For project 3 i chose "Balm in Gilead". I first heard the song about a year ago in a documentary about Bayard Rustin and his role in the Civil Rights Movement (the film is called Brother Outsider). i mentioned that i wasn't sure who was singing that particular version, but that i thought it might be Rustin himself, since the interviewees kept mentioning Rustin's angelic singing voice. anyway, it really struck me at the time; I'll have to go back and view the film again and have a look at the credits to see if i can find that version. I'm very much invested in the lyrics of songs, and i found the chorus in particular of "Balm in Gilead" moving. i feel there is a lot of nuance that can be read into those words, about wounds and sickness, both physical and emotional (as a balm is typically applied to physical wounds on the body, but the words also mention "the sin-sick soul", which implies emotional or spiritual damage). The lyrics contain a balance between acknowledging hurt and pain, and having faith in healing and redemption. This is a balance that i think is critical if one is to understand oneself and maintain one's health, particularly one's emotional and mental health. It seems pretty self-explanatory that focusing only on the negative aspects of one's situation leaves no room for hope. I think it's much more difficult for people to realize that by subscribing to a wholly positive and hopeful view of life and denying one's hurts, one can never overcome those difficulties. Problems can only be addressed if you acknowledge them, and if you believe you have no wound, then what need do you have for a balm? 

These concepts can be political as well as personal; there can be no activism, reform, or revolution without an admission of injustice. This is all applicable to Bayard Rustin's life in particular, as Rustin was alienated from the Civil Rights movement because he was a gay man. Respectability politics in general aim to present a non-threatening front, to address marginalization in relationship to only one axis of oppression at a time, holding all other axes constant. This is certainly a major part of the reason why Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. was selected as the leader for the civil rights movement, and also the reason why Rustin was pushed away and discredited on multiple occasions despite his huge contributions to the movement, and why today his contributions are all but forgotten. This is not a problem exclusive to the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s either. Respectability politics given white supremacy, homonormativity, and patriarchy mean that white cis gay men are the face of the LGBT community, granted the most visibility despite their clear position of relative privilege within the community, and the fact that problems faced by queer people of color, queer women, trans folks, and above all trans women of color are far more dire. Bayard's intersecting identities place him at the heart of these issues. Listening to the song and in particular poking around on YouTube watching documentary clips trying to find the version I'd first heard got me thinking about all of this stuff again. eventually i gave up because i figured I'll just have to rent or purchase the film sometime, and of couse paul robeson's version is beautiful too. 

the process of making this piece was pretty satisfying for me. the colors feel like they're the ones i wanted, which is always rewarding since my sort of...unrefined....color mixing process combined with the very particular emotional connotations i assign to color (and my strong visual preferences) makes for results that tend to be hit or miss. Coming back to the idea of the wound and the balm, i feel that painting is pretty similar in that it's most useful to me when i manage to strike that balance. A painting that tries to  feign perfect health, order, logic, whatever is useless and superficial to me. it's only by acknowledging the messy and raw parts of myself that I've been able to create anything of value. Painting for me is both an acknowledgment of the wound and the balm itself.