Studio nonsense

Since Jan 2025 I’ve become increasingly alarmed by the US Republican regimes manipulations of words and their meanings. Specifically their tactics of outright lies, lies by ommission, goal-post moving, gaslighting, DARVO, hypocrisy, book bans, censorship, the firing of people, random closures of government departments, the cessation of record keeping, the removal of photos/documents from historical archives and many other attempts to control (or eliminate) the free, accurate, fact-based flow of information. The Republican regime is also actively trying to spread misinformation, disinformation and the use of many propaganda tactics. (I’m sure you can find plenty of examples of any of these if you need them. I’m not normalizing examples of any of the abuse with links.) Such bullies seek to drown our ability to make sense of ordinary real-life, to destroy our ability to think or talk about our experiences, to harm our capabilities to perceive and understand events or to put them into any context or make any organized response

And yet sociopathic abusive people don’t understand that despite efforts to control information/communication normal people tend to band together in order to make sense of the world – it’s a human default setting, a normal reaction, to turn to your friends and neighbors within a time of difficulty and talk – “what does this mean? what do we do now?” – and this very normal-human reaction tends to become a defense against and eventually a defeat of the abusers.

I’m aware that the USA is not the first country or government to be taken over by fascist bullies … it’s just the first time for the USA. (Just 60 days ago, as I write this post, the US had a stable, mundane, pro-democracy government!)

So in my alarm about current events I’ve been researching helpful artistic responses that have been successful in the past, in other countries, when fighting fascist hostility towards human-to-human communication and organization.

And I discovered nonsense literature! It’s the ultimate “tell the truth but tell it slant“! In times of harmful propaganda the slant of truth – and the honing our ability to make sense – is often delivered best via humor; parody, satire, irony and nonsense literature!

Let me describe (imperfectly) my personal perception of what nonsense literature is:

Nonsense literature uses imaginary words and actions, absurdly improbable things, that somehow still make sense within a story or poem. The absurdities are woven in ways that highlight that we make meaning together using mutually shared contexts and understandings. Parody, satire and irony are very close siblings of nonsense literature. But in order to be called nonsense literature the story or poem often plays with the rules of grammar, word spellings, storytelling conventions (etc) in ways that reveal – and rejoice in – our mutually shared knowledge of how we make meanings together. This focus on mutual meaning making is an active part of community care and an ongoing defense against abuse!

One quick example of a nonsense literature type of mutually-understood-via-context word – “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious“.

A quick example from real-life of a nonsense literature kind of word usage is someone saying to another person while gesturing vaguely at a group of objects “please hand me that thingamajig“. From the situational context the word thingamajig is mutually understood.

Nonsense literature dates back to Aristophanes and the play Lysistrata, produced in 411 BCE, which uses dramatic absurdities in order to protest abuse of women and advocate in favor of women’s rights.

Since 411 BCE nonsense literature has continued to be a recognized genre, peaking in popularity during times of trouble, with Rabelais, Edward Lear and Lewis Carroll being possibly the most recognized artists within the genre today.

Generally speaking nonsense literature, throughout history, has been a protest against the bullies attempting to manipulate language in order to control and dominate people. The intent of nonsense literature is that as long as we the people can remember that we make meaning/sense together and insist upon facts, evidence, verifiable truth, congruence between words and actions the bullies are much less likely to succeed and more likely to to be deposed.

Bullying only works when we accept the bully’s framing, or when we accept the bully as the sole source of “sense”.  The bully fails every time that we remember that just because a bully says a thing loudly that that is NOT what makes it sensible! Loudness does not equal logic! Bullies try to get away with their abuses by using a blizzard of propaganda tactics rather than logic or accurate meanings of words or accurate perceptions of actions and reality. The mental chaos is intended to keep communities (and communications) insensible.

Holding on tight to reality – touching the grassroots beyond the bully – can help you and others through the blizzard. The bullies are afraid of the truth – however it is expressed, via court, journalism, art, literature, science, history – which is why they try so hard to suppress both truth tellers and the language a truth teller uses and any organizations that might insist upon truth-telling or support truth-tellers and keep records. This is why it’s important to remember that refusing to reflexively believe the bully’s propaganda and insisting instead on looking for other voices means you/we can win!! Resistance to propaganda by careful awareness of language (words and images) is both self-care and community care!

The history of nonsense literature illustrates to me that throughout time one thing that consistently helped through hard times were the people preserving helpful relationships with their own selves, with each other and with reality itself.  They did that preservation by carefully using words, images and meanings as clearly, helpfully and truthfully as possible. They kept records. They wrote diaries and journals. They painted, wrote and took photos. They did it by telling and writing stories using humor and a “slant” in ways that committed acts of kindness and community care.

I digress but all of this has been on my mind as I’ve begun a new painting series for my gallery exhibits later this year.

For part of my exhibit I’m working on a series of paintings inspired by Edward Lear’s poem “The Owl and the Pussycat“. The poem was written in 1867. The US Civil War had just ended 2 years before and in England there was an upheaval about voting rights… basically there was a lot of strife around the world during that time period… as well as a rise in homophobia and misogyny and bigotry and classism. Edward Lear wrote the poem for a friend’s daughter and, my guess, probably to support his friend’s entire family. Within Lear’s lifetime he never specified the genders of the Owl or the Pussycat.

Here’s my first three paintings in my new series

“The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea in a beautiful pea-green boat.” – Clancy – 11 x 14 – ink and acrylic on board“They took some honey and plenty of money wrapped in a 5 pound note” – Clancy – 11 x 14 – ink and acrylic on board“The Owl looked to the stars above and sang to a small guitar.” – Clancy – 11 x 14 – ink and acrylic on board

This week one of my gallery owners, Amy from Caplan Art Designs, visited my studio to see my progress on my new series (as well as my work on another commission). She encouraged me to keep going! Here’s a few photos from our visit… and, yes, I had art spread out all over the studio – every flat surface including the floor!

Here’s the video Amy did…

Here Amy’s looking at my commission in progress.

With the green-light given, so to speak, I’ll try to update this blog a bit more as time goes towards my exhibits. The Caplan Art Designs gallery carries my artwork all year long – each year I do a new series which takes quite some time to make.

In the meantime there are some cats and owls popping up in my sketchbook – which I share via my email newsletter – and, if you already follow my Substack, now you know why I’ve been doing all the owls and cats.

Thanks for reading!