I have problems with a society where such large numbers of our minority teenagers struggle to graduate from high school, and then get denied their diploma ceremony because people in the audience cheer at the students' success.
As a former high school teacher, I know the value of supportive families - that principal should seriously think twice about his/her stand on this issue.
* * *
My husband and I are getting involved in the SCA again, as you may have noticed, and I find that I am spending a lot of time working on projects around it. We have a disaster of a house and a serious need to either move or renovate (pop up our second floor into a full second storey). I would also like to actually contribute to society in some meaningful way.
We ARE working on the mess, and we ARE packing up, throwing out or recylcing miscellaneous stuff that we won't be needing again for a while. I AM teaching folks to understand where the products they use came from, and hopefully that is making them have a greater appreciation of how folks in less materialistic cultures live and get by. And, if culture really goes to heck, maybe I'm giving folks some skills and understanding that will tide them over; my own little contribution to making the new Dark Ages a little shorter (or at least brighter) for some.
Which is all nice and all, but people are still starving, being bombed, raped, burned out, and generally suffering. It makes me feel pretty silly to be getting all dressed up in garb based on archaeological finds and going off (guzzling gas along the way - carseats do a number on one's ability to carpool) to play at a santized version of the life so many still lead every day.
I know there are numerous ways artists raise money and awareness about these issues, but how do others, well, *justify* - to themselves - making art when others are making war? I know that my way of psychologically dealing with 9/11 was to go out the next day and buy a guitar; I needed joy and self-expression in so much sadness and insanity.
Is it ok to create/play to get by and stay healthy enough to THEN go do something important? I ask this rhetorically, since I know that we each need our own ways to recharge, express ourselves (and our frustration) and generally stay mentally healthy enough for the other parts of our lives.
I guess I am missing my teaching high school, and not being in a place yet where I can get started on my MSW. Raising my girls is obviously worthwhile, and very rewarding. Giving them the best life, and clearest understanding possible, is a responsibility I take on gladly.
I still feel funny caring about the varied reconstructions of Viking Age apron-dresses...
Showing posts with label political rant. Show all posts
Showing posts with label political rant. Show all posts
6.07.2007
9.20.2006
Another political quilt RE: Aminedijan
Yes, I'm sure I have misspelled that. ZERO offence intended.
Anyway, I watched his speech to the UN last night, and thought it was great. Aside from his paradigm that everyone needs spirituality, and that said should be monotheistic in nature, he didn't say a darned thing that I disagreed with.
The thought provoking part for me, was looking at where the line, time-wise, should be drawn on who 'belongs' where. I learned recently that Lebanese school children learn geography from a map that simply doesn't include Israel at all. Based on that, I can understand how the one can believe that Israel is an interloper.
I asked my mother, who was alive but a child at the time, how the decision to locate Israel where it is today was made. She said that, to her understanding, Israel was located in it's historic position. It seems odd to me that 2000 years of conflicts had determined who had the right of arms to live in that area (not absulte RIGHT mind you), and that European guilt over WW2 didn't give Europe the right to rewrite the net result of those conflicts and 'give back' land that wasn't theirs to give.
That said, I COMPLETELY support the right of both Israel and Palestine to exist. I'm just questioning the location of said countries. I think Aminidijad (sp) had a point that perhaps Europe should have created a Jewish state there, which to my mind makes sense, since that is where the Jews effected by WW2 actually LIVED at the time (as opposed to where their ancestors lived 2000 years ago.)
Anyway, I have ideas for two quilts, both involving a solid background layer of a geographical and political map with a sheer of a proposed political boundary of an Israeli state on them, one of Europe and one of the Levant. I'd have the sheer hang about 6 inches forward of the solid, and be basted down with VERY long stitches to connect the two, showing the outline of the proposed states on the solid/'given' maps. Basically, revisit the proposal, and see wherelse Israel may have gone...
