BAGGAGE
Painted bronze and wood, with found objects, 2007,
17" x13" x 27".
There will always be differences over what is right and wrong, what is mine, yours and/or ours, freedom versus rules, change versus keeping things the same. Sometimes we work through the thorniest of disagreements, hurt feelings and anger. Other times everyone is instantly angry, rigid and unyielding.
Anger simmers within all of us. For some it is proudly worn like a second skin, an impervious shield keeping the world at bay. For others, anger is a permission slip to shun and exclude, to sort the world neatly into black and white, good and bad, us and them.
I stuff my anger deep inside. It stays hidden, buried under all the petty slights and meanness of daily life until the weight of one more rude or sarcastic comment causes all the hurts to combust in a brilliant flash of cleansing anger.
I thought communication was the key to resolving conflict. Now I believe it is a matter of how we manage our personal baggage - our biases and beliefs, the unhealed wounds of our past, stress, our battered egos, our anger style. If we are lucky, everyone can check their baggage at the door to conflict. But when the first person retreats to the familiar comfort of old baggage, others are tempted to reach for theirs. Anger’s adrenalin overtakes reason and the dysfunction, pettiness, and failures of the past recycle into the present. We hunker down with our baggage, lobbing negativity into the discussion. We thwart any chance of lasting compromise with stubborn resistance or acts of sabotage.