Art and the Homeless

What a person didn't do is never as interesting as what one did. Accordingly, as Saul Alinsky warms to his topic in Rules for Radicals , the topic shifts from political theory to political fact. It should be read back-to-back, either before or after, Dostoevsky's Notes from Underground . Alinsky writes like one of Dostoevsky's political and social malcontents on the verge of taking direct action. Alinsky might have been a character in a Dostoevsky novel.  Alinsky became a household word upon the election of Barack Obama. The enthusiasm for underhanded tactics in the cause of social justice went viral. It was obvious everybody who joined the discussion had not read the book. That in itself did nothing to recommend it. Nonetheless, I mulled what was being said about it. After long deliberation it occurred to me I might be the last one in on the joke. Could Rules for Radicals be a unique example of political humor? That was the inducement I needed to finally read Rules for Rad...

This is about race. It's not, really, but if that isn't a hard-hitting opening line I don't know what is. Before I get to the matter of interest to me, I must put the race factor into perspective. It's not so much race, but discrimination on the basis of race that is a problem, and one that calls for special scrutiny of its own. I hope it becomes apparent that it is not a factor in what follows. Some white people (Caucasian, non-Hispanic) are discomfited by perceived misunderstandings about their intended meaning when expressing opinions concerning “discrimination” in matters of taste. What they mean is discretion, or discernment, in matters of taste—not racial discrimination—a blatantly unfair (and different) matter altogether.  Racial discrimination is not discretion. It is prejudice. How, then, are we to consider the creativity of a black artist—a jazz musician in this instance—without either making race central to the argument, or omitting it altogether? I say it ca...

I perceive people living in the streets, and for that matter all mad men, not as living a life of dissipation, but of having failed precipitously to have realized their full potential. They aimed too high and, failing to accurately estimate the aim, fell low, very low, of the mark. Lower than they would if they had not aimed so high in the first place. They dared ponder the unanswered questions, the unanswerable questions, such as the enigma of existence itself, the Cosmic question, First Cause, Supreme Being, and others like, bringing their own downfall. When I write 'they' I mean all deep divers (myself included). That I do not say 'we,' is due to having put into perspective the cosmic question. Never again will I be so rash as to think I might think the deepest thoughts through to absolute knowledge.  The Age of Science is notable for its mad men, for its cases of complex delusions, subjects of scientific study in their own right. What apparently drew scientific att...

Most of my homeless painting subjects are asleep. I include a few awake, actively scrounging vagrants, because it is of artistic interest in itself. To my sensibility, sleeping on the street tells of extreme distress, starkly exposed to the environment -not to speak of assault. The beggars and scavengers, awake and on their feet, may yet have a vestige of sense to enter a shelter after dark if followed.  Not the sleepers -for whatever excuse. The sleepers are covered by not so much as a tattered blanket in extreme instances. Shocking to say, but to passers-by they appear to have no more sense than dumb animals, deaf as in deaf-and-dumb. It raises disturbing thoughts about what it means to be human, that of both the homeless, and of passers-by.  What happened? A snap evaluation of the situation does not often coincide with what would be expected of an individual having the characteristics of the person observed. Not what the individual looks like, but who the individual looks...