Streams of Thoughts 2: Grass Root Art and Human Divinity

Right now I'm working on a bench design project in the Clark Park, Detroit, and our group took a tour to the Clark Park last weekend. On our way back, the teacher stopped by three benches that he has done before to show us as examples. The three beautiful banches are made of mosaic and they represent the race diversity and the natural resources in Detroit. The things that caught my attention were not the benches shining in the sunlight, but those two people with "shabby" clothes sitting on the benches. Behind the benches was a huge, brand-new-looking painting of Detroit skyline on one side of a building, and the teacher told us that the painting was done by a group of students 25 years ago and has never been attacked by anyone since then. I turned around and looked at the neighborhood. To be honest, it was a very depressing scene to look at. All these old houses and streets showed the prosperity of Detroit decades ago.

However, I truly admire those nieghbors who have been respecting and protecting the painting for 25 years; and I was deeply inspired. Last Spring Break, I watched a lot of videos about the human origin and how human beings have gradually lost their divinity because of the erosion of the materialis. Ralph Waldo Emerson also believed that human beings have this instictive divinity and direct connection with God. In order to awake humans' inner divinity, the video suggests, we have to raise the "collective consciousness", which means a moral attitude shared by everyone in a society, to a higher level to achieve the divinity again.

Art is the most direct expression of the human divinity. When you are doing art, you don't think, you don't calculate, and you just let the invisible hand rule you. It does not mean that you are not using your mind when you are creating art; instead, you shut down the side of brain which controls all your daily behavior, all your calculation, all your anxiety, and fully open up the other side of the brain to connect to some higher spiritual level. It is the same principle as Buddhist monks are sitting in meditation. There are those rare moments when you put down all the anxiety, dissatisfaction, calculation and greed in the material world, and reach out to touch the divinity. And I believe, not only artists, but EVERYONE needs moments like that. Everyone IS ABLE TO have moments like that.

We have buried the divinity for so long, and it is time to wake up and make a difference. The neighborhood in Detroit may be depressing, the houses may be old and the people may be poor, but inside the shell of the old automobile city, I can see a shining core of human divinity because these people respect the art works and they try so hard to preserve them.

I was often wondering, what is the point to build those benches? We are not famous artists, we are just a bunch of high school students; the park won't be much better if we install several benches there. But now I understand, the benches WILL make a difference. Yes, we are grass root artists and the people in the neighborhood are grass roots. But EVERY GRASS COUNTS! The appreciation of art works and the awaking of human divinity should and will start with grass roots. If everyone of us just do a little bit, a painting on the wall can be preserved for 25 years; if everyone of us just do a little bit, Detroit art will shine its light upon the deserted buildings; if everyone of us just do a little bit, we human beings will wake up from the glossy dream of materialism and reach the pure core of human divinity.

I participated in the Wire Car project before the Spring Break and now I will devote my best to the Clark Park bench project. I feel so motivated now because although my work is grass rook, I believe together we can make a difference.