Absurd Expressionism: A Discourse by David Klassen Artist/Illustrator

Today, humanity has, once again, been grappling with Absurd Reality. At least three major wars have occurred in the 21st Century already. One country has invaded another and has displaced and killed many people within just a mere two months. The entire world has battled a pandemic over the past two years in which a respiratory virus has directly killed over six million people and toward which we have circled the wagons, in one form or another, to protect ourselves. We've wanted to protect our lives and our loved ones as well as our freedom in whatever way we think freedom is defined. In both of these contexts, we have tragically lost loved ones. Many loving families have been blown apart either through war, death, or by difference of opinion. Many of us have become fearful of extinction. A global environmental movement called the Extinction Rebellion actively exists. I certainly don't shrug my shoulders when stating that, once again, as always, Absurd Reality also continues to exist. I certainly don't shrug my shoulders when asking myself how then shall I, personally, intend to continue to exist. As one who has battled cancer and survived, yet still humbly knows that many people have not or still continue to grapple with it in their lives (along with many other people with life-threatening illnesses), I have come to know that “Expressing the Absurd” is fundamental to being able to live not only in freedom, but in truth, as well. For me, “Love, Life, and Art in the Time of Covid” is my present existential. It is one very valuable way to respond to Absurd Reality: Living "Truthfully" through "Love" and through "Art" in whatever "Time Exists". Thank you to the artists and philosophers who have grappled with Absurd Reality throughout history and have given us tools to cope. Herein is an invitation to read on. [...]

A new and different culture seems to have been born when the Covid Bubble was created. We were forced to decide who were the most important people about whom we need to actually care. We were forced to decide who was in and who was out. Additionally, our new culture seems to have been conceived by this question: “Who are the people with whom we feel safe?” With this question, my world seems to have beautifully grown ever so small, yet ever so deep and I've begun to cherish and guard my Covid Bubble in which I can authentically care for a few precious living beings who also surround me and grant me life. When we were not allowed to hug our loved ones for the sake of life itself, then keeping our distance from others ironically seemed to be inviting me to learn again the meaning and depth of abundant love. How to fairly understand and rightfully treat even just one other person and how to care for the preciousness of life itself within a context of fewer faces, wider spaces, and household bubbles presented itself as a new life-giving opportunity within the dark unromantic COVID summer of 2020 and beyond. Somehow working to become enabled to re-invent a new meaning to our circle of love was one of the first daunting social challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic; no doubt one amongst many that have now developed over the past year and many still yet to come. [...]

Getting to the Other Side of Our Boundaries (Facing Trouble in Quarantine): Through restrictions and quarantine, the COVID-19 worldwide pandemic has been teaching us some very hard lessons. I hope that I can pass the test at the end of this pandemic when I give the answer that “Freedom” is not defined by the removal of restrictions or by somehow avoiding them, but by my ability to responsibly govern myself within them and toward them. Under this definition, I believe I can be free during and after this pandemic. However, on the flip side of this freedom, I believe I can find an ability to be responsibly courageous to actually remove any and all quarantines that have been built over time (unrelated to a pandemic) which no longer serve any life-giving purpose. I've learned that I cannot run away from these types of quarantine, but can only face them head-on. The COVID-19 worldwide pandemic has precipitated for me an understanding that in order to preserve life and freedom, I may need to cross over or even break down old boundaries that I once created for myself or that were once created for me. So, in this blog post, I am mustering enough courage to cross an old boundary by sharing publicly an event that occurred during this time of COVID that is one small part of a greater troubling family story (perhaps not unfamiliar to others) that has now been shaken by an epidemic. By sharing this event, I invite the reader to join me in mustering your own courage to find your own ways that can help you to cross over or break down one or more of your old boundaries that you believe no longer serve any life-giving purpose. Perhaps we'll see each other on the other side of these limiting, harmful, and debilitating boundaries. [...]

In the first four months of the COVID-19 pandemic, what changed and transpired as to what is meaningful in our work, in our jobs, in our careers, in our businesses, in our families, and in our relationships, had frightfully started to unravel as if an earthquake had shaken the very ground on which that meaningfulness had firmly become established. As if in a dream, that meaningfulness had begun to transform and change itself into something very, very different. What I am learning during this pandemic is how important it is to let myself be unravelled from realities that bind me; then together with my loved ones weave a greater vision of ourselves; to be ready to undo or be undone, and then redo. I'm going to choose to believe that we now have had the opportunity to actually learn to communicate, not only in new and better ways, but in more meaningful ways. We're actually taking the necessary time (if we want) to more fully and more meaningfully communicate with each other -- something that may have gone amiss prior to this pandemic. [...]

