Lost my faith

Anais delivers a soulful, side-eye swipe at the circumstances of living as a black person in a 2019 tune, the sublimated dance vibe leading to a searing couplet.

Your justice will remain unserved
And our children, deemed undeserved.

Guernicania

I’ve been troubled by the recent sidelining of liberal arts in our local colleges near where I live, as collegiate studies are being forced into “I need to have a job when I graduate” molds. The roles of professors and courses are being shoehorned into a narrower vision of what study after high school should accomplish.
I have to add, here, that the dollars involved in education in institutions of higher learning have escalated beyond belief, so I do not begrudge an argument to tailor that level of education so that graduates can begin paying back massive debt as soon as they can.
But, attention to details in our curricula need not lead to contraction. It can often open up the field in question.

For example, in art surveys, we can recognize that previously accepted canon is woefully short of inclusion of other cultures, other ways of seeing, subjects and media that challenge the status quo while sometimes affirming it.
Do folks in charge at our institutions simply ditch an overview of artistic expression? What possible value is there to include that in a curriculum or course of study?

First of all, offer an art survey, so students have a chance to dip their toes into that particular pool of human expression. Offer credit. Hold students accountable with written assignments and papers. Dream up a scheme to give a grade if that is important. Find a way, perhaps, for students and others who continue to learn to experience without being a part of a “class.”
Seems to me, it’s a good idea to take a hard look at accepted art canon, acknowledge its history, hold it up for continued scrutiny, not to discredit everything it stands for, but to see where it could have gone and where it still can go.

An art-survey course cannot possibly cover the bases in a semester, even two. It can, however, serve as a springboard to dive into other aspects of art, reinforce the validity of that and prepare students for the challenges of opening up the study of art as a valued part of what it means to be a human.

Another useful aspect of an art survey course is a sourcebook (for lack of a better word) that offers a multitude of entry points for students who want to delve into individual pieces, to experience that piece in the present context, to learn from those who have experienced it before and to study the ins and outs of how that piece came to be.

A couple of examples:

I was able to view (long ago) Picasso’s Guernica, and that experience will never leave my memory. That painting is huge, and it was displayed as the only object in a darkened room, lit masterfully so that it jumped out at you.
I thought I was prepared, but I wasn’t.
The painting stunned me. Picasso’s cubist rendering, human and animal mouths agape, disjointed bits of bodies strewn across the canvas. There are details of flame, a broken sword, a crying dove. The suffering of war is dominant in the work, and that painting comes to my mind when I’m reading about the carnage of the Spanish Civl War, the Civil War in the young U.S., the attacks in smaller civil conflicts, the immolations of World War I and II, Korea and Vietnam, on and on into the present day, including the violence and death in Ukraine.
The evils of aggressions against people by people and Picasso’s masterful work are forever welded in my mind, and thoughts and sights of one will call up the other. They are inseparable.

One other example also surfaces.
Ali Almail, graduate of Northwestern College and an artist studying as a doctor of medicine, during studies at that college, created a six-panel work installed in the De Witt Family Science Center in 2021. That also sticks in my mind as a stunning examples of the mix of artistic expression and scientific exploration.
The image of Christ with a crown of thorns is rendered by the genetic coding of six separate human genes. Christ is both divine and fully human in that piece, a mix that isn’t often a subject of thought and expression.
But, there it is. An artist’s expression of the mystery of who Christ was. Almail takes the concept of Christ’s humanity so far as to wonder if Jesus’ suffering extended to the genomic level.
Now, there’s a thought that doesn’t go away (at least in the folds of my brain).

Artistic expression is an excellent opportunity to explore what it means to be human, what it means to be aware, what it means to address a culture. Whatever we can do to expand our horizons will not be wasted time. It will only deepen the human experiment.

Stranger than fiction

This piece by Moses Boyde (and a startling video: WARNING: flashing images) fits the contemporary scene well. Musically, I heard ways to be humans together.

Counter with jazz…
Musicians grab a lick,
listen as music knits,
seize a moment to take flight
with drum, brass, wind or voice,
all to find a thread or theme,
to take a musical moment
home.
So, we
listen to each other,
take a space to express
our fears, our sights, our hopes
to then bump the whole together
for a moment, a minute,
an hour, a day, a year,
a lifetime.

Healing hands

Reggae hints and side-eye looks at the human condition infuse this tune by Citizen Cope, which invokes a muse that could be anyone, such as a woman, to a concept such as a nation of people who care. This feel-good strum hopes for relief of resolution of personal and/or national trials and griefs.

Cause the violence of a few
Have put a world in harms way,
And history has proven that they
killed our leaders dead.
Well I don’t know about your right and wrong.
I got a muse from the east to the west.
All I know is if I never said it before,
I’m going to say it with my last breath
I will never forget your healing hands, my love.

Stereotypes

Wil Baptiste on viola and Kev Marcus on violin recorded a mix of music with hints of classical, pop, R&B, jazz and hip-hop with some pretty pointed voice-overs, all to confront and break stereotypes. The single is part of a recording of the same name, Stereotypes, released in 2015.

And, if a live performance is more compelling, here’s a link to a 2016 gig.

Sounds Like America To Me

This tune by Harry Chapin may have been recorded in 2002, but some things don’t change. It’s from the self-consciously titled album The Last Protest Singer.

Previously, I’d known Chapin through tunes such as Cats In the Cradle and All My Life’s a Circle and other songs spun as stories. This is a new side I didn’t know.

Sometimes these days it’s hard to choose
The one right road to go.
But this then is all I’m sure I know.
I know when a child is hurting,
That silence can be wrong.
I know that when old folks are helpless
I can’t just pass along.
And I know when someone’s hungry
I can’t just sing this song.
And when I hear somebody crying
I can’t just wonder who that it could be.
Well I hear somebody crying now
And it sure sounds like America to me.

Still Called Today

Modern Christian praise and pop music borrows from secular love songs and but artists rarely cross into social awareness in favor of personal piety. The music appeals to soul and bones, and lyrics tie this to piety but occasionally crossing that thin line.

A song by Steven Curtis Chapman recorded in 1992 is illustrative. Just taking the following lyrics out of context, the tune could easily be a call to social responsibiilty. Perhaps it does, but the emphasis on spirituality takes that possible message back to safe ground.

I’m not meaning to be negative, but what a contrast to the lyrics by other artists who tackle racial and poverty issues squarely. This tune easily could have been even more hard hitting that it already is.

But while it’s still called today, won’t somebody make it right.
Before the day slips into night and the moments waste away,
While it is still called today, we’ve got to say the words
That are longing to be heard ’cause tomorrow may be too late.
Go on and say what you need to say while it is still called today.