“the all-important question” Collage, cut New Yorker Magazine paper, 9" x 12" — **“the all-important question”**
Collage, cut *New Yorker* Magazine paper, 9" x 12"

This week I was asked a question: What gave you wonder today?

That particular day, my answer was—the creative process. Because that was the day that I got the idea for this week’s collage and post. Even when I’m feeling like creative inspiration is not coming to me, it inevitably does. It comes in different packages. And each package is not always as spectacular as the last one, but it comes. Because I’m asking for it. I’m showing up and trusting that something will click.

This week’s inspiration showed up in the package of another artist. Terry Runyan makes videos showing how she creates fun animal characters with watercolor. She is also a generous and loving sort who inspires others to explore their own creativity. She calls herself a “creative encourager.”

In a recent video, Terry shared something she learned from yet another artist. It was a question to ask yourself: What would this look like if it were easy? What if this was easy?

I’m all about reframing thoughts. Thoughts are things. Thoughts have power. Thoughts are energy, and as Einstein taught us, like energy attracts. I have done a LOT of inner work on changing my thought patterns over the years. It works.

So I took Terry’s question to heart this week. And I needed it. Ain’t gonna lie, y’all. I’m having a tough time of it right now. Certainly no tougher than anyone else. I am blessed and fortunate to have my needs met during this pandemic.

But the world’s problems are looming large, and I’m feeling some overwhelm. As is my pattern, I have overextended myself. With things that I really want to do. Like this art challenge. I also joined the Atlanta Collage Society (yay!) and did an extra collage this week so I could meet the deadline to enter an ACS show. (It will be digital, and I’ll share a link once it’s available.)

On top of that, I am still participating in a series of discussions with my spiritual family about racial healing. This is vital and urgent work. And Black people everywhere are saying IT’S ABOUT TIME Y’ALL WOKE UP AND JOINED THIS FIGHT.

So not only am I feeling the effects of not enough sleep, but I’m feeling the feels from my own racial wounds and the wounds of Black Americans. This is not a complaint. I am committed to working through any discomfort and pain to help create a new love-based paradigm around racial justice, equality, and healing. But if there is a way around this heaviness, I’m not seeing it. So I’m going through it.

“Taste for Summer” by Olimpia Zagnoli (@olimpiazagnoli)The New Yorker, August 5 & 12, 2019 — “Taste for Summer” by Olimpia Zagnoli (@olimpiazagnoli)
*The New Yorker*, August 5 & 12, 2019

But what if it were easy? I kept coming back to that question. What if this week’s collage were easy? It’s not the Sistine Chapel, for the love of all the gods. Just make it easy, Shad.

I had been looking through all the collages on my Gallery page, checking out the ones from early on. Do you remember that I did a whole piece about the comma? (See Week 2.) This week I thought, since I’m pondering this question—what if it were easy?—I could add to my punctuation collection. And there you have it. The question mark. Easy.

“The all-important question” might just be any question that gets my thought process going, that awakens my curiosity. What if…? What if it’s easy to create art on a regular basis? I’m not training for the Olympics. I don’t have to place hurdles in my own path—like the fear of inspiration NOT coming. What if it were easy?

What if it were easy to dismantle systemic racism? Did I just hear a collective snort? If it were easy, we woulda been done did it, right? So how can I remove my own obstacles? Certainly by educating myself. Certainly by hearing stories from as many Black voices as possible. Certainly by holding to my truth, my love, and my commitment, as Layla Saad recommends (in her book Me and White Supremacy.)

And also by remembering that I am not in this battle alone. And maybe by not using the word “battle.” I am in a life-long commitment. A daily commitment of anti-racist practice. I have no power over other people’s thoughts. I can’t “battle” my way into changing other people’s minds.

But I do have power over my own mind, and I can choose to let my curiosity lead the way. I’d much rather ask you questions about what makes you tick than talk about myself (which you’d never guess by my blog-blathering!) I can engage in conversations, one on one. I can ask questions to understand more about another rather than leaping to judgment.

I can pray for a new paradigm around racial healing—and I do. I can pray for it to be easy—and I do. But it’s up to me to do the footwork, to remove as many obstacles as I possibly can.

Meanwhile, we’re living in a question mark—a space of uncertainty, a limbo—even while truths are being revealed left and right. It’s harder and harder to ignore the inequities of the systems that we’ve lived with for so long, that our collective ancestors lived with.

Change is happening. What would it look like if it were easy? Does easy mean simple? Can something be both easy AND complex? How easy is it to let Love rule rather than Fear? Getting to that point might be complex, but it doesn’t have to be hard. If I am committed to the work of anti-racism, then I am committed to standing in my truth and choosing Love.

Because I’m pretty sure when I cast off this mortal coil, I’m not going to care about how many collages I made. But I will care about what I did to create a more loving world.