around the same time that the boy was warned, by a man with neatly trimmed reddish beard, to beware of compensatory psychological attributals, the boy saw the guernica, he became someone's boyfriend, and the universe offered him a clear choice: to ascend instantly to some higher plane or stay a while and live a life filled with many feelings. he stayed --it was an easy choice for him.
loving life, the boy encountered, on his way to work in his family's coffee store, an artist with a cigarette and a bushier red beard. this artist was showing his drawings, for sale, on the south wall of the women's house of detention, before it was torn down and replaced by a garden with paths and benches. because it had not yet been torn down, voices, especially on sunday, could be heard shouting up and down: i love you.
the boy stopped to look and was enchanted. the artist, noticing that the boy's gaze lingered on a particular, smallish self portrait, asked the boy if he would like to buy it; it may have been priced at 15 dollars. the boy, taken aback, said, truthfully, that he had nothing like that kind of money. the artist asked the boy what he had on him and the boy found
2 dollars in his pocket ---he would borrow money for lunch. 2 dollars is what the boy paid, so the art was mostly a gift. what, we can wonder, would have happened, had the boy had no money at all? well, that's what we will explore together at this great and good art giveaway. oh, and the drawing, now? it lives on the boy become artist's wall, as it has his whole life so far.
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Joel Schapira
a wolf teeth painting |
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not long ago, more than a hundred artists helped the artist, who was the boy, make more than a thousand artbuttons which have almost all been given away for free, here and there, now and then. many have been given away at the un gallery which is, on most warm saturday mornings, adjacent to the farmers market in millerton, new york. there, once in a while, someone asks why i don't charge money for artbuttons and i say,"can you imagine how much more difficult things would be if i did?" oh, the calculations people, on the fly, would have to make! how infinitely more simple and easy it is for people to just notice whether or not they would like to have a tiny piece of free art -- that they get to choose-- when cost is not a consideration. the gift of artbuttons is a dispersal, as of seeds, seeds which shirley tassencourt, a shaman i once met, said must be planted by artists in dark times. i n the 1800s, the governments of both canada and the u.s. passed laws forbidding the giveaway ceremonies of native peoples. the reason given was that people who valued private property so little could never be civilized, that is lifted from the state of degradation in which they lived. christian missionaries were chief among those sounding this alarm. sharing and being hospitable, thinking your wealth would increase by giving things away was considered, by the newcomers, to be depraved and dangerous. as bob dylan said: to live outside the law, you must be honest. |
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Joel Schapira
a ginsberg precept refuse to be painted into a corner |
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in the process of enforcing the anti potlatch laws, many sacred objects were confiscated. made refugees, torn from their homes and the rituals that gave them meaning, they were turned into "art" and engendered, as my artist friend mark says, "instant nostalgia for something you have killed. " we should not be surprised that the objects were quickly spirited into museums and wealthy homes. this was not a dispersal ; it was a diaspora.
my art at this giveaway will, like seeds, disperse. not keeping my art to myself in heaps and piles ( till what? ...till i make a name for myself? ), will free it to do its rightful and, yes, its sacred work. help me. i think we'll find it easy now that we've met in this way. i have made much art on the theme of the hebrew he nay nee which means i am here and i'd like to add, on the occasion of this great (and good) giveaway that you are here too and that means to me that we are here together. |
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Joel Schapira evermore house |
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an art hero of mine, hanelore baron, said: "every thing i've done is a statement on the, as they say, human condition.....the way other people march to washington, or set themselves on fire, or write protest letters or go to assassinate someone, well i've had all the same feelings that these people have had about various things, and my way out, because of my inability to do anything else for various reasons, has been to make my protest through my artwork."
i think my art has also been a protest of sorts. against what? foolishness and mean spiritedness and presumptuousness and abuse of power come to mind. i hope that my art has also been a revisioning, an encouragement, help for seeing the difference between habit and insight. this giveaway feels like a protest against bullying which is spawned by the money economy and its intolerance for other, probably healthier, forms of exchange. here is what the artist milton resnick says: "there is some other form that you contain within yourself that is not will or purpose and, when applied to art, serves you best. if you systematically apply to the art you create the aggression of the world that turned you towards art in the first place; if you, in turn, become the aggressor towards your canvas, the thing that you're doing; if you, in turn, work your will upon this thing that you want - you will then cause a dissatisfaction in this life that you create." when i found myself wanting to give away almost all the art i ever made, i honestly did not right away realize that i had been practicing with artbuttons; but then i did. when i approached my friend henry of the re institute with my giveaway idea and he seemed to like it, i recognized an important thing about how i wanted to talk with him about making it happen: he and i could not allow ourselves to fall into the ordinary ways that artists and people who have space for art usually operate. we had to be partners, collaborators starting right then. we had to envision the good and the feasible from a shared perspective; we had to give each other that gift. i am grateful, and hope you are too, that this cooperative feeling, the feeling of hospitality, attended the birth of this event. |
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Joel Schapira look at me when i'm talking to you |
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in answer to the potlatch bans, chief d'waxalagalis of the kwagu said:
We will dance when our laws command us to dance, we will feast when our hearts desire to feast. Do we ask the white man, 'Do as the Indian does'? No, we do not. Why, then, will you ask us, 'Do as the white man does'? It is a strict law that bids us to dance. It is a strict law that bids us to distribute our property among our friends and neighbors. It is a good law. Let the white man observe his law; we shall observe ours. And now, if you are come to forbid us to dance, begone; if not, you will be welcome to us. when my desire encountered hospitality, and i realized that my giveaway could actually happen, i froze. the basement room in my house that we call the playroom (once, it was) was full of years of art and i worried to my daughter rachel that if i started peeking at the piles, i might not like any of it. she said i should imagine discovering, piece by piece, that all the art had disappeared from paper, and canvas and cardboard; and that from pressure and time, a beautiful jewel had been created at the very bottom of everything. i think the jewel is me and if only the jewel remains, all i can i give anybody is a look at its light. if if all the art is already gone, i really have nothing to worry about. john cage says: when you are working, everybody in your studio -- the past, your friends, the art world and, above all, your own ideas are all there. but as you continue painting, they start leaving one by one and you are left completely alone. then, if you are lucky, even you leave. free free free. everything is free and almost everything must go. |
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Joel Schapira
recently unearthed john cage painting |
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Joel Schapira
redaction |
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JoelSchapira
sanguine leads |
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Joel Schapira
spot painting -- record index |
