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Kathleen Williamson’s “Casa Shtetl”
An arrow into my heart–Kathleen Williamson’s wild wit and wisdom. Yay! for the beauty of a radical thinker who is an artist and who dares to be a deeply aware human being.
Williamson is a poet, a songwriter, a singer, a Ph.D. anthropologist, and a lawyer–and all of those callings blend with ease in her performance titled Casa Shtetl, which she debuted, in what she’d call an experimental form, the other night. Didn’t seem experimental to me–at least in terms of not ready or of lacking ingredients.
Ease: as an undergraduate who adored art and its history, I learned in a casual conversation with a graduate student in Art History that we can identify mastery because it radiates ease, as if the work had been effortlessly created. In other words, observers/listeners/readers aren’t thinking about how something could have been done better or differently. (Granted, some people are more skeptical, axe-grinding, or hard-assed and -hearted than others, and little if any art may draw them into it or into their deepest selves.) In Williamson’s ease of humor, joy, generosity, and intelligence–in her artist hands–I let my tears rise, I laughed with others, and art, pure and simple, complex and stimulating, nurtured my own humanity.
From Sacajawea to Sanskrit, from making love in Italy to sorrowing over the fact that the F-16s flying over Iraq also fly over Tucson, where both she and her audience that night make their homes, Williamson wove together folk and love songs, politics and spirituality, and her Irish ancestry–altogether a whirlwind of caresses and pinpointed critiques–and helped audience members to sit more steadily, lovingly, and thoughtfully with their own conglomerations of history and identity.
In his book True Perception: The Path of Dharma Art, the legendary Buddhist teacher Chogyam Trungpa severely criticizes contemporary art that offers its audience sickness, as subject matter, content, or gestalt, and he understands that such work receives rewards from the art world. His gift to the reader? The assertion that an artist must give the world basic sanity. Williamson does just that.
http://www.myspace.com/kathleenwilliamson
http://www.kathleenwilliamson.com
- February 23, 2010
- Filed under: Bookshelf, art, and media
- Comments 2
Dear Joanna,
The gift of your generous engagement is gratifying and nourishing beyond any words. Your work and our conversations have also deeply inspired me. Many many thanks for your big-hearted review of Casa Shtetl. BEI MIR BIST DU SHAYN! Kat
I feel so cheated. How did I not know about this?
Kathleen, please add me to your media list.
Joanna – thank you for that vivid review. The work sounds deeply meaningful, funny and transcendent. I look forward to experiencing it first hand!
Love.