Ask Auntie Trash: Stop the World, I Wanna Get Off

Dear Trash,

Is it just me, or is everything going to shit? I feel like I can’t watch the news anymore because of all the bad things that are happening around the world. The attacks in Nice, Orlando, Iraq and the refugee crisis have all really affected me, even though I’m not involved in it in any way.

I’m trying to make some good out of this and use it in my art (I’m a bit of an amateur painter) – I want to help, but I’m not in the financial situation to do so and I don’t know what I could do. How do I make the world less shit?

Yours,

Amateur Artist

Hello Amateur Artist,

The world’s gone a bit funny, hasn’t it? I mean, it wasn’t like it was pure brilliant before; innocent people were still dying needlessly, Trump was still running for president, and the UK had a government that at least did a very good job of pretending that they knew what they were doing.

And now look: we’re leaving Europe, a series of attacks have killed hundreds of people in Nice, Orlando, Iraq and beyond, and refugees are still drowning in the Mediterranean while they desperately try to escape the horrors in their homelands. The world is a mess, and we have to deal with that mess, because the people that caused it aren’t helping. This is more than a tad unfair.

I know what you’re saying. What we see on the news now is enough to make us want to throw away our TVs and head to the nearest cave, where we can live out our days drawing on the walls. But literally running away isn’t going to solve anything. These problems aren’t going to go away.

You don’t need to be rich to donate to deserving causes. A lot of charities are time-poor, and to make the world less shit, they need people like you and me, people who have seen the horrible news on TV and are asking Siri for the directions to the nearest cave, to sort through donations, man the till, be a pair of helping hands. That is one thing you can do.

Another thing that you can do to make the world less shit is paint. If you’re stressed about what’s happening in the world (and who isn’t?) then use that in your art. Paint what you feel, paint what you see. It doesn’t have to be perfect, it doesn’t have to be a polished piece of work; all that matters is that it matters to you.

The early 20^th century German-Jewish surrealist Felix Nussbaum documented his experiences of the Holocaust through his paintings. His most prolific period was the decade he was in hiding from the Nazis, when he was sheltered by friends who gave him art supplies.

He painted during a time when the smell of turpentine would have given him away, he painted after his family were arrested and taken to their deaths at Auschwitz, he painted when he knew that the odds were stacked against him. He created art in the most painful and isolating of circumstances, and the pieces that he left behind include his best work, Self Portrait with Jewish Identity Card (1943) and Triumph of Death (1944).

Painting what you are feeling might be ugly, but it might make you feel better, too, and act as the sort of record that you can look back at and say, 'Oh yeah, that’s from my EVERYTHING IS SHIT period. Oh, I was well-depressed, then. I’ll get the robot to frame this and then I’ll go by hoverboard to the pub.'

The world is going to shit. But it’s our horrible, wonderful, beautiful, ugly, perfectly imperfect world, and we have to keep going. We have to keep dreaming. We must keep creating, because one day, that is all that we will leave behind.

Lots of love,

Trashy x