I think a lot of us are struggling with how to make art under the current political climate, especially when it’s not overtly political. I was in the middle of getting this writing project off the ground when Trump won. And I felt like I had to change the direction of it, or just not do it altogether. I had this feeling that everything but screaming in the streets was futile. I felt so useless. Chaos was all around and I did not know what to do with it.
Then I understood that there is nothing wrong with chaos. It’s just a way of conceiving things. You can decide things don’t look right or make sense and call it chaos. And that’s a judgement we make to express discomfort with what we consider to be randomness. Or you can recognize that sense can be made from it if you just expand. Because chaos is actually just many opposing forces all happening at the same time – good and evil, destruction and creation, darkness and light. And that allows for a lot of potential. Anything can be born in these conditions and that is kind of thrilling. If we take the sixties-those were chaotic times. There was a lot of darkness and I think in that moment, people mostly saw darkness. So many assassinations and wars and -isms. But when we now look back on that decade, we see it more as a time for paradigm-change and rebirth and revolution and love.
So I came out of my haze and returned to writing about clothes. Because I think that this is the stuff we are here for. If we aren’t free to create and think about beauty in the world then what is this thing of life all about? And what can I say-this is my moment on this earth. And it happens to coincide with Trump’s moment. But fuck it-I think I can still feel inspired in his world. So after a few weeks of crying and suffering and dreading what comes next, I just felt that I’d already given him enough power over my personal happiness and it was time to return to working on self-creation and love. Maybe now more than ever.
Clothes tell the story of human history. They express culture and subculture and our own personal or ancestral narrative. I think about Syria and what tragedies are taking place in that beautiful part of the world and the incredible cost of human lives. And among all that, when I view it through this clothing/textiles/cultural heritage prism, I think about the loss and destruction of all those weaving mills and centuries-old souks and the personal belongings…the stuff that stands for a people who live in the cradle of civilization. It’s a huge loss of history and culture.
Clothes are an extension and reflection of our psychic interior and our communal exterior. Trump’s regime is divisive and destructive to personal identity and there is no time like now to assert who we are creatively, ancestrally, culturally, and politically. That is an expression of resistance. Never stop tending your garden of beauty because some flowers can still grow in the dark.