Anything Pink Rocks
I read Malcolm Gladwell’s book “The Tipping Point” years ago and his classification of archetypes stuck with me: Maven, Connector, and Salesperson. I think I am mostly a Connector, with a teeny bit of Maven. The Maven part of me loves sharing ideas and information from articles and books I’m reading and Facebook is my preferred method for distribution. My Facebook friends probably wish I posted less, even though I actually hold back because I don’t want to inundate and annoy people. The Maven part of me is itching to share, though! So I am trying an experiment: I’ll summarize a few highlights in a semi-regular post on Art Is Fear called, “Anything Pink Rocks.” Here goes with the first installation ….
$200 million is being raised to complete Roden Crater by James Turrell, including this $10 million gift from Kanye. I love Turrell and seek out his work everywhere I go, and I love art and wish there were more funding for it everywhere, and I have been SO EXCITED about Roden Crater for a long time. AND, I feel a little weird about so much money going to one art piece that very few people will ever see. In fact, an art piece that only people of some means will ever see. I don’t think I would have questioned any of this before recently reading “Winners Take All,” which could possibly be the most influential book I’ve read since the 2016 campaign season, when I started struggling to understand the power dynamics underlying the rise of populism in America and around the world, and the rise of elite do-gooding.
In other art world news…
- Artist Max Siedentopf made an art installation in the African desert that plays the song “Africa” by Toto forever.
- Did you read “Cat Person” about a year ago? That amazingly beautifully written short story was widely shared and widely discussed and provoked fantastic nuanced discussions around #metoo. Author Kristen Roupenian is back with another short story called “The Good Guy,” which takes place from the POV of the Cat Person guy and it’s just as compelling of a read.
- Speaking of cats, a very bad cat clawed a hole in a 17th century painting and had no remorse.
- I like art with words and this installation in which sunlight casts shadows to create phrases that you read on the street below is no exception.
- Also literary and cool: a woman made a tiny library in the trunk of a dead tree. Also very cool: this mural is painted upside down on the side of a building so its reflection can be seen on the water.
- British physicians may soon be prescribing the arts to their patients for physical ailments. The arts are good for your health!
I’ve been touting bi-partisan connections and relationship building ever since I started inviting conservatives to my house for dinner shortly after the 2016 election. I started doing it because I was frustrated and angry and I wanted to learn from those conversations to find a way to bridge the gaping divide between so many Americans. Turns out lots of other people in this country are also frustrated and angry and want to bridge divides, too! We’re called the “exhausted majority” and we want to end the divisive rhetoric. This doesn’t mean we revert to polite, surface banter that hides problems. It means we talk about the problems and dig deep so that we find solutions together. We can’t solve anything unless we talk to each other respectfully and honestly. That’s really hard and uncomfortable. But I don’t see any other way.
Speaking of discomfort, several years ago, I gave a talk about how discomfort can make you a better person. It was a gut instinct I had learned from life experience. Now science backs me up!
But in many areas of life — including the professional domain — we want to continually improve and learn. And to do that you need to avoid the easy and comfortable in favor of the unpredictable and probably hard.
Also in the category of discomfort and making me question what I thought I knew about racism, sociologist Robin DiAngelo writes in her book “White Fragility,”:
our largely segregated society is set up to insulate whites from racial discomfort, so that they fall to pieces at the first application of stress — such as, for instance, when someone suggests that “flesh-toned” may not be an appropriate name for a beige crayon.
Finally, I’m super excited about all the women who were elected to Congress in the 2018 midterms!
And, a drone captured a man surfing with dolphins!
