Mainstreaming art and artistes into national economic revival

Art is an impartial angel in the hell of politics and it is recommended that we keep it that way

By Surya Vishwa

Last week I visited the home of artist Latheefa Ismail. It is full of roses. They hang on the wall. On canvasses big and small. The house is about eight decades old. It was built by her father who grew up in colonial Ceylon, born and raised in Batticaloa who was determined to make it big in Colombo as an engineer which he subsequently did. Following the birth of three daughters he encouraged them all to pursue their dream (the esteemed educator and peace activist Deshabandu Jezima Ismail being one of the daughters).

Latheefa Ismail lived in one of the Colombo homes her father built for his offspring.

The house has no tiled floors. No ostentatious that is the scourge of modern life. The furniture is sparse and has comfortably tread the years along with the house. There are paintings hanging in every conceivable inch across the walls. Most of them being roses one feels that one is in a rose garden and the walls seem to disappear. Yet this article is not about Mrs. Latheefa Ismail which requires as detailed attention as she puts into her paintings, and which this page will duly do at a later date.

This article is about mainstreaming art and artists into the national economy and the best way to begin is by focusing on Latheefa Ismail.

Being an artist who has learnt her craft from a highly renowned art academy in London in the 1950s her biological age is 93 years although she could be mistaken for a 55-year-old, especially when she dresses up to conduct her regular weekly art classes. Her art-based age and health seems infinite.

Why did we select this artiste as an example for this economic based theme when she has not made economy the mainstay of her art. Well, for that very reason!

Let this be explained. And possibly the reader will understand the most vital point that we miss when we talk of the economy or the economic system. What is this vital point? Abundance.

Our economic policies are reeking with the poverty of ignorance

Look around at the national discourse on economy. We are talking and striving for a very poor richness and then getting into global debt of ridiculous proportions to get out of our self-made debt in pursuing this penury garlanded richness. Our economic policies are reeking with the poverty of ignorance and floating in the mirage that we see existing elsewhere and angling to ape that which we have not inherited.

What is the inheritance that is unique to each piece of earth that exists in this planet that we call nations? The uniqueness is the core from which springs all that we call art, culture and heritage. Every piece of earth; aka ‘nation’ is endowed with it.

It is in the bloom of nature and in the customs and traditions that this flowering has birthed. This is art. This is life. This is sustenance. This is that which has not been offered upon the hell fires of greed that the modern economy is shrouded in and which the modern education sector is the godfather of. These words and sentiments are not emotion based opinions. These are facts. All one needs to realise this is to walk with eyes open. Walk. Look to your left and right. You will then see the plastic and the disgusting attitudes that the modern economy has created. Walk. Past the brick made gigantic monsters that we call modern hospitals in which are jailed humans with multifarious diseases that their great grandparents would be mystified by. Walk. Think.

Why are we mentioning these on a topic about mainstreaming art and artists into the national economy? To show the relevance of art and artists in a sick and dying world. On the aspect of medical ethnomusicology we will discuss later with specific international based interviews as relevant because it is one area where art in all its forms could be mainstreamed; to resurrect a health sector that seems to be the corpse of life.

Sanctity of abundance

Once again – why did we choose Latheefa Ismail as an example to begin the article with. Because in an age which has forgotten abundance we need to be reminded what it is and of all the artists I have met she upholds the sanctity of abundance.

Every week dozens of diverse people come to her to learn art. Most of them are in professions such as working with autistic children and trauma healing and some are engineers or such. The days they come to her art class take them away from the stress of life. They pack their lunch and often bring her diverse gifts which she admonishes them for. ‘Why darling must you do all this,’ is a common phrase. She does not charge for her teachings. No rationalistic explanation made by various persons over the years has succeeded in inducing her to charge fees.

She lacks nothing. The eatables she gets, often an overload of chocolates she shares with all her students. She lives as humans are destined to live. Free and happy. She lives in the eternal youth that is bestowed to the artist that heralds the passionate commitment to his or her art.

She does not charge for her art so how can I mention her as an example in an article that talks of mainstreaming art into the national economy?

