Art is transcendence. I love art as spiritual experience. It’s a reason I’m still alive. What else would I have done? I’m not good at making money. I didn’t make any people. Art is how I live. Art and love.
I was talking about how art is transcendence with friends in a small group ministry with a Unitarian Universalist church. My friends were chiming in about what art means to them. I explained how I think there’s the regular world, and then a sparkle world a few inches behind this world. And when I make art, I’m trying to pull the art from that world into this world.
That sparkle stuff is God, truth, or just some substantial underlying reality. When I took a cosmology class from John Dobson, he talked about how there’s something changeless, timeless, and infinite behind everything. I guess that’s what I mean.
I see entertainment as trying to distract, while art is trying to un-distract. Art is trying to help us wake up. But I know it’s not that simple. There can be a mix.
Coolio
When it was time for me to share an art that means a lot to me, I mentioned how I’ve been thinking about Coolio since he died. It’s been less than a month–he’s still in the bardo.
So I’ve been honoring him by listening to Gangsta’s Paradise and feeling love for all he gave culture, with that song. Thank you, dear Coolio.
I think Gangsta’s Paradise is a masterpiece. My favorite part is “They say I got to learn, but nobody’s here to teach me.” I can relate to that a lot from when I was young, stuck without role models and blamed for an ignorance I couldn’t solve.
I see Gangsta’s Paradise as tapping into a mythology of gangstering, and so smart about street situations. So smart about death. That song did so much to share a piece of urban culture and one kind of Blackness with the rest of the culture. It affected how hiphop and rap are seen by everyone. Still to this day, I’m thinking about the speaker in the song, and is that Coolio?
Pastime Paradise
I also love the Stevie Wonder song that was sampled from. It sounds as fresh as if it was written and produced today.
Art is transcendence, and Coolio has transcended. Stevie Wonder is still on earth.
embroidery
Something I learned during the meeting with friends is that music affects me so much, maybe more than other arts. I do sing, rap, and dance. But I make other art every day: writing, zines, mixed media, embroidery.
Recently I embroidered this skeleton as part of the artalong I’m behind on. It represents death.
I hope embroidery is possible for me for a long, long time. I’m motivated to care for my shoulders, neck, wrists, hands, nerves, and all my joints, partly so I can keep making the art I need to make without too much pain.
mama
The world behind this world is also where my mom is. She is more than three inches away, but the other world has different rules. Three inches and three light years are kind of the same thing. I think she’s in a red star cloud, being Shakti energy that keeps the world in motion.
Sounds weird, but I don’t make up the rules. The rules made up me.
