On smoke and carrying on and this being fine
I left work early today because the air quality index was "hazardous." That's New York City, baybee. I spent today pretending I was in Silent Hill while I typed my little emails and drank my little seltzers at my little desk. I am the "this is fine" dog--the dog sitting in a burning house saying "this is fine." Are we all the "this is fine" dog? Maybe. I have had three coffees today nonetheless.
When I got off at my stop, a police car was barreling down the street. A man outside of my apartment was smoking, his puffs unnoticeable in the haze. Two stray cats came running down the street, together, tails up. I am worried about their lungs. In the elevator up to my apartment, a neighbor started talking to me. "Floors 4 and 5, or 54. Studio 54." Yes, this is fine. "Do you really think the stuff in the air is from a wild fire? It seems like it might be a new pandemic. Smells off." I am wearing a shirt that says "Promote Homosexuality." This is fine.
My lungs hurt. My hips hurts. I have been dealing with some health stuff lately (I am not dying; this is fine) that has left it harder for me to move around. As tests and doctor's appointments get closer to answering what has been causing it, the pain seems to get worse. It's like I'm giving myself permission to feel this pain that I carry, to varying degrees, everyday. The smoke outside is overwhelming. Is this how things are now? Joints inflamed, conspiracy talk in elevators, cop cities, and small particles billowing in through my windows from a forest hundreds of miles away. I guess we will feel it. I guess I will feel it.
I think that a lot of the care that came about during the height of the covid pandemic seems to have billowed out the window too. We are showing up to work when the skies are dangerous. This is fine. I am grateful to be able to leave my job early without fear. But guilt still lingers. This is fine!
The other day I performed at a weird bar in Manhattan. Across the crowded room, I heard a colleague say "I don't want to ask Shawn, he's so SAD." Then they laughed. I am thinking about how, for a while, many people only knew me as the "sad performance artist." And I wonder how long it takes people to realize that other people change. While the world is spinning and burning, the sad become mobilized or indifferent or activated. Or they simply becomes less sad, despite the smoke and the crumbling and the uncertainty.
And I wonder: if artists can't see change around them, in real time, in our communities, in each other, how can they honestly comment on anything that is happening around them? A failure to realize stagnation is dangerous, I think? A failure to see shifts in your world is ignorant, I think?
If you ask me right now, I think art is stupid. Do I still consider myself an artist? Sure. But I think it's stupid. I think ideas are great. And I think sharing ideas in a language and a code that an artist creates is great. And I think if you can share an idea in a way that considers other people and how the idea might be able to shift something in them for the better, then that's great. But art galleries and institutions run by billionaires and heirs and gatekeepers who aim to benefit the wealthy and maintain the status quo and art wash and feed off of exploitation and labyrinthian inaccessible overly academic wall texts and press releases feels hazardous. It hurts. I do not want. And when this toxicity and competition and judgment is echoed in the fringes, in the playgrounds and places of experimentation, it feels really counterproductive.
I am tired of being in situations where I have to convince myself that this is fine, for the sake of other people, or norms, or the economy, or because that's how things are. There is change, constantly. I will think on what that means to me and for me and around me and for my art, as stupid as I think art is. My body hurts, and I am choosing to go where there is ease and excitement and curiosity. 
I left work early because my lungs hurt. Because there was smoke outside that turned the light copper when it should be golden. That's self preservation, mama. And over the past few years I have left some ideologies and places and faces that made me feel hurt, or shut me down, or made me quiet, or made me sad. And that's self preservation too, mama. I think that's fine! Everything is fine! This is fine!!! Change is cool!
Anyway, wear a mask outside, NYC! Don't use flavored vapes. Be nice xox