What do I wish to See?

for conNECKtedTOO –> TINYisPOWERFUL

(as published in Newsletter #12)

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL TEXT WITH FORMATTING

                 WHAT DO I WISH TO SEE?

A Tiny Business conNECKtedTOO… becoming …TINYisPOWERFUL:

• with a strong young leadership of mainly people of color. Thank you Victoria for your lead!
• able to protect and enrich the design and mission that brought us this far
• understanding and using the Arts & Culture in/with communities to affect structural changes, along with camaraderie
• generating voices so often forgotten, to share ownership of the legacy being created
• deconstructing historical structures of all forms of oppression and systemic inequity
• creating a secure space to communicate without censorship or fear

                 WHAT DO I WISH TO SEE? 

The APP as:

• a Cultural Engine for the future of TINY BUSINESS and the transformation of its narrative
• a Space for Artists and other Trades to meet, work, experience, practice and challenge socio-economic justice together
• a Place to advance the cultural significance of marginalized populations (heard from Victoria and Arianne)
• an Archives in progress as a Means to expose publicly the capability to fight for social and racial justice

I am transitioning to be a
conNECKtedTOO—>TINYisPOWERFUL Advisor.

Advisor really?  or Mentor? or Supporter? or Researcher? or Artist Adventurer? or Senior in Action? Senior for change? or …..

WHAT WILL I STILL DO EVERY DAY?

Nurturing fun and entertainment have never been my forte, and sometimes I regret it; nurturing sincerity, straightforwardness, questions about perception are closer to my talents. All along my life, like for many others, it was necessary to create opportunities. It became part of my artistic or business practice and my main way to learn, to think in terms of spheres for uncommon but necessary exchanges and access, integration of other disciplines, and communications with people so different from me. The 60’s and 70’s social and artistic transformations, mainly the possibility for a woman to be engaged in professional and artistic challenges, opened me a door still embedded in my journey.

SO PRACTICALLY, WHAT CAN MY DAILY TASK BE?

• Grow an interracial, inter-generational, inter socio-economic Circle of Advisors
• Answer specific needs of conNECKtedTOO—>TINYisPOWERFUL as much as possible
• Promote that the power of youth/future and older individuals/elders must be structurally respected in every culture, specially when they are people of color or living in poor senior citizen homes. Yes, COVID19 said it again and again. And this was not new.
• Continue to create ‘art tools’, a challenge that will not stop anytime soon
• Evaluate, because evaluating is not at the end of a project but a help on the journey
• Talk with, train Tiny Businesses for their use of TINYisPOWERFUL.com, hoping to involve them in the mission of   conNECKtedTOO –> TINYisPOWERFUL

AN ARTIST NEVER RETIRES

A Tiny Business conNECKtedTOO—>becoming—>TINYisPOWERFUL?

Reading Samuel STEIN in CAPITAL CITY,

“GENTRIFICATION: The process by which capital is reinvested in urban neighborhoods, and poorer residents and their CULTURAL PRODUCTS are displaced and replaced by richer people and their PREFERRED AESTHETICS and AMENITIES.”

I think: Sometimes the only ‘preferred aesthetic’ is money, the culture of money. And absolutely no concern for the creation of a legacy? People, what is happening in your brains? Where have you been educated?

DAVID KORTEN says  it differently in YES Magazine

“We may see growing recognition of the distinctive social benefits of shopping in locally owned stores, operated by neighbors who pay local taxes and are in business to make a decent, but modest, living serving their neighbors. This contrasts starkly with the experience of impersonal corporate chains such as Amazon.com and Walmart that are in business solely to maximize the extraction of money from our local communities while leaving as little as possible behind.”

AND WHAT I ALSO DO EVERY DAY?

I read and edit Jean-Marie’s diary of conNECKtedTOO; at the moment over 500 pages long. I am on page 52.

During the meeting of February 26, 2018, Jean-Marie wrote:

“Monday Meeting. Trust the process. ‘Cause this one was not too inspiring.

I decided to read the excerpt below, from a James BALDWIN interview …

EXCERPT from an interview of James Baldwin by Joe Walker in 1972

Walker: What should be the role of the Black creative artist in the Black liberation fight?

Baldwin: First of all the hardest thing he has to do is to remain an artist. He shouldn’t confuse himself with games he is not equipped to play. I, for example, am not an organizer. I’m not a warrior. I am not a banker. I can’t count.

So I have to do what I can do and bear witness to something that has to be there when the battle is over.

Our battle has to be simple. You have to speak in slogans when you are in the middle of our situation. And yet you’ve got to be aware that a slogan is only a slogan. “Power to the people,” can be taken over by ConEdison.

Walker: And “We shall overcome” was taken over by Lyndon Johnson.

Baldwin: Precisely. So much for slogans!! What you have to do is to insist on complexity which people in the battle don’t want to think about. You have to understand that they don’t want to think about it (complexity) because in a certain sense they can’t afford to – and yet they can’t live without it.

Walker: When you say complexity, do you mean long-range goals?

Baldwin: Yes. A revolution can fail long before it gets off the ground if it isn’t understood. After all, it does begin in the mind. There is no place else for it to begin.

What worries me most in all this is that we remain superficial in our understanding of the issues at hand with conNECKtedTOO. Exactly what Baldwin says above…”

I am also transitioning to question/review the artist’s jobs and roles, my role. TODAY I am reminded every minute that, as President Pelton (Emerson College) said, there “is not a black problem, but a structural issue built on white supremacy and centuries of racism.” My transition is not a retreat, but a need for reaching to more depth.