In last month’s essay, Responsibility, I mentioned the following
I regularly use the phrase “a rising tide should lift all boats.” Turns out I’m incorrectly quoting a phrase that is incorrectly attributed to JFK, and is, also, the kernel of another, future essay.
Welcome to the future.
So yes this phrase, usually- for political critters- has economic overtones. It can in fact be considered the precursor to “trickle down” economics (gross). Seriously. Bleh. I don’t want to pretend to be an economist though and those who know me irl know that, with exception of a few years in the public sector, I have only ever worked for companies with a profit motivation.
And… how does this relate to Art? In the essay on Responsibility I clarified- in fact, in the sentence immediately following the quote above- that I usually generously paraphrase the intent/content of the boats-rising sentiment, and its import to yours truly, as “to have space, make space.” That’s the kind of uplifting that I think we need. It’s really how this blog started. I believe that taking the time to let more people know about how awesome abstraction is would create, literally, space for it. I’ve written about making space before though, and this time around, I wanted to give some light to the part of uplifting that is how we show up- the “what” (as opposed to the “why”).
As always, I’ll note that my chosen theme- uplifting- is a word with many meanings, a few example of which are:
…making someone feel better
…positive in a way that encourages the improvement of a person’s mood or spirit
…something that creates happy and hopeful feelings***
There’s also, I think, a critical view of the time in which we find ourselves and the place of Art in reflecting the same which argues that encouraging an improvement in mood, when it results in making viewers comfortable, could quite easily fall short of a specific set of values, which this writer will name “truthfulness.” I don’t think this is a new critique. I certainly recall, in vague, broad strokes at least, speaking on this topic with other creatives and Art-world-adjacent peers. To be fair though, and fair warning, Googling “is now a good time for Art to be uplifting” isn’t *really* helpful because the range of hot takes on the internet is legion (further- searching for “uplifting and truth” will take you to, almost exclusively, Christin evangelical websites, which I suspect is not why you showed up here).
I did get lucky in my “research” though and ran across Jen Silverman’s opine Art Isn’t Supposed to Make You Comfortable in the NYT’s April 28 ’24 issue. BRTW, that link is to a pdf that I “printed” so a) will open in another window and also b) while I am a NYT subscriber, “gift article” hyperlinks break over time so I’m hoping that the number of opens doesn’t exceed my subscription’s quota (and if you’re a subscriber, too, please use your app to find the subject article). Silverman discusses several things, including jumping right into the thick of things in the first couple of paragraphs by noting that self-concern can create an ethical blind spot. She weaves through her personal background to approach her thesis by noting a problematic cultural trend towards moral certainty. One of the examples she gives is the preoccupation of some of her students with good and evil which I’ve reflected on in the past, and which, perhaps obviously, I’m noting here because I, too, used a number of words to deride moral certainty.
Does Silverman say “Art shouldn’t be uplifting?” No. No, her thesis that the best of use of the Arts isn’t for making people comfortable is about complexity. To let her own words speak for her:
“the more we cultivate audiences who believe that the job of art is to instruct instead of investigate, to judge instead of question, to seek easy clarity instead of holding multiple uncertainties, the more we will find ourselves inside a culture defined by rigidity, knee-jerk judgments and incuriosity.”
Can, could or should this desire for complicating discussions be called “uplifting?” That’s a question, yes. As I often do, I’m not here offering answers, just reflections. Your answer, dear reader is, as I foreshadowed, all in the “what” (are we/you/they lifting up).
As I ruminated on the thoughts above, mine turned, as they often do, to one of my favorite artist quotes from the last few years, a comment by NY-based painter Craig Stockwell during a 2020 roundtable published on Two Coats:
“When things get real and very difficult, I need to turn to something that is sustaining. I think painting in all its forms is remarkably engaging as a thoughtful activity, as a thoughtful and physical activity. Personally, to go to the studio and have the experience of making, spending hours in this thought process, and responding to difficulties, seems so small in certain way, but it’s incredibly sustaining in a difficult time.”
I don’t think many artists, including Stockwell, would take issue with describing the process he points to in the quote above as uplifting, and further a strategy for the same that doesn’t smell suspiciously naive or guilty of the trap that Silverman describes either. Further (and to tie back into Silverman’s point) I think both things are true- doing something sustaining can be uplifting for an individual creative’s psyche, even in a time of strife that begs the necessity of what we produce to reflect the same, perhaps in a way that may not uplift a veiwer. Further, and to circle back to the top, JFK was known to have said (edits mine):
“If art is to nourish the roots of our culture, society must set the artist free to follow his their vision wherever it takes him them. We must never forget that art is not a form of propaganda; it is a form of truth.”
***
In the spirit of creating happy feelings, I wanted to celebrate another writer by noting Isa Farfan’s piece in Hyperallergic on the recent occasion of Mother’s Day which is uplifting, especially given that the status of my relationship with my own mother is fraught, as I discussed in an essay from last September. “Yes” it made me reflect, in the spirit of holding contradiction as I usually try to, on the flip side of my relationship to my birth mother (IE, the positives) as well as the contradiction between my focus on the negative outcomes (for me) of my upbringing and the amazing example of parenting that is my spouse and my children’s’ mother. I hope to write more about this topic as I process it (please don’t expect a one month turn around again though). And, if you are hurting as a mother, or if your mother hurt you, I see you and you are worthy of love.
