Amie McNee wrote a book titled, We Need Your Art. Then she gave a TED talk on the topic and if you still didn’t get it We Need Your Art was embroidered in like 400pt font on the back of the rather splendiphorous floor length coat she wore on stage at TED.
McNee sincerely and absolutely believes “we” (the whole rest of the world) needs our art. Really?
Save the world? It’s up to us, the artists, she says. Her main point? What troubles the world can be fixed only if we can get our shi_t together and do our art.
My problem with Amie McNee is that neither her book nor her TED Talk of just over 13 minutes proves her point. I’ve listened to her talk at least half dozen times, transcribed much of it to a Google doc then annotated it with timestamps. I’ve scanned, skimmed and annotated her book several times more.
No where does McNee stick her point that the world NEEDS mine or any other artists' work. We Need Your Art, Stop Messing Around and Make Something is primarily an artist self help book for unsticking your creativity.
Chapters include: Your Are the Artist, Building an Abundant Practice and the Case for Creativity.
I thought the plan was to use my art to save the world? Turns out the world mostly needed another self help book. I’m bummed, I’m disappointed. I really, really wanted to hear how the world needs MY art.
My grousing persists. I tell myself, “It’s almost as though McNee wrote a stepchild chapter inside the main text to justify her title. Then went on to write her actual book: a how-to for creatives determined to kick start their sputtering art engines. I hear the grumbling in my head. My inner cynic is a crusty old bastard determined to elevate himself regardless the look bad potential. What golden rule?
Alright, so, really Amie, you/we want my art? Take a good close look at my piece, Cut Into Rounds. See how the imagery juxtaposes dental hygiene with an early video still from a TV baking show. The interior design from the Fifties puts the viewer squarely in the hope and promise of that era. Now notice the title as a play on words, especially considering how the center image is unclear. Is the hygienist scraping or cutting with her instrument. The text for last frame (#9) is clearly the source of the title but it could also stand as a procedure we’re witnessing in frame #5
Or how about Best White on the Market. The title for the work is an edited version of the text in frame #2 but could also refer to teeth whitening. Then consider the overall context of the work as a whole. This was the 1950’s. Jim Crow racism and segregation were rampant.
Then comes my St. Paul-On-The-Road-To-Damascus moment. I noticed a particular slide McNee chose for her TED talk. “Your art is the antidote to so many people’s pain, yet you keep it to yourself,”
F---------------k. Rather than launching into Round 2, my Oh-What-A-Pity party, I glance to the storage shelf behind me. There’s a tall stack of black archival storage boxes labeled: mixed media, collage, prints, etc. I think, “When was the last time I posted any of that work to Facebook, to Instagram? Do you notice how you keep needing yet more storage boxes, ever wider, ever larger? You’ve filled so many then forgotten their contents and moved on to order another box.
I don’t know. I don’t know and not recently are my best answers.
Guilty, guilty, guilty. Boxes and boxes full of antidotes accumulating on my shelf and wondering their eventual fate.
Have you had anyone over to your studio lately to see/critique your latest work? I have not.
Clearly I’m not ready to save the world. I can't even save myself from self pity, isolation and low self esteem. For a solution I could spend a bit more time with the 240 out of 251 pages McNee devotes to artist self healing exercises. Those include: giving yourself permission to create, letting go of jealousy, and embracing success. And many more.
Now that I’m ready to flourish I maybe can practice some forgiveness
In the course of annotating We Need Your Art I notice where McNee’s does reference some significant research around art and brain science. “...art changes communities, our biology, our brains, the world,” she says. McNee cites the research of Susan Magsamen and Ivy Ross in Your Brain on Art. Here the authors spill all the nitty gritty grinding details of neuroscience /neuroaesthetics and it’s the crux we’ve all been hoping for. Research does indeed show that art changes brain wiring. Art impacts the beholder at a physical and emotional level that may even be life-changing.
Your Best Imagination works like this
McNee is exactly right when she writes on the back of her coat: “We Need your Art” In Your Brain on Art, McNee relates the work of Ed Vessel, a neuroscientist at City College of New York. Vessel has specifically researched your brain on art: “A big part of what happens when you interact with a piece of artwork is that there is an aha moment where you feel like you've seen the work in a new way. This meaning making is happening in your Default Mode (brain) Network.”
McNee also discusses the work of psychologist Todd Kashdan. Kashdan researched the interrelationship between curiosity and a meaningful life. Maganesen/Ivy reflecting on Kashdan’s work write: The arts are particularly good at cultivating our curiosity because they tap into our need to understand to be moved and.. Be comfortable with ambiguity. For more on experiencing art in the real world of big time museums read my blogpost How to Love Art-And Not Be Confused or Dumb, Simple Advice.
My own hands-on experience with these sorts of interactions between art and the observer easily reinforce the researchers findings. In 2005 I installed Wishes on the Wind at Encanto Park in Phoenix Arizona. The work consisted of multiple prayer flags strung from a play structure. The “flags” were drawn by child victims of domestic violence and expressed their more cherished dreams for the future. At deinstall, a small child playing on the structure with his father asked, “Dad, why are they taking the flags down?”
In 1998 I taught a workshop on public art to a high school class of 10 students selected from schools across Tucson, Arizona. We teamed up to plan, present to the community and install a 30-foot cement serpent in a local park. Over seven weeks we talked, drew and studied public art then picked up shovels, trowels and chicken wire to complete the task.
I wish I could speak to the specific impact these two projects had on children I worked with. I’m assured from the research now being published there likely was a profound impact at a neural level for each of my students. For myself I visit the serpent often, reliving in small measures the joy of building...
And Save the World?
I taught social studies in the Tucson Unified School District from SY0910 through SY1314. As part of a project-based learning curriculum I introduced my seventh grade students to the Japanese art of Kamishibai storytelling. Kamishibai is a Japanese folk art practiced by itinerant storytellers who, before the advent of television, took a small stage and a set of story cards to local neighborhoods.
Never have I seen more engagement than when I taught Kamishibai to my own students. I asked them to tell me how to have world peace. Six individual groups of four to five students joining together as a unit to answer that question in pictures and words. After presenting their work to other grades there at the school, my students performed their Kamishibai shows at a nearby elementary school.
Over the course of three different projects I either created or mentored, scores of children had the direct opportunity to experience art created on their level. “Profound” and “life-changing” would perhaps be the words they’d use to describe how art made them feel, then and now.
Here’s what I learned most from Amie McNee, her book and her TED Talk:
(1.) Never trust your first instinct. My initial plan was to play “gotcha” here. McNee promised in her TED Talk to tell me how everyone needed my art. She didn’t. How disingenuous. My wife likes to quote Ram Das, “We’re all just walking each other home.” Compassion, forgiveness. At the exact moment I’m rushing to channel my self righteous indignation best to examine my own consistency. It’s likely lacking.
(2.) Self pity is death. I’m free to feel sorry for myself when I imagine not enough people want my art and that sentiment is sure to come out in my art. Better to try cheerfulness and self compassion. I can treat myself as my best friends treat me.
I’m with Amie. Go make something. Show it to someone. Repeat.