House-to-House Arts Festival - 2025 02 18

 

Graphite, pencil crayon, ink, acrylic paint, wax on paper - 11" x 17"

A crow is perched on an old iron monument, a relic of the industrial age. The iron relic symbolizes the deterioration of late stage capitalism and patriarchy. The crow is free to fly in any direction she chooses. The crow signifies our life force, our connection to nature and our indomitable will.

We are in the midst of dynamic change to established social systems of organization. The rule of patriarchy is proving to be unsustainable. Those who have benefited from the privilege of patriarchal taxonomy are panicking to stay in power. The weakness and vulnerability of patriarchal systems of power are being exposed on a daily basis. We are extricating ourselves from thousands of years of domestic violence and abuse. Leaving an abusive relationship is the most dangerous time. We need help and outside support to safely transition out of domestic violence.

In the process of extricating ourselves from abusive relationships we start to learn who we can trust, where we hold legitimate agency and personal power, and how we can set up new households and organizational structures that are caring, equitable and bring out the best in everyone. We learn how to be an inclusive society, drawing on the strengths of each member, no matter whether they are able-bodied or able-minded, we want everyone on the team. No last picks.

What if we hosted House-to-House Arts Festivals on the days that we schedule "buy nothing and do nothing" protests, we could double and triple the benefit of those days. We could build our networks of support to bolster our strength extricating ourselves from abusive political and professional relationships. We could starve the existing patriarchal system of abuse and power imbalance that has led to our current condition of oligarchy overreach. We could produce hopeful, expressive works of arts to share and feed our collective spirits. We could break down patriarchal social systems of isolationism, individualism, loneliness, consumerism, and the commodification of meaningless, distracting arts.

 The monument is useful as a perch but it no longer serves any other productive purpose. The crow continues to survive and thrive. We can learn from the crow and salvage useful material from this piece of iron.