Tuesday, September 16, 2008

City Different - Politics on Canyon Road




What one hears from tourists and locals visiting the studio after fifty-plus years holds few surprises. You've heard it all before, some things many times over. It can be complimentary or abrasive regarding this or that painting and sculpture, a work evoking groans of disapproval from one viewer triggering approbation, even occasionally tears, in another. Disagreements between husband and wife about a purchase, one or the other "loving" a painting, the spouse not able to "stand it." Once, a couple in heated argument, suggested that I should provide a Quarrel Room where such disputes could be privately resolved.

Of course we all harbor preferences -- even if strenuously and admirably suppressed, biases and prejudices. Yet, lately, I've been exposed to overmuch. Tourists from across the US as well as abroad detour from discussions of exhibited art to that of politics. The comments I overhear are often as ugly -- and loud -- as those I hear on television or the screeds I head by columnists. And it's difficult to remain above the fray. Too frequently, my silent forbearance is challenged with the blatant demand "Who'll you vote for!" The response that I'm not partisan but an Independent, watchfully weighing my choices, can open floodgates of rhetoric equaling that which thundered from both recent national conventions.

The issues of race and gender in the presidential election of 2008 are difficult to accept in fellow Americans, even harder when expressed by non-citizens. The man from South Africa who insisted that I should opt for Obama now, not wait and watch, listen, to make up my mind, concluded that I was one of those Whites who wouldn't vote for a Black man. A lady from London strongly "recommended" the Republican ticket, "you Yanks need Sarah Palin, a woman in Washington, we had our Thatcher." A feminist from South Carolina with obvious unease about a forced decision, disappointed that Hillary Clinton had not won the nomination, told me "as a loyal Democrat, if I can't vote for a woman, I'll vote for a black man." A macho, elderly ex-marine, staunchly Republican but repelled by "liberated females" will vote the ticket even if McCann "has that butch Alaskan on his side." I can turn off the TV, do not have to read the newspapers and journals. But of course I won't, determined to attempt making sense of the vile attacks and lies perpetuated by Republicans and Democrats, and their shrill partisan advocates, seek to decide who, regardless of party, promises the best course of government for out troubled nation. For one's who's been an Independent since first attaining the age to vote and for over a long lifetime, I can't remember having ever been under such vehement pressure from those of entrenched political persuasion.

There are moments when the tourists on Camino Canon are few, no one comes into the studio, and I'm alone at my work. The current project is a sculpture of Saint Francis nearing completion. I think of how the man from Assisi renounced it all -- politics, wealth, worldly hates and fears, contentions -- and for a little while I, too, am free of it.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

America - 9-11 Anniversaries


Difficult to concentrate fully this date, seven years after it occurred, on anything but the horrors of 9-11, 2001. My plate's a full one -- at age 85, ignoring as much as possible physical limitations, there's homemaking and caretaking chores for wheelchair-bound spouse, errands to run, unexpected, challenging and not-to-be forfeited professional commissions and opportunities, no matter how late in life they make the scene. I give these matters due attention, but my thoughts are on Ground Zero Manhattan, the Pentagon Washington, and a field in Pennsylvania. Images and cries of anguish from our day of terror have never ceased to haunt me, but on the September anniversaries they're more insistent, more painful.
We're not many anymore but I wonder if other World War II veterans felt what I did when violence thundered from the skies shattering our world. How many years had we believed It Can't Happen Here, not what we saw in Europe and the Pacific, not in our country, on American soil. How many believed as I did that invasion, attacks, skeletal cities and civilian slaughters could lead to what we considered worse than war, defeat. And on our return to a US untouched by scars of combat soothed our wounded psyches with the conviction that fallen cousins, schoolmates and neighbors had not sacrificed in vain, that our country was not bleeding. Those men we loved and lost had guaranteed freedom from foreign attack for the rest of our lives, and possibly the lives of our children and even grandchildren.
Then came 9-11.
Television news accompanies my studio work on this seventh anniversary. The TV set is small, one I listen to rather than watch, but today I occasionally glance up from a sculpture in progress to see the visuals meshed with words. Mostly from the memorial sites, and, despite the grief on faces of gathered Americans, the images reflect little of the horrors we saw on 9-11. It is those indelible images which swim before my eyes. I knew personally none of the victims who lost their lives on that day which changed our world, nor do I dare consider any loss comparable to that borne by their surviving loved ones. But I mourn surrender of my own belief that It Can't Happen Here, and feel betrayal of my fallen comrades who suffered so it wouldn't. Are we up to, in coming years, renewing their dedication to shielding America from Harm's Way.