Diversity Statement As Required By Bureaucracy

Last Night I Presented to the Board While Sinking Down Doubt Sea 2022. Acrylic on poly (methyl methacrylate), 16 x 20"

I applied for a visiting artist position at a university. It’s chic these days to include a diversity statement.

Diversity Statement

I was born into the historically winning gender that has controlled all things art and world dominance since cavewoman times. I am a Caucasian man and citizen of the United States here to explain my commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion, and for many rational, thinking persons, doomed to fail right from the start.
But it’s true. Notwithstanding my outside appearance (and therefore my unfair advantage over other races, genders, ethnicities, and disabilities), I was born with the justice gene, and it has shaped my adult life tremendously. As an artist, I would declare that more than half of my output expresses a political or justice-related theme. Whether a painting or essay, I feel most inspired and creative while extinguishing the fire in my gray matter, stoked by a social wrong. Like the old adage suggests to assuage the frustrated and underrepresented (which all artists are), “Turn your anger into a work of art”!
Artistically, I believe that anger (more often frustration) expressed creatively, in equal parts to love, will embolden an exasperated culture to move toward a more equitable future for our species and also the billion or so other species who have no say in their futures during these early throes of the sixth extinction.

How do I express this commitment specifically?

For 29 years I raised two daughters as a stay-at-home Dad. I homeschooled both girls until their teenage years. I did the majority of housework, and all the cooking because my wife and I agreed that the best scenario for our family was for one of us to stay at home—preferably the one whose job and career was less tenable.

So I stayed home. And was thoroughly enriched by a new, empowering perspective and experience. I was raising children! Unlike my father, or his father (ad infinitum down the line), I began to see the world through the eyes of a pre-Betty Friedan generation of American women. I was enlivened and enriched by the experience, yet there was always some underlying emptiness at issue. As time went on, I was (am) no longer marketable for employment in the workplace much beyond an hourly minimum wage. I had (have) no financial prospects on the horizon. Yet I had (have) the safety net to relinquish my economy by choice. I understand that millions of committed underrepresented people today do not have that opportunity.
I raised my daughters to not only think critically, but also demand a fairer world for themselves. Each has learned to buck an oppressive system to her advantage. Our homeschool and dinner table experience was replete with social justice themes. Civil rights, people’s histories, women and gender issues, climate justice, education reform... Throughout these years I wrote and painted in my free time, usually in the very early mornings and late evenings. Social justice themes abound in my oeuvre, yet neither popularly nor financially to my benefit. Today I work full time in my home studio, painting and writing.

I am a strong advocate for change, especially in education where a level playing field is the best way to achieve an equitable balance. Education is the door leading to freedom. I strive through my art and life practice to share my vision with all peoples interested in creating a more just world.
The youth today carry the seeds to whatever becomes of our future. I believe my generation has done a pretty good job raising socially conscious human beings. For the first time in modern history, the generation gap is closing fast, and for all the right reasons. Unlike in previous cycles that handed down a continuation of the status quo, the youth of today are not rebelling so much as educating their elders about a better world to come. They’re also impatient, and rightly so. Social and environmental justice is wanted now, not tomorrow, for next week who knows what huge mass of ice will break off Antarctica? Thanks to the Internet, and especially social media, information is immediate and democratic, which builds bridges quickly across outdated divides of race, gender, disability, religion, age, marital status, socioeconomic placement, or even language. It holds the understanding that “knowledge is power” to millions, who for too long were marginalized by poorly designed systems. I would bring to the AAO a deep admiration and respect for people’s creative and inquisitive energies. I believe that artists are the first in line to sign the new social contract. Make way for the life giving ones! I would use my talents to inspire confidence, cooperation, and a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. As potential employee resident artist at the AAO, I make this promise to the local community.

Underrepresented Grandfather 2022.