Action is the antidote

Art is about refracting life, isn’t it? Letting life pass through us and onto the page (or wherever it ends up). It requires us to be open. To feel things, to really look at what we’re looking at. And of course to act on that compulsion to refract and actually create something.

I feel sick these days, these last 18 months of full throttle genocide of the Palestinian people. I can’t bear it. I can’t bear the sickness of our society, aiding and abetting this violent, violent erasure.

I started writing this post over a month ago and haven’t been able to bring myself to write or paint anything much at all since Israel has accelerated their genocidal efforts. All I see are babies ripped into pieces - some still alive, some dead - pure hell on my phone screen.

I never would have thought that most of the people I know would ignore a holocaust, pretend it isn’t happening. That politicians would be too cowardly to act.

I think my point with this post is that art and maintaining our integrity requires us to be open and honest and that includes seeing, acknowledging, and speaking the truth. And then using the means available to us to act. So instead of freezing in horror, let’s try to take positive action for the good.

These are some paintings and sketches that came from a week of seaside and moorland days out during the last half-term break. The sun shone and the tides came in and went out, and we marvelled at all of it.

Palestinian families should be basking in the sunshine and watching their children paddle in the surf. Palestinian children should keep their limbs, their families, their childhoods, their lives. May this horror end. May those of us still hiding from the truth open our hearts and mouths.

As I read on a post recently, ‘action is the antidote to despair.’ So today, action - whatever it is we can do.

Ericka ❤️‍🩹

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