Art is Practicing Optimism- Burning Man 2022
There’s that moment when you’re standing in the middle of nowhere, staring at a giant piece of art you’ve put your heart and soul into and you realize, I cannot make this work. It was Saturday evening, EA at Burning Man, and my husband and I were staring at an art project that had quickly become the bane of our existence.
We had decided to attend only 5 weeks previous, as tickets had unexpectedly came across our paths. At that time we were still in Mexico, and to go we would need to head back to the States and get into our storage to prep everything.
Just attending Burning Man is a huge amount of work. And then, for some reason I’ll never understand, my husband asked the rabbit hole of a question- “Should we make art?” And I, although I have decades of experience in what this question entails, gave the unthought-out response of, “Why not?”
We landed on the idea of a giant kaleidoscope, an idea my husband had wanted to make ages ago. Fun, simple, a children’s toy, right? How hard could it be? Famous. Last. Words. Thus we went down the rabbit hole into what we estimated to be a 50-hour project. 150 hours later we exhaustedly packed our still non-functioning art piece into our Subaru.
We had myriads of problems. The mylar that we had bought for our “glass,” wouldn’t become taunt on that shape for the life of it. Connecting the edges of a triangle without puncturing something fragile is unrealistically hard. And the ingenious bearing system that Jeremy built ended up stripping a vital screw at the very last minute.
The project encountered problem after problem, and my husband took on the majority of the extra labor as I desperately finished up other necessary projects in between building. By the time we hit the night before loading, we were still in the garage in tears trying to make it work. We loaded it into the car with a,” We’ll fix it on Playa.”
We didn’t.
Don’t get me wrong, we got it up. We solved the bearing issue for a time until the other part holding the whole piece together failed. And although it didn’t kaleidoscope because the mylar got even more wrinkled in transit, it did still make rainbows with the awesome diffraction film we stuck on the end. You could look through it and it did, something.
And we do know at least one person who enjoyed it. A man biked by as we were installing and got a kick out of looking through it for quite some time. He was obviously intoxicated, but hey, he still enjoyed it. Who knows, maybe there were others too before the piece finally gave up the ghost. But in our eyes, the project was not a success. 150 hours of labor and a decent budget, and we didn’t have much to show for it.
The fact is, this type of stuff happens all the time. For every successful piece you see on Playa, there are a dozen that didn’t make it. This is the normal process of art. But all of this is even more incredible when you think of the fact that every ounce of these artworks is gifted material and labor.
So why do we do this? Why do we put ourselves through the intense and difficult process of art making, when we know it has a decent chance of failure?
I often liken art making to childbirth. You fall in love with the idea of having a child, and in the beginning, the making of the child is quite pleasurable. And then as it goes along, it becomes more and more uncomfortable, ending with the crux of the final push where you inevitably end up screaming, “Why did we do this?!?”
But then, you have new life in the end, even if it’s different than you expected. And all the pain fades as people coo and cuddle this child, and eventually, you end up thinking, “Maybe I want another kid.” You completely forget all of the difficulty, pain, and discomfort, and you start the whole process all over again.
Art is just like that. It’s this new life inside of you, whispering to get out. Without you, it would never exist in the world. And when you start to hear that whisper it catches hold of you and you start to envision it. Because it takes a special skill to believe in that vision so much, that it’s the only real thing anymore. All the reality of what it takes to create that life just fades away and all you believe in is the thing whispering to be born.
I, for one, am grateful for this capacity in the artists around me (although I’m often exhausted by it in myself.) The real difference between people who create things and people who don’t is that creators practice the skill of optimism. They practice not getting bogged down in limiting beliefs, and instead make something anyways, even if it has the chance of failing. They constantly believe in the best outcome.
For every single art piece you see out there, you’re missing the hours of frustration, countless tears, and self-doubt that went into that project. What you see is the final willpower of individuals who believed that they could make it happen anyways, despite the obstacles. People who wanted that new life so bad, that they pushed through the failure and pain. And they made the world brighter because of it.
I used to have this mantra I would say when I got stuck in the art making process. “If it touches one person, that’s all that matters.” But the truth is, even if the art was a “failure,” it still matters. All of those pieces that never made it to Playa still bring the energy of people who are trying to better the world around them.
I was reminded of this during my first night biking through the Playa. Out of the darkness came a large-scale replica of Salvador Dali’s “The Elephants.” I remembered when I was a kid learning about Salvador Dali. The time when he was alive was so magical. The crew of surrealists he worked with was changing the face of the world.
I remember reading about them and thinking that I was born in the wrong place in history. That I had missed all the movements where art could create change. And then, decades later, Jack Champion's rendition of Dali's elephants came looming out of the playa.
I had forgotten about those feelings, but all the feelings I had as a kid suddenly hit me, and I had the realization- That I was currently living the art movements that history will write about. I hadn't missed a thing. It was a part of it and it was happening all around me. I completely cried. I'm so grateful to be alive in the time that I am.
That one moment would’ve been enough, but the story gets even crazier. When I looked up the artist who created the elephants, to credit him on Instagram, I came across an even more incredible story. The artist, Jack Champion, had spent 10 months building the elephants in 2019 in Oakland. But in the week before the Burn, someone had stolen the artist’s trailer with the finished elephants inside.
Seeing this happen, Champion ran out and grabbed onto the truck trying to deter the thief, begging him to not steal something that while worthless to the thief was priceless to the artist. He hung on to the pickup window for two blocks, but the thief got away, badly injuring Chapman. The elephants were gone. Champion was so injured that neither he nor the elephants made it to the Burn in 2019.
The most logical choice at this moment would’ve been for Jack to give up. I mean, what a ridiculous story. Why on Earth would anyone go back to square one and start to rebuild after such an event? But he didn’t give up. He believed in this new life so much that he started again. And he built them EVEN BIGGER.
And in 2022, when I first biked out to the Playa, I got to have a deeply beautiful realization that changed my perspective because of his commitment to rebuilding. I may never have known that story. In fact, I may never have known his name. There are hundreds of art pieces from last week whose stories I will never know, whose artists never get the claim.
But all of those artists put their heart and soul into believing in a better world, into changing the perspectives of people that they may never meet. That gift is priceless.
Creators are essential magicians and optimists. It’s easy to become depressed by all the difficulties of the world around us. It’s hard to believe that you can create beauty and hope out of thin air. Optimism takes practice. Turning your optimism into new life even more so.
So that’s why, when I’m asked the question the next time (because there will be a next time,) “Should we make art?” My answer will still be, “Why not?” I will continue to put in the work to birth a better world. I will continue to practice my optimism and believe that it’s worth it. Because when other’s do it, it’s worth it to me.
Thanks to all the incredible creators who rocked my world this last week. Some many pieces blew my mind and I will forever be changed by your offerings.
Want to see my photos of some of the incredible art at this year’s Burning Man? → Follow me on Instagram for all my photos! ←
