ART IS A MEDIUM ... so is the artist ... so are you

Public Art, Loss & Recovery

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I’m so thankful that my niece reached out to me a few weeks back to be a part of an event she was putting together. T works for the city in addiction recovery and was throwing a street festival to celebrate sobriety. Besides a food truck, a DJ, a kids area and a variety of community groups to be in attendance, she needed a binding agent to help ground the experience. Artwork came first and foremost to her mind. And I, thankfully came second.

She called me soon after and asked if I could create an interactive piece of art that not only honors the loved ones that so many of us have lost to substance abuse, but does so in a manner that also celebrates recovery and the joy of living.

Well, it‘s not every day you get to paint a mural to help others heal from trauma and loss while celebrating as a community. I jumped at the opportunity even though I had no idea what I might make. The only suggestions from her team were that it incorporate the recovery colors of purple and teal, and that it include a space for people to write name on once complete.

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What I love about the creative process is that it often feels like I don’t have much to do with it. For me, there is a sense of invitation that must come first. It’s like opening a window. In comes the fresh air and the sounds of things that cannot be seen from inside. A strong wind might blow in some rainwater or a swirling drift of snow. And, because there isn’t a screen, perhaps some wildlife might stray in as well. What’s important is that you simply allow it all in first, and then decide what you will do with it afterwards.

In truth, it didn’t take long to come up with the design idea once a few elements blew in. Recovery symbols, wings and feathers, the phrase, “I carry your heart it mine” in reference to the great E. E. Cummings love poem, a heart, the color purple, and the color teal.

I quickly sketched what appeared (or materialized creative energy as I like to think of it) on paper, and shared it with the team Over text. The immediate response, “Yessss we love it!”

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Now painting can be hard work and can just as easily flow like a cool breeze on a warm day. Painting is a process and a completed work is, in many ways, a construction project. There are building material, tools, staging areas, waiting periods, design challenges, and project management decisions to make. Painting in a public space also adds other considerations such as the natural elements, the overall environment, access to resources such as toilets, water, food, and shade. It also involves the human factor. People like to stop by. I like it when they do. Sometimes they offer quick words of encouragement and move on, sometimes they can’t continue on quick enough.

Whatever the case, keep that window open! I had about 8 hours of open window time to put up 64 square feet worth of meaningful design with my brushes and paints. But doing the work is really the best part. It really is just such a wonderful process, even with the challenge. The painting at the end of the process is really just the icing on the cake.

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In retrospect two moments about this period of time stand out strongly for me:

The first was the very personal experience I had while painting the work itself. It was late in the day, the golden light of the sun lengthening, a cool breeze upon me, music pulsing through my head phones as I worked the paint standing atop a ladder. As I turned into the wind, the fullness of the experience shot through me in a trembling, and exultant joy. Chills rippled through me as my arms raised to the sky and laughter burst forth from within. In this moment I was no longer the open window but the breeze itself. And what joy there in in that surrender.

At that very second of laughter, an elder man on his bicycle rounded the corner and ours became a shared joy, one bathed in the glory and the fullness of life as he smiled and shouted in his own joy in witness of mine.

The second impactful moment was the day of the event itself. Upon stepping up to the work for the first time in this public space, to see all those names written upon the feathers, I was completely overcome. I began to weep, as I do again in this very moment. It’s hard to explain the emotion of bearing witness, of being the conduit for so much loss without sounding trite. But I need to try because it’s vital I do so.

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ART IS A MEDIUM.

The artist is also a medium, a conduit between the ether and the physical plane. It is our role here on earth to connect the seen and the unseen, the physical and the metaphysical. It is our role to bear witness to it all and tell that tale through our creative expression. To feel completely, to surrender unreservedly, to love wholly, to give freely, and to heed the call to make work that creates space for others to do the same.

And please remember none of us has jurisdiction over this.

You too ARE The Medium.

WE are all The Medium.

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I encourage you to find a window to open, you never know what the breeze might blow in.

Much Love,

- Ashley Cole