Over a decade ago, Edwidge Danticat wrote a book revolving around the inexplicable forces that enable & compel artists to defy all obstacles in order to serve our purpose [create, imagine, remember, embody, clarify, transform…]. Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work emerges from Danticat's life & family, Haiti & the Haitian diaspora, & perennial writers such as Albert Camus, from whom she borrows the book's title. To create dangerously means creating in the face of violence, crisis, threats to our personal/collective safety. To create dangerously is to continue creating despite instability, lack of support, depleting resources. Every day, an artist risks their life, leaves their homelands, speaks truth to power – all to serve as a bearer of culture, voice for the voiceless, witness to horror & joy, destruction & revelation, birth & death.
When I was a child & young person, I did not think I could be an artist because I perceived life through this binary: either risk everything in order to practice & protect my creativity, or maintain basic survival by pouring all my time & energy into work. I did not understand how to meet my basic human needs *WHILE* investing in my artistic needs. I could not understand how to access the money needed for living in this neocolonial capitalist imperialist white supremacist ableist transphobic heteronormative patriarchy *AND* nurture my imagination, artistic voice & creative dreams. Participating in the CRNY Guaranteed Income for Artists program planted seeds for change in my heart & mind. Now, after moving through the experience of the program, I understand that I have always been an artist. Even when I was working at a job that did not feel aligned with my spirit or values, my creativity was present...even when it [the erotic, the creative source, my connection with myself] was buried deep inside or felt inaccessible, creativity was alive & strong.
Today I live more aligned with the creative energy within me. In The Uses of the Erotic Audre Lorde names the necessity of tapping into our own creativity as a source of power: "Recognizing the power of the erotic within our lives can give us the energy to pursue genuine change within our world…For not only do we touch our most profoundly creative source, but we do that which is female and self-affirming in the face of a racist, patriarchal, and anti-erotic society." I believe when we unite & constellate from this place of imagination & creativity, we become collectively resourced to navigate the most difficult & sticky – seemingly impossible – struggles. By moving together, we show ourselves & each other that the impossible is possible.
Artists weave hope out of loss. We obsess over questions. We courageously translate what we perceive, even as the ground shakes below our feet. Our ability to create dangerously makes us a vital organ in the body of every society & community. Yet this same superpower means artists are too often expected to make something out of nothing. What would it look like to invest in artists as if our lives depended on it? How would our societies need to be structured to support the basic needs of all of us [including artists]? How can we empower our communities to meet us where we’re at, & go together into these freedom dreams?
