Banksy: The Rogue Artist

"This is the first time the essentially bourgeois world of art has belonged to the people. We need to make it count." -Banksy

 

Not much is known about the famous graffiti artist called Banksy. Despite being one of Time Magazine’s top 100 most influent people of 2010 and a following of 10.2 million on Instagram, the artist’s identity is unconfirmed. What is known largely comes from early interviews done before Banksy’s fame grew. From them, we can conclude that the British artist comes from a rough upbringing: expelled from school, imprisoned for petty theft. As with many creatives, this past likely has work. inspired his politically minded works which are. While little can be known about Banksy’s process, what is clear is his purpose. Each piece is a carefully thought out social commentary delivered with the biting, satirical wit he is renowned for. His favorite subjects revolve around class issues, poverty, socialist rhetoric, and conflict. But, unique to Banksy are his provocative methods for getting his point across.   

Banksy began his career in the 90s, evolving to the stencil graffiti style he’s most known for. The style, and his anonymity, were a necessity in his street art roots. Banksy turned to stencils to shorten the time it took to complete a piece and concealed his identity to lessen his chance of being caught illegally painting the streets of Bristol. From there, Banksy moved on to bigger and more outrageous stunts: spreading artistically fake money from the “Banksy of England”, putting a live elephant in the room(pun intended) to talk about poverty, and graffitiing increasingly incendiary images across the UK and Israel.

In 2010, Banksy brought his work to the US and Canada, secretly scattering images in major cities including San Francisco, Salt Lake City, and Boston. In 2013, he created a month-long show in New York City. To start, he set up a booth selling his original paintings for 60$ as a commentary on the arbitrary value of art. The rest of the month was both a scavenger hunt through the city for new Banksy pieces and a race against the NYPD’s vandal squad who sought to remove the graffiti installations and stop the artist.

In 2018 Banksy made headlines by publicly destroying one of his paintings purchased for over 1 million dollars. Just after the piece sold at auction, it went through a shredder hidden in the frame. This ignited a conflict over who now owned the painting, since the stunt had greatly appreciated its value.  Again Banksy held a mirror to the ridiculous nature of fine art.

Banksy is still active today, though he has lost the renegade charm of his street art roots as his work became mainstream. Recently, he appeared in the news again with a project he’d occupied himself with while quarantined. He posted a picture of his bathroom overrun with graffiti rats, an image that both underlines the importance of quarantine and pokes fun at it.

 

Banksy’s unique contribution to the art world has had strong effect. His use of clever graffiti has elevated street art into the fine art sphere and illuminated many previously unknown street artists. His confronting art, fighting against the traditions of his field and leading a one-man rebellion, has pushed street art into public demonstration.

               

 

Sources

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/banksy-s-shredded-painting-stunt-was-viral-performance-art-who-ncna921426

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/the-story-behind-banksy-4310304/?all

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-bristol-52306748

Octavia E. Butler: Science Fiction Mastermind

 

Octavia E. Butler (1947-2006)

 Octavia E. Butler was a science fiction writer. She was born in 1947 in Pasadena, California, and raised by her mother and grandmother. Butler was one of the only two prominent Black science fiction writers when she sold her first novel. In her essay “Positive Obsession,” which appears in her book Bloodchild and Other Stories, she writes, “so, then, I write science fiction and fantasy for a living. As far as I know I'm still the only Black woman who does this.” That essay was published in 1989, and although there are more now, Butler is still the most known Black female science fiction writer today.

    Butler’s creativity is special because of the many aims and obstacles it has and overcomes. As a teenager, Butler was told by her aunt, "Honey . . . Negroes can’t be writers." Despite this, Butler remained determined to make a career of writing. She developed what she called a “positive obsession”. She wrote constantly, and it became an escape for her. She was bullied at school for being awkward and very tall. She had science fiction and fantasy ideas from a young age. 

