"The best beloved of all things in My sight is Justice; turn not away therefrom if thou desirest Me, and neglect it not that I may confide in thee. By its aid thou shalt see with thine own eyes and not through the eyes of others, and shalt know of thine own knowledge and not through the knowledge of thy neighbor. Ponder this in thy heart; how it behooveth thee to be. Verily justice is My gift to thee and the sign of My loving-kindness. Set it then before thine eyes."                                                                      
                                              Baha'i Scripture

                                                                                         

                  The Real Cost of My Art


Just because my sculptures are pulled into being from a clay often mistaken for play dough doesn't mean they aren't real art.

Just because my sculptures are tiny and can fit in the palm of your hand doesn't mean they aren't real art.

Just because my sculptures can be formed in the time of a song doesn't mean they aren't real art.

Wrong material! Too small! Too easy and quick to make! So they can't possibly be real art. Genuine, authentic, fine - worthy of notice.

But from my position - the artist - I have to say, there isn't enough money to pay me for my sculptures. On the surface I realize this sounds like a very arrogant statement, but I invite you to dive deep with me to realize it isn't. It's not about the cost of the clay, or the literal time it takes for me to do them, nor the quality of the art itself. Shucks, I'm no great artist; I know that. My clay art is like the folk music of John Denver.  Maybe there wasn't enough money to pay for his songs either. 

Here's why.

Most people are familiar with the concept of a hand-made quilt used as a metaphor for a person's life. The front all lovely and clean, and the back all a jumble of knots, loose threads and seeming disorder. John's songs were like that - lovely and clean. But if you were to have dived deeply into his soul you'd have seen his painful quest for justice. Knots, loose threads and seeming disorder created John's peaceful folk music.

Or take Marlon Brando. Could it be that the energy which produced his unprecedented style of acting came from his like quest for justice? The knots, loose threads and seeming disorder of his life created Stanley, Don Corleone and many other memorable characters.

Both dead now.

My art, my animals, my shells. At first glance you might think it was my love of nature that hatched them.  But my love of Mother Earth is secondary.  The energy breathing life into my clay forms is my passion for justice, peace and harmony. As I pondered the dark side of the quilt of life,  the ache grew within me to see the right side.  For the transformation - not destruction of the seeming disorder.   All human beings journey on this path, seeking resolution.
 

My Path began as a little girl growing up here in Holland Michigan.  Somehow I knew that what we'd done to get the land, the "clay" used to sculpt America, was terribly wrong. This yet Unnamed Act violated America's founding mission statement and compromised deeply the message of the Christian Church. When I was 18, I met a man at the airport where I learned to fly who I assumed was a Japanese exchange student at Hope College. But it turned out he was a full blood Tlingit Indian from Alaska instead. A year later we eloped to Yakutat to live with his people. 

Through the intervening years:
 
* I fished for salmon commercially.
* I was a City Clerk in Yakutat.
* We ran KLAM (the radio station for Prince William Sound).
* I tried my hand making seal skin coats for a living.
* I assisted my husband in D.C. when he was PR director for the National Congress of American Indians   (NCAI).
* We established Jim Thomas Associates, which in 1972 was instrumental in President Nixon's Executive Order returning Mount Adams to the Yakima Nation of Washington State.
* We were given the responsibility by Marlon Brando to attend the premiere of The Godfather in his place.

In 1980 I divorced my husband and returned to Holland with my red heart, white skin and three children who were often mistaken for adopted Vietnamese or mixed-blood Hispanic children. For the first time my children had to face racism in the very town where I grew up - the same city which 20 years before had loved their dark skinned father.

In 1987 I had what I now call my own "911" experience. It was as if God, the Creator of us all, drew the veil aside and allowed me to see our land history  as one whole; the many years of atrocities and acts of genocide condensed into a minute. It was as if I was seeing the essence of our history with my mind and not my eyes. I began to hear myself speak these words over and over again as tears rolled down my cheek: "Dear God, what have we done?" From then on, I was addicted to knowing the truth, the whole truth. I began to re-read books like "Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee" and "Black Elk Speaks" with ease - the essence of the words now free for me to swallow with my heart as well as my head. Remember -  understanding and knowing are different. As I read, I also began to put into a written format my thoughts, ponderings and insights; trying to come to terms with America's Gordian Knot - the knot we continue to cut into shreds with our myths in order to find resolution. 

You may now be asking, "so what's this got to do with the animals you gently pull from this man-made clay?"  I need to say in return: everything!

As I wrote, I quickly realized I needed to relieve the pain in some way so I could continue to read and write without killing my spirit and soul. Could it be that John Denver flew to balance the injustice he was so aware of? Or Marlon - could so much of his negative behavior been his way of escaping the injustice he knew so well? 

A victim of trauma is often encouraged to journal their pain in order to find healing and resolution. For me it only took me deeper into the very depths I sought to escape. But I was lucky. Just plain lucky! I had an additional companion besides my family and friends for balance. I had my polymer clay!

Whenever I sat down to read and write, I'd handle the clay with my left hand while I wrote with my right, unaware I was doing this to balance the pain. I can't tell you when I knew, when I realized what I was doing, what was happening. It was like waking up very gradually. That the animals I sculpt....

(As I wrote these words with my pen two days ago, I froze and couldn't go on. I had returned to the past and for a brief time was reliving those experiences. I was outside on our new brick patio - the one we just put in. The sound of the water falling gently in our tiny garden pond. A pleasant summer evening. Quiet!) 

.... are my pain transformed! For me, each one is a drop of our sad history reborn. Grief into joy! I realize this isn't easy to grasp - for many of you, these words are like chicken scratch and gibberish. This is why there wasn't enough money to pay John for his songs, Marlon for his roles, nor me for my art. The real cost has been too high for us and especially for the real victims we ache to give voice to. 

It is my hope that the animals of my head and heart will help you to gently connect with our land history, that each of you can finally touch It, help to untie our collective Gordian Knot, and begin to find resolution. 
 
Just as I formed the animals to balance what I was reading and writing, I encourage you to do the same. 

Annie Olson
August  2004