Many things this situation is bringing us, for myself with the lockdown in Munich in early March I started doing an art series with the concept of what some aliens would think of the events happening on planet earth, just commenting, not really telling us. I started it as a rather optimistic series, trying to focus on the opportunities and revelations the pandemic was bringing us. In an early post for a similar blog like this I wrote this:
“I’m lucky to keep my job and work from home in Germany, not having much stress, even the self isolation is actually good for me to produce more art than I could normally do. Lucky me, I’m not facing the harshest sides of the pandemic, so I can see this from a privileged comfortable point of view, like an alien if you want.”
(you can check the piece here: lockdowndairies.in
From that point the series got bigger and I added more points of view and tones. Checking the
news around the world it became impossible for me just to focus on the light, it didn’t feel right. This is one of the most valuable things I found in the lockdown: I started to get more interested on what was happening in the rest of the world, how other countries were dealing with the virus and with that becoming really aware of their problems pre-corona that got amplified because of the pandemic: EEUU of course, Brazil, Africa, Latin America… and most shockingly India.
Personally, before corona I checked the news regularly, and was mostly aware of global issues but honestly I wasn’t as engaged as I am now. With news sources like democracynow.org I started to get daily reports of the worldwide situation with the corona and it’s ramifications, also started following closely the DiEM25 movement founded by Yanis Varoufakis for an Paneuropean progressive alliance against Neoliberalism. You can see many inspirations from there in my aliens pieces. So, I’d like to think that if this kind of awakening happened to me it might well also happened to others.
Another thing happened regarding me as an artist: I took the time to develop myself. I didn’t hesitate it, I embraced it from the beginning, I knew it was a blessing for that. As a non professional artist with a day job I always struggled to snatch time to work for my art, anyone who does it knows it, so this was the perfect time to focus there and try things. And it was very regarding, on weekends and days off I worked full time on my projects, entering in creative flows that took me places I couldn’t imagine. This is something I will try to maintain after the lockdown:
keeping a better balance between day-job/social/art, and being assertive to claim my own time, because it worked, and I felt better, in this past two months I produced more art than in the past tow years. I also learnt a lot about my own creative process, motivations, personal issues… a blessing.
A third thing I would like to comment is the sense of duty that also developed. As an artist I always had that feeling, that was always the initial spark, giving something back, returning the look to the world, mirror some of the beauty, returning the look to spring, and also mirroring trauma: making visible a pain that I well understood so it might not happen again somewhere.
Through art it’s possible to show this kind of things, in a seductive way, like a game, the end point is with art the concepts might have a deeper impact on people that simply telling a fact, it’s not easy. Yes, I’m digressing here.
Back to duty: I always felt that I had a duty to make visible some images I identified, my point of view, my ideas, and that I had to honor it, I couldn’t just forget about them and keep going and
not working to make them real somehow. And NOW, I just couldn’t ignore how lucky I am to be able to work on it, would be like a sin not doing it: being in Germany, work from home on my day-job, so easy. So for me that was the right choice, looking at the situation in the rest of the world: so many people fired, with no time at all, stressed like hell, in abusive households, with family members dying, themselves sick, in countries like India, in hunger, with a government that used the situation to kill them, like Brazil with the indigenous population… you get it. I couldn’t just sit.
So personally I became fully aware of this and went all in to work. I was lucky enough also to
have a “thing going” I was already a “part time” artist that knew what to do and had some ideas which way to go. I know that for many people start “doing something” can be tricky and frustrating, they don’t know were to start even if they have the spark and good will, they feel they’re just gonna do deficient stuff, something that wouldn’t honor their vision. This is funny and revealing, because many wouldn’t consider themselves artists or that they lack the romantic vision or inspiration, but everyone knows more or less deep inside they would have ideas, the spark! The intuition tells them, they know they have that in them, but they lack the skill to produce them. Long story short if I may: the skill can be learnt, start small, work, and learn how to do it. There’s ideas that can be produced in 5 min. like a small scribble, poem, a photograph, a tik-tok video, and other ideas might take longer: a novel, a comic, a huge painting, a film. Try not to overwhelm yourself, or self sabotage thinking on huge ambitious ideas, yeah, some might want to start to big, notch it down Miguel Angel, start easy, be humble and WORK, take a flow, learn. I don’t have formal training in arts and did learn by the doing, slowly and constantly, check out my stuff, you can tell, don’t you?! You can see its bones easily, I try to get to the core of things myself knowing my limitations and keep learning, not many sophisticated things so far, if any!
So, friends, I’m wrapping up here, one final thought, many times I used to get frustrated with people, thinking: “they don’t do anything” and this fortunately changed a lot to myself, I don’t know what “the people” actually does, I know a small window, and it’s a very dangerous and destructive assumption but easy to fall in, specially for the novel so-called-artists, and we don’t know what the people really do, what are their ideas, feelings, how well informed they are. I might get anxious here in Germany thinking: “Come on people! Wake up!” and I did feel that way at some point.
The thing is we gotta take care of our allies and be empathetic and understand the times of the people and remember: most of the people around have a good heart. The good people are our allies for goodness, and we gotta take care of them and not being a pain them for not being (or look!) “creative” or as politically active 😀 I think many times when we try to encourage people to work on their stuff we end up getting the opposite, and thats a terrible thing. Then to shake off that anxiety feeling reaching out helps, seeing what people actually do and imaging less, keeping in touch with people who have their own projects going and you could relate to, seeing it, supporting them, it helps, we’re not alone, not at all.
To inspire our friends we gotta have empathy, and build from there, not being a pain to them, see, and find real effective ways to encourage them and help them develop their own ideas and finding their voices naturally.
Friends: Be strong, the stronger you are, the more things you can do. And this doesn’t mean you gotta “produce” to be worthy: dignity and the right to life are unquestionable. We need you, take a break when you need, control your anxiety levels, don’t fee selfish to take care of yourself, that’s the foundation so you can keep working and enjoying, and let’s rock!
You can follow my work on my instagram And check out my whole aliens commenting on the current events on planet earth art series there under the tag #alientalkingheads
Thanks for reading and thanks Paco for inviting me to your blog!