lystn

Change has arrived and it's time that the art world increases its influence, inspiration, and power. We’re entering a very interesting time in the arts, when increasing numbers of artists will use their talents to push back against a growing climate of racism, inequality, and social conservatism. As Ted Wells says: "Jump off the BLANDwagon."  Dark times can make life beautiful. With the arts, our lives can be transitional during a time full of powerful artistic commentary and vivid artistic and social expression.  Some artists protest the present while shaping and reinventing the future; others artists help us escape our current reality or remind us that beauty and novelty still exist in the world, regardless of how bad we’re currently feeling about it. During the 1960s, artists created work that protested injustice and inspired the counterculture to battle the conservative backlash. And others made art that was so beautiful that it soothed shattered nerves and lifted average people out of the shadows. That was what the world needed then, and it’s what the world needs now. And I feel that’s exactly what is coming in the next few years. The creation of art, by any of us, can be a way of expressing our feelings within a realm of freedom that we might not be experiencing in our job, or among our community, or within our family. In some ways, it can a be way of emerging some part of our soul that would otherwise be trapped because of the way artistic expression can be squelched by society. Be raw, rougher … more honest and expressive … and way more real. Andy Warhol, Green Day, Revolution Radio, Billie Joe Armstrong, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stone Magazine, Dion, Jefferson Airplane, Sly and and Family Stone, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Emory Douglas, Black Panthers, Broadway, Barry Goldwater, Donald Trump, Martin Later King Jr., Robert Kennedy, JFK, John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, Vietnam War, Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Man Ray, Edward Steichen, Lee Miller, Stuart Davis, Jospeh Cornell, Lucien Carr, William S. Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, John Giorno, Laurie Andersen, Andrea Fraser, Gus Van Sant, Ted Wells