• Call – Don’t ‘Dis’ Me, Theme of the Month

• Response – Musings on Nobody’s Perfect

• By – Mimi Peterson

I write not just as an observer, but as a fellow wayfarer: watching signposts, following an open map, facing the rising sun to find my bearings. North to my left, South on my right, West at my back. As the sun rises over Lake Michigan, so does my free state of mind. By rejecting the current rhetoric of chaos, OBSERVATIONS presents a variation on disable, displace, distrust – ‘Dis’, the theme of the month.

Prejudicial attitudes are trending. No matter if they are subtle or overt, they hurt. It’s a prejudice against individualism. The unoriginal performer who mimics a stutter, limp, trembling hands, as if it’s an exclusive joke, is ‘dis-ing’ the audience, as well as the invisible disabled. Some audience emit nervous laughter at the audacious show of insensitivity. Like playing Follow the Leader, many emulate the performance with blank stares and halting gestures. This dark disrespect for people incites class inequity and social and medical stereotyping, at the least.

Today’s terminology “disabled people”, instead of “person with a disability”, aligns with the Social Model understanding that people are further disabled by social and environmental barriers. (Embracing the Social Model of Disability for Arts Organization, by Disability Arts. Online, Dec.3, 2022) The heterogeneous Other outshines the zealous Dis-ers by daring to be themselves, without bias.

My words and imagery are written around personal interests and across connections, be they emotional or geographical. I mean to offer multi-sensory pathways through narrative themes as I experiment with concepts of empirical earthiness.

MUSINGS ON NOBODY’S PERFECT

‘Dis’ is but a prefix, it’s what follows that matters: able, advantage, agree,
‘Dis’ appear, approve, arm, Never ‘Dis’ believe, Followed by charge, cover, Next comes ‘dis’ ciple, favor, On thru the alphabet to ‘dis’ unite, Don’t forget ‘dis’ like.

‘Dis’ is but a pretext, Able more than a suffix, Blended, they animate iconography, Acrobatic flips between positive, negative and perception, instinct, Force a centrifugal explosion only understood from Disabled fragments, Don’t forget, Don’t ‘Dis” me.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Negative space, a sculptor's concern,                                                                        Intervals connect within,                                                                                            Undefined voids hold potential,                                                                              Implications fill blank spaces,                                                                                                An entrance to geo-emptiness,                                                                                                               An abstraction in the fourth dimension,                                                                              Resolved by Time.                                         ______________________________________________________________________________________

As the spatial spectrum widens, Two sides of the city emerge, One side, a coagulation of disheveled city, On the other, a phenomenon, made from fire and air, Broken forms, re-designed for function, Feed off climate, offer eco-comfort, Art as language, Teaches new visions of interstitial place, Seen from two perspectives, From both sides of the moon’s face. ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

MY MUSINGS CONTINUE ….

Enclosed spaces imply sanctuary, conversely captivity -                                                  
Discriminate.                                                                                                                               
Kaleidoscopic populations who have ambivalent feeling, meaning and purpose of place -
Disfranchaise.                                                                                                                              Yearning for identity -                                                                                                                 Dissolute.                                                                                   ______________________________________________________________________________________                                                                                     

BOLD BRAVURA<> NOBODY’S PERFECT

Liberty, freedom, deconstructed on the right, Reconstruction, options, evolving toward left, Materials determine longevity, Process involves labor’s objectivity, Context provides symmetry, Content shapes history’s subjectivity,

At a time when our country is defined by a sense of immediacy and debate, Prevailing winds alter our cultural landscape, Patriarchy superimposes values of worthy-ness on women and disabled people, No longer a shared decision or symbolic order, Critique yourself, your civic role. Greeted by Nature’s pageantry, Nomadism – bird, boat, shelter, evocations of potency and fertility, Transverse the heart’s journey, Look for the aesthetics of imperfection, Beauty in poetry.

Mimi Peterson

More OBSERVATIONS coming 9.14.24