The Ties that Bind part 1

Last Wednesday was the first session of the Ties that Bind two part workshop.

What I was most struck by was how amazing and present the participants were. We had a really rad group of people, all across the spectrum of artist/organizer. More writers than anything else, but including a graphic artists, a performer and mover, a painter. Folks came in saying how grateful they were to be invited into a space that is trying to think about the bridging between creation and movement building.

Two participants with lots of experience as artists and organizers helped us open up the space and open up the intention of the workshop by reflecting on their experiences of bridging arts and justice work. Vanessa spoke to my heart particularly as she talked about the tensions of fitting artists/poets urges into the traditional form of organizing. She talked about the economy of scarcity and how that flows into not just a lack of resources, but a culture of feeling impulses and time at odds. Folks really added a lot in a discussion of the relevance of creative processes and art in movement building, and the spaces in which political art finds (or does not find) home.

The activities were really exciting, and I was really inspired by people's engagement. We wrote from one another's language (the activity of sentence stems that we rehearsed in class) and people got really real with their responses. We also took a leap and tried an embodiment exercise which people seemed to love.

I general I felt really happy about the workshop, while also letting myself notice that we could have organized time better and that I could be have been a little bit less shy. I've been sitting with a lot of philosophical questions as we prepare for part 2, but those are question that I don't expect to be answered in this workshop series. How does movement building and art making bridge back and forth into one another is a question for the ages.

One thing I wanted to share that came up in our reflection process was the kinds of trauma/shut down so many folks have experienced in finding or losing their voice in organizing contexts. New and different outlets for reconnecting to ones own creative spirit and artistic voice is part of the work of building individual and collective resilience. That, I think, is a lesson for all forms of community teaching.