04-03-2024
Gwylène is answering a call from Victoria for articles in the NewsLetter. We think about the topic of Accountability and she finds the place, in this diary, where I started focusing on the subject. It is dated 09-28-2023. Accountability is top on Pam’s list of values. We wanted to talk about it further. Indeed, lately, I have intended to write a piece on the subject. But I never got to it. Now, GG has decided to propose a note on Palestine instead. But I still want to do the accountability research. It will be done … when the building of Bill’s kitchen is over! An other 30 days!
In the meantime war is spreading across the world and it does not seem to faze our leaders a bit!
The (extra)ordinary suffering of ordinary people is the daily diet of entire populations.
No, it does not seem to faze our leaders a bit.
The day a New Declaration of Universal Human Rights is written and engraved on the windows to the world, there will be ground for accountability. Because it takes grounds for accountability to stand on.
04-07-2024
Checking the ArchDaily site this morning. Seeing this array of unbelievably expansive and expensive individual homes, I wonder when, in their collective wisdom, moneyed human beings will learn the importance of equity in housing. It would be a start for those guys.
As I daydream of a more reasonable plutocracy, my hands mime something like compressing a nebula floating before my face. Arms extend, cheeks and shoulders contract, eyes squint, teeth grate. How to extract mental density from physical exertion, Rambo-style. Putting a genie back in its bottle! Expressions of an intense desire to concentrate, to be intelligent, to make sense, to seize the moment and, then, to be heard, understood! Yet, as Coluche, the French philosophizing entertainer and Human Rights activist, declared: caviar does not taste any better by the ladle.
Find your art form. Practice art. Intake the wisdom of listening to your brain’s needs and ignore your appetite for excesses and frivolities! Be smart. Look at your neighbors in the eye. Exchange homemade gifts and personal thoughts with them. Practice asking questions you do not have answers to. Cultivate collective intelligence ….
And let my last advise of the day be: do not eat too much candy, chocolate! or caviar. Pointless!
Now, I must go to the studio to do some varnishing before Saleha comes back tomorrow. She is a great friend to have because of her deep sense of integrity and self-respect (self-worth). They are at the root of any reciprocity and accountability as I understand them.
04-12-2024
Today, I have been sequestrated for a time of forced rest! I am still paying for the final efforts put into finishing the work with Saleha. In fact, how can I complain? The highest price I have paid so far for all my fatigue has been a very unusually long night of sleep: 7 consecutive hours! Definitely an objective sign, to be taken seriously.
However, I just looked at today’s issue of Archdaily and have stumbled upon this picture below.
Nothing unusual. Except that, at this moment, in Charleston, with the Union Pier imbroglio, such an organic, open-plan cityscape may be an inspiring fit for development. And no sign of cars. How more civil can cities become, when their pedestrian streets and plazas, emerging from grid-free building blocks, open up and quasi invade their geography. Just like speech does, when rumors spread among crowds and unite them. Way to give Charleston room to change.
I wonder how I could comment publicly on the picture above, now that the Community Advisory Committee seems to have disbanded or to have been dismissed! Which does not bode well for the future of the transparency of Charleston’s urban design decision-making process!
I actually wonder if I should get in touch with Thetyka of the Asiko Group, this friend of Victoria who was facilitating the Union Pier sessions …
As a matter of fact, I am going to do exactly this, right now.
—–
Done. I have sent a note to Thetyka. Just a matter of patience and not losing hope that Charleston can still escape cooky-cutter, authoritarian and exploitative development.
—–
The latest NewsLetter is out since yesterday and already Gwylène and Victoria celebrate the fact that 38% of the folks who received it opened it!
This does not strike me as remarkable really but it’s all good. I thought it was a very accessible layout which clearly reflected the scope and content of the work at TINYisPOWERFUL. A sort of organic, fluid way to go from article to article, which I hope can be duplicated in its simple generosity. Maybe a reflexion on Victoria’s ease with the medium and talent at the head of the collective?
04-15-2024
Thetyka has answered my email with one of her own, which invites me this evening to meet with a group of artists at Redux, to envision a future for the arts in Charleston.
