The Art of Activism - Chapters 2-3 - Christopher Cruz

 Quotes:

Q1: “In order for our creativity to progress, we need to allow ourselves the freedom to make fools of ourselves.”

A1: This allowance of having freedom to make fools of ourselves is hard. We live in a society where everything has to have some perfection and artists are no stranger to it. We all strive to create something perfect, but developing a mindset like this makes the process more genuine and a personal moment of self critique and laughter. I feel all artists need to develop this type of framing, to laugh at your silly foolish mistakes, enjoying them as you progress. Laughing and enjoying your imperfections, in my opinion, can never be found in the creation of AI art.

Q2: “And it truly doesn’t matter how well you draw. In fact, the worse you are as an artist the better the process might be, as you won’t fall into well-worn artistic ruts.”

A2: Usually my sketches would look like that if I didn’t try hard to refine them. I feel like this experimental phase is the best phase to be creatively chaotic as I call it. It is almost entropic, where your sketches or a manifestation of your ideas and thoughts in disorder, but complimentary and contrasting. For some of us, we should purposely be worse artists at this stage of our creative process so that we are not restricted by our urge for perfection.

Q3: “By entering Jerusalem on a donkey—the titular “Son of God” seated upon a lowly ass—he performed his ideal of a world turned upside down in which “the last shall be first, and the first last.”

A3: This reminds me of the phrase “Slow and steady wins the race” from the tortoise and the hare. Both phrases hint towards patience and appreciation of simplicity in my opinion. Jesus is sitting on top of a donkey which isn’t a very fast animal. You can say the donkey is a simple animal and not as powerful and brazen as a horse.

Q4: “Instead, Jesus is saying that if we are going to be truly liberated from the Empire, we need to create, embrace, and enact an entirely different way of seeing and being that refuses to acknowledge its authority.”

A4: Jesus’s thinking and approach counters my interpretation of the phrase “There are two sides to the same coin” which I find intriguing. The example presented and applying to the phrase  “There are two sides to the same coin”, I would interpret that as both church and state being different, but under the same system. Jesus’s thinking breaks that which not only demonstrates a third option then the yes or no he would be given, but reveals that true liberation is to dismantle authority and embrace a differing approach if we want to establish true liberation.