Vail can’t handle truth in art?

Every self-respecting artist or other creative individual should condemn the Vail, Colorado, community for its cowardly treatment this week of artist Danielle SeeWalker.

Just a few days after announcing her appointment as Vail’s second-ever artist in residence, the Colorado Sun reported, the town backed out because of a painting when some people complained.

The article quotes Vail town manager Russell Forrest as saying: “We started getting messages from individuals looking closely at her social media posts. The concern was around the very polarizing issue in Israel and Gaza right now. We didn’t want public funds connected to a project about a polarizing geopolitical issue that is still playing out.”

SeeWalker said her painting highlighted the parallels between the plight of Native Americans in the U.S. and the crisis in Gaza.

Rather than have honest conversations about the art and helping people learn something from it, the town’s Art in Public Places published a statement about its mission “to create a diverse and meaningful public art experience in Vail.”

That clearly does not apply to art that makes Vail folks uncomfortable. 

People and communities that can’t handle the truth do not deserve to have an artist in residence. Boycott them.

B.J.

Red eyes in the tree

Back before we parted ways with Iowa, Mrs. Smith and I lived with our children in an old house (from the 1950s or thereabouts) in the eastern part of the state. The back yard was big, mostly hidden from the neighbors by tall, thick hedges on three sides. There were lots of birds, moles that tunneled under the grass, some hornets and bees, flowers, and one memorable opposum that hung out in a tree. We saw it mostly after dark, and we saw little more than its red eyes when it looked our way.

One day, or maybe it was at night, I imagined I heard a voice talking about that critter. He said his name was Malice X. DuBois. He saw those red eyes in the tree and he told me what he would do as he sat there on the stairs a few feet away from my desk. Here’s what he said…

Possum

Possum out my window, possum crawlin’ up a tree,
red-eye ugly critter starin’ right damn back at me.

How she carry all them babies with they pointy little nose?
How they even stand ta see her, with them crooked little toes?

If she still there in the mawnin’ I be climbin’ up ’ere too.
Git some fur ta keep ma hands warm and some tasty possum stew.

If she still there in the mawnin’, if her babies all be gone,
I jes go up there and git her and ma hunger all be done.

Yes I climb right up ’ere with her, up into that scrawny tree.
Ain’t no red-eye ugly critter gonna stare damn back at me.

For more rhyme and verse, see Rhyme and verse and/or my first poetry collection.

Lucky ones

This new Colorado Sun article reminded me how fortunate I was to be treated at UCHealth when I was diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia (AML) last year.

The clinical trial that triathlete Siri Lindley went through in 2019 saved her life. What came out of that trial saved mine, too, and I imagine the lives of many others. I wrote about my own experience in a series of posts on this site (all tagged AML) and later put those posts in a book.

Yes to making it possible for more people to have access to such medical treatment.

That’s all for now.

B.J.