Victoria drove me to Redux. Abriel was there as well, along with a group of ten or twelve young artists, each of them representing a different collective or in charge of an art-related community effort.
I was impressed by their maturity, their ego-free calm and their sense of responsibility.
What impressed me also was the fact that they had been chosen by Thetyka, who was moderating the conversation along with Chloe, a city employee. Does this type of personalized, individual invitation make a difference from the usual open calls to lists of names, rosters of usual suspects who, at the end of the session, never full heartedly call for action? Here, Victoria took the initiative to ask the group for a follow up meeting which may be the start of a collective community lab. This would be wonderful.
And I was also very glad to see how the three of us, Victoria, Abriel and myself, under the TINYisPOWERFUL banner, offered a very welcoming, open-minded and eager image. Suited for a gathering far from the habitual ego-fluffed, often bitter, resentful and distrustful mood of many ‘culture’-related public meetings. Is this what an artists meeting, in a participatory democracy, looks like? Participation of the willing? Willing to shed some of the most lethal traits of productivism, competitivity, individualism, and finally enrichment … Participatory democracy rather intersects with the culture of care, (self-care, and love of others that is), and trust. At the root of citizenship.
At the meeting, last night, there were mostly women, of course! Ten women for three men. One of the guys struck me particularly. He is a young animation artist who had decided, in earnest, that he would open his art studio downtown Charleston. He gave an account of his quest for a space which would not be a banal ‘office space’. Instead of lamenting about the difficulty of his search, he reported on some ‘observations’ he made, which informed his effort and helped him adjust his approach. I found this particularly smart and civil, his willingness to understand, to assess, to accept, to adapt. Being a Black person certainly did not help his search, but he got himself a basic office space which he nevertheless transformed into an art studio, on East Bay, at the heart of Charleston. Congratulations …. This got me thinking that, at 98 Broad street, on the second floor, once we have paid up in full, we could establish an artists space which, with Fast&French on the ground floor, could make for an unusually interesting hub.
04-19-2024
Take care, Linda!
Linda died an hour ago.
Care and love.
A death on the peaceful side, judging from the dedicated attention of her sister and friends, at her own home, in her own bed.
Wednesday, when we visited her, she was so thin, so spent, so gracious, and smiling. Dosing on and off, but so obviously fading – away – slowly. She was on the last day of her long and painful life with cancer. Such a patient fight, which did not leave her bitter.
The last time she visited us here, about two months ago, she did not eat much – bad reflux she explained – but had two very stiff drinks of my signature Vodka and Cassis! A pleasure to see her able to enjoy such moments and declare that she was not resentful for dying at her age. Reconciled with inevitability. Yet, the next day, she was flying to Washington to start a new test-treatment. Deeply conflicting realities, which she navigated with lucidity and determination.
Such was your courage, Linda
Take care, Linda.
—–
This afternoon, Marcus is coming here with Abriel to launch the art project for her residency with TINYisPOWERFUL.
I will listen, not assume anything or push in one direction or an other. I learned that lesson with Morgan and Arianne, who would let me run ahead with my visions for the Tale, only to look back and find myself alone! The question, then and now, remains: why did they not stop me and lead the process for a change? Gwylène says they were not in a ‘leader’ mindset at the moment … Whatever, now, never too late, I understand I am at the service of the young generation. I am willing to give it all the knowledge relevant to make the residency a success, that is all.
04-20-2024
Abriel came with a friend of hers, who was also at Redux the other day. She is a photographer who may support Abriel or work with her? I showed them the studio and introduced them to some of the elements of the Tale. It has obviously been my art lifeline through the extended kitchen-building episode, although I have kept it under wrap since. The mind ever hovers.
Accepting to take on an apprenticeship with Abriel in the name of TINYispOWERFUL has pried the doors of the studio open and I am much less hesitant to revisit the Tale again. I have asked Saleha to do some sewing for the Sedan Chair. I can better objectify and synthesize my thinking about the processes of creation. With a more open mind. As if this long period of cabinetry, away from the Tale, had given space to the unconscious. Not the first time this has happened, for sure, but just as surprising. Such a diversification of activities, of sources, resources, and human encounters is necessary to maintain a lively mental and physical awareness, all elements that feed the creativity engine.
