Frost Indri’s Studio Notes

I’ve been pretty taken up by the Protests in Iran. I have been interested in Iran/Persia for several years now, ever since I started reading Shahnameh [link] . In particular I found the story of Zal and Rudebah as amazing and fascinating. An ancient epic where Diplomacy, not martial skill won the day; where the strong character who saves the day was a strong, intelligent woman, where the two lovers are crossing racial boundries…

Yeah, so I really like Iranian culture. I’ve been learning more about the country and trying to learn the language. I really suck at learning languages.

So ever since the clumsily rigged election results were announced I’ve been paying attention. As the protests started as startlingly quiet marches, to when the Basiji started hurting, then killing people. As the protests were repressed and then became more violent. My heart is with the people of Iran. I will do what little I can to support them.

Unfortunatly I am an American, so there’s not much I can do. If our leaders speak out we feed into the Iranian Goverment’s accusations of this being a externally run coup. There is such a long and painful history between Iran and the US, that any action taken must be taken with this history in mind. Doing what is right isn’t doing what feels good.

I hope that this time around we can make up for the horrible mistake that was supporting the Sha of Iran in 1979.

In art news, in case you’re wondering, I have a sort of job throwing pieces for someone else. While its slowed down my own work, I’m actually OK with that right now as I’m actually getting paid for what I consider to be practice for my own work. Besides, I get time to think about my ideas. Yesterday, I threw myself a Platter that’s going to be a little over a foot when I’m done. First time doing that, and I’m pretty happy with the result.