08-1-2025 

Is the narrative I am seeking, for presentation at a ROOTS Week workshop by Bob Leonard, meant to introduce ART IN/WITH COMMUNITY as an expression of social equity or to be used as a thread for participants to investigate around their community and make art around their findings?

I think it is both, introducing art in/with community as the language of social equity and asking participants to take a year (till next camp) to create locally rooted artworks, from writings to songs, to visual arts, to cooking.

I show it to Gwylene. She tells me it is too complicated and, in any case, we have only been asked to eventually come up with an idea. She advises me to just send the “art in/with community is the language of equity” sentence as a possible introductory sentence. I am not sure this is enough for me to get involved fully … She may be right. What is most important at ROOTS is that the practice of the arts be central as an activity and as a subject to debate,  just as Liz Lehrman proposes with her Critical Response process.

 

08-11-025

Back from an animated ROOTS Week. We were told about the meltdown provoked by very poor accounting at the time of the former Executive Director. Audits had not been conducted for 3 years, although they should at least be annual. Not sure how this is really possible in such a resilient organization (almost 50 years), under the scrutiny of the incredibly dedicated (mostly) women who founded ROOTS and a cadre of revolving members extremely versed in the administration of not-for-profit arts organizations (mostly) women as well. At this point, the mess has been sorted out but the staff, which for a time counted 18 workers, now numbers 8, which is still 2 or 3 times more than in many of the years I have been a Rooter – about 20 years, I would say.

As for the workshop that gave me some trepidations, because I had never worked with Bob before and because his proposal was very confusing, it has morphed into something I cannot really describe, except that he is now looking for volunteers to rewrite the Bylaws of ROOTS – in order to avoid more trouble: review the tasks and responsibilities of each directing body: board of directors, executive committee, executive director and the administration. My real interest is to see each of these bodies center on ROOTS as the ARTS organization it is, and perform their duties in the spirit of the arts, with the practice of art – if at all imaginable – integrated in said practice! I am certain, until proof to the contrary, that art’s creative muscle could activate a spreadsheet or an Ex-Com meeting! It coud even inspire alternative ways to conduct business! Short of this, the working mechanisms at ROOTS are too far from my present interest. I will not pursue collaboration with Bob on this …

One thing he kept from TINYisPOWERFUL for his presentation was the use of the Question/Relay as a dialogic tool. But how he butchered it I wont tell! When I got up, at one point, to try to tell him, I was cut off. I was cut off a second time by Gwylène herself when, as I was sitting on the ‘answerer’s chair’, she judged that my answer was wrong!!! Thus giving the audience a splendid example of bad behavior in the ‘listening’ exercise’ we claim Question/Relay to be! At least, it was  theater! Not too bad for a flop. Bob, by the way, at debriefing, qualified Question/Relay as a great ‘conversational’ format! I despaired! Altogether a proof to me that ROOTS also has its routines and that the holders of tradition wont necessarily pay attention to new proposals.

The highlight of the Week, to me, was Daniel Johnson’s art presentation. A sound and visual mixed media piece worthy of John Cage! At the Critical Response which followed his presentation I even went so far as to ask him if he would write an Opera with me! Of course, this was a joke but it took the audience aback and we talked about the liberatory quality of such a mixing of genres. It reverberates on spectators and gave me the idea of asking him. Anyhow, I told him about ‘the RUNNING DOG’ and the mechanism which makes sound run around an audience sitting in the center a room. There he was very interested and wanted to know more.  We will talk soon!

Throughout the week I helped Gwylène with video-recording 20 interviews of ROOTS members around a relevant topic, as she does often. This time, it was COLLABORATION. She will edit the recording, add it to her yearly ROOTS Week’s documents and archives and present it at public meetings.

An other moment was when, in the last minutes of the camp I approached Wendy, the director, for goodbyes and proposed that ROOTS put more poetry in its accounting and administrating. This might reduce the risks of hypertension and management mishaps! In fact, this was no joke. In two occasions at least, I asked Rooters, unhappy with the straightjacket that the non-profit format imposes on funding beneficiaries, if it was realistic to ask an art organization like ROOTS to be totally at ease with its money sources, as long as they are Foundations often supportive of today’s brutal capitalism. This is a fundamental question rarely raised, even at ROOTS. Maybe whoever is aware of the dilemna knows how big a risk it is, nowadays, to practice DEI on principle!