—–
One remark to Abriel sounded like a cynical advise! As she was describing a piece she had not yet started, I wondered whether, after describing it in so much detail, it would be worth making it at all! Be careful, I warned, not to get stuck with a formal answer to a still empty concept. It is very hard to inject content into a set form, whereas content, as you work it out, always brings about multiple formal possibilities.
This reminds me of my favorite “There is no aesthetics without ethics”, which implies that the aesthetics of a work of art grow from the coalescence of form, content, values, context and time.
—–
Reading an article in Mediapart about Science Fiction writer Alain Damasio. His premise is that AI is going to dumb us all down and out because all the information we will need to operate in the cyber-world is second-hand, recycled, filtered, uprooted. Each and all of us, in their individual bubble, may believe that they are free and still capable of relating with others via social media. In fact, we are digging our own silos of isolation and predictable irrelevance.
To the point, I am glad to report that the next Creative Sync will be in person at Arianne’s – due to my prior harangue against Zoom and our loss of social sensibility/ sensitivity. Damasio adds his science to my fear of – yes – individuals, living cells of a larger BODY, becoming irrelevant, working toward their own erasure, destruction, auto- digestion, in a monstrous evolutionary move where, at the cellular level, instead of two lifeforms merging into one augmented organism, humans will separate from each other and regress into isolated, oedipal, disconnected cells!
Damasio’s book is ‘La Vallée du Silicium’. Where he develops the concept of ‘Cyber Cocoon’. We are being cryovacced, shrink-wrapped and otherwise diminished!
—–
It is my pride to not see an end to ‘A Tale of Charleston’. It proves that I am an artist who will not find a cocoon of technology to retire into!
Here again, I can see how art may be a powerful antidote to the cyberization of life.
04-21-2024
And the letter we sent for announcing Linda’s death,
Take care, Linda!
Linda died an hour ago.
Care.
A death on the peaceful side, judging from the dedication of her sister and her friends, at her own home, in her own bed.
Wednesday, when we were visiting her, she was so thin, so spent, so gracious, smiling, dosing off and back, but visibly fading away. She was on the last day of her long and painful life with cancer. Such a long fight, but which did not leave her bitter.
The last time she visited us here, about three months ago, she did not eat much – bad reflux, she explained – but had two very stiff drinks of my signature Vodka and Cassis! A pleasure to see her able to enjoy such moments and declare that she was not resentful for dying at her age. Reconciled with the inevitability of her demise, although the next day she was flying to Washington to start a new treatment. Such deeply conflicting realities. She navigated them with patience and determination. Quite a trooper she was.
On Wednesday then, Gwylène had a moment alone with Linda. Then it was my turn. We embraced. We did not cry. “You are showing us the way” I ventured. After all, Gwylène, Linda and I had worked together and lived together for some years.
Show us the way, Linda. Take care.
Gwylène and Jean-Marie – jemagwga
—–
I don’t know if this is related, but this afternoon I felt compelled to clean up the studio.
A mood change. A world change in a way, every time someone goes like this, not to ever be seen again …. as we remember them!
Fare well, Linda.
04-26-2024
My neglecting the diary – for the sake of building a kitchen, my last kitchen, I believe – is sad and to the detriment of its relevance. So many events around the Palestinian cause make me think that unpredictable intersections can only create a new landscape of values and realities, bounce history into a world-size awareness where younger generations sense the coming dangers and, unlike previously, having the tools to communicate around the planet, they cast a wide net which scrambles the present codes into quick obsolescence.
To me, Palestine, abortion rights, wokism, are issues of liberation from the “old order”.
The incredibly shameless violence of the forces of reaction tells me that the Trumps and the Macrons of the world look up to the Putins and the Pings as their only models for political survival. My hope is that their mastery of the language of supremacy be outsmarted by that of the young, ever younger generations. They are just as capable of manipulating words, and the will but … as long as they keep an uncompromising eye on their value systems.
Otherwise?
… despair … cry … do irrelevant art … fade … and die