Shange, On Poetry

For the full article (on the poet Shange), please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/27/nyregion/a-poet-with-words-trapped-inside.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&nl=nyregion&emc=edit_ur_20131027&

 “Her art has always told the story of people who are suffering, and given meaning to their struggle. Now she’s looking back and asking, ‘What is art going to be for me in the body that I have now?’ ”
 Ms. Shange sat with a few friends and considered the question: What if poetry isn’t enough?

“You have to keep acting like it is enough,” she said. “You have to keep affirming it, and bringing yourself to it. You have to keep hoping that it will move the mountain.” 

To art that gives meaning to struggle. To faith.

On Art, and Time, and War

For the full article (on rediscovered works of art that were lost to the Nazis), please visit: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/06/arts/design/in-a-rediscovered-trove-of-art-a-triumph-over-the-nazis-will.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20131106&_r=0.

 "art continues to be found, refusing oblivion."

"But while paintings, drawings and sculptures are sadly fragile, the ideals they represent — the best ones, anyway — aren’t. And so the painted woman by Matisse, fan in lap, a string of pearls around her neck, a veil draped over her hair, is a testament to art’s indefatigable ambitions."

We're all going to die someday, right? I think that's the biggest truth I know, that we all are bound for oblivion. And yet we have now.

We have our minds, our hearts and our spirits. We have our art, our ideals.

To refusing oblivion. To making art.