Answering the Question: The Impact of Art
5 works of art that have changed me, plus one of our readers looks back on forgiveness, and exploring the discourse around Angel Reese
I’ve been in a funk this week. Seasonal congestion plus some jet lag has given me a few nights in a row of bad sleep, and I’ve filled my days being absorbed by and aghast at the public crucifixion of the #TennesseeThree. Journaling offered me a helpful anchor with which to center myself in this week of awful headline after awful headline.
And as there’s no good way to transition from fascism to frivolous blog post, let’s just get to It.
What art has had a meaningful impact on your life?
Journaling on this topic reminded me just how diverse art can be. I reflected, of course, on paintings and sculptures, but also on jewelry, meals, comedy sketches, and poems. I identified several dozen influences, but am restricting myself here to five that I want to share with you.
And please, do share your art of impact in the comments!
Jurassic Park
I talked about it in the prompt delivery this week, but I’ll include it here again: seeing Jurassic Park changed my life. Maybe I never became a paleontologist, but that film had a lasting impact on me.
From the kid who wanted to study dinosaur bones, to the teen who realized the power of the moving picture and storytelling, to the cinephile I am today, Jurassic Park is the origin of all of that. It’s the movie I’ll still drop everything to watch.
The Faces
Of all the capital-a Art I have ever seen in my life, nothing has stayed with me the way this watercolor has. The artist is neither O’Keeffe nor Dali, but rather my childhood friend Amanda, who drafted this piece on a whim based on feedback from her high school art teacher. The piece gripped me from the moment I saw it, and I’m pretty sure I made it the background on my home computer at the time. The color spectrum within this, the way the colors blend together both seamlessly and jarringly, that one painting can have such heaviness in one corner and light in another…and this is before we even talk about the faces. THE FACES. I’m haunted by them.
Though neither of us are religious, there has always been something biblical to me about this piece. Bear with me.
On the first day, God created lightness from the darkness. Here, we have a painting that, traced from the upper right to the lower left, shows light emerging from dark, and how they continue to exist on the same canvas. And, eventually, we have the creation of humans, emerging from the same nebulous ether that gave us light and dark. Within humanity, as it is represented in this painting, we continue to see the interplay between light and dark. While the eye might be drawn to the large face on the left of the canvas, I am always taken by this smaller figure on the right.
That side-eye. The lips showing a hint of curling into a mischievous grin. It’s menacing. It is knowing. It is evil. It gives the feeling that it knows the reason for the despair and vacancy present in so many of these other faces. Just like we have light and dark here, we now also clearly have good and evil, angels and demons, Heaven and Hell. We all emerge from the same beginning.
A watercolor of epic proportions.
Or maybe it was just a scratchwork my friend did. Either way, it means something to me.
The Prince
You had to know I was going to talk about Him here, right? How could I not?
Listen, it’s incredibly difficult for me to pick a favorite Prince song (and if you ask me nicely enough in the comments, maybe I’ll make y’all a playlist one day). On any given day, I might tell you it’s “I Would Die 4 U” or “Mountains” or “Strange Relationship” or “Slow Love” or…you get the point.
But while it might not be my favorite song, the Prince track that forever solidified his importance to me as an artist is “Controversy.”
Mike Joseph, writing on Diffuser.FM, captures what this song represents perfectly:
Following Prince’s passing, there was much internet chatter from fans claiming that Prince was responsible for allowing them to be upfront about their sexuality, their ethnic backgrounds, their spirituality. We toss the word around pretty liberally these days, but “Controversy” -- all joyful, liberating, cathartic seven minutes and 16 seconds of it -- is the pure definition of an anthem.
While much of the dialogue around “Controversy” tends to be focused on the opening few lines (“Am I black or white? Am I straight or gay?”), the song resonates with me because of what comes shortly after:
I can't understand human curiosity…
Controversy!
Was it good for you? Was I what you wanted me to be?
Prince is the musical artist whose refusal to be pigeonholed launched a thousand think-pieces and several hundred late night monologues. This song, truly an anthem, is his expression of disdain for such an effort. “Why does it matter? Are you happier because I fit into your box?” Prince asks. And at his refusal to do so he is branded with CONTROVERSY! Once labeled, he can be dismissed.
This song is my reminder that the only labels I need to wear, the only identities I have to don, are those which serve me, not others. This is, truly, the empowering anthem I need to remind me to live life only on the terms I define for myself. While I may not always live up to that ideal, I am always in search of living my controversial life.
