Artists respond to the Trump administration with creativity.

The Trump era has begun. It was only a matter of time before artists, playwrights, musicians and the like responded. Oppression, they say, forges great creative output. Dalton Trumbo against McCarthyism, Ai Weiwei versus Chinese oppression, Dustin Lance Black versus homophobia, Nina Simone versus Southern racism. And do we even need to mention John Steinbeck? The Weekly invited some local creative folks to tell us what they’re working on and how they’ve been inspired to respond to the election and early decisions from President Trump.

David Ligare, painter

Ligare calls the election of Donald Trump “deeply disturbing,” and partly blames it on absurdist and Dada art that had “unintended consequences by undermining our belief in rationality.”

“I believe the most valuable thing artists can do is to find a way of creating highly rational works that embrace literacy and history,” he says. “This is now the job of culture: to make us want to be educated, to ignite our passion for knowledge and to inspire us to think as deeply and creatively as the ancients.”

Denese Sanders, artist and owner of Open Ground Studios

“A nationally recognized painter who moved to Monterey less than two years ago (Reiner Hansen, slated to teach at Open Ground Studios this spring) just came in today and let me know that she is moving back to Berlin at the end of March because she doesn’t want to live in this country under the Trump administration. This was really sad news for us.”

Fran Spector Atkins, founder of SpectorDance

Atkins is working on the third section of the Ocean Trilogy – a dance piece that interprets ocean warming science – which she plans to preview in September. She laments the skepticism of science and fumes over Trump’s actions, but reports that at the annual Association of Performing Art Professionals in New York City, election talk was everywhere.

“There was a new urgency,” she writes. “I believe that artists will rise and there will be an outburst of creativity that will have real impact.”

James B. Golden, Salinas’ first poet laureate

“I am working on a Trump suite to be released online for National Poetry Month in April. Also an article on hip-hop resistance to the Trump administration.”

Koly McBride, co-owner of Paper Wing Theatre

The theater company is doubling down on the original play Daughters of Nothing, winner of their 2016 playwriting contest, about four transgender women, starring local trans actresses, opening April 10.

“As you can imagine, this is a terrifying project for our actors,” McBride writes, “to be so exposed and vulnerable… because of the very people they are.”

Marcos Cabrera, journalist and rapper

Cabrera sends a link to a song on Soundcloud by Salinas hip-hop/theater collective Baktun 12 called “They Got Us,” made from an abrasive sample (think Cypress Hill, Public Enemy) propelled by nimble beats: “Sorry, I’m not sorry if you voted for that fraud/ When the nation falls I’m going to say it’s all your fault/ Every kid that cries when they scream ‘Build that wall!’/ Every gay suicide that results from your bad call!”

William Ray, culture blogger

Here’s an excerpt from a Jan. 24 post on Ray’s blog SteinbeckNow.com, about the fates of the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities:

“Trump International Hotel occupies the historic building at 1100 Pennsylvania Avenue, Donald Trump occupies the historic house at 1600, and the agencies [NEH and NEA] evicted… in 2014 are experiencing the threat of their lives. The dreadful death cycle dramatized by John Steinbeck in The Grapes of Wrath – eviction and attack followed by extinction – faces the arts and humanities in Donald Trump’s Washington, D.C.”

Magnus Toren, executive director of the Henry Miller Library

“I was just in Sweden. People are stunned, just like here,” Toren writes by email. He sends two videos starring his goofy alter ego, Hippie Sven, ecstatic that Trump is going to build the wall – Pink Floyd’s The Wall, that is. Watching one of the Library’s volunteers break the news to Sven about the true nature of the wall is fiendishly satisfying.

Rhett Smith and Annabel Feeney of Wave Street Studios

They’ve launched the pilot to their self-produced TV show Resistance TV, and the first episode was “How the Trump Did This Happen?” Shows will be produced by the Monterey County Nonviolent Action Committee, Indivisible Monterey, Black Lives Matter Seaside and others, webcast live 2pm Fridays and archived on Wave Street Live’s YouTube channel.

Steve Hauk, gallerist and art collector

“I don’t think anyone in the arts needs to be doing anything targeting the present administration. I think if you are just encouraging, supporting or creating art, you are making a statement that takes a stand against what is going on, which seems to be an intolerance for individual thought, rights and creativity.”

Editor's note: This story has been updated to reflect the following correction: Dalton Trumbo was misidentified as Douglas Trumbo in an earlier version.