Then, there was a performance ‘on the porch’, by a Palestinian member, and her reading of a poem at ‘Late Night’, (ROOTS late evening space for free expression and unrestricted creativity). Most everyone came out of the Performance a bit puzzled by the message, based on the phrase: “That’s what you want? – That’s what you get”. As for the poem, it was a moment of reflection and inner silence in an ocean of techno-pop music. Rooters are not overtly political. They mostly do their work with their local community and do not much express their personal biases as far as politics are concerned. I had to get used to this also!

 

08-12-2025

Slowly, America is being strangled by the audaciously perverse executive orders of its president! It may be a matter of sheer landmass, but how many a Richter 8 earthquake will it take for synchronicity to shape a people’s response to the guy’s abuses? How far is too far, on this continent, to mobilize, say, five million citizens  marching in unison, although tea-time in New-York is brunch in L A?  What if there are too many bodies to contain, to rough up, to jail? Blood in the street? Enough of a shriek for the Jock to freak? I believe Viet-Nam became so unbearable that  the pressure of despair sweezed millions out of their cecity and forced them to protest. Although Viet-Nam was far, far away unlike Milwaukee or New-Orleans, the war had come very close to, and struck, the heart of Americans, one way or an other. Today, won’t subversion, treason and pillage be enough of a cause to unify Americans – for survival? Or will America fall into chaos?- I see the headlines already: < Democracy in America is now adrift > – , < President Trump fails to make America Great again > … or  will it read: < Air pollution deters a million march on Washington >. Not a much better prospect I say!

On n’ on.

 

08-16-2025

Today, Saturday, Gwylène and Pam have organized a TINY Investigation. It is taking place at Ripple, a co-working/meeting space at the Cigar Factory of Charleston, free of access to non-profit organizations or local associations.

They had invited more people than usual to bring them up to date with where TINYisPOWERFUL stands these days. They showed two short movies of our former community installations and asked: where do we go from here?

We learned about quantities of projects, art or not, which could give hope for a better future, despite the darkness of the American skies right now. Scott Watson, the City of Charleston director of Cultural Affairs also listed a number of available spaces that could be fit for a Community Lab. The general mood showed a  concern for the future of America, but it still looks like the best way to ride the storm will be to ignore it as long as possible! Or to believe that historic epiphenomena are not what dictate our future! Charleston and its Black population, with whom we do most of our work, has known so much abuse and has marked Charleston’s culture so profoundly, that the general laidback atmosphere remains, in appearance, undisturbed. Yet, two or three of the people present insisted that the Charleston youth is very active, especially in the arts field. There is hope then … As long as not too many burgeoning local artists don’t decide to move to Mexico! At least for a while. As Abriel and Ron did!

At one point, Gwylène repeated a phrase she likes to quote, to the effect that “We are all artists”. I have never believed this. But I did not, so far, have a quick answer to offer. Until today that is! … After the meeting, at home, Gwylène and I talked. I repeated my opposition and said: We may not all be artists but those who make their trade an art are surely artists! Wouldn’t this make us all artists?  This reminds me of this indigenous artist from the South-West who states that it is not the art he does which makes him an artist but the life he builds with his family. This is my memory of him. I quote him extensively somewhere in this journal. I am researching!

What I understand this artist to say is that his art is the language of his humanity.

And here is the result of my search:

(10.21.2023)

Cannupa Hanska Luger is a native American artist Based in New-Mexico who, in an ART 21 <art21.org> video clip, floored me when he declared that what makes an artist is the beauty of her/his life! Luger’s production may be eclectic and formally unbound, yet each of his pieces shows a quality of completion which affirms the  full clarity of his intents. Below is an artist statement of his.