Paris Blue
Let me out myself here: I subscribe to magazines. And you should too! It’s a great way to support thought-provoking, long-form journalism. It is courtesy of my subscription to The Atlantic that I discovered this next piece of art, Paris Blue.
It was a stray illustration included in the April 2011 issue of The Atlantic, and it stopped me mid-article. I began to cry. Heck, I still get choked up when I look at it sometimes. The hyperrealism of the despair, which reaches its apex in the curved baguette. The isolation: the man alone, his dog, head handing low and tail between his legs, behind and not next to him, only a single window alit, no others on the street.
That’s it. The isolation. That’s what speaks to me. Could I see my own face on his? Perhaps. When journaling recently I had my own Oprah silent/silenced moment when I wrote “I am not lonely, but I am alone.” I enjoy being an island, but it’s not where I want to be forever. Perhaps this man is a look at what the future could be, and my reaction is my own discomfort with knowing that could be my reality.
The Courtroom
I grew up with Saturday Night Live, which, fortunately for me, was going through it’s mid-90s renaissance when I was coming of age. My friends and I would reenact sketches on the school bus (Dog Show and the Spartan Cheerleaders were particular favorites). My mom would stand in the kitchen doing some of Molly Shannon’s most iconic characters (like Mary Katherine Gallagher and Sally O’Malley).
While I love all of these bits, the sketch that has the most resonance with me will always be The Courtroom, a short bit from the first episode of SNL, hosted by George Carlin.
I couldn’t find this on the web anywhere, so you’ll have to suffer through my iPhone recording of this clip (and if it gets taken down, here’s the script):
The subtly. The nuance. Gilda. It’s SO good, and it informed how I think about humor for the rest of my life. Jokes don’t need to slap you across the face. They don’t even need to clearly be jokes. Sometimes it’s the smallest act, something in the background, a change in inflection, a nudge, that is the most powerful joke of all.
Answering the Question: Our Readers Speak
I’m catching up on some reader replies to previous questions, so this week we’re looking back on our third question, about forgiveness. Here’s what one of you had to say (as always, I present your words in their raw form):
To me, forgiveness is about removing a burden or debt from your life. When I think about ways I have been hurt or people who have hurt me in the past, I honestly don't find it's as easy as someone yelling at you or insulting you. Most of the time, I don't think people operate with the intent to hurt or destroy someone - people drift apart, priorities change, they stop answering messages, stop wishing you on your birthday, may not be of help when you need it etc. There are so many people in my life whom I no longer have a relationship with that I don't really consider are bad or mal-intentioned people. I also think about how often I am that person to others. Whether it's something I listed above (not answering a text) or someone I maybe joked about where that joke was perceived differently, intent feels like a gray area from impact. In that vein, I actually don't find myself waiting on forgiveness much. If I feel hurt by someone, forgiving them doesn't mean reaching out and acknowledging that hurt 100% of the time. If it's a close friend or partner, I definitely would - but in most cases, forgiving someone is just giving someone the benefit of the doubt. It may happen in my head but it does manifest itself from time to time - for example, if someone tries to come back into my life after years apart, I will almost always try and give that another chance. What this usually means is that some act of forgiveness has happened mentally and I want to remove the burden of holding back a friendship. I rarely hold grudges and even if people who blocked me on social platforms decide to come back into my life, I might consider it lol.
Given that so much of the process for me is mental, I don't look to others to actively reach out for forgiveness. I think I assume it happens mentally for a lot of people. The fear for me is someone reaching out to forgive me without me realizing I have done something wrong, so in some ways, I think my hesitancy to do that to others is me projecting a bit.
Do I owe myself forgiveness? I think regularly. I try hard, I operate with good intent, and mess up. A bit part of this work is therapy and specifically CBT - I want to stop myself catastrophizing about worst-case scenarios or trying to mind-read a future that doesn't exist. A big part of CBT for me is just reminding myself that I'm human.
Something for the Weekend
Maybe you’re not a sports fan, but I implore you to take a moment to catch up on the story of Angel Reese and her treatment in the (traditional and social) media this week. The double standard at play in the dialogue surrounding her actions during the NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship Game is despicable. I can’t add much to the conversation that has not already been said, but if you need to catch up it’s worth reading more from Nicole Cardoza and Jemele Hill.
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See you Sunday friends!
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