AM I ALTERING YOUR AURA? This year’s auction theme—Am I Altering Your Aura?—comes from the work of poet and activist Audre Lorde. In submitting work for the auction, artists were asked to consider the following quotation:
Am I altering your aura, your ideas, your dreams, or am I merely moving you to temporary and reactive action? —Audre Lorde, “Poetry is Not a Luxury”
AUCTION THEME
ABOUT AUDRE LORDE: Audre Lorde (1934-92) was “a Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet,” who was, she would sometimes add, “doing my work, coming to ask you if you are doing yours.” Lorde penned her essay “Poetry is not a Luxury” in 1977. To this day, it remains one of her best-known works. It encourages an embrace of feeling and a mining of one’s many selves in the service of action. As Roxana Gay has written: “Rethinking and reframing paradigms is a recurring theme in Lorde’s writing.” Toward the end of her life, Lorde changed her name to “Gamba Adisa,” which means “Warrior: She who makes her meaning clear.”
8 WPA COLLECTORS’ NIGHT 2021
