Calling All Small Town Artists

Have you met my friend, Harriet Carlson? If not, you're sure to miss out, because she's a fantastic person, and incredible photographer. She actually has taken the photo that I use as my title image for this blog site. Harriet and I have a superior relationship based on creative energy which puts us at a level of ease in understanding each other's perspective. We are also connected by the unfortunate commonality of being perpetually judged. It's tough to be an artist in a small town. I remember when I went off to university, (and I really didn't even go that far...I went to the University of Manitoba  which is only a five hour drive away), I walked into the "School of Fine Arts" (which we affectionately called SOFA) and felt like finally, finally I was hanging out with people that spoke my own language. They knew what I was talking about, they understood my perspective, and a majority of these people were left handed  AND WITH TOE THUMBS TOO! (I've always stuck to my guns in believing that having toe thumbs is an inherent artistic genetic trait.) Not once in those four years at SOFA was I called "Artsy Fartsy", not even by someone that afterwards said, "You know I'm just kidding." or "You know I don't really mean it." (You know you're just passive aggressive....)

So let's put this concept into perspective with a true to life scenario that just occurred last week. Harriet went into a public office to deal with some kind of mundane paper work. Harriet happened to be wearing her favourite leather jacket with a spectacular red ruffly flower pinned to the jacket. She looked dynamic. Instantly, the woman behind the counter commented on Harriet's appearance with a "good for you for dressing up like that" kind of statement. She might as well have said, "Good for you for having the courage to wear something so ridiculous that I would never be caught dead in." Harriet wasn't sure whether that kind of statement was supposed to be responded to or not. Was she supposed to thank this woman for pointing out Harriet's ignorance in not realizing her ridiculousness? Was Harriet supposed to apologize for her natural instinct to like beautiful red flowers and her yearning to surround herself with beauty at all times of day? 

You may be reading this thinking, Come on, what's the big deal? She was complimenting her! But that is far from the truth and the scariest part is that this woman actually would genuinely tell you that she was giving Harriet praise that day. There is a fine line between being flattered and being offensively insulted and judged. Incredibly, many do not know the difference. Here is where the difference lies: a compliment is nice and a judgment is not nice. Sounds fairly simple, but there are so many complexities intertwined. Why was Harriet so rightly offended by the "good for you" comment? Because in that sentence, there were implications that Harriet is weird. And above that, there were implications that Harriet is so comfortable with her "weirdness" that she can handle being constantly told that her appearance and actions are considered weird by others.

Imagine this; take the one thing about yourself that you are the most self-conscious of and then imagine that people were chronically pointing that one "flaw" out to you and saying GOOD FOR YOU FOR blah, blah, blah. Or even imagine your culture, your gender, your sexual preference, being perpetually exposed and discussed at the most inappropriate times. Imagine standing in line at the bank waiting to do a deposit when someone walks up to you and says, "Wow. You must be Ukrainian. It's soooo obvious that you are Ukrainian. Good for you for being so Ukrainian." or "Oh, I see you're in a wheelchair. Good for you for using a wheelchair." For some, the need to point out the obvious or unavoidable at any inopportune time is apparent. So, here's what happened to Harriet the day after being insulted for wearing a flower on her jacket (doesn't it sound ridiculous to even say that?!). She went to the grocery store and ran into a person that she had just recently met through a mutual friend. In Harriet's true personable nature, she started to talk to this individual, who interrupted her conversation to point out to her that she had "hanging irises". Excuse me? The person then went on to explain that Harriet happened to have an eye condition called hanging iris, which we were unable to find later in Google searches. Have you seen Harriet's eyes? Gorgeous, along with her personality, and this shmuck couldn't get passed his own pretentiousness to keep any comments that he many have felt the need to speak out loud to himself. Even later when Harriet ended up at the same social gathering as this fellow, and she gathered up the ambition to call him on his rude comments, he barely apologized, feeling he was just stating a fact and had the right to do so. Scary. And harmful. And dumb on his part because now he'll never get the opportunity to know a great person because of his issue with eye conditions that he couldn't keep to himself.

