The art class that was political

in desire of neutral, third spaces

Recently mom signed the two of us up for a crop art class in St. Paul. Crop or seed art is a kind of folk art, the use of seeds and glue to create visuals. It’s popular here in the Midwest and gathers crowds at our renown State Fair. The class had been challenging to get into, taught by two educators, one who teaches children and the other who is a professor.

We sat down in our spots, and I found a few items in front of me. There were the supplies to create a piece of seed art, some paper instructions, and then I noticed it, a bumper sticker. In large, frankly aggressive font read: I do crop art AND I VOTE.

So, the implication here is that all of us are voting the same, feeling precisely the same, and coming from the identical world views, and expressing our politics in external ways. It was assumptive and in poor taste. I immediately felt suspicious of the class. I probably would have walked out and quietly left, but mom hadn’t arrived yet, and we’d planned to take this together. I hoped that the sticker would be the end of it, but then the slideshow started.

The college professor showed us examples of seed art, many indeed which are political as art often (inherently?) is. The problem wasn’t the pieces she’d chosen to share, but instead her side comments. Focusing in on a portrait of Dick Cheney that was titled, the axis of evil, she laughed out loud a bit and remarked to the entire class, “if we only knew then.” Similar examples continued. I had expected more technical instruction, information about the history of crop art perhaps, or even how it is practiced in other parts of the world, but each slide it seemed included personal political remarks rooted in a lack of self-control.

When third spaces, and frankly it’s often women’s spaces become cooped like this, the result is that whatever ideology is presented becomes tethered to its spokesperson. It becomes challenging, if not impossible, to then separate a personal experience from an ideology. I think for me, this is what is most worrisome about a heavy handed politics that becomes inescapable in all facets of society.

Most troubling was her explanation of a portrait of a woman. I didn’t recognize her, but the seed art depicting her face and hair was indeed beautiful and detailed. She stood proudly behind the image of her, posed next to the artist. “This woman is the founder of an abortion organization,” the professor spoke with pride and a smile. I thought of myself, pregnant at ten weeks. I imagined how a woman in the class might have felt had she perhaps been coerced into an abortion, or if there was a woman who had recently miscarried. One in four women face pregnancy loss, and I myself recently lost a baby at the end of March.

We were then handed a template to create our own seed art, but I chose to do my own, working quickly and using up nearly all the quinoa:

A ten week old baby.

The class experience left me troubled, so a few days later I called the art shop where it was hosted. I had a beautiful, constructive conversation with the owner, who agreed with me, and generously refunded the cost of the class towards store credit.

Whether the instructor’s politics differed from mine or were identical is not the point. It can always be tempting in majority or homogenous spaces to assume we’re among friends with similar views, but sometimes, we may not be. Having boundaries around personal politics, especially in third spaces, where we are in positions of power or authority is critical to reestablishing a healthy and welcoming society devoid of political animus.