When you make a gift for a hurt place, you know that you’re only the first artist. Other forces will add to and subtract from your work after you’re finished.

The art we make for a place doesn’t last. It’s not meant to. It’s the making of the gift that is the point of your act of beauty. The gift is both what you create and the act of creating it together with other people and the materials the place offers you.

In the art world, the value of a piece often increases with time and the reputation of the artist. To the contrary, Radical Joy art may disappear before you’ve even finished making it!

Waves may take it, wind may blow it away, animals may walk over it, traffic may roll over it. It may even change while you’re still working on it.

This can be a very liberating experience of creativity. No one is going to judge you or your work. Not your art teacher, not your therapist, not your parents, or your partner. Humans and the natural world are in a constant state of change. When they come together at the Global Earth Exchange or any other gift-making moment, the piece that arises is made of what happened to the place, how you feel about it, what the place offers as art materials, and who’s there in the group.

You create, you leave—and the place gets to work on a few revisions.

—April 6, 2022