You, My Friend Are Enough.

There are a few things I am 100 % sure about. People are confused about many things. We have less trust in education, government, science, global warming, plastic, and nutrition to name a few. For example food, there are those that proclaim the vegan life, others say fat and meat, still others make the case that bread and beans are toxic. Fruit has to much sugar and absolutely NO dairy. We don’t know what to eat. MAYBE we eat to damn much. One thing I am 100 % sure about is that humans must have gone for long stretches with out food. How do I know that? It would be the only reason we developed the ability to store 20 lbs of groceries on our backside. 

 This fixation with body health leads me to ask about mental health. We are all interested to get to page 59 of the slick magazine and learn the top 10 ways to be happy. By the time we get to the page, we have been blasted with a hundred ads designed to confirmed that we really are not enough. Our feet look like orangutans, our chin are not chiseled and our gut spills over the counter we lean against. We are hungry to be “normal,” but what is normal? Like yellow pudding in an over stuffed deep fried donut with pink icing and sprinkles. It beautiful, but it is artificial, no longer real or sustaining. 

The world we wonder around today is a cartoon of reality. A perfectly formed 110 lb woman eating a big Mac, in high heels, while surfing a giant wave in tropical weather, and of course there are dolphins jumping in and out of the water. ....and there we sit with a bag of artificially flavored corn chips and a gallon of diet soda in a traffic jam. To make it even worse the radiation from the cell phone alerts us to look at the screen......some person we don’t know, with pink lipstick on, looking cool eating a corn dog, and this, some how managed to receive 4 thousand likes. (What I would like to know is, how they managed to take that picture with a selfie stick in the mall eatery).

How can we find health between our ears, the 3 lb. ball of electrical current behind our eyeballs. The greatest tool we own and undiscovered mystery we all have access to. Our beautiful curious minds. The very nature of the way it works is to absorb....any image, sound, or flashy well constructed ad to influence it. Our delicate cranium driven to vacuum up artificially contrived debris that litters our lives, struggling to make sense of nonsense. 

One thing I am 100 % sure about is that humans are designed to face and overcome hardship and challenges. How do I know that? Because that is what every human has faced since the dawn of time. Where do we get the idea that we should be eating crispy creams, wearing chiffon and hanging out with Brad Pitt and J-low. We got to get away from this madness of phoney expectation. Its no wonder we are anxious and depressed, and then to blame it all on bread. I am not buying it!

The white Lippizaner is in the pen but where is the mustang? Where is the preservative free organic human I can look upon? The one who was not influenced by media, the big rule book or the intense guru’s with gold teeth. The one who does not live in-between the white lines, the flashing lights, or the invisible regulations. Where is the one who lives with no property lines or printed directions, no pavement or billboard, no speed zones, TV, or deep fried petrified food in plastic? Is there such a person?

That is why I paint native Americans. They survived and thrived with out the “system”, and this reminds us that we can to. That YOU ARE ENOUGH, How do I know that. Because that is what you got, and that is where you start. Find the truth inside, learn to trust it and move toward that. The first creative act is to ask “How do I do that?” And that question will lead you to the next step.

I am 100% sure about that. 

Dr. L. Macy

P. S. People ask me why I paint Native Americans all the time. It has taken me a long time to answer. Because the answer is not simple nor is laying around on the surface of my tongue. I cant just spit it out. Words are not enough to explain why. This is only a start.