There are always ongoing conversation about the spaces artist create and the importance of their functionality being safe and considerate . Any good event organizer would be. The ugly however, is rearing its head again. The ugly being accusations and instances of sexual assault, violence and physical assault, unethical behavior and iniquitousness.

Shared Artistry Is Not A Safe Space. A Mini Manifesto by Paula G.

Shared artistry is not a safe space… though it can be and should be.

Open mics, plays, featured performances, comedy shows, concerts, etc. Spaces where art is being shared, whether among other artists or patrons of the art, are notoriously not safe … for either party.

You’d think they would be. You ‘d think that people who spend their time devouring expression, digging through their personal trauma, failures, and dreams, and who make a point of crafting them into a entertaining and deliverable message would be emotionally and socially intelligent. Mature, if you will.

But that just isn’t true. Because the work is the work. And I mean that two-fold:

We know artists who have beautiful portfolios of work but live a life full of bad virtues and corrupted morality. Think R. Kelly, Chris Brown, Nicki Minaj (YES, I SAID IT!) It’s difficult for folks to see the difference between who they are vs. what they do making the beauty of their art a disguise rather than a revelation.

And/or, we know artists who have not done the work to overcome their shit and the art alone doesn’t suffice. IE: They make good art but are shitty people because they refusal to let the work be healing.

Art is therapeutic. It ain’t therapy.

Meaning the art can make you feel and feel better and it may even be the catalyst that makes you want to be better. But art is not a verb. It’s not the action. It in itself is not the work.

Which is why a room full of artistry can be a dangerous, manipulative, rose-colored thing.

True Story: There was a painting that hung over the couch of one of my favorite places to visit weekly. (If you know, you know. And if you don’t, my vagueness is protection.) I’d often sit on that couch and stare at that painting, thinking about my grandmother and womanhood and god. Years after that place was long gone, I still consider that painting one of my favorites. One night I went on a POF date. When I arrived at his home, that painting hung on the wall. He wasn’t the connoisseur, he was the artist. I let that bit of coincidence convince me of destiny, fate, and fortitude. By the end of the night, I was washing my skin like it had been plagued with leprosy. He was dangerous. His art had once been beautiful and life-saving to me. But he was a broken man, interested only in breaking things and using their blood for painting.

There are predators in the corners of artistic spaces. And they are not necessarily the patrons.
But do watch your glass of wine around men who luck at open mics playing less attention to the mic and more attention to who’s open.

The predators may very well be the poet who has just shared about their childhood trauma on stage and laid it out so so meticulously that you feel compelled to hug them as soon as they tap the mic. Or the singer whose deep, sultry voice reminds you of being safe in your grandfather’s arms. Or the rapper who’s more conscious than caught up in thug culture. Or the actor who’s playing the part of the perfect partner.

Or the fan who never misses a show. They’ve been devouring you bit by bit without ever physically touching you.

Understand it’s not their artistry that makes them dangerous. Their art is as beautiful as the time that they have put into crafting the work, learning the skills, studying the culture. All of that is just fine. But it is their lack of connection to their art that makes them the conniving villain.

I postulate this: The ability to-make is god-like. Just as money gives opportunity for corruption, so does the ability to make beautiful things, have someone worship it, and have someone worship you.

Consider this: Around the 1970s, art evolved and stopped portraying good and evil as black and white. There was an understanding that good people can do bad things, or good things can come out of bad people. That motive was not always strictly corrupt in nature, and that a person committing awful acts were sometimes convinced that they were just being who they were, acting how they act, doing what they do.

The poet who tries to kiss the person who said they liked the poem can blame their actions on a misunderstanding; thought there were vibes, thought you read between the lines of my poem and understood me, thought we were on the same page.

Because the vulnerability of the artistic space leads to confusion. There are those who arrived open willing to pour our and share. Then there are those who are cracked open by that vulnerability. While those two things are nothing alike, but look very similar. And those with emotional dysregulation, lack of self-awareness, the apathetic or indifferent, might miss all the clues that this-ain’t-that.

It be like like Stockholm syndrome. It be like couple who worship together at church and can’t help but fornicate after. It be like meeting someone for the first time and thinking they are your soulmate… only to learn that they are married.

Because when two people share an intimate space, they may confuse that shared experience for shared intimacy.

Story Time. I arrived to a group photo shoot with an art organization I was apart of. I was unaware of the theme, of the shoot but pretty aware of my position. I was not one of the artists or performers; I had signed up to be a creative director and stage manager. I came for business and I looked like business. When the photoshoot began, one of the newer members (a known hype man of the group) decided to liven up the joint a bit. He began directing. His direction to me… “be sexier.” Now, that simply just didn’t make sense to me. Why would the stage manager need to look sexy in cast photos? I tried to express this as professionally as possible, but the more he begged me to show sex and be more sexy, the more I withdrew. It eventually hit me in my ego… and my self-esteem. To keep from crying, I got angry. I tried to recruit help from the others in the group but some of them leaned into the sexy and others went quiet. (Big up to those who had my back.) A few days later, I was let go. And most of those pictures didn’t see the light of day because they looked too inappropriate.

I often wondered why that energy spread that way… some folks immediately seemed to lean into the sexy rather than redirect the energy for the safety of the group. Maybe cause folks didn’t see the issue or recognize what was happening. Others, saw what happened and tried to help. But with the leader of the group not speaking up, there was no one to shut the hype-man down.

Which leads me into my last point.

Because not every artist has not done the work to be an armer barer of the space, the leader must. They establish the rules, set the expectations, and demand the ethical considerations necessary for the space to be safe.

They can not assume because the room is full of poets that they are capable of not bleeding on everyone. They cannot assume each comedian has artistic integrity. They can’t assume every singer is a lover, not a fighter. But they can require, insist, challenge, or even dictate that everyone in the space operate at a standard. They can keep the space safe with guidance.

Lorna Pinckney of Tuesday Verses used to start the night by establishing the rules of the artistic space she had created. They were simple statements about how to clap, how to participate, what types of art was acceptable, how to get the most out of the room, etc. But most important, she said that the room had to be about love. And if someone wasn’t clapping, participating, or loving the way she required it, then she would be the example and gave them a chance to learn how to do it to.

So recognize that when you get a bunch of artistic, talented, groovy individuals in a room cracking their hearts open and sharing from their soul, some of the ugly down deep might seep out. You can’t necessarily stop the ugly from coming through but you can make damn sure it don’t get comfortable.

And as I said, art is therapeutic but it ain’t therapy. So if you read this and felt some sort of guilt or blame then maybe you should get some…. therapy.

Get free Poet!

Peace

Paula G.