Stories Have Long Lives; In Praise of Showing Up At Home Part 2
MORE Creative Interventions & Community Organizations That Inspire!
I love to think about how storytelling can interrupt patterns of the past, can communicate essential information by surprising us awake and remind us to feel. However we do or don’t engage in political life, civics are everywhere in our lives. In mental health policies, in public education, in healthcare, in the life of our cities, in how we treat the most vulnerable among us, even — and increasingly so — in our bedrooms. Creative interventions try to remind us in fresh and emotional ways that we are affected by and can affect civic life — which is really just people trying to be in community.
Last week, I talked about CAROLINADAZE — built by and for young people (not me, clearly) — a spectacular creative intervention, an example of music in collaboration with community organization —- and they’ve announced AN ASHEVILLE SHOW OCTOBER 13! Get your tickets to both, (I’ll be an EMCEE in Raleigh.)
Another of my favorite NC creative interventions this election cycle the VOTING ARTS LAB. Amanda Levinson and Lissa Gowals have spearheaded an incredible campaign of visual work, giving posters away at public events in exchange for voter registration look up. Posters will be on display this fall at the Nasher Museum! VOTING ARTS LAB highlights a diverse group of young visual voices, including a zine campaign launching soon which remind us of the very personal, local stories about how issues play out in an artist’s life and specific and emotional examples of why voting matters. I love the zine campaign because I know the limitations of a site specific, one night only event. Stories have long lives — after the concert is over, passed hand to ear to heart. Passed hand to hand. You can get in touch with Voting Arts Lab to partner on events or get posters for your already established event!
Another amazing organization is WRITERS FOR DEMOCRATIC ACTION. The North Carolina Chapter’s call to action here:
“The NORTH CAROLINA chapter of WDA is a collaboration of writers, readers, editors, and booksellers, standing together to champion democracy everywhere, and the institutions that embody and protect it. We defend civil liberties: the right to vote and have our votes counted, to gather and protest, to write and read, and to access learning that informs and enriches the lives of citizens. We battle censorship in all its guises. A nation can only be strong if it invites a multitude of perspectives into its decision-making process, educates its citizens, and treats the least of them as equal in value to its most powerful.”
Writers, readers, editors and booksellers coming together! With a steering committee of amazing writers like Jill McCorkle, NC Poet Laureate Jaki Shelton Green, Bland Simpson (a longtime mentor of mine) and Micheal Parker — they also host a Democracy bookclub and have joined WRITERS FOR BLUE, a national campaign of writers and readers at work for Democracy. And of course, there is no more amazing and tireless North Carolina writer doing advocacy that Belle Boggs. Her recent article in the New York Times, A Bat Flew Into My Bedroom and Reminded Me of All We Take For Granted, is an ode to the community, public health and valuing each other.
My work as work as an artist is dedicated to storytelling as a means of putting love and essential information into the world, to document the vulnerability and significance of being human in my particular moment in hopes of interrupting the harmful patterns of the past. Mine is a tiny, tiny mark — never indelible. But every mark counts. I’m vocal, outspoken, action-oriented and I still have to bow out, stick my head in the sand and choose home to the news sometimes — nobody can do everything. But we can all do something. There are thousands of organizations and people doing wonderful work not only this election season but all year round, every year. Not one of us understand the depth and importance of an act of small kindness — and our elections are going to be decided by hundreds no thousands of votes. I hope you will think of this tiny mark of mine as an invitation to show up where you live in your small own way. Host a dinner and make sure everyone has a voting plan and a list of friends to reach out to make their voting plan too! Or perhaps one of the great organizations mentioned here below will make your heart sing.
Carolinadaze A Festival series built by young people building a brighter future.
Voting Arts Lab Artist-driven voter engagement inspiring young voters in NC and beyond.
Writers For Democratic Action Writers, readers, editors, and booksellers, standing together to champion democracy everywhere.
Common Cause NC Protecting and empowering NC voters and Democracy everywhere.
You Can Vote Educating, registering, and empowering NC voters to cast their ballots.
Down Home NC Building power with poor and working-class people in North Carolina's small towns and rural communities
Seven Directions of Service Indigenous-led environmental justice and community organizing collective based on Occaneechi-Saponi homelands in rural North Carolina.
HBCU Student Action Alliance Empowers students and civic engagement at North Carolina’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities
Pro-Choice North Carolina Fighting to protect reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy for every person in North Carolina.
MORE GREAT ORGANIZATIONS!
ACLU of North Carolina, All In For NC, Black Votes Matter, Campaign for Southern Equality, Carolina Abortion Fund, Carolina Forward, Carolina Migrant Network, Center for Racial Equality in Education, Democracy NC, Forward Justice, Justice Served NC/ Second Chance Alliance, LGBT Center of Raleigh, NAACP Youth & College, National Black Leadership Caucus SE Region, NC Black Alliance, NC Budget & Tax Center, NC Council of Churches, NC For the People, NC Justice Center, NC NAACP, NC Voter Project, NextGen America, Planned Parenthood Votes! South Atlantic, Rally NC, Rise NC, Seeds of Hope, Young People’s Alliance.
PS PLEASE POST organizations and creative interventions on this year’s election that have moved you in the comments to connect us all!
Fantastic, thank you for this! 💙
Wish we still lived in NC instead of SC. but we're still getting used to the new state. I like Wilmington more than Summerville or Charleston. We do have a granddaughter living in Daniel Island and a daughter who owns a condo on HHI.