This Sparks Joy: JOYRIDE OJAI
By Cara Lasell Bonewitz
If you happened to have a conversation with an artist this summer, it did not take long to uncover a pervasive current of melancholy, fatigue and aimlessness seeping into the collective creative community. This feeling certainly was not unique to artists, nor was it necessarily shared by all artists, but for a group that often provides both crucial social commentary and moments of beauty in bitter times of pain and confusion, the ennui was noteworthy.
During a season that seemed ripe for focused attention to making in any of its wonderful forms—painting, piecing, stitching, staring, dreaming, drawing, discovering, weaving, writing, filming, felting, melody-making—few felt they could, let alone wanted to.
And yet, the desire for more meaningful ways to engage with art and humanity materialized with a greater urgency than many of us have ever experienced. Perhaps this desire had been brewing well before 2020, especially as social and artistic exchanges have become increasingly virtual, existing primarily as an individual’s currency on social media platforms. With the swift onset of Covid and the universal, panicked response to translate every experience into a language suitable for digital platforms of immediate, computerized consumption, a long-simmering issue came into glaring clarity.
JOYRIDE OJAI, a weekend-long outdoor art exhibition that focuses on experiences in the real-world offers an alternative. A recent iteration of this concept occurred with Drive-By-Art in Los Angeles, which presented artwork of 122 artists throughout LA, all accessible from the safety of one’s automobile. Inspired by this ingenuity and creative spirit, JOYRIDE OJAI adapted this idea for the character of its local community in and around the Ojai Valley.
Featuring sixteen artists, the work ranges from large scale fiber installations placed specifically in response to local architecture, to smaller scale photographs that sit unassumingly but confidently in store windows. Each artist expresses their own voice, concerns, reflections and humor, in an aesthetic uniquely their own. But when experienced as a whole, the socially distanced exhibition speaks to universal issues such as climate change, racial injustice, and political turmoil with a generous spirit, and yes, a sense of joy.
Overcoming the tedium and dissatisfaction that threatens each of us, the artists behind JOYRIDE OJAI have proven the unified resilience and commitment that M. H. Miller so eloquently described in a recent essay:
All art is an act of faith—a faith that life itself, with all its tragedies and flaws, can be improved by creating something new and putting it out into the world. I’m not sure we’ll ever go back to what life was just a few months ago, but I do have faith that artists will remain a crucial part of whatever new one we come up with.
And I couldn’t agree more.
JOYRIDE OJAI is on view from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on from October 9 to October 11, 2020. Visit joyrideojai.org for more information about participating artists and locations.
COVER ART: Jules Weissman, Ojai Valley
