? Must I bow down at the altar of their materialized spiritually malformed culture and give them praise and honor as a faithful servant? Do I replace my ideologies in order to give the rulers larger meaning and space in my life and consciousness? Do I forget what my ancestors fought for and died? Am I here to keep the status quo of the empire?
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Why did we give up the authenticity of our folk’s living and breathing culture resulting in giving license to the empire to manufacture and mass-produce us into replicas of themselves? Isn’t this soul suicide? I do not believe that a race or class of men are endowed with divine and natural rights to rule over us, demand our obedience, direct our lives, and controls all of the Earth’s resources. Whether I am free or whether I am bound to the whims and control of the rulers, I will not be a victim of soul suicide. The rulers are not the gatekeepers for my culture. I am! Language is a gateway to freedom and to our full humanity. Black and brown people are not wholly marginalized. We are essential people in creation and in democracy. We are significant to our family, friends, and our local and national communities. In short, we are more than what they believe us to be. My language, my art must speak to reaffirm the multi-dimensional aspects of our lives in the different spaces we occupy. Folk’s lives are masterpieces; thin lines of will and power are etched on their outsides and insides. We possess the gift of movement. We can fly with our feet affixed to the ground.
STEPPING OUT
Stepping out represents my declaration of independence from the handcuffs placed on my possibility.
I am stretching life for new windows through which to view and roam in braver parts of myself. Each of us proves this by showing up every day to make a new perspective. Despite my blemishes, I am here creating, loving and hoping. I repeat, I am here alive loving, alive hoping and alive creating, and, this is enough to fulfill me where I am. My task is to create life and life affirming policies. I am a Cultural Carrier. I can no longer sit silently by—numbing myself to the smell and stench of the death the rulers pour out into the world. I am not a zombie. I’ve risen from my bed of affliction. I am whole. I have begun a journey away from death towards a new life. As I strip myself naked of the pretenses in the piled up years of self-negation and spiritual deprivation, I refuse the invitation of rulers, and, yes even those people who would love for me to make myself smaller so that they can feel and live large. I will break free from the political battleground and the appearance of inherited Post Traumatic Syndrome (PTS). Our inherited traumas resulting from lynchings, running, the slave block, and family separations. We are not a broken people. I will use my art to mediate the trauma—to demonstrate our victory.
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HISTORY IS WRITTEN BY THE VICTORS
I am envisioning a new community. The rulers have dismiss mine as unworthy and subhuman. However, all around me I see human hearts being moved; it’s exhilarating and hopeful. The cultural carriers are creating a new and better community for justice!
I am not an artist of the empire. I am a cultural carrier for my folk. I’m leaving the comfort of my individual sojourn to walk side-by-side with all my fellow sojourners to unfamiliar territories. We, who the rulers tell us are unworthy of care or resources. I am dipping my heart into the newness and rawness of an unscripted adventure.
In this significant moment there is meaning for me—my life is forever changed. My relationships will not be the same. The intimacies created by this time in history is a soul force that will shake the very foundation of the empire. It is ludicrous to believe any rulers idea about the overall progress of African Americans from a historic standpoint because the empires‘ history has no duality!
Cultural Carriers are the lines drawn in the Sand!
Much of what I have written here comes straight from text and phone conversations with my friend the Rev. Dr. Ruby Sales and her nightly “From My Front Porch Series” on Facebook. Ruby is a legendary African American social justice and Southern Freedom Rights Movement activist. She is the founder ( 2001) and director of The Spirit House Project in Atlanta a national nonprofit organization that uses the arts, research, education, action, and spirituality to bring diverse people’s together to work for racial, economic and social justice, as well as for spiritual maturity. Ruby Sales is a much loved and appreciated Elder of the Civil Right era and I am one ofher dedicated disciples. It is in this vain that I hope I have brought the voice of her hindsight, insight, and foresight to the pages of ROUTES in conjunction with my art for the empowerment of the Folk.
- I Am Not an Artist of the Empire - 05/14/2020
Thank you. What an incredible piece, just so powerful. I was moved to tears. I love the
Artist Statement and her Work
Thank you, Elaine
I like it, it’s like the old saying “The more things change the more they stay the same”. and it is time for changes,
You have spoken words to the words most are unable to voice as we remain shackled to the empire and fighting amongst ourselves for favor by those who will never love us…
Joye, thank you for your comment. It is time for us to come together as a community in order to love ourselves individually and collectively. The global elite are killing us! I grieve the power we have given away yet I hold out hope. When backed into a corner our people fight with fists raised high… the revolution will not be televised.
You are so right, and I wonder if white Americans would recognise themselves as emissaries of their empire. Living in Great Britain for 50 years, I have tended to regard European empires as the ones with former empires…..and it is such a powerful word. Of course we had the Roman empire and the Mongol empire and Babylonian and Aztec and Austro-Hungarian…..Soviet…..etc etc …..all of which rose and fell and defined their power in geography. But the modern empire is more insidious as it enslaves minds and souls and spirits and is not merely held in place by soldier and weapons. The modern American/White empire is everywhere. But I think its days are numbered. Will the Chinese Empire replace it? I hope not. I hope that we are moving away from the idea of Empire…..as the need for empires fades. I di believe that empires are only about control, power, wealth and glory……the glory being sought because all of the citizens of the empire do not share in the control, power, and wealth of the empire. No. The poor and the enslaved are encouraged to believe that they are lifted and honoured by being citizens of the empire…….and these lowly members are led to believe that “their” empire raises them above those who have been conquered. They may be lowly, but they are above those who are not of the empire. That sort of slavery is the most difficult to erase – when the slaves of the empire identify with their oppressors……as if being a slave is an honour. I hope there are new seeds being planted though, the seeds of communion in which we all identify with each other because we feel safe and in harmony with each other as living beings with one life…….and that life began millions of years ago and can extend millions if years in the future only because of the part we each play in our daily lives. Our genes define us! Those genes that we share in common exceed those which are different……so your glory is my glory…..your beauty is my beauty…..your success is my success….your potential is my potential…..and your pain is my pain. And your child is my child. Unless we have that as our goal, we will be divided and used as slaves to empires. You are right. We must not serve the empire…..any empire. As I sit in my house in the Mediterranean sea, a prisoner of a virus, I feel closer to you across the seas than I have ever felt. That is the start!
