SYSTEMS FAILURE, Artistic Reflections by Dorothea Sandra
There’s a health and healing story to this unique collection of 15 paintings created in 2020. Here’s my final blog, Part 3
Communication Systems Failure by Dorothea Sandra (36”x48” acrylic on canvas)
There are many myths about artists. Some people think we are supposed to be moody or drunken and drugged-up-wild or miserably tormented by inner demons who clutch at our souls and won’t let go until we die. While it is true that many artists absorb what goes on in the world (and often this is painful) and then reflect it in their art, it does not mean today’s artist can’t learn to absorb the pain and then positively channel it into healthy and healing art. Doing this is not easy and it takes a sizable amount of personal growth and enlightenment, but that’s what I do.
Today’s positive people focus on facing failures (even system-wide failures) and then finding solutions to their system problems. I did not want Communication Systems Failure to drop off as just another work of art with a negative/painful message, so I created Communication Systems Flow as a companion painting to artistically reflect how beautifully and positively healthy communication can and does flow. The real power of this painting is, no matter which way it goes, it adds a sense of calm and the feeling of togetherness to a room!
Communications Systems Flow by Dorothea Sandra (36”x48” or 48”x36” acrylic on canvas)
Sometimes in our desire to move forward, we go too fast, and then we need to look back. This is what happened with The Green Door. With all the pain and noise in my head over Systems Failures, I forgot all about including a painting for the environment. I created The Green Door as a beautiful/cool work of art, BUT I also wanted to make a social statement with it. The lines in this painting move and cut, almost like a jagged knife or saw. My purpose was to reflect the many obstacles, frustrations and violence we are currently passing through in order to return to a blue/green planet. Our planet is absolutely awesome! Let’s not destroy it!
The Green Door by Dorothea Sandra (36”x36” acrylic on canvas)
Fight! Argue! Shame! Blame! Apathy! Fear! False Pride! Selfish! Self-serving! Deceitful! Deceptive! Corrupt!—If you follow the news, that is what seems to be going on in government these days. In many ways, our governmental bodies have failed to service us and failed to function as designed. Although all the different images in this painting make up this one work of art, most of the images are closed—as if to communicate they lack meaningful flow. Like many of today’s dysfunctional governmental organizations, they might appear together, but are, in fact, hideous, deformed, closed off and serving themselves. (Government Systems Failing by Dorothea Sandra)
Government Systems Failing by Dorothea Sandra (36”x48” acrylic on canvas)
Just as there are brilliant business leaders and healthy companies that understand their systems and get them to flow, I believe in the idea of healthy government flow. We no longer live in the 1950s and before, and we no longer live in the 1960s-90s. Government Systems Flow was created to artistically reflect this message: “If we go through the steps of redesigning and modernizing our government for the 2020s and beyond, I believe our systems—even with all their complexity and diversity—will once again begin to flow!”
Government Systems Flow by Dorothea Sandra (36”x48” acrylic on canvas)
But what if we choose to do nothing? What if we go into denial? What if we fall prey to the accuse/blame/shame/hate game? We would end up with thousands/millions of righteously angry people…who would then protest…who would then riot…which would only add to the chaos and turmoil and feeling that OUR SYSTEMS HAVE FAILED US AND ARE OUT OF CONTROL. And then what if the news networks kept stirring up the masses and kept stirring up the masses and kept stirring up the masses?
In the end, my artistic journey led me here TO THE REVOLUTION.
Anyone who has done any serious historical reading knows REVOLUTION—with all of its blood, misery and horror—is not a happy way to go. Radical SYSTEM changes do occur in revolutions, but at what cost? The loss of many lives…the loss of valuable property…and the loss of all the time it takes to rebuild and re-stabilize?
To The Revolution by Dorothea Sandra (36”x36” acrylic on canvas)
BUT WAIT! I am the artist. I can and will override my inner spirit, and instead of ending this SYSTEMS FAILURE Art Collection on TO THE REVOLUTION, I will create another painting and call it OUR REVOLUTIONARY CHOICES.
Using the exact same paint colors (with a few more colors added) as in TO THE REVOLUTION, I will create a final painting as an artistic statement. It will be strategically and deliberately designed (using evidence-based guidelines) for health, healing, and happiness. It will be just one visual example to show us that the kind of SYSTEMS Change/Revolution we end up with is really up to us. It will artistically reflect the message that we don’t have to become victims and get sucked into a bloody revolution. Like beautiful paintings on our walls, we can create upbeat and positive and entirely new or redesigned SYSTEMS by our positive revolutionary choices.
Our Revolutionary Choices by Dorothea Sandra (36”x36” acrylic on canvas)