CREATIVE TIME: Annice Jacoby


On October 12, the Arts Research Center at UC Berkeley and the Curatorial Practice at the California College of the Arts are partnering to host a live-streaming of the Creative Time Summit, an annual conference in New York that brings together cultural producers–including artists, critics, writers, and curators–to discuss how their work engages pressing issues affecting our world. To jump-start the conversation in advance of the event, attendees have been asked to submit a paragraph on a keyword associated with one of the summit themes: Inequities, Occupations, Making, or Tactics. This posting is by Annice Jacoby, author and artist.
 
Keyword: MAKING
 
Sweet etymology reveals that the root of Poet is a Maker. In the historical sweep of what we say and do, this linguistic link from the practical to the lyrical, embraces our survival, management, creativity, resourcefulness, connections, communications and all that jazz broadly labeled “culture”.  Art, as everyday ecstasy, ingenuity, occupation and pre-occupation, is a basic activity that, like language, belongs to all, but alas exercised in a inexhaustible variety of ways, delicious to disruptive, dismal to dynamic. What we make, as Artists, with a capital A, are conscious gifts, conceived and crafted with the integrity of a good cook. Making something from nothing, transforming ingredients, understanding process, tradition, changing conditions, inventing and share what we make to nourish and serve. Sometimes we make a mess. Sometimes a marvel. Whatever we make, Art serves as Agency for our collective experience, capacity and imagination.