AMP: Artists' Meeting Place and Resource Collective

I showed a Buddhist friend over for breakast recently some work by a California buddhist artist - Michele Benzamin-Miki (coming from a mixed Japanese, N. African and Euro-American background). In an interview she stated "I feel that art is about revolution. Tolstoy once said that art inspires non-violence. With art you can get away with more to inspire non-violence. You can really push the envelope with the images you put out. My art is like getting to express in a transcendent language which circumvents belief systems. Art can bring people to a deeper place of spirituality, of activism, of anything." (www.artmbm.net)

Then today I stumbled on the communityarts.net site and read a fascinating article The Artmaker as Active Agent(http://www.communityarts.net/readingroom/archivefiles/2006/02/the_artmak...)
This is about artists shaping the meaning of art - working directly with community.

Someone mentioned to me artists are (can be?) ambassadors of peace.

What power does an artist have compared to say - the activist? or the politician? Isn't an artist isolated, self-centered - commenting without participating? But how do we define participation? We all have our purpose - our contribution - whether it be in art, in teaching or in bricklaying.

The artists profiled in the article above used their talents to bring out the artistry in the varied individual community members they worked with. They used life experience - everyone has their 'story'. In a world where people are allowed to become even more independent, actualized and connected (evolution is greater freedom plus greater organization) - perhaps art and artmaking - whatever the medium - becomes a vehicle for our highest expression - our joy, our escape, our transcendance and our path to peace. It's like our human spirit - there - naked - exposed - our story - to inspire - to draw courage - to be 'in the now'.

Freud said everywhere I go I find that a poet has been there before me.
.
Helping to articulate a new world?

The 'New Earth' perhaps that Eckhart Tolle en-visions, Oprah promotes, and almost one million people sign up for the internet class. I read yesterday 'more change has taken place in the past 30 years than in the whole history of humankind.' Wow. One has to take a stand in such important times - no time to waste. Let's all lead the way . . .