BEVERLY NAIDUS // Tacoma, Washington, USA
When I look out the window of my studio, I feel a profound sense of sadness. It is not just seeing neighbors isolated in their apartments, day after day, but it is also the devastation of native land visible in the Port of Tacoma. I try to imagine what this place will look like when nature reclaims it, and that eases my mind quite a bit. I still hope that humans can evolve to heal the trauma and remediate all the messes we have made.
Improvising with found and gifted materials to create something with text and image is one of my favorite ways to create. The process allows me to tap into what’s floating just outside my range of vision and helps me articulate feelings and observations in ways that are unexpected. The pandemic has vividly thrown into almost everyone’s laps realities that may not have been so visible to those with various privileges, economic, skin, etc. The traumas that have been unveiled are innumerable. Some of art’s essential purposes are to process, document, communicate, provoke, and validate the experience of living in this difficult time. I want my work to inspire strategies for taking action that will heal or generate new systems of care for our world and each other. A small art piece can’t do this alone. It’s best done in collaboration with communities invested in transformative justice.
