CALLING ALL SUPER HEROES!

It all started with capes.
And, yes, santa is super. 

 I have two sons, six and four.  According to mass media, and product choices, there’s a certain level of expectation around being a boy.

Four-year-old Arlo embraced the super hero whole-heartedly.  Somehow I think it might have started with the character underpants.  Not much else available, honestly.  There’s The Flash, Spiderman, Green Lantern, the Hulk, Wonder Woman, Batman, and others made up on the spot.  Together, the children bring these characters to life.  The life stories of these characters mean little to tiny minds, but the POWER means everything. 

Obama! Another super hero.
He can fly! 

In my imagination, the super part of a hero comes from an unfortunate oddity that sets them apart from their peers.  These individuals are on a life-long path of antisocial behavior by overcoming a disability.  I just wrote that and I want to erase it.  But, really, what is social about coming to the rescue of society by beating the crap out of the “bad guys”?  Often, the “bad guys” have some kind of oddity that sets them apart from their peers as well.  They’re social misfits, each and every one of them.   So, does it help to tell my boys, “He’s not bad, he just does bad things?”

What is different about the hearts and minds of heroes that set them apart from the villains?  Choices.  Most people can reel off the different characteristics without a thought. There is good vs. bad, light vs. dark, rich vs. poor, left vs. right, and it goes on and on.  One thing is clear, we are strongly encouraged to choose one over the other.  So often, we believe, these choices lead either toward or away from the American Dream.   In reality, I see the successful folks doing bad things to get to good places.  I see people living good lives and having bad things happen to them.  There are still other examples of good folks getting to good places.  Wow, this is so confusing. 

Yep. Me with my buds. 

When I observe my child playing superheroes, I see that someone has to be the villain so someone can be the savior.   At first glance, it seems healthy to explore identity this way.  How often do we get to try on the dastardly role while our friends pull off the saint?  Probably more often than we think.   Having a BAd day?  Don’t stop for pedestrians who want to cross the street.  It’s not your day.  You deserve the break, and he or she can wait for a nice person who has time.  Someone else should be cheering YOU up.  When you feel like you are having a GOOD day, you can be the saint.  Hmm.  I wonder if I am the only one who does this. 

Queries:  Are you really working so hard to be the good person you think you are?  How do you know the difference between good and bad?  Once we’re bad, are we always bad?  Is there good in everyone waiting to grow and bloom?  Is being helpful, kind, non-judgmental, and compassionate actually useful in this world?  Or is it more important to be powerful?

Bumper sticker. 

I asked my kids to consider playing superheroes without playing bad guys.  They agreed it was more fun ‘cause they get to be on the same team.  They stop lightning from striking the city, and volcanoes from burying towns.  It’s the dichotomy I am trying to get away from.  So when it comes time for the government to bring war into the heart and mind of my child, he might have a chance to question the validity of murdering the villain.  Hope it works.  

Learn more:  Witness (1985 film) clip-A lesson about bad guys for an Amish boy. 
                     Surreal Super Why (youtube clip) 
                     Top 10 Non-White Super Heroes

The Deconstructionist

When I was five years old, I realized a world of wonder and infinite curiosity.  I lived close to the land in Northern California with my activist-hippie-mom and brother.  Life was about sunshine, dirt, and the smell of goats.  Though my father was out of the picture, I was told both he and my grandmother were artists.  I didn’t know what an artist was, but all of the strange things I did and thought seemed to be linked to this notion of making things, to which my mother simply surrendered to as my inherent gifts.

One of the things I began doing right away was deconstruction.  In a tangible way, it was boxes of any kind turned into containers of a different form, a turntable dismantled and made to perform as a radio, while I ran my fingers over the solder spots, and heard things through the speaker.  In other ways, it was thinking beyond the boundaries.  For me, it was soothing to think of the myriad ways in which to look at the world around me.  I could see small and imagine big.  I was sensitive and aware. 

I am still this child and I am still a deconstructionist.  I love to see the possibilities of things, especially things considered no longer useful.  It’s wise, I believe, to know when things are no longer useful and are ready to evolve into something new.  Both in ourselves and in the material world, for they reflect one another.  I once did a three-person show, at The Gallery for Contemporary Art in Sacramento, on reconstructed grocery bags.  They became like Japanese scrolls complete with tassels embellished with expressive pastel people contorted onto the skin of the bags.  I painted in acrylic on discarded pull-down window shades.  The figures were asked to exist the world of the picture window, too tall, or stuck in a shallow space with words surrounding them.  They were bright, refreshing, and honest. 

Now, it is T-shirts from boxes of free items on street corners turned into skirts and pants with messages of humor and social change. And there are large-scale drawings on thick, fibrous, paper of people transformed into icons and melding into images of connectedness, love, and systemic social change.  The paper is like skin, the essence of the trees upon which they are feeding.  There is a contagious boldness to the work, complete with gold and copper or fake money to lure the “eye of the crow” and to challenge the viewer to be her truest self.  The art is coming from a spiritual place.  It is asking us to consider another way of seeing things.  We are being asked to open to the idea of falling in love with humanity and to manifest beauty through our brave visions of a new world in America.  

Learn more:  Open To Love: A Facebook Community
                     Deconstruction:  I Just Found This (2 Minute Youtube)