Here at seatree, we have always tried to make art that not only responds to our context, but also digs into the grist of things. Both of us have a background working amongst excluded groups of people and feel passionate about social justice. At the same time, our decision to live and work through our creative practice was a deliberate attempt at a more sustainable lifestyle, more connected to the earth in all its beauty and brokenness. These two great justice movements- social and economic- can be seen throughout our work.
There are many dangers in making this kind of art. Firstly, it is easy to get all preachy and self righteous, so as to end up making a kind of woke propaganda.
There is also the problem of crisis trauma. Michaela read a post on FB the other day which said something like this “My desire to stay well informed about world events is fundamentally at odds with my desire to stay sane’. In other words, making art about justice issues may wear you down, even to the point of trauma.
Our son–in-law, who is also a ceramicist, spent years as an oceanographer, working in the arctic, trying to understand why the ice was melting much quicker than expected. In the end, it was making him ill. For him, the art he makes out of these experiences is healing, but staying in that place of protest can be exhausting for others.
Why do we do it then?
For us, the answer is simple. We must. In sesking to live well in a world that has so much darkness just now, we feel that we have to try to push towards something better, something more loving and more hopeful. The only way we can do this is through art- our pottery and our poetry.
In this way, art becomes a way of engaging – a way to connect with our times and context that gives some protective distance and allows room for making our objection to injustice.
Of course, with seatree pieces, it is always the poetry that comes first, and there are many poems that have never found their way onto the clay. We thought we would share one of them here.
It was written whilst Chris was working as a social worker, with families who were struggling. Beautiful children whose prospects were bleak. A societal response that seemed entirely inadequate. This poems trys to say all of those things, whilst at the same time saying none of them.
Welfare State
The sofa split some years ago
The gas fire hisses as if
through broken teeth.
Colin tries to stir up hope
On the Baby Belling, whilst the TV screen sucks
the kids in like flecks of dust.
A manufactured crisis for some pop star wannabe
Stabs out from the fat old tube.
The crowd scream – no wonder.
And Colin stares into the tangled noodles wondering
What might become of the children
For not one of them can sing.
But their faces, lit by cathode light
Are beautiful.