#i hear ppl on tiktok calling them and and it PHYSICALLY hurts

[kienansidhe]

saw a tiktok that was making fun of a "white boomer art show" and i was expecting it to have like some bad knockoff fake native art or smth cause ive seen that a lot here in oklahoma but it was just. a normal looking milquetoast art show. white ppl milling around. a dog. some landscape paintings and ceramics and stuff. like nothing offensive, just p average nice pretty handmade stuff.

and ppl in the comments were saying all sorts of mean shit, like oh theres no soul its completely inoffensive and void and boring, oh wow another painting of a sunset over water, youre forgetting abt the handmade soaps lol, this is what you make when youve never suffered, stuff like that. and i wanna talk abt why i find this rlly upsetting?

im not here to be like oh no dont be mean to white ppl, but white ppl arent the only ppl who make milquetoast, comfy, inoffensive art. there are plenty of artists of color who like to just make nice, simple, pretty stuff too! not everything we make has to be about our suffering! we are human fucking beings and that means we probably like sunsets and simple homemade crafts, because guess what? thats fucking normal. i say this as someone who spends an unreasonable amount of time to defend my right to make dark, tortured trauma art: art can be lukewarm and blandly pleasant too. its okay, its a healthy and relaxing outlet for lots of ppl, and acting like plain, pretty art is only for privileged white ppl is so??? nasty? spiteful? and it throws so so so many artists of color under the bus for this superiority complex of a narrative that only art that comes from suffering is real, valid, Good Art. and that fucking blows.

like im all for mocking shitty ppl, but im begging ppl to take a moment to think abt what specifically they are mocking. dont mock shitty ppls physical features that they cant control, good ppl with those same features can hear you and it hurts! dont mock shitty ppl for making pleasant art of sunsets and handmade soap, good ppl who make pleasant art of sunsets and handmade soap bc they havent lost their appreciation for every new sunset and hands on crafts and nice scents are pleasant and fulfilling can hear you and it fucking sucks to hear our crafts being shit on and like. ceded over to white ppl???

like yes! there are 10283782287 paintings of the sunset out there and on an average day i dont find them noteworthy. but someone looked up, saw something beautiful in the world, and took the time to put it on a canvas. billions of humans have stopped and appreciated the sunset, and if you think thats white you can fuck right off. crafts and artisan work are skilled work that both have practical application and can be used to make art pieces as well, something beautiful to the eye, something everyone can enjoy, and sure, a simple wheel thrown bowl is not going to evoke some deep facet of ~~colored suffering~~ but i can eat some fucking soup out of it and it looks nice and some of us have fought hard for the learning and access to be able to make simple little things like that, so calling those objects white and soulless is also fucking disgusting.

i dont care if you hate white ppl, i dont care if you wanna tell some individual white person that their art specifically is soulless, im not gonna die on the hill of protecting white ppl from mean comments. but i do care abt the artists of color who worry that our work isnt original or meaningful or valuable because it ~~doesnt tell a story~~ or it ~~doesnt offend anyone~~ or its ~~just another landscape painting~~. are we obligated to only ever talk and think abt and express our suffering in order to be valid artists of color? if we choose, after whatever weve gone thru, to make some fucking sea spray scented soap for whatever our own reasons, are you secretly sneering at us too, or do you only do that until we tell you hey, i, a person of color, made that plain, inoffensive thing youre too bitter about to even mind your own business, let alone appreciate it?

if simple, pretty, comfort art is not your thing thats okay! its not for you! you can walk away! but dont write off entire crafts and styles and genres as ~~white nonsense~~ just because it doesnt appeal to you personally. i swear to god i will steal all your ~~fine art~~ and burn it. youre not better for making provocative art, youre just expressing things in your own personal way, making the art you need to make. let other ppl do the same.

#headspace #art #ask to tag #im a little bit triggered cause i have some specific personal trauma abt this kind of thing #so please excuse me if i worded anything poorly #okay to reblog #please do tbh