This is Your Assignment: Focus, Episode 26
On Sunday, 1st April 2018, Lizzie and Justin talked about making art, and about responding to the darkness and messiness of the world (and ourselves) with hope and transparency. Along the way we talk about fear, the way we keep ourselves stuck by trying to have it all together, and the importance of communities in which every part of us can feel welcomed. The entire episode is a call to the kind of hope expressed by Vaclav Havel - a hope that's not dependent upon things getting better, but which comes from knowing that, even if our efforts fail, we have the capacities and qualities we need to improve things.
The book Lizzie talks about in this episode is Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach.
The source for our conversation is from writer Courtney Martin and artist Wendy McNaughton. It's reproduced in full below in a wonderful image that can be ordered as a poster - a reminder to us all of the necessary, life-giving and transforming power that comes from making art. You can read more about the source over at Maria Popova's Brain Pickings.
Image Credit: Wendy MacNaughton and Courtney E. Martin