I get that too. I get that all the time. Someone is always commenting on the type of clothing I'm wearing (It has actually been said like this to me before, "No, no, no. Why do you have that on?" AND "What the hell are you wearing?") or the colour of my hair (Why green, Rhonda?), or the type of bike I ride, or the type of art that I create (When are you going to take that weird shit off the wall and hang up some real paintings for sale?)

or the shape of my eyebrows, or where I spend my time (Where you going today, Rhonda? Garbage picking? hahaha). It's one thing to share in my zest for life with fun comments but it's another to downright criticize. And I worry that one day, someone's just going to get blasted, completely blasted in the middle of the produce aisle with an "Are you kidding me? You in your Disney laden embroidered clothing? You in your matching earrings, belt, shoes and purse? You in your clothes that is all about comfort over style? You with your old lady perm? You with your perpetual need to go shopping for crap that you don't need? You with your......"  But I never say those things to other people because it's just not fucking nice, and who am I to feel I have the right to control what others do, say or have? I simply don't, and if I do judge people, as is human nature, I simply keep it to myself. Simple.

And then I hear people tell me that it's because I'm different; that I call it on myself. Do you think I'm not aware of that? Do you think I wake up in the morning and think, "Hey! How can I mess with everyone's minds today based on what I choose to wear and make them want to say something about me? How do I draw more and more attention to myself?" Trust me; that is not in my thoughts at 7am. I'm barely alive at 7am. This is just the way I am. I am a creative, artistic being and this is how I view my world and live in my world and never once have I asked the public for their opinion in that regard. When I do want to know, I ask - point blank. Do you think I want to change my lifestyle or personality or style or hairdo? No thank you. I don't want to live an existence where my definition of excitement is sitting down in front of the TV to watch my favourite show. (Oh sorry...did I just offend somebody by saying that?) Instead, share with me, celebrate with me,embrace our difference and recognize that we are all unique individuals with our own take on this big, big world. See the difference?  Don't assume that I am unconscious and incapable of being hurt just because I may be different AKA weird. I am different but I'm not a robot, even though I can do a wicked robot dance. I'm sure I've been judged for that in the past too.

Alas, in a double edged sword kinda way, I have pretty thick skin now, and have learned to throw it back at the offensive individual that seems to think that they are somehow better that me and have chosen to say what's on their condemnatory mind, even if oblivious to that concept. But it took a long time to get to this point. I did keep my thumbs tucked into my palm of my hand until I reached university so nobody would see their shape. And I look back on my photos when I was a child and I never smiled with my mouth open because I didn't want anyone to see the big space I had in my front teeth. And I learned to turn it around too. I think, what is this person missing in his/her life? What is he or she lacking that the need is so great to turn their insecurities onto others? They should really just deal with their own shit. Have I mentioned that is my life mantra? "It's not my shit". Sometimes it's hard to acknowledge it when I come across this type of scenario on an ongoing basis. I really thought that one day I'd grow up and be allowed to just be me, but unfortunately, people still feel the need to squelch that. Fortunately for me, that's not going to happen. But I'm not others, and if it's happening to me, and it's happening to Harriet, then it's happening to others as well.

If you were to think about it logically, you would think that people would mind their p's and q's....if a young, vibrant, creative person moves back to a small town, wouldn't you think that you'd want that person to stay here, help the local economy and get established as a permanent resident instead of feeling the need to flee? "Good for you for embracing your weirdness" is not necessarily a phrase extracted from the Welcome Wagon's Guide to Living in a Small Town.

Here's an idea....take the time to process your words before they are ejected from your mouth. Decide whether they are going to be put in category one, (compliment?) or category two (judgment?) and act accordingly and responsibly. Nobody should feel the need to change anything about themselves to suit the needs of others and words can do nothing but perpetuate resentment if used without care and understanding.


*The first photo of Harriet was taken by  Kemal Krluch who is a buff Bosnian photographer extraordinaire. (Now that was a nice thing to say!)