sue clancy – artist

My art exhibit continues at Caplan Art Designs, it’s going well and is in capable hands. I find I’m now enjoying quiet time to explore thoughts towards my exhibits already scheduled for next year.

In my recent email newsletter containing lots of rabbits I wrote of how important I feel it is to know what you like and to explore the rabbit holes of those things, to spend time, ideally without interruptions, focusing on something you enjoy. So that’s on my mind.

As I read the book “Humanly Possible” by Sarah Bakewell I’m even more aware of how our interests and pleasures play an important role in maintaining our humanity and our human ties to each other.

One of the first tactics of abusive people or abusive groups is to restrict what can be done for pleasure i.e. book banning, theater censorship/destruction, jailing poets and writers, the imposition of dress codes, curfews and so on up to and including prohibitions on food and drink.

So I keep thinking of how very valuable mundane life must be, how powerful, how important, how, dare I say, sacred the most ordinary things in life must be if almost every tyrant type person or group that has ever sought power, control and dominance over others has first attempted to control the most casual elements of daily life!

Perhaps a key way to maintain our human spirit in the face of any difficulty and abuse is to celebrate those normal things we do each day almost without thought.

Towards these notions (and my next art exhibit) I’ve been keeping a journal of what I see and do everyday. Also included is something I’ve read or overheard that spoke to me.

I’m also trying to drill down even more into the minutia of what happens every day… for example I’ve noticed that I often dribble coffee when I pour it. Wiping up my drips and coffee rings has become akin to breathing. So what if these coffee rings are a portal …?

Marcus Aurelius said “We bring forth the world together.” Life is a continuous work in progress and it is up to us in our very mundanity to individually and collectively craft our days, our hours, our lives in ways that, as best we can, nurture our spirits and our sense of what’s possible.

I hope your normal day is a pleasant one.

See you next Monday.