I can’t find the news story from the 1970’s when a group of students from the Massachusetts School of Art protested at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston by rushing into a bathroom with their own works to put on the walls as they barricaded themselves inside. But I have no source.

I was thinking of that story when I was going to take my daughter and a friend to the museum on a ‘free entry’ Sunday. On the way out the door I grabbed a drawing I had of an 18th century sea ship. I had took a roll of tape and put that in my pocket.

In the car on the way the two girls in the back seat looked at my drawing. “It looks like a pirate ship,” my daughter’s friend said.

(The original drawing is lost to history – but this is a more recent work by the same artisan – sidewalk chalk in a parking spot.)

When we went inside I went into the men’s restroom and entered a stall. I took out my sheet of paper with the drawing and put the work of art on the bathroom stall.

When I went back in an hour or so later, my drawing was gone.

As we moved through the museum looking at the displays we saw a drawing from Albrecht Durer of a sea vessel in the 16th century.

“That looks like the drawing you did,” said my daughters friend as we looked down at the work in an open antique book under glass protected by alarms. Nearby an armed guard scanned the crowd for any art thieves. Meanwhile my drawing was in the toilet hanging free for anyone to pluck off the wall.

We made our exit through the museum gift shop and I dreamed of a day when something I had drawn might be on a t-shirt. I love the street artist Banksy for his attitude. He said, “My aim is to get you to spend more time looking at it than I did creating it.” As someone who has studied and taught ‘rapid visualization’ I subscribe to that idea. If a person wants ten good drawings they should be prepared to make a hundred rapid sketches to select from. Repetitio studiorum est mater. I absolutely love Banksy’s latest ‘performance art’ where he went to Venice, Italy during an international arts festival. Banksy simply set up a stall in a public square with other vendors of everyday tourist trinkets. Banksy didn’t have a license and was soon removed by police.

Above is a picture of Banksy in public – shielding his face to remain anonymous which is part of his shtick. I don’t always like the man’s graphic work. But I love his approach and his attitude toward art. If one takes him as a model, anyone can be an artist. Just find a wall, or set up an unlicensed art display in a public place. I have been stopped by police while pasting posters to light poles, and hauled off in handcuffs once for a paste-up. “You have the right to free speech,” the Clash sang, “as long as you are not stupid enough to try it.”Labor union activist Jimmy Hoffa said, “If you’re not getting arrested, you’re not doing your job.” Is art a kind of activism. Seems like it to me.

Open messages, hidden messages, practice messages, dancing with hands, fingertips on keyboards…all the same song.