Ethan Lipsitz

A Dip In The River

When I started painting the goal was to make huge art. I was doing this for my own healing after a brain cancer diagnosis and also as a means to share my joy in being alive through color and form. The first canvas was a car. Eventually it became 9 cars, a motorcycle, some buildings and a lot of textiles. I never wanted to confine my art to a small canvas meant only for private consumption. I want to spread joy in public, shouting from the rooftops and across the rivers, “while we’re here, there’s still color, there’s still play!” For me, making huge art is an act of defiance, flying in the face of every force that suggests there is no more room for pleasure in our adult lives.

So here I am again, unrolling a 50 foot canvas into the LA River. A canvas that was commissioned as a runner, celebrating love in a Jewish wedding procession. On a week in October 2023 that feels disastrous for our species, where every message from every direction seems to be projecting violence, rage, fear, grief and deep pain, celebrating anything feels out of touch. But this is not a means to bypass the darkness. It’s a reminder. There is always light, even in the darkest of days, when all faith seems lost. Even along the banks of our concrete channelized river, there is the possibility of a brighter, more colorful reality.

I believe we must hold onto this possibility of color, we must actualize it in public, for the sake of our survival.