One must participate in the emerging struggle around them in order to make art that reflects it. If you're an artist, you've already got tools. If you don't know what to write about, remember that truth and reality is what we're after. You have to know reality to tell the truth about it. You got to get out and be a part of it.
~ musician & activist Barbara Dane, quoted in a recent Times profile
She sang a version of a song I love, "I know where I'm going," which I know from the wonderful Wendy Hiller movie of the same name.
If you read the Times piece, notice how much more beautiful she is at 93 than she was as a young woman. That's how you can tell she lived her life right.