    Butler advanced to higher education and kept writing. She wrote, “at college (in California at that time, junior college was almost free), I took classes taught by an elderly woman who wrote children's stories. She was polite about the science fiction and fantasy that I kept handing in, but she finally asked in exasperation, ‘Can’t you write anything normal?’” What Butler wrote was weird and new. After going to college, Butler did a lot of factory work and manual labor. She worked as a dishwasher, a potato chip inspector, a telemarketer, etc.. Throughout that time, though, she woke up very early to write before work. Two or three o’clock in the morning. Her persistence was an enormous part of her success. Her determined personality, her strong will, enabled her to create in a precarious environment. She believed persistence is the most important trait a writer can possess. Her essay "Furor Scribendi" is a manual for writing. In it, she says, "forget inspiration. Habit is more dependable. Habit will sustain you whether you’re inspired or not." This approach shows her practical personality. Although she was very imaginative, Butler was never flighty. She learned to rely on what she could control, rather than waiting for ideas to come.

    Butler’s chosen genre remained a challenge. “I was writing science fiction and fantasy, for God's sake,” Butler wrote. “At that time nearly all professional science-fiction writers were white men. As much as I loved science fiction and fantasy, what was I doing? Well, whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Positive obsession is about not being able to stop just because you're afraid and full of doubts. Positive obsession is dangerous. It's about not being able to stop at all.”

    That idea of not being able to stop creating makes me think of motivation. Butler’s motivation was intrinsic. She had a drive that kept her writing. I know this because she wasn’t obtaining rewards during most of this process. Instead, she fatigued herself by limiting her sleep in order to write and work. However, there is some extrinsic motivation involved in her process. She wanted to sell a story. That’s what she had always wanted to do. It was a goal she made for herself. The selling of a story would obviously bring money, but it wasn’t about the actual cash, it was about the validation that the sale would bring. Butler’s extrinsic motivations were success and good judgement from others.

    I think Butler is a Big-C Creative. Her work is unlike any author’s before her. Other people had obviously written science fiction, but not with the complex social mirror-structures of hers. Many of her stories are innovative pieces of literature that deal with minority experiences in other worlds and universes. Her fiction explores totally new ways of thinking, of being. Extra-terrestrials, fabricated diseases, new languages without words, time travel, and vampires all inhabit her work, but the themes of her texts are imperative in our contemporary lives on earth.

Lauryn Hill: The Queen of Neo-Soul

     Lauryn Hill is arguably one of the best hip-hop/R&B artists of our time and had her album “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill”(1999)  recently featured as the 10th greatest album of all time by Rolling Stone. That same year she was the first hip hop artist to be featured on the cover of TIME magazine. The album sold more than 19 million copies worldwide and received 5 Grammys, 3 American Music Awards, and one MTV award. Hill’s most popular song of that album, Doo Wop (That Thing) is sampled in 28 other songs to date. 

When Lauryn wrote the album she was only 22 and had lots of emotional turmoil that she enjoyed expressing through rapping. She also had just given birth 2 years prior to Bob Marley’s grandchild, Zion, and Marley’s carefree and socially conscious lyrics inspired her own. Many people in the industry warned Hill of how having a child so early in her career could negatively affect her. Hill, not being one to let others determine her path, gave birth in 1997 and dedicated the song “To Zion” to her son which ha 41 million streams on Spotify. 

 Her environment and family influenced her lyrics because she felt that she could be honest in her music and talk about “real life”. Lauryn was different because she wrote her music with the intention of being real about love “she gathered knowledge around these topics from her pregnancy, which gave her the ability to communicate her feelings better than ever and connect with thousands of people with her lyrical honesty and transparency. She wrote down everything she was feeling in hopes her music could teach anyone how to get through a stressful situation”. Lauryn, unconsciously, treats her songwriting as a form of coping. Whenever she felt a negative emotion or felt her view of the world to be changing she started to write a song. Lauryn also enjoyed bringing attention to social justice issues and activism in her music. She felt that as a black female hip-hop artist she had to fight to stay true to herself and be adequately compensated for her work. Often being called a drama queen or brat in the media, Lauryn saw what the pressure of the music industry had done to her friend, Whitney Houston, and felt that it was better to not make music at all rather than be exploited by an industry that didn’t always allow for her creativity. Her observation of the music industry around her made her fearful to release more music after her stellar album and retreat away from the limelight.

