Breakthrough
By Sharon Strauss | UFV student & CHASI artist-in-residence
"Sometimes change, or at least the pursuit of it, feels like running into walls over and over again. We can see a better world on the other side, but the barriers we face seem insurmountable. Art can feel a lot like that too. Like I’m treading water, like the vision just won’t materialize. I have the means, the dream, the know-how, but that blank canvas keeps staring me down. Nothing comes from simply looking at it, just wishing it was something beautiful, meaningful. I have to set pen to digital paper and start. The first go is rough and imprecise, but I know I want to transform that canvas, and I know that I can. We all can.
More often than not these days the world looks dark, bleak, hopeless. We helplessly watch from beyond phone and monitor screens the horrors and tragedies that are unfolding around the world. We see the pain entrenched in our communities and personal circles. But there is nothing in the universe that cannot end. Stars become stardust, dictators die, and people learn. It may be hard, it may require pulling up stubborn, old roots, but we are all capable of changing, of enacting change. Every day a wall comes down, in hearts and systems, through the efforts of people who decided to care a whole lot.
We don’t wait for breakthroughs, we make them."
