The Artist as Politician
An op-ed piece by Delle
Chatman
for the Creative America Project
On January 22nd, I spent seven hours at the Bailiwick Theater in Chicago, seated among other artists who want their creativity to make a difference for good in the world. We were women and men. Our histories were diverse, as was our ethnic make-up. What a relief that was to African American me! A third of us were interested in seeking public office. The other two thirds wanted to help someone with a campaign.
At this Inaugural Training Session of the Creative America Project, Tom Tresser tried to show us how and why we should march down that rocky road. By lunchtime, we had stepped into "WEST WING" land. Speakers were discussing how handlers and candidates needed to have "the talk" (wherein the candidate drags all those skeletons out of the closet). We’d begun editing our stump speeches in our heads. We got right down to the real nitty-gritty.
And the nitty is really gritty, folks: politics ain’t for the faint of heart.
Why was I there?
Promise not to laugh.
Thirty years ago, I told a friend in college that I was going to run for President in 2008. At the time, she was stuffing envelopes for George McGovern, while I was rehearsing Cordelia in "King Lear." My friend asked me if I was registered to vote. I wasn’t. No wonder she walked away from me shaking her head. I can still feel this icy embarrassment coating my face. I wanted to tell her that I was not just apathetic and lazy. I was scared.
I had felt the stinging loss of men like John, Bobby, and Martin. I saw what it cost to be committed to justice and the pursuit of truth in the political realm, and the price of such devotion horrified me. Instead of facing that fear, I sought change through story-telling. Think of Jesus spinning parables in order to give frightened, impoverished crowds a new vision, and you’re digging my inspiration. I chose to take on the artist’s struggle with rejection and poverty rather than flirt with assassin’s bullets.
I wrote about war and peace, racism and economic injustice. I tamed corrupt politics and global injustice in short stories and film scripts rather than facing off with them over the ballot box. I started voting, okay, but honestly each vote felt like the tiniest pebble tossed into one huge ocean of woe. Every vote counts, to be sure, but after a personal close call with death in 2002 I found myself wanting to make more than a little ripple of difference in the world. I began to take more risks with the stands I took and the stories I told.
If your art really marches after truth, eventually there’s a showdown with power. My showdown came in September of 2004.
I had written a play called "The Answer" about a Catholic politician running for re-election who’s denied Communion by his bishop because of his support for pro-choice legislation. My pastor, Reverend William Kenneally, had greenlit the play for production at our parish, St. Gertrude’s Catholic Church. I created an image called "God and Country" as our flier, and began directing a month of rehearsals in the sanctuary itself with a cast of talented parishioners backed by the nationally renown choir "Choral Thunder."
In "The Answer," the campaign of mythical Senator James Berkley Harrison has gone into free fall after a reporter reveals the senator’s own daughter had an abortion when she was in college, an abortion her father knew nothing about. For ninety minutes, this Democrat hides out in a church, struggling to put his faith, his campaign, and his marriage back together.
We were cooking the headlines, and we were cooking with grease. That is, until Bishop Francis J. Kane called Father Bill two weeks before opening night, and forbade us to perform the play at St. Gertrude’s. The archdiocese then banned the play from Catholic grounds anywhere in Chicagoland. Our dilemma was covered by the local papers and television news. The show opened on schedule at Immanuel Lutheran Evangelical Church, was well attended, and well received.
But I walked away from the experience with a disquieting epiphany:
Art could, indeed, unify people. It could even create common ground between people on opposite sides of a "great divider" like abortion. After each performance of "The Answer" the audience discussed its themes without vilifying each other. But clearly the Catholic Church was not an arena where that coming together could be nurtured. And maybe, just maybe the awesome art of theater couldn’t bear the weight of so much bridge-building.
Perhaps one had to take the fight squarely into the political arena, learn how to handle power, how to galvanize bureaucracies, how to motivate large numbers of people to care, dare, push, and change. Perhaps I had to practice what I had preached all last week, delivering a homily at a Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Liturgy and reprising it for middle school students at my daughter’s school (on President Bush’s Inaugural Day, no less). Perhaps I had to let The Spirit work to transform society not only through my characters but also through me.
That’s why I powered my PT Cruiser down frozen streets to hear what Tresser’s Brigade had to say. Kevin Conlin asserted that no one knows better than artists how to create something out of nothing. Nicole Gotthelf described years of politicking as performance art. Tresser analyzed the skills needed to run and serve in public office. From fundraising to logistics, innovative problem-solving to tactful compromise art and politics require many of the same gifts.
To my utter amazement, the Creative America Project is trying to throw a life preserver to the world, and that life preserver is . . . artists! They dare to believe that artists if not art itself can change the world. And last Saturday they made more than a decent case for giving "creatives" a spin on the real world stage of politics and power.
Delle Chatman began work on her first novel at the age of twelve, completed it at fifteen, and burned it at sixteen when screenwriting and theater became her primary passions. Decades later, she is still chasing down the truth through words and images, lassoing lively chunks of it in prose, film, television, theater, essays, and editorials. She celebrates life, love, and the gift of divine grace through her photography, music composition, and digital art. Her website is http://www.dellechatman.com. Delle presented CAP organizer Tom Tresser with an original print of "God and Country" at the training event.