Just an exploration, not a statement one way or the other. Might doesn't make right - not 2000, 65, 57 (when Israel was founded) years ago, or today. It does make maps though, and I'm not sure that we should go back and try to rewrite them, even if we can.
Anyway, I watched his speech to the UN last night, and thought it was great. Aside from his paradigm that everyone needs spirituality, and that said should be monotheistic in nature, he didn't say a darned thing that I disagreed with.
The thought provoking part for me, was looking at where the line, time-wise, should be drawn on who 'belongs' where. I learned recently that Lebanese school children learn geography from a map that simply doesn't include Israel at all. Based on that, I can understand how the one can believe that Israel is an interloper.
I asked my mother, who was alive but a child at the time, how the decision to locate Israel where it is today was made. She said that, to her understanding, Israel was located in it's historic position. It seems odd to me that 2000 years of conflicts had determined who had the right of arms to live in that area (not absulte RIGHT mind you), and that European guilt over WW2 didn't give Europe the right to rewrite the net result of those conflicts and 'give back' land that wasn't theirs to give.
That said, I COMPLETELY support the right of both Israel and Palestine to exist. I'm just questioning the location of said countries. I think Aminidijad (sp) had a point that perhaps Europe should have created a Jewish state there, which to my mind makes sense, since that is where the Jews effected by WW2 actually LIVED at the time (as opposed to where their ancestors lived 2000 years ago.)
Anyway, I have ideas for two quilts, both involving a solid background layer of a geographical and political map with a sheer of a proposed political boundary of an Israeli state on them, one of Europe and one of the Levant. I'd have the sheer hang about 6 inches forward of the solid, and be basted down with VERY long stitches to connect the two, showing the outline of the proposed states on the solid/'given' maps. Basically, revisit the proposal, and see wherelse Israel may have gone...
Just an exploration, not a statement one way or the other. Might doesn't make right - not 2000, 65, 57 (when Israel was founded) years ago, or today. It does make maps though, and I'm not sure that we should go back and try to rewrite them, even if we can.
8.31.2006
Politics : Fabric - the minimum wage
I'm just wondering if you think the two mix. I figure if it worked for Betsy Ross, it ought to still sort of stand for the real day to day life and how it looks at the issues of our day.
Crazy ideas I've had for political art quilts include my latest rant - the minimum wage. I haven't done the math out, but I do know that someone working 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage still doesn't make enough money to break the federal poverty line. How stupid is THAT? It would seem to me that figuring out what the minimum wage ought to be should be a pretty simple calculation, namely poverty line amount divided by 52 (for the weeks in our vacationless and never sick working joe's year)and then divide your result by 40 for the number of hours in a full working week, American-style. Shouldn't THAT number be the minimum wage, ie the minimum amount someone can make an hour and still NOT fall below the poverty line and be able to get some sleep and have time to eat? (If they can *afford* somewhere to sleep and something to eat on what the federal government thinks they can, ie the poverty line.)
So - how to show this in fabric? I think fabric is actually the PERFECT medium for this subject, (other than dollar bills themselves, which, being printed on cotton rag themselves are pretty much fiber objects to begin with) being about daily life.
Idea #1: Some sort of mosaic-like graph of actual wage vs poverty line wage. Lame, but first anyway.
Idea #2: Seven panels wide - one for each day of the week. Photo transfer image of person at different minimum wage job printed at top of each. Money actually paid (the real US currency, since I mentioned it) glued beneath, then beneath *that*, the money that the person DIDN'T get for each day, dyed red bills, painted red coins, and below *that* an image of what that money would have gone towards in the life of a person actually living at the poverty line, like fresh fruit, bus fare, or even protein other than beans (horrors!) Then quilt the whole sucker with words; words that people use to describe folks who manage to get up and face another day at or below the poverty line. Words that I would never want to be called, and won't repeat here. You get the idea.
