The Work’s Work

Just as a parent can never fully predict the impact their child will make on the world, an artist can never fully know how or if any of the works they produce will affect an audience, intended or not. We do our best with what we have and release. We have no choice but to trust the process. In that make we make room for the work to do it’s work.

Last week I received a call in the late morning hour. It was the mural sponsor. I could hear a weight in his voice, dragging on each sentence. He finally asked if K had called me. I said “no, why?”

“So You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” I responded, followed by a halt of silence.

“Man, someone attacked the mural. It’s bad, real bad.” He choked on the words, I could hear the torn spirit coming though his voice. He went on to offer his condolences, literally, before informing me that he was filing a police report. It sounded to much like a death announcement. When we eventually hung up, I tried to sit with the reality for a minute. It would not settle. Would not sit. There was no feeling of finality, no dropping of my head, no feeling of loss. Was I numb or just in need of more time to process.

I called my partner and shared the news with her. It hit her much harder than it had me. What’s wrong with me, I questioned. Why am I not feeling this. I could feel the fire in her voice as she rattled off a list of needed responses. File a police report, check the camera’s in the area, call the news. Call the news. “Call the news? I repeated in question in a question.

“Call the news?” Immediately the words of Mamie Till Mobley, mother of Emmett Till, came to mind. Not that I’m weighing her son’s life with my artwork but her words fit. She asked for an open casket at the funeral, “Let the people see what they did to my boy.” I instructed the sponsor to call the news. In a few quick minutes I received a call back for an interview. I really didn’t want to do it. Really didn’t even want to see the condition of the art work. The last time I’d seen her she stood tall and proud, almost eerily animated in her turn to gaze at viewers. Now she’s been the victim of an attacked. But was she a victim, though? My mind twirled on the thought. Or was she doing the work, taking the path that had been the plan all along? In the creative realm, the work of the work is usually bigger than we fashion. That question allowed me to be saddened but not sad. Saddened that we have not moved beyond the petty differences that linger, like dirty underwear on a rusted barbed wire fence in those spaces between us. Saddened that a thing of beauty, a gift, would be vandalized in a society thirsty for such offerings.

It hit the news with a thud. I posted on social media and there was a mighty rushing, an outpouring of concern and care. I received a phone calls from as far aways as Dallas, TX. The depth of the conversations sparked in my presence informed me that the work was doing its work. It had tapped into the wellspring of humanity.

When I arrived at the scene, I didn’t look at the piece right away. The news lady asked me stand in front of it, if I didn’t mind. When I walked over, I turned to look at the piece. Her eyes, clear and strong met mine in a way that went beyond an art piece. Her gaze was still piecing, even mores now. They had not taken that away. The key, the symbol of access was still intact. I always say that art is a universal language, soul speak. That work spoke right back into my soul, shook me in that moment, reminding me anew that I am born to do this. The work – the art, is a stop, look, and listen sign pointing toward the greater good. As creatives we are the honored, chosen channels through which the work comes. But we must realize that we become the recipients like Mother Mary before her son, Jesus, of the the message, power, and promise of the work’s work.