Isn’t it lovely?  Isn’t it amazing?  Isn’t it wonderful?  Isn’t most everything?

Only wish that it were so.

There was an artist — female, older, but that’s all I remember — who was asked if she kept up with the news and current events.  She said she couldn’t, mustn’t — if she did, even to read a newspaper, it would paralyze her.  Paralyze her!  Yes.

I feel that way, often, trapped — as if I’d create more freely, purely, were I not distracted and distressed by the state of the world.  For others, the world and its problems are spurs to action if not directly or indirectly the subject of their work.  Mostly when I’ve tried to make a political idea the subject of my work, it feels (and looks)trite and weak.  How could I possibly have something new to say about, say, racism or tyranny or corruption?  Hasn’t it all been said, and ignored?  How many of us can generate a Guernica — on any level?

I just hope my work does say something about a moment of the human condition, the way I experience it, the way the muse moves me (hand, head, heart) to express it.  A big hope.