trailer park art and creative purpose

"True happiness comes from the joy of deeds well done, the zest of creating things new."
 Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Seventeen percent of the housing units in New Mexico are mobile homes ranking us third in the nation outdone by South and North Carolina in that order.   The overall average in the US is eight percent.  I learned early in my life of a giant stigma associated with living in one of these homes especially when scores of them are stacked side by side with non-existent yards in collective “parks.” The potency of my parents’ commentaries planted this disparaging paradigm in me. But it lost much of its effect when financial necessity caused me to seek refuge in several such units and parks early in my life. The experiences served me well and the sheer numbers who are mobile home/trailer park dwellers give reason to notice and discover beauty where beauty is not expected.

Trailer park art is a theme worth exploring. I can envision the pieces: “Block Three Lot 27” is a Cezanne-like watercolor depicting some makeshift stairs leading to a rusting narrow metal door. Next to the stairs is a pile of crumpled beer cans and nearby is a pit bull tied with a frayed rope onto a car bumper.  “Contrast: lot 13 and 14” is an oversized detailed graphite rendition of an attempt by one creative voice to smarten her world by  placing several bunches of faded artificial roses in plastic pots on the railing of her tidy deck. Next door an unworking vehicle fills a littered miniature yard. “Drying on the Line” is an ink line drawing with a watercolor wash of laundry clothes-pinned onto a rope that is carelessly strung between an un-skirted unit and a small tree.

 A trailer park characterized by neglect is an image that evokes specific thoughts, judgments, and feelings. The observer might experience a spontaneous association with lack, laziness, filth, and low social standing that is mostly unconscious and unspoken or blatantly justified.  By bringing these images to the canvas, intentional and profound purposes may be served that extend beyond the limited pleasure or therapy the artist derives in the act of creating. There are intrinsic benefits that may be mined from these hypothetical works.

First, In his representation of the trailer park scenes the artist bestows the possibility of cultivating emotional intelligence in the viewer—the chance of an awakening sensitivity to internal reactions—the criticism, the revulsion, divisive assumptions, or social distancing are all potent illuminating responses that may arise in the act of even a brief silent and attentive looking. What is presented on the canvas has the potential of arresting attention away from an otherwise mechanical and benumbed response directing the observer to the gift of interior awareness and self-honesty.

A second purpose is the making of beauty from what is overlooked, minimized, repulsive, or commonly assumed to be non-beauty. Rembrandt’s Carcass of Beef comes to mind as a classic illustration of this. Something ugly and practical (a dead cow) is donned with the respect of excellent design, texture, and rich color.  One of my daughters gave me a letter this past weekend. It accompanied a book given to celebrate a milestone in my life.  In it she referred to some of my difficulties, doubts, and frustrations of several years’ duration. She stated that “one thing that remains and will survive is this drive in you to make things beautiful.” I think she is primarily referring to life situations more than a trailer park series of paintings and drawings, but her observation transfers broadly to all devotees of the creative process in innumerable venues.

The all-absorbing and mostly enjoyable nature of the creative process could easily translate as a self-focused pursuit. The benefits to the observer (or the reader, etc) are not automatic but cultivated and therefore not profitable to all. I find that I need to remind myself of the value of what I offer the attentive observer of my creation lest I forget my contribution.

creativity and unscrubbed toilets

“As a mother of five

(now grown) children, my proficiency in time management is well-honed. In recent years, though, I have tasted a maturity in this skill. Earlier in my life, my large hourly Day-timer was rigidly attended and any unexpected diversion met with a non-productive angst. As I have grown older, I notice an increasing ability to pick my battles and allow lesser duties to wait.”

This is an excerpt from a letter I finished on Tuesday. It is for a graduate program I hope to begin in January.

The “lesser duties” are certainly relative and in my case have a quotidian quality. They are the obligatory jobs of living here—bed-making, folding, dusting, diapering, etc. Most of my adult life I have sought to perform them with beauty and attentiveness and seldom with carelessness. I found them to be a source of satisfaction…mysteriously so.

Now, in another season and a fueled with a new passion that affords little time for these once high-priority tasks, I do not want to minimize the value of the ordinary. Contentment in the mundane has been the stuff of peace for me.

I have often imagined how I would fare in different situations of ordinariness or deprivation asking self -searching questions: Could you be content completely alone? Could you do this task for the duration of your life if it were required?  Could you function undisturbed with few material possessions? Could you walk out Victor Frankl’s experiences as he did in the Nazi death camps? If pondered, these foundational considerations  lend depth, honesty, and consciousness to one’s journey. I need to believe I am not running away from something distasteful, but transferring that careful attention to a fresh purpose.

I have friends with impeccably clean kitchens and orderly closets. Some of them are also people of passion and creativity and pursue those ambitions with excellence as well. Some have maids. I have yet to balance it all so successfully and a maid is not feasible.

As we pursue creative works with the kind of mindfulness those works require, then for some of us strange life forms may grow in the refrigerator, the laundry may stand in piles, the toilet may go unscrubbed, and  we may be misunderstood. A voice of shame will scream to be heard, but  I am thinking that “maturity" might respond with a convincing,  “Let it be.”