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CSUDH Habermas UWP

California State University, Dominguez Hills
University of Wisconsin, Parkside
Created: May 19, 2001
Latest update: May 19, 2001
jeannecurran@habermas.org

Transforming Discourse with Our Art

A collage painting by jeanne, combining part of a drawing by Basquiat, part of a painting by Dolly Klett, part of jeanne's sketch of the Reno meetings, and painting over to connect them into some kind of whole. You can actually see all the pieces online that went into this piece, inspired by "the presence we leave behind."

Honor Dolly Klett's Oneness

An Untitled Work of Jean-Michel Basquiat on the New York Times Site.

The Reno Performance by jeanne.

What I thought as I put the collage together, using Corel Photo House on a PC: I felt both the tension and the conflict in the paintings. I recognized what Teidre Rankins and LaKeisha Miller and Laneisha Brooks had described: the gifts their paintings and visualizations leave us. Because I don't have a software program that will let me place art at will on the page, I settled for the Paint and Photo House free programs I've been using all semester.

I saw Basquiat's haunting figure juxtaposed with the calm ocean Dolly painted as she imagined her loved ones, a continent away, there as one with her. Somehow --- I don't know how --- I managed to place Basquiat's figure coming out of the ocean, out of the calmness. Then somehow the exhilarating preparations for Reno seemed to hover in the sky behind the Basquiat figure. Now, suddenly, for me the picture was complete.

What do I feel when I look at it? Faith in the peace of Dolly's ocean, erasing the temporal and physical distance between herself and her loved ones, and a sense that somehow that peace she felt and painted so well, will overcome the rage and pain of Basquiat's figure, with the hint of a skull within it. Notice that I crossed out the skull, the poison, the anger. I seem to have pinned my hopes on that squiggle that represents for me the preparations for the Reno Conference. The squiggle included intense caring, hard work, some nervousness, some hanging out, lots of struggling and imperfection. I guess I think that all those many things we are will smother Basquiat's figure in enough love and caring to guide him. Pollyannish? Maybe. But it's the ordinary, everyday caring that adds up to love.

In some way I do not understand, this painting satisfied my need to simply hug Basquiat and assure him that we heard him in good faith and loved him. I never could reconcile that feeling before, because I understand how difficult it would be to hug and love a child in that much pain. He was undoubtedly more than I could have coped with. bell hooks understands that inability of the authority structure to cope in her article on Basquiat. So the painting expresses for me the love and peace I would have given had I been able to. This is my imaginary for our hope to transform discourse so that we can hug each other, each and every one of us.

Try your hand at building on the paintings we share. I'll upload them as fast as I can. Use PAINT or some other free program.

love and peace, jeanne