Back Garden Art Exhibit 2

The Artists

Backyard art shows are such a genuinely positive, loving, experience. Everything can happen for the best of all possible reasons. The art is placed anywhere that suits it, rather than at an ‘optimal’ height on a large white wall. There’s no expectation to sell or buy so all can relax and trust, free of the influence of money. The refreshments can be home cooked that day, tasty and healthy. There are no jurors. (Thank goodness!!! The way that most art shows are juried these days you’d think Duchamp had never done away with the practice over a hundred years ago!). Anything goes at a backyard art show, and that means it can be REALLY GREAT. By the very nature of the gathering you know that none are either going to offer offence, or get offended. The playing field is perfectly safe and level. The viewer can relax, and the artist can know that their work and vision of life will be genuinely seen, and discussed in earnest, with good intention.

 
I hadn’t intended to hold this art show in a family garden. I was visiting England for the first time since Covid hit. 3 years away from family is a long time. I had no thoughts other than to renew relationships and, in any spare moments, to reacquaint myself with the countryside of my birth. Kent, that is, the little corner of England that separates London from the white cliffs of Dover and the English Channel. 

But in the course of renewing relationships I learnt of the hardships faced recently by some younger members of the family. Kids whom many would describe as ‘disabled’. They’d been bullied for not being like everybody else, and had been subject at school and in town to numerous casual cruelties. 

Like adults accusing them of needlessly using the disabled toilet in shops or malls, then slinking away without an apology when the wheelchairs were sighted. Or kids bullying them at school and teachers rarely intervening. And when they did the bullies’ parents refused to believe it, saying that little Johnny or Susie would NEVER hurt anybody who was disabled. Even when the little bullies pushed our kids over in the school corridor and fractured their brittle bones, no action had been taken. 

The kids and I were sitting at the table painting one sunny morning when it occurred to me that we should display our work in the back garden. I’d done a similar thing earlier in 2022 at my apartment in Ontario. Just put my art up around the stairwell and patio, sent invites out, and enjoyed it. In the back of my mind was also an initiative that I’d been alerted to by the Hamilton Arts Council in Canada, titled the ‘Crip Horizon’. It's a statement, and a vision, created by an artist in Toronto. A noble idea aimed at attaining complete equality for all (I'm simplifying, of course, for brevity). At least that’s what I think it’s about. It’s hard to be sure though because despite me being well practiced at reading artists' statements, and having a partner who gained a PhD in art history from Harvard, I have never been confident in my total understanding of the Crip Horizon vision.

We have a history of disability in our family - and therefore a deeper understanding than most about the challenges faced by those who are seen as ‘not normal’. Here’s me on the right, held by Mum, and Jenny on the left.

You can probably see that Jenny isn’t the same as anybody else. She had unique mental challenges. My disability is far less visible. Perhaps because it wasn’t apparent at the time of the photo. I never spoke until I was 3, and then the words came accompanied by a terrible stutter. A different sort of disability, life changing in its own way.

So I understand about difficulties faced by anybody who doesn't conform to the fictional norm. I also understand that many initiatives aimed at helping will fail simply because they use language and actions suited to funders and other decision makers, rather than those who most need to truly hear its message. 

People like the kids who bully the disabled at school, for instance, or the bullies' parents, or the teachers that let such poor actions slide, or people who stand in car parks and look accusingly at anybody parking in a disabled bay, etc. 

Of course, this is just my opinion, and I'll admit I'm biased. I've always had a leaning towards grass roots, straight talking organisations. The first arts group I’d volunteered with, in England in the late 90’s, was a gathering of disabled adults who met twice a week, creating art for the love of it and occasionally an exhibition that would take their vision of life out into the mainstream world. Later I curated a project with kids at a local hospice and we exhibited the results in the foyer of a local Tesco’s supermarket. A quarter of a million people passed that show and had a little glimpse into what it was like to be a kid facing extreme disabilities and terminal illness. It probably wasn’t what they were hoping to see on their way to do their weekly food shop but hopefully it planted a few seeds in their minds. Maybe helped them to care more for others. That's the sort of art show I've liked to do, something that speaks to my people on their own level, in their own environment, in their own language.

So all this was going on in my mind when I said to the kids in my family, let’s do an art show in the back garden this weekend at the same time as the family BBQ. We have all week to create new work. Drawings, paintings, whatever we want, using whatever materials we want, in any manner that suits us. No expectations, no limits. Whatever they did, I said, was going to be perfect. And aside from this, I thought, we can do some good work here, over and beyond whatever happens on the day.

The afternoon of the show was a wondrous art piece in itself. We got dressed up and enjoyed asking each other’s opinions of where our art could look best. We placed art, moved it, and moved it again. Colours and shapes were matched to flowers, plants, pond, fish, and sky. At one point we conversed in a completely unexpected patois of English, French, Spanish, and Russian. None of us are fluent in anything but English, yet, but such was the supportive vibe among us artists and the others present that fun experimentation flowed naturally. We shared food and respect and afterwards gifted our art to each other, and guests. Much of the kids’ art was really great and I could see that perhaps with encouragement their futures may lay in the creative fields (maybe even translation!). Jobs they can do regardless of their challenges, and feel satisfied with.

I took photos and videos with the aim of circulating news of the event later within this blog post. I hoped it’d plant a few kind seeds. 

Regardless of our personal circumstances, we all have a choice of how to react. When we meet somebody different from us we can choose to be decent and kind. Even though the media, politicians, businesspeople, and other ‘for-profit’ groups are forever trying to create disharmony in order to gain more power, we can reject their selfish fear mongering and instead choose to take the role of friend. It's not easy. Failure will likely occur often. That's ok. Get back up and start again. If there's something you don't understand, ask genuine questions. Don't fear offence, and don't take offence. If somebody is different from you, enjoy that difference. It's possible. Let your intention be good. 

Kindness is the new Punk Rock. Those who seek to understand rather than condemn are the new enfants terrible. And artists who do their own thing thoughtfully and without thought of profit or power are, as always, the beautiful avant-garde.