Surprisingly after much of the fame that Hill had made her not want to be famous anymore. She felt that people were almost making her music a “religion” and that made her uncomfortable. Lauryn enjoys making music but doesn’t like the cost of touring, tabloids, etc. Her more introverted personality makes her that much more relatable to many of her fans as she raps about high school crutches and heartbreak. 

Her individuality and inspiration were directly correlated with the fact that she would have solitude and not be touched by the critical media. Lauryn unfortunately hasn’t released a full album since 2002 because of her focus on spirituality, independence, and isolation. I definitely think that Hill’s shy personality leaves her with a lot of untapped potential. Compared to other “creatives” Lauryn Hill definitely has the success and influence that would make her a great artist and when that greatness began to get criticized and get millions of hits she became scared to put more of her creativity out there. 

Lauryn Hill has made a huge impact on music today and even though she probably won’t make any more music you will likely hear her unique beats and melodic hooks for years to come. 

My personal favorite’s by Lauryn Hill:    

    To Zion

    Doo Wop(That Thing)

    Forgive Them Father 

    Ex Factor 

    Tell Him

Popular songs that sample Hill:
    Nice for what by Drake

    Be Careful by Cardi B 

    All Falls Down Kanye West

    Cole Summer By J Cole 

Rolling Stone’s 500 greatest albums of all time

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/best-albums-of-all-time-1062063/nas-illmatic-3-1063189/  

https://classicalbumsundays.com/album-of-the-month-the-miseducation-of-lauryn-hill/#:~:text=Hill%20had%20been%20inspired%20by,woman%20she%20was%20in%201997.   

Michelle Wanhala: The Spooky Doodler

Halloween is in our midst and I don’t know about you, but I sure am ready to celebrate the spooky season. For Michelle Wanhala, this is a year round average day in the life. This young tattoo artist was born and raised in the Chicago suburbs with an average Midwestern upbringing. She attended public school and absolutely despised its structure and discipline, which stunted Michelle’s free spirited personality. She developed a love for art as her mind often drifted in class, proven by her doodle-ridden notebooks, and she decided from a young age this is how she wanted to make a living. She attended a traditional art school but dropped out, as it reminded her too much of the exact constraints from which she desperately tried to free herself. She attended several apprenticeships, holding all with the same contempt as that she had for school. 

Ironically, while her personality would be classified as more rebellious than traditional according to Csikszentmihalyi’s personality dichotomies, her style is drawn from traditional tattoo style -- but with a unique spin. Her imagery typically consists of a medley of cute and creepy -- gore and horror that makes you want to say “Aww!” Inspired by comic books and being a grunge girl from the 90s, her art consists mainly of cartoon characters with bold outlines and striking colors that depict some form of pain and anguish.

Michelle’s artistry is not limited to just tattoos. She also paints and sells prints of her art, but she looks forward to flash tattoos the most. Her creative process is best at work when she can create something on the spot when customers tell her only vaguely what they are looking for. The less they say, the better. Michelle’s personality is embedded in her work, which is reminiscent of Picasso’s cartoony cubist style. Both Michelle and Picasso despised traditional schooling and made their careers by defying what is expected of typical artistry in their field. Both artists could be classified as more rebellious than traditional, more imaginative than realistic, and more playful than disciplined according to Csikszentmihalyi’s dichotomies. However, they find a way to incorporate some sort of balance between these juxtaposing traits that drive their success. Picasso and Michelle have had some sort of traditional training that inspired their rebellion, and with self-discipline they learned to establish their playful style. Michelle defines artistic success as “being able to make a living while staying true to one’s own artistic agenda.” Picasso and Michelle do not compromise to please the majority. Their success was derived from the audience that catered to them, not them catering to their audience.

