Brooke McGowen

The Selling Out Of America

We have been living it up for quite a while now without bothering to pay the bill. China, Japan and other countries were nice enough to put up the money for our spending spree. We sure hope they won´t want it back very soon. Our total national debt is 15 trillion, more than it has ever been before. Who is going to pay this bill?


Before 1980, the U.S. exported more than it imported. How did we change from the American Producer to the American Consumer? How did we become so dependant on other nations and incapable of taking care of ourselves in this land of plenty?


For decades we have stuffed the economy like a goose. Everything had to be packaged and marketed. People got used to seeing shopping as the only means of self-affirmation. I buy, therefore I am. It even became a patriotic duty to spend money and buy more new things. The old things had to be thrown away, leaving a gigantic garbage problem.


We became spoiled, demanding consumers, clamoring louder for bread and games and allowing ourselves to be stupefied with an entertainment program at least as brutal as the gladiator games. We became passive slaves of the American dream of luxury. We didn´t care what was going on in Washington, as long as we had our flatscreens and new SUVs.


It has long been apparent that the American standard of living is unsustainable. But above that, it is undesirable. When you look around, you see many people so obese they need two seats on the bus. How did we get so fat? Advertising and the constant proffering of snacks, soda and processed food is ruining the nation´s health. Who is profiting?


These questions and more are being asked in the wake of the economic catastrophe. Art can make us aware of situations we might otherwise ignore.

It can help us find a new way to face the economic and social problems that are urgently demanding our attention.

RW Ruehlen

ARTIST STATEMENT:

My works are manifestations, or Mindscapes, that express spirituality,
psychological trauma, bliss, disassociation, humor, fear, duality, oneness and isolation.
It is a concentration of the feminine and masculine energy, the need to uncover and
nurture, the meticulousness of line and flow and the desire to see not only holistically
but from lost or broken standpoints. I believe our society has become bright, colorful,
dynamic and overloaded with information only to disguise the ugly, the fragmented, the
oppressed and the void in our modern lives. I use bright, bold colors to captivate the
viewer, as modern technology has, but I do not use it to veil the strange, painful, or
forgotten: I use it to call it out; to exercise it; to exorcise it.
Modern society has stripped its people of spirituality, and its psychological
construction of reality. Humans have been cast out into a homeless world where we have
chosen instead to reconstruct an imitation of life through technological material.
Through the advancements of science, which continues the legacy of masculine domination
over feminine nature, technology has not only dismantled our gods of the past but has
itself become a god “a technogod“ and turned us into machines to fit its paradigm
shift. A god unlike all other gods, one that gives us everything we desire, or are told
to desire, to feed our own selfishness or insecurities. Science has allowed us to see
into the crevasses of reality, as well as create new realities; and this has created
cognitive dissonance in the mystical mind of our primitive selves. I have begun to call
my art technomysticism, which conjures up my deep connection with the old world, my
current entanglement with 21st century isolation, and the unknown environment of the
future. The imagery I create is not my own but is given to me in times of silence, in
meditation, in thoughtful awareness, through the spirits of the past. I tend to use dark,
crisp lines and saturated hues to create a balance of fragmentation and
interconnectedness, which I feel encapsulates our zeitgeist.
My content is a response to sexual oppression, religious oppression, racial oppression,
class oppression, gender oppression and most importantly; self oppression: or the act of
those in power to eliminate self-awareness, to blanket our true, personal nature, as well
as the act of individuals to repress their oneness with the cellular organism we call
Earth, our home. My characters take on androgynous forms and my landscapes littered with
humor; like flying penises and robotic babies. I capture transcendental experiences like
the awakening of myriads of hidden people in this shell I call a body, or dream
experiences where I spend moments in flight or in strange carnivals of lust and disorder,
violence and stillness where people morph into other animals and vice versa. For me,
creating art is my spirituality in practice; it is a moment of taking disorder and
confusion and bringing it into harmony, bringing it to the surface. We are spiritual
nomads wandering a desolate landscape we call existence; we are spiritual beings living
in a beautifully infinite landscape we call the mind.

ANTHEM

Anthem - by KV Abbott. This painting is mixed media on paper and is part of an on-going series of paintings and sculptures inspired by the writing of Ayn Rand. This painting is available at $400.00. call or e-mail for details. kabbott765@netzero.com 315-668-9459

Submissions

TIMEFORFRIDA is currently accepting submissions. Please send several jpeg images, an artist's statement and or resume to kabbott765@netzero.com.

There is no charge.

Submissions poured in over the winter months and we had the next several artists lined up but the images and contact information was inadvertently lost.

I look forward to posting new artists in the coming weeks!