There's a street artist in Italy named Pier Paolo Spinazze who paints images of food over neo facist graffiti; work he began after a friend was killed in 2008 by extreme nationalists. The images he paints are lush and visually delicious which offers a vibrant alternative to the stark hate peppering walls with obscenities and swastikas. Fascists are nothing if not determined, so they often come back to deface the new murals, but Pier returns as well. What matters is who paints last.
This. This is the thing that we must answer. That tiny calling in the corner of our childhood that made us all artists. That craving to answer the unacceptable with an alternative. The deep knowing that we have something to offer. And the willingness to ignore the imagined futility of our efforts.
It's true that your answering art may only be a grain of sand. And not the grain that becomes a child's castle or a freshwater pearl. Just an average grain with nothing to set it apart. Nothing except:
It's your grain of sand. A tiny offering of your soul to the solution. A way to release that twisting pressure that demands you respond with your light. They are your words, your voice, your images, your art. The only thing you would regret not bringing forward in this life. No matter how small.
We are all quietly working artists struggling to be that last word. Connecting with others who hope for the same. Filling up buckets and bulkheads against rising tides and making sea glass as we go.
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