Sources:

https://tttism.com/2019/05/27/michelle-wanhala-mwanhala/

http://voyagechicago.com/interview/meet-michelle-wanhala/

Sarah Gorden: Merging Soccer and Mental Health

When Sarah Gorden, professional soccer player for the Chicago Red Stars, issued the Pass It On Challenge to her teammates to raise money for a local mental health organization, Get Yo Mind Right Chi, she did not expect for it to result in nearly 16,000 dollars in donations, over $9,000 of which came from supporters. The challenge, which started with a pledge from Gorden herself, was a creative way for her to continue to enact change in her community, even though she was away in Utah playing in the NWSL Challenge Cup.

 

Sarah Gorden

Impressive as the results are, the Pass It On Challenge is only a small part of what Gorden has set out to do this year. Prior to the Challenge Cup, Gorden posted to Instagram and Twitter, offering Black girls the opportunity to train with her. This was an initial step intended to make headway toward her objective of closing “the gap between women’s soccer and the Black community.” After returning home from Utah, she continued working on the best way to make this dream a reality.

While Gorden originally concentrated on bringing more Black girls into soccer, she realized that these girls also needed resources to help them process their emotions and heal from trauma. Rather than choose to address only one problem, the lack of Black women in soccer or lack of resources available to young Black girls, she chose to get creative. Gorden generated the idea to combine these two things and created HoodSpace, an innovative nonprofit designed to “help girls of color find their space of flow through yoga, meditation and sport.” This organization, which launched in September, is based on Gorden’s own experience with yoga and meditation and how they have helped her deal with the trauma of systemic racism as well as improve her game. Gorden knows that having access to these outlets that has helped her immensely, which motivates her to provide the same resources to people who otherwise would not have them.

 

HoodSpace’s Logo

I believe that Gorden fits the five parts of Sternberg and Lubart’s Investment Theory of Creativity which aims to tie the facets of creativity together. Her personality fits the theory since, as mentioned above, she was able to enact change even when she faced the obstacle of being isolated in a completely different state, and she has demonstrated intellectual skill with the ability to decide what ideas are good and develop them into something meaningful. Her nonprofit HoodSpace is the best example of this; it is a unique combination of her talents as a soccer player and her knowledge of the benefits of mental health resources; this is her domain experience. The nonprofit is also the result of both her internal passion for equality as well as her desire to “’have some sort of impact somewhere,’” which is her motivation. HoodSpace is still in its early stages, but already, this inventive nonprofit and Gorden have already gotten a lot of support from the soccer community, her environment, including teammates’ advice and even t-shirts whose profits go to the organization. 

Michael Flatley as The Lord of the Dance

As one of my family’s quarantine assignments, we tackled a cleaning out of the inevitable “stuff” repository that exists in every house; ours is known as the basement. Slowly sifting through heaps of dusty pictures, long-forgotten clothes, and old Halloween costumes, I came across a VHS tape. Although my family’s means of watching it had been sold in yard sales or, frankly, given to recycle centers, this tape symbolized the beginning of a lifetime involved in Irish Dance.

The tape’s title? Riverdance, the show that not only brought Irish Dance to the world but also reinvented it. I sat on the concrete floor of my basement and reflected on the hours I spent as a kid enthralled with both Riverdance and Lord of the Dance and the years of competition and performance I pursued because of it.

Because Riverdance is celebrating its 25^th anniversary this year—and Lord of the Dance next year—I thought it pertinent to feature the creative mastermind behind these shows: Michael Flatley. A famous Chicago native you may never have heard of, Flatley was born in the South Side in 1958 to Irish-immigrant parents. Although his grandmother had a champion title at the world level, he didn’t start dancing until he was eleven at the Dennehy School of Irish Dance in Chicago. Despite the relatively late start, it only took him six years to be the first American to win the world Irish dancing championships, Oireachtas Rince na Cruinne. In addition to this, he was also a champion flute player as well as an amateur Golden Gloves boxer, his creativity expanding beyond just the dancing sphere.