“As a contemporary artist Indigenous to North America, I am motivated to reclaim and reframe a more accurate version of 21st century Native American culture and its powerful global relevance. The customary practices of the world’s Indigenous people have been imprisoned to the past. Indigenous craft and arts, when not cannibalized by western culture, are considered primitive or extinct. My practice is rooted in the continuum of generations before me, the urgency for Indigenous visibility in this moment and the dreaming of Indigenous futures. Building worlds and dismantling misconceptions through monumental installations, sculpture and performance, I place myself between the realms of contemporary art and Indigenous culture, moving amidst museums and the front lines to enact a more complex understanding of contemporary Indigeneity. The materials that I use are emblematic of human civilization including clay, textiles, steel and digital media. Clay signifies our connection to place, literally the ground on which we stand. We create textiles from plants and animals, reflecting our truly embodied relationship between fiber and flesh. Steel has allowed humans to develop, build and dominate; it provides the physical structures for control and capital. And technology now provides an opportunity to question our civility and our connectedness through durational and situational media. I activate speculative fiction as a methodology, a practice, a way of future dreaming, rooted in an Indigenous continuum. I engage in land-based performative actions to pledge accountability to the land and waters affected by resource extraction and industry. I practice empathetic response and community catharsis through craft based social collaboration. Whether working with institutions, communities or with the land itself, my work is inherently social and requires engagement. I aim to lay groundwork, establish connections and mobilize action – to challenge the systemic conditions of colonialism while making space for urgent and emergent Indigenous narratives.”

It is clear that his understanding of beauty includes a sense of cultural, social and political values and responsibilities.

The difference between my present interpretation of Cannupa Hanska Luger’s quote and the original one, reflects – first, the mediocre quality of my memory, and – second,

an evolution in my thinking. I have generalized what he calls ‘beauty’ into ‘life with his family’. Does this mean that to be called art, its practice requires virtue? No. It means that, today, in this dark period of world history, if I believe that art, along with science, are essential tools for the acquisition, interpretation and storage of knowledge, its production better carry light and hope rather than dystopia.

Yet, there is an essential distinction I keep forgetting to make when I use the generic word ART. I mean IN/WITH COMMUNITY ART. Case in point: when Frank, last night, during his 71st anniversary Zoom celebration, retorting to my proposition about art and family life, chose Picasso as a counter-example, it is because I had not made the distinction clear to others.The Sotheby side of art production and commerce actually may have cashed in on Picasso’s life style and his treatment of women. But in the case of the IN/WITH COMMUNITY ART  TINYisPOWERFUL practices, context, geographical as well as historical, is essential to give the work credence and relevance.

 

08-19-2025

https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1730/gallery/

This UNESCO site presents a set of pictures that blow my mind. In me, they inspire awe for humanity. The discovery of these funerary sites in Sardinia proves that memorials for the dead are among the most important traces ancesters leave behind, intentionally. They perpetuate, they pass on their history, they create architectures of eternal beauty telling us that, for their dead, the best they could do was the least they could do. Of course, the dead may have been a violent tyrant, a gross abuser of women, a thief …  Couldn’t art, after all, be an opportunity for excellence and redemption from individual or civilizational flaws? It would not exempt the makers of such monuments from their social responsibilities. It makes them the transmitters of the best in their contemporaries.

There is esthetics there! And ethics too.

There is no esthetics without ethics.

Ethics?

Yes.

Isn’t ethics a check on the relationship between what is at a given time and place, and what one does with it?

Doesn’t this make ethics personal and contextual?

Then, would there be art without context?

There is no art without context.

Without context, there is but introverted self-expression.

 

08-24-2025

For the last while, centering mostly on editing this Journal from the beginning, I have been accumulating days and days without entries. For one thing, Gwylène has convinced me to stop calling it a diary. It is definitely not a compilation of intimate stories, needing the secret of a hidden container! It has been a semi-daily place for facts, stories and reflections on my life with TINYisPOWERFUL, to be stored, edited and eventually given away so they have a chance to show how a tiny IN/WITH COMMUNITY ART COLLECTIVE can make its tiny difference inside the tiny geography of its activities!

It is a labor of love FOR a world in search.

It is a Journal.