During this time of COVID, I have strongly felt that we are all having the very strangest of dreams. Of course, this is an understatement, but my feelings have been generated by real life events that have been absolutely absurd which, normally, I have thought could only happen in a dream. However, these events are real and they have happened --- and this is the frightening part of the reality. We are in the midst of a long-drawn-out marathon of the strangest of dreams and I'm not sure when we'll be waking up or if I can make myself wake up. Throughout this past year, I have only been able to find comfort through the purpose of making myself ready to dance amongst the strange as it occurs, and to muster necessary courage on and by the strength of the absurd. In this diary blog #4, I present two of my real-life dreams, of which I'll never forget, that have happened for me in this Time of COVID. Please don't worry, these are not tragic stories nor is there anything gruesome contained within them. Their primary ingredient is "amusement", which I hope can make you laugh as you muster your own courage on the strength of the absurd and as you ready yourself to dance amongst the strange as it occurs for you within your own real-life-strangest of dreams. [...]

In this time of COVID, we have been asked by the government and by the public health authorities to be courageous in an extraordinary time. Of course, COVID-19 has forced this expectation. Since the Fall of 2018, my now 90 year old mother has been living in the granny suite of our home where we had become her primary caregivers. She is registered with the Fraser Health Authority (FHA) as a "Senior in Care" and was receiving Home Support services from the Home Health office within the public health system of the province of British Columbia. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic these specific public health support systems changed for my mother and for many other elderly people living in their own homes. Concentrations of public health care for seniors shifted to the emergency unfolding in assisted living and long term care homes throughout the province, and throughout Canada, where outbreak after outbreak occurred and where many elderly people, grandmothers and grandfathers, died from COVID-19. Frightfully, assisted living and long term care homes seemed to have become prisons and death traps overnight. This new reality disrupted and profoundly changed a generation of life-long health care plans for so many senior citizens, my mother's included, and perhaps for generations to come. [...]

This blog post is the second blog post on the topic of "Love, Life, and Art in the Time of Covid". It is Part Two of March 2020 when we began to cope and adjust to living and working in a world-wide pandemic. I invite readers to also read Part One March 2020 to be able to get a sense of continuity in this, my diaries (written in hindsight) of identifying and giving recognition to the feelings, senses, and mental challenges that faced us during this time. Indeed, this is, and will continue to be, a time to remember and a time to learn so much. [...]

The year 2020 has been a tumultuous year for everyone around the world because of the Covid-19 world-wide pandemic. It has impacted me profoundly as an artist, as a husband, as a father, and as a son. My 90 year old mother has lived with us in our home and I've been her primary caregiver during this time. Only in hindsight, after one full year, have I been able to start clearly seeing all that has happened to us, which has not been as devastating as some families have experienced, but, even still, there has been a crucible of change to which I want to record and need to respond in an artistic way. In fact, I think I have no choice, as an artist, but to do that in order to preserve and respect the human senses that have been charged and transformed. I want to write about it. In this blog that I'm titling, "Love, Life, and Art in the Time of Covid", I'm presenting a reflective and continuing personal diary that responds to the dramatic integration of these three immense elements that have delicately intertwined together as we have coped with and continue to cope with Covid-19 in our lives. Of all that I have learned this year, one human value stands out for me enormously: That we must always continue to find new ways to touch each other carefully and to do so lightly. [...]

I created and wrote the poem, "Then How Shall I Spawn?" as an integral element to my public art installation entitled, "Symphonic Spawn", which the viewer can see and visit on my website in the category entitled, "Murals and Installations". The poem is hand-written on water-colour paper framed in the two columns on either side of the main elements of the mural that consists of a central drawing of two salmon spawning that is suspended by yarn attached to four wooden pillars affixed to four surrounding oil paintings depicting sockeye salmon spawning through the four seasons. I present this poem in this my first blog posting on my website so that visitors can take in and appreciate the full depth of "Symphonic Spawn". It is my intention to present my poetry in an on-going basis on this website and therefore invite visitors to view and read my blog from time to time to ingest and engage in my artistry of words. I appreciate your comments. You're welcome to share my poetry with others. I simply ask that you respect my intellectual property and appropriately acknowledge me as the author of my work. Thank you. Enjoy, David [...]