Michael Flatley and Jean Butler in the first
edition of Riverdance as a feature.

Flatley’s real creative genius, however, existed in his ability to envision, choreograph, and perform Irish Dance in a way that appealed to those outside of its realm. He effortlessly maintained elements and history of the traditional art within the structure of a popular and entertaining attraction. Although throughout the years he had proven himself as a skilled performer and talented Irish dancer, it wasn’t until 1994 that he was given an opportunity to actually create a show of his own. Riverdance started as an intermission for a European singing contest, but Flatley captivated the audience in a mere seven-minute show, transforming Irish Dance—as the wider world saw it—“from a tradition-bound art form…into an expressive, buoyant celebration.” Riverdance was eventually expanded into a feature-length performance showed across Britain and Ireland, in which Flatley was both a choreographer and the lead. 

Michael Flatley at the finale of an
early version of Lord of the Dance.

In 1995, however, feeling he didn’t have enough creative control, Flatley left Riverdance and went on to create his own show, Lord of the Dance, with a more “Las-Vegas” type choreography and extravagance. His stage presence as well as the unique nature of the performance enthralled audiences everywhere, and by 1997, the recording of Lord of the Dance live had sold over three million copies internationally. Flatley went on to develop a number of other equally popular shows including Feet of Flames, Celtic Tiger, and Lord of the Dance: Dangerous Games and performed off-and-on throughout (including on Broadway!). Although fifty years of dancing had really taken a toll on his body and he was forced to retire in 2016, his shows continue to tour throughout the globe today, selling out in places as far as Taipei and Prague.

What is so interesting about Michael Flatley as a creative is the fact that his creative personality is not only what allows the creation of his product but also what draws people to his performances specifically. He both created it as well as existed as a fundamental part of its success. In essence, people came to see Flatley perform, and he really knew it. 

Flatley in his quintessential pose.

His process is heavily defined by one specific aspect of Csikszentmihalyi’s creative personality: rebellious and independent yet in possession of an internalized domain of culture. In other words, Flatley is, to a certain extent, a traditionalist. He preserved the art of Irish Dance yet revolutionized the way it was portrayed. This desire to depart within the domain is captured in his own words:

“I was dying to try something new. I was dying to try different things. I was dying to go farther with the whole thing.”

Since retiring from dancing, Flatley has explored painting as a means of illustrating the typically invisible motions and taps on the stage. He paints the bottom of his shoes and physically dances on the canvas, leaving behind a manifestation of movement. Sternberg’s emphasis on integration and intellectuality is obviously seen with the nature of the shows themselves; but this example highlights the presence of this trait in Flatley’s personality itself.

Michael Flatley, The Power

It is also interesting to look at Flatley’s process through the framework Andreasen presents when discussing the unconscious. Preparation was provided with his experience in Irish Dance as a child; incubation occurred in his early career in performing as well as teaching; inspiration—although not necessarily a “eureka” moment—was experienced after leaving Riverdance and gaining complete creative freedom; and production witnessed the development of a number of groundbreaking shows, world tours, millions of fans, and even a performance for the American presidential inauguration. Whether the unconscious, intuition, and/or pure natural talent, it appears to arise from within:

“Whatever I’m trying to create comes from inside…what we create here, we create on our own.”

My four-year-old self’s love for Irish Dance certainly has Michael Flatley to thank.  