I actually really like that image, so I'll stop there. BTW - sorry I'm not actually drawing that for you and posting it as my uber-blogger friends would, but I'm just not feeling that cool today, or ever, really. So - where to show said quilt? I mean I *could* make it and just hang on to it, but a quilt about something this important should be SEEN. Somehow though, I just don't see it going over very well at the Vermont Quilt Show. The prize-winning quilt this year was about a pretty group of Native American women; that is about as much cultural guilt most shows seem to be willing to deal with. And, no offense intended, but many of the small, fringy shows that actually DO show politically progressive work all just preach to the choir when you get right down to it. How frustrating THAT would be.
Anyway, that is what I *would* quilt about right now, babies and all, if I thought it would make any difference what so ever, but it wouldn't and I just don't need that kind of disappointment right now.
People who continue to make and actually show political art must be just as hardworking, dedicated/desperate, and able to deal with frustration as those folks working and living at or below the poverty line are. Then again, many of the folks that I know that fit into either category have problems with alcohol and/or relationships. I guess art DOES imitate life, and when that life is spent working for peanuts it can look pretty dreary. A sort of dreariness that I am glad that I can be unself-absorbed enough to notice, but not enough to make me want to spend a lot of time there... even if that time would be in the studio.
Crazy ideas I've had for political art quilts include my latest rant - the minimum wage. I haven't done the math out, but I do know that someone working 40 hours a week at the federal minimum wage still doesn't make enough money to break the federal poverty line. How stupid is THAT? It would seem to me that figuring out what the minimum wage ought to be should be a pretty simple calculation, namely poverty line amount divided by 52 (for the weeks in our vacationless and never sick working joe's year)and then divide your result by 40 for the number of hours in a full working week, American-style. Shouldn't THAT number be the minimum wage, ie the minimum amount someone can make an hour and still NOT fall below the poverty line and be able to get some sleep and have time to eat? (If they can *afford* somewhere to sleep and something to eat on what the federal government thinks they can, ie the poverty line.)
So - how to show this in fabric? I think fabric is actually the PERFECT medium for this subject, (other than dollar bills themselves, which, being printed on cotton rag themselves are pretty much fiber objects to begin with) being about daily life.
Idea #1: Some sort of mosaic-like graph of actual wage vs poverty line wage. Lame, but first anyway.
Idea #2: Seven panels wide - one for each day of the week. Photo transfer image of person at different minimum wage job printed at top of each. Money actually paid (the real US currency, since I mentioned it) glued beneath, then beneath *that*, the money that the person DIDN'T get for each day, dyed red bills, painted red coins, and below *that* an image of what that money would have gone towards in the life of a person actually living at the poverty line, like fresh fruit, bus fare, or even protein other than beans (horrors!) Then quilt the whole sucker with words; words that people use to describe folks who manage to get up and face another day at or below the poverty line. Words that I would never want to be called, and won't repeat here. You get the idea.
I actually really like that image, so I'll stop there. BTW - sorry I'm not actually drawing that for you and posting it as my uber-blogger friends would, but I'm just not feeling that cool today, or ever, really. So - where to show said quilt? I mean I *could* make it and just hang on to it, but a quilt about something this important should be SEEN. Somehow though, I just don't see it going over very well at the Vermont Quilt Show. The prize-winning quilt this year was about a pretty group of Native American women; that is about as much cultural guilt most shows seem to be willing to deal with. And, no offense intended, but many of the small, fringy shows that actually DO show politically progressive work all just preach to the choir when you get right down to it. How frustrating THAT would be.
Anyway, that is what I *would* quilt about right now, babies and all, if I thought it would make any difference what so ever, but it wouldn't and I just don't need that kind of disappointment right now.
People who continue to make and actually show political art must be just as hardworking, dedicated/desperate, and able to deal with frustration as those folks working and living at or below the poverty line are. Then again, many of the folks that I know that fit into either category have problems with alcohol and/or relationships. I guess art DOES imitate life, and when that life is spent working for peanuts it can look pretty dreary. A sort of dreariness that I am glad that I can be unself-absorbed enough to notice, but not enough to make me want to spend a lot of time there... even if that time would be in the studio.
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