Thank you John. I am grieving for what we, the people have given away. I do not have an answer as to how we will survive. One person cannot change what is happening. My part is to do the art. It will take a global collective consciousness to bring about the changes necessary. You, by the words you have written here, are part of this conscious revolution. We must build a village community whereby like-minded people bring whatever gifts they have and lay them at the feet of the folk; writers, lawyers, artists,actors, doctors, on and on until media begins to re-shape reality echoing our sound chamber instead of that of the soul-less empire.
I am moved and honored to know Gale and her work. The thoughts she has shared , along with the responses of all who read them, bring me gladness, and joy.
Thank you Darcey I know you get it…! Your words here are much appreciated.
Powerful. Moving. This stirred my soul. I can see and feel you and your philosophy spill out in the pieces.
Thanks for taking me on this journey.
Thank you DeWanda! I appreciate you, as one of my collectors you are a valuable stepping stone
in my journey across rough terrain and troubled waters.
Gale, you reveal how there can be no distinction between the written word and visual art when both mirror an artist’s an inner soul with emotional power, beauty and poignancy. You are among the finest of artists not simply because you produce masterful paintings but because you uncover what it means to be human, both bad and good.
Thank you very much Harry. I responded to your comment here on FB.
Beautiful and affirming. I’m both moved and inspired, thank you.
Thank you Najee! talk with you soon.
“Why did we give up the authenticity of our folk’s living and breathing culture resulting in giving license to the empire to manufacture and mass-produce us into replicas of themselves?” You pose an interesting question yet I might suggest that rather than “give up . . . authenticity” we surrendered (a perhaps subtle but I think important distinction) our cultural connections in the face of the Empire’s unrelenting brutality. Did Empire intend to replicate replicas of themselves? Perhaps; but inexact replicas, to be sure, that would allow Empire to maintain its perceived superiority.
Empire has done a masterful job at convincing us we that we are no more than what we deserve to be. In L.A. police helicopters are unabashedly referred to as “Ghetto birds.” We can’t seem to shake the notion that we while we can excel at sports and entertainment, successes in business and political are still anomalies. Successful black people are “a credit to their race.” How many of us can identify Snoop Dog but not Henry O. Tanner? Jay-Z but not Jacob Lawrence? That is not a comparison of value but rather a comment about our lost and/or hidden culture. Empire has sown the seeds of inadequacy and works assiduously to perpetuate our ignorance and inferiority.
And I deliberately capitalized Empire because it is not an abstraction but a living, breathing thing, like Jabba the Hutt, that still seeks to control.
Bravo! Brava!!This is so powerful and poignant. Your words are as beautiful as your paintings, they too craft images in my mind of the darker days from ago and the brighter days emerging. My favorite part was when you said “The rulers are not the gatekeepers for my culture. I am!” It’s the “I am!” that resonated with me. I am is what God calls Himself and in Psalm 82:6 God tells His children “I said, ‘You are “gods”; you are all sons (and daughters) of the Most High.'” That being so, you are reclaiming your Divine inheritance, our Divine DNA!! I LOVE this piece. I LOVE you.
oh yeah, a suggestion: The title “They’ve Killed Aunty J” you should add “… Aunt Jemima.” If Ron hadn’t told me, I would’ve missed the comedy. Without the explanation, the piece is somber and sober instead of liberating and celebratory.
Thank you so much Perri.
You obviously get it! You made the correct connection because
I Am You and You Are Me! My TEDx Talk made in 2016 is all about I AM..
The Aunty J piece is meant, in this instance, to be somber and sobering as it is me speaking metaphorically to the sanctioned murders of Black men and women by the police / the avatars of death. In the context of comedy I will send you an image titled “Photo Op with Aunty J” and she is very recognizable, alive, happy standing with me. My arm is around her shoulder. I LOVE you too Kiddo! You are a friend for life.
Wow! Thank you Edward for your deep commentary.
….”The Empire has sown seeds of inadequacy and works assiduously to perpetuate our ignorance and inferiority…” It is very striking as to how much of the history of eugenics remains and manifests itself in the spirit and language that define this empire and its rulers approach to the current pandemic. We must talk virtually over drinks soon.
While reading Gale’s piece what first came to my mind was
‘other worldly’. Upon reflection, it seems appropriate to me that NOW, May 18, 2020 is the time for another way of being in the world, seeing the world and feeling the world.
With words like empire, avatar, soul suicide and cultural warrior, Gale
transported me emotionally to a more expansive realm of awareness.
Being an artist myself I especially liked her conclusion that she is no longer interested in the end product but much more the process of creating.
There is prose, poetry and art in this piece.
What I take away from the article is this: truth, inspiration, freedom and a call to action.
It reminds me of what we speak about so often in the SGI Buddhism I practice “Human Revolution”.
Thank you, Gale
Elaine
Thank you Elaine. I appreciate your comments. Words are powerful and sometimes transportive.
I like trying to craft a sentence it means I can be more than a sketchbook scribbler. (smile)