Brenda Edwards

I’ve been working on a larger than usual canvas, which means a great deal of effort is going into just filling the space with paint. The larger the canvas, the more time it takes to cover it, let alone cover it well. I work all over the canvas as I go so I don’t lose sight of any area and hopefully keep the painting balanced. This process, and painting in general, gives you a lot of time to think. I started this post last week when I was highly agitated. I thought it best to cool my heels, and let things transpire to a calmer state. And they did… the suspects have been captured or killed.

But the political circus remains constant. I quit painting about 8 years post college because it was so silent. A painting takes an isolated dedication to execute, and when I was younger, deeply political yet always disillusioned with politics, I thought I would jump out of my skin if I could not add my voice to what I saw as a persistent societal decline. So I took up theatre, which did not require me for the most part to be so quiet. It was collaborative, vocal and often political. My artwork had always been political as well, but it had finally occurred to me that no one really wanted to hang my politics on their wall. Content was as important as beauty to me in the work, and when I tried to eliminate content – I wasn’t sure I wanted to paint.

The artwork featured in this post was painted around 1980-81, is called “Visions of Sugarplums”, and is about commercialism and its immense influence on the public, even to the point of how and what we worship. I was profoundly concerned about how much the public was influenced by the media way back then, so much so that I didn’t own a television for around 3 years. And now I wish I still didn’t own one, or at least that I could turn the one that I have off. But I am compelled to watch. Last week was rough – the uncalled for violence at the Boston Marathon and on its ugly heels, the defeat of responsible gun legislation left me bereft and disturbed to the point where achieving beauty through paint seemed a “trivial pursuit” again in my life.

The utter irony of those two incomprehensible events in the same week had me ready to go back into politics – paint, theatre or blog – no matter. But the fact is politics are not an avenue. Good people may try to carry out good deeds, but as long as a vote can be bought, it will be. As long as media dictates political points of view, the public will be swayed. As long as people believe the only way to end violence is through violence, violence will persist. As long as there are only two sides to an argument, one side must be wrong and has to be defeated – even if the issue is as sensible as requiring a background check on an individual before they leave a gun show with an automatic weapon. And yes, even as two terrorists ran fully armed and wild through innocent streets.

I don’t care which side you’re on – two party politics have eliminated the gray area of all arguments and sanity, it seems. So isn’t it time to evolve? Isn’t it time to hire leaders instead of politicians? I have most often voted against, and not necessarily for candidates. I think that’s a shame. And I want to live in a beautiful and sane world where I am not dodging bullets and can feel good about painting beautiful paintings. Okay, I’m done, now maybe I can paint.