Anger

In my experience, anger is one of the best reasons to do spiritual practices. By spiritual practices, I mean meditation, contemplation, attention to the present moment, lovingkindness, mantra repetition, prayer, and other techniques and tools for focusing the mind and emotions. Last week, Uma Thurmond was asked about recent allegations of sexual harassment and abuse by Harvey Weinstein and others in Hollywood, and her answer was a brilliant display of working with active anger.



I started this series of images about fire in light of my own anger after the election of Donald Trump almost one year ago today. Anger is compared to fire in our language for good reason—although useful, both anger and fire can easily grow out of control and become overwhelmingly destructive. Anger also spreads like wildfire. I believe that anger is the most contagious of all the emotions. Observe what happens in a room when an angry person walks in, or how quickly a small incident on the road can escalate into a full-blown physical confrontation. If you want to offer something of service to the world, learning to manage your own anger is a great beginning.

I’ve spent a lot of this year learning to be responsible about my anger. I don’t think I’ve ever felt this much intense and sustained anger before. Yes, I’ve felt bursts of anger, and even simmering resentments that have lasted for long-ish periods, but never sustained white-hot undiminishing rage like I’ve felt this year. It’s nasty and I don’t like it, but it’s here so I’m trying to learn to handle it and to use the energy for something creative rather than destructive. As we’ve seen this year, watching the white house wrecking crew, it’s much easier to destroy than to create.

This next print is based on eight still frames from a video of someone throwing a molotov cocktail at a wall. Here are the first few color passes.

Two passes here. First a full uncarved block printed with yellow, with a patch wiped away to show the white of the paper, and then an orange on top, with a bit of blotting in the hopes that it will soften the flow of one color to another in the final result.

A third layer, a more orange red. Again you can see the blotting I'm doing before I print so that the sharp carved lines between the colors will be less distinct.

Layer four, with a wash of what is actually a red oxide tone. The blotting is doing what I wanted it to do—hooray!