I repeat. For this very reason. Why? I repeat again as follows. Because the economy is not about money. It is about wellbeing. It is about gratitude. It is about love. It is about abundance. It is about happiness. To summarise what one Native American chief once said when the current world was in its modern cradle; You Cannot Eat Money.

Although I have met many artistes in my lifetime in this country (one sometime back upbraided me for not calling him Professor! I mistakenly addressed him as a doctor assuming he had only his doctorate in his artistic stream which is incidentally visual art. He corrected me stating – ‘call me professor. I am no longer a doctor.’

If the earlier example showed the benevolence and richness in a life of art this second example shows the miserable beggary of an artiste who is not worth to be called that esteemed title even once. This second example shows without a doubt what is wrong with how art and artists are represented, created and nurtured in this country.

In a sense every one of us are artists. We create our future. We create our future with the brush stroke of each thought. When we think that we are poor and need advice from someone – say a neighbour from another country – although that person may not know anything about the roots of why we are poor, then we paint a desert. A desert where we have killed all the flourishing that once existed in our landscape that nurtured us in lasting health from birth to death. Once upon a time death was the body giving way to the final stage of rest after it has lived a long and content life. What is art but which represents this healthy evolution?

Art is nothing but richness because in its pristine state it enriches everything

Art is what is grown on earth and how we grew them on earth. Art is how we live and how we keep alive the traditions that bond us with nature and its eternal tapestry that no artist can match. Art is the nerves and sinews that mark the tendrils of life and death in a seamless stillness. Art is the umbilical cord that ties us to the humanistic mission of being alive. Art is then nothing but richness because in its pristine state it enriches everything. It is the soul of the world and the dove of peace. It is not a scissor like technique that is served in an operating theatre. It is not a scale that measures profit and loss. It is not a billboard that tells the world whether you have doctored art or not.

Based on the above examples and analysis are the below five points on how to mainstream art into the national economy to reap abundance (and not a falsity that parades tinsel garland ‘artistes’ who are nothing more than mercenaries fishing in the tepid waters of the world and profit by that haul.

(A point to note. By the word art we mean every genre of creativity ranging from visual to performance based art including but not limited to theatre, dance, cinema, music, poetry and literature). This page focuses on all of these genres and will continue to systematically ideate on the mainstreaming of art and artists into the economic framework using diverse examples of art as well as crafts.

Here are the 5 recommendations that pertain to Sri Lanka that are generic in nature in approaching the realm of art.

Re-look at the art world. Look at the artists around us. Look at how they became artists and above all what they are doing for humanity with their art. Based on that yardstick decide whether to appoint them to various positions such as in the Art Council. Re-look at the way art is taught and who teaches it. At the risk of sounding esoterically unsound one can safely say within the border or sanity that art is a gift of the universe. This is how these gifts were originally bestowed to man. Whether painting or dance or music art is our trail through the earth, through the galaxies and through the oceans and in respecting the universe anything can be taught by it with no human teacher. The universe may be a more accurate judge of talent than a human and without the baggage of ego. Hence the authorities responsible for art and its encouragement should employ those who can travel across Sri Lanka searching out genuine talent that may exist outside walled up education sectors.

Re-look at how art based research is being done. Having re-looked at it, it is upto the individual who thus examines to choose whether to laugh or to cry. It is understandable if you will cry. Buckets of tears. When you immerse yourself in the idiocy of theorising art to the extent that ‘researchers’ of art i.e. those who have learnt art in universities who amputate whatever little natural creativity left in their souls and try to fit into the malnourished education system that we have where researchers wrap emptiness in a thick garb multi layered words that says nothing. Artistes or those who attempt to research art are judged by the same skeletal standards. Sound out artists whether they are academics of art or not who can put some sense into designing meaningful models or research that will not crucify art.

Begin a series of discussions that include representatives from institutions such as the Central Bank, Board of Investment and Industrial Development Board and start with hand picking genuine individuals who are passionate about the arts within these institutions. Minister Vidura Wickremenayake over to you and whoever is the subject minister pertaining to art and culture at the point of reading this article.

Appoint a unit at the Presidential Secretariat with the sole mission of mainstreaming art and artistes into the national economy. Please contact this newspaper if you do so and we will support any credible step in this regard.

Art is an impartial angel in the hell of politics and it is recommended that we keep it that way.

To be continued.