Inspiration Fridays! Can art be your act of resistance?

Can art be your act of resistance?

Art gives us access. It gives us the courage to challenge the things we fear but can’t face alone. Art captures what we feel when words fail us.

“Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth.” – Pablo Picasso

In the year 1937, two separate but deeply connected art world events made a lasting mark on history: Pablo Picasso painted Guernica, and Nazi Germany staged the infamous Degenerate Art exhibit. Both were fueled by the mounting tension between authoritarian fascism and art’s power to speak truth.

Guernica, with its stark, haunting images of pain and loss, was Picasso’s response to the indiscriminate bombing of a Basque town during the Spanish Civil War. He didn’t try to sugarcoat the atrocities with beautiful colors or classic imagery. Instead, he held up a mirror to the brutality that senseless violence inflicts. Guernica became more than a painting, it was a plea for empathy and a testament to art’s power to bear witness to the suffering of others.

During the same year, the Nazis launched the Degenerate Art exhibit with the intention of dismissing and belittling abstract, and non-conformist modernists like Kandinsky, Chagall, and Picasso, labeling them as “un-German” and “immoral.”

The Nazis chose these works for ridicule because they feared them. Art capable of expressing multiple points of view and challenging the viewer to both ask questions and then have to answer those questions for themselves, would erode the spoon-fed singularity and precious dogma they depended on to maintain their power.

8paint Inspiration Friday Can art be your act of resistance?

Guernica – Pablo Picasso

The exhibition itself was propaganda, a calculated attempt to delegitimize any art that promoted individualism, experimentation, or criticism. With mock captions and chaotically arranged displays, it invited the public to laugh at or condemn the art and, by extension, the ideals it represented. But many who saw the exhibition didn’t laugh. They found a different kind of power in the work. And it gave them courage.

When the world feels dark, and freedoms seem fragile, art remains a sanctuary. A space where vulnerability, empathy, and independent thought flourish. As artists, we have a duty to keep creating, to make work that reflects our authenticity. Art doesn’t just provide hope, it’s an imprint of your truth, even when that truth is uncomfortable.

Don’t be afraid to create and collect pieces that capture both our struggles and our hopes. Even in darkness, art holds the power to reflect, challenge, and, inspire. Use it.

 

Can art be your act of resistance?

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Inspiration Fridays! Does your creativity know its history?

Does your creativity know its history?

Today the veil is thin. Our creativity connects us with something ancient, something beyond ourselves. I was struggling to open an old tube of quinacridone with a small pair of pliers. As I twisted, the cap stayed put, but the side of the tube split wide and now the deep red paint is everywhere. A leak in time. I’m going to use a lot of red.

“Every act of creation is first an act of destruction,” – Pablo Picasso

This old paint in a tube has its own story of innovation. Oil paints first found their way into tubes all the way back in 1841. The American artist John Goffe Rand developed the collapsible metal tubes to keep his oil paints fresh. A game-changer for artists, as it made our paints more portable and the very act of painting itself more immediate and spontaneous.

Before that, artists had to grind their own pigments and mix them with oil before every painting session. I doubt I would be a painter if this were still true. When I’m ready to paint, even the act of putting out the paints feels like it takes too long. And forget painting outdoors (plein air).

I think my artistic lineage probably starts with the Impressionists. An impatient line of artists I’m unwittingly now a part of, each new brushstroke a response to visual whispers, urgings, and murmurs from derelicts and geniuses long dead but still very much alive.

8paint Inspiration Friday - Does your creativity know its history?

The quiet before the storm.

 

Art is a collection of gestures, traces, and energies. Each decision, each mark is part of a shared visual alphabet, every completed work is an exchange. When we add something new, we’re honoring what’s come before, even when it’s an unconscious nod. It’s humbling to think that each of us, in some way, participates in this ongoing narrative, creating something that has the potential to live on beyond us. There’s a bit of immortality there, fragments of our experiences, our hands, our lives carried forward.

My daughter Iris is celebrating her 12th birthday today. I can’t help but see a bridge between her discovery of the world and what I experience as I continue to explore, looking for ways to bring both the past and the future into my work. Is that what art is? Our shared journey through time, holding reminders and pieces of everyone who has touched us in some way.

 

How do the lives of those before you inspire your art?

What stories do you carry into your creative process?

Does your creativity know its history?

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Inspiration Fridays! Are you ready to step into a new beginning?

Are you ready to step into a new beginning?

There’s a moment, long before starting a painting when I hesitate. By the time the panel is primed and on my easel, I’m usually ready. This moment comes before that. Staring into nothingness looking for my genesis.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein

The possibilities seem overwhelming. Ideas swirl, but none feel quite right. It’s easy to get stuck in that place. Overthinking, trying to anticipate every detail, every shortcoming, before the first mark has even been made.

I’ve learned that the longer I linger in that space, the harder it is to even start. Overthinking is often the greatest obstacle to creativity. I’ll stare at the canvas, waiting for the perfect plan to emerge. But art doesn’t work like that. Creation happens in the doing.

8paint Inspiration Friday Are you ready to step into a new beginning?

The quiet before the storm.

 

The magic begins when we step out of our heads and into action. The answers that feel elusive when we’re sitting still often appear when we start moving. That movement can begin while scribbling in a sketchbook or when we’re sifting through old photos looking for a common theme or thread. We’re building a new world from scratch. One brushstroke leads to the next, and suddenly the work begins to take shape.

It’s the same with anything in life. We don’t need to have it all figured out before we begin. The act of starting, of diving in even when we feel uncertain, reveals the path forward.

So if you’re stuck, just start. Pick up the brush, make that first mark. Let go of the overthinking and let the process guide you. You’ll be amazed at what unfolds when you give yourself the permission to move forward, even without all the answers.

 

Do you find yourself overthinking?

Will action reveal the next steps?

Are you ready to step into a new beginning?

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