 

If you are interested, definitely check out these short clips from the various shows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qW9_-fCwc1c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjxTTjJtXDA

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References:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michael-Flatley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Flatley
https://www.michaelflatley.com/about/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1hZkbPNCD8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfAzOOmbgxo
https://philpapers.org/rec/ANDAJI
https://www.amazon.com/Creativity-Flow-Psychology-Discovery-Invention/dp/0062283251
https://www.discogs.com/artist/353440-Michael-Flatleys-Lord-Of-The-Dance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=abd8jgiTKH0
https://hollywoodlife.com/2017/01/19/who-is-michael-flatley-dancer-riverdance-donald-trump-inauguration/
https://news.artnet.com/art-world/michael-flatley-tops-irish-auction-292275

Alice Sheppard: Using Physically Integrated Dance To Re-Invent What It Means To Be A Dancer

Alice Sheppard

What comes to mind when you think of a dancer? For many it might be the image of a tall, long, and thin woman with her hair pulled back into a bun. And this was the case throughout most of history. But in present day, the body types, skin colors, and preferred techniques of dancers are slowly diversifying. One creative individual who is working to change the dance narrative is Alice Sheppard.

Sheppard is an award-winning choreographer who creates in the realm of physically integrated dance. Physically integrated dance is a branch of the Disability Culture Movement. It recognizes and celebrates the first-person experience of a disability as a social phenomenon through literary, artistic, and other creative means. Most importantly, physically integrated dance and the Disability Culture Movement are rejections of the medical model of disability: disabilities are not illnesses that need to be cured. Physically integrated dance is incredibly inclusive and embraces dancers’ unique disabilities and experiences to create something revolutionary. 

Traditionally, dance as an excellence excludes disability. To be a good dancer, one must have precise control over every inch of their body. Most say the “best concert dance” is performed by those who are able-bodied to the highest extreme. But Alice Sheppard is working to change this. Sheppard is a wheelchair user, and she uses this experience to create movement that “challenges conventional understandings of disabled and dancing bodies.” Her wheelchair serves as some form of a constraint. In this case, the constraint is physical. As we learned in class, constraints aren’t always negative. Her disability, the disabilities of others, and her use of a chair allow for new pathways to be used for generating movement. Her wheelchair is an extension of her body, and this is clearly seen in the vastly creative ways in which she moves across the stage. The “constraint” of a disability is necessary for new pathways to be developed and for revolutionary movement to occur. (Disabilities might only be considered constraints because they are not what society considers to be “normal.” “Normal” is a social construct.)

Doesn't this requires the same control and technicality "normal" dancers utilize??

One of Sheppard’s most notable choreographic accomplishments is DESCENT. This piece “celebrates the pleasure of reckless abandon.” It’s also a rejection of what dance and beauty are “supposed” to look like while celebrating all that a disability can be. The dance utilized a large architectural ramp as well as crazy production and lighting design. And not only was there a musical score, but there was live music, too. Throughout the piece, the sounds of Sheppard and fellow dancer Laurel Lawson’s bodies interacting with each other and the diverse surfaces beneath them are clear. “Dance can be a soundtrack of music: wheels, feet, crutch tips, the hum of a power chair, or the sound of bodies moving together” (Alice Sheppard).

"Over the course of the next hour, I will launch my body up, down and around the curvaceous plywood structure of our set. Bathed in the stunning projections of our lighting, video and projection designer, Michael Maag, I will sit on its peak, dive into its underworld and join my dance partner and collaborator, Laurel Lawson, as we move from wheelchair to floor, platform to valley, pushing, pulling, intertwining ourselves until the final moment when together we leap for the edge."

(Alice Sheppard, New York Times).

Alice Sheppard & Laurel Lawson in DESCENT

Sheppard and Lawson also showed audiences the pursuit of “wheel joy,” which is when the pleasures of wheeled movement are achieved when chairs produce sharp and precise turns. Their movements both necessarily utilize physics but appear to defy gravity at the same time. Equally important are the moments when Sheppard and Lawson dance without their wheelchairs. “The movements do not represent triumph over disability. They do not shore up myths about independence. And, even when Sheppard and Lawson dance without their wheelchairs, they do not scorn the wheelchair” (Dance Magazine). 

Sheppard dreams of a “broad and sustainable landscape for disabled artists.” She works with several organizations that are working to make dance and the arts more inclusive. Sheppard is an advocate for those who are traditionally excluded from the artistic narrative. Through her domain of dance and choreography, Alice Sheppard proves to all dancers and audiences that disability does not make one incomplete.