Archive for November, 2007
Finding the Sacred in Contemporary Art
Today I was thinking about how to define what makes a art work spiritual. As I’ve said before, spirituality in art has nothing to do with the content of a piece. You could pack 100 angels and 20 crucifixions into a painting and that wouldn’t necessary mean it’s spiritual or sacred. Spirituality is not about thinking. (One might ask why blog then… but that’s a topic for another post!) You can think rationally about what your idea of spirituality is and perhaps you will paint an angel. But that angel will never be spiritual if you have not touched God in your creative process. I don’t mean artists have to have be full-time mystics, but I they do have to enter into Divine mystery and be transformed.
I’d like to use illumination to explain what the sacred in art means to me. When most people think of illumination, they think of medieval manuscripts which have traditionally spiritual images. But it’s not the images that make them holy, it’s the process. I will describe two examples:
1) Gilding: Gilding is the process of adhering a thin sheet of gold leaf to a panel, parchment or other painting surface. First the artist applies gesso which a paste made basically of clay and glue. Because the gold leaf is so thin, applying it to this wet surface would cause the gesso to seep up through the microscopic holes in the gold, dulling its shine. So the gesso is allowed to dry and then its glue reactivated by breathing deeply upon it. This gesso is likened the clay from which the Divine formed Adam the first man. When the artist breathes, it symbolizes the Divine blowing the breath of life into Adam.
Gilding is not easy. It requires the proper deep diaphragmatic breath or it will not work. To create this breath, the artist must achieve a calm focused meditative state. The symbolism of Divine creation, becomes more that a symbol. It is a road map telling the artist to tap the Divine well of creativity from which everything comes. The artist must release the self, to tap the Self. This is the transformation I speak about when I say something is spiritual art.
2) My next example is my experience working on my Binding of Isaac piece (pictured to the right). Again, another traditionally spiritual image made spiritual through process not content. It has an Islamic-style illuminated border. These borders are steeped in sacred geometry, in God as Divine Intellect. While I was painting this piece, and the same with other pieces I’ve done using those borders as inspiration, I felt my mind elevated. It is somewhat difficult to explain this. It was almost as it my mind was being pulled up, expanded. I felt larger was I completed this piece. There was more space inside me to accept the world into. This piece transformed me, increase my ability to love. It is the artist’s transformation that is the key to spiritual work.
This type of spirituality is built into the long tradition of manuscript illumination, icon painting and other sacred arts. But all art has the potential to be sacred if, as artists, we approach our process as part of our own spiritual journey.
Update: For more on art technique & spirituality check my book Lapis & Gold: Unlocking the secrets of Medieval Painters & Illuminators.
Aurora Borealis
I’ve always been fascinated with the Aurora Borealis. I recently read the Golden Compass whose author makes the northern lights a key part of the story. They are making it into a movie which, from the trailer appears to miss the point of the book. The book is not really about the golden compass, it’s about how God and Divine Consciousness manifests in this world and whether or not the church can control it. It’s interesting but very, very dark. It’s the first of a trilogy. I’ll let you know how the others go.
Checkout this amazing video of the Aurora moving around the pole.
Note: This image seem to attract a high number of people my blog through the google image search. If that’s how you found me, welcome! This is a blog about using the act of making at as a spiritual path. Click here to see my artwork.
Library Thing
I just discovered Library Thing. It’s been around a while, but boy is it cool. You can enter your entire library and discuss books with other people. I don’t have time to enter my full book collection, so I’m just going to enter things as I read or reread them. I’ve added a widget into my sidebar tracking what I’m currently reading. Let me know if you have any reading suggestions.
Guidance & My New Sculpture
I remember in college rolling out of bed at 1 or 2 in the afternoon and feeling like I slept in. Now I have a child and things have definitely changed. Today I slept in to a whopping 10:00am! Perhaps I’ve slept the day away, but I feel GREAT!
I’m going to get right to work on my new sculpture, but I need Guidance. I am going to make a head split open at the crown, a sort of comment on the energy and power of the 7th chakra. It’s not clear if it needs to be a bust or a full figure. I think a full figure might be more dramatic. Oh yes, a full figure. It just popped into my head. I love Guidance. You can tell its Guidance when the image comes fully formed and there is nothing left to think about, you just have to act…
Interesting Holy Spirit Tattoo from ReligousTattoos.net
Go figure! I like the idea of the Holy Spirit joined with flesh…
St. Francis, Women Mystics & the Question of Suffering
Today as I was finishing up my sculpture, I started thinking about how we choose to serve humankind and the Divine. It seemed very clear to me that it is a choice. The choice that I have lived with most of my life is to serve through suffering. But this is not the choice I make now. I’ll explain using the example of medieval women mystics.
The wonderful scholar, Caroline Walker Bynum, has written extensively on medieval women mystics. Her books Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (The New Historicism: Studies in Cultural Poetics)
and Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages (Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Ucla)
changed my life because they helped me identify the path that I had been unconsciously taking. Bynum talks of medieval religious women who cultivated suffering. They rolled in glass and starved themselves to name just a couple of the physical punishments indulged in. It was part of the mystical path of Imitatio Christi. In the medieval period life was extremely hard. There wasn’t much you could do to mitigate suffering. So these mystics embraced suffering and gave it meaning. As Christ suffered on the cross to redeem and heal humanity, so the women would inflict pain and suffering upon themselves believing that through their own suffering humanity would be healed.
I think, however, here is a major difference between what Jesus underwent, and what these women mystics underwent. His suffering was God-given. He did not seek it out; he only followed the path that had been laid for him. The medieval mystics, on the other hand put their own will into the matter. They constructed the idea of Imitatio Christi. I’m not saying it’s wrong. I adore these women and their writings. I only wonder how God might have appeared and how they might have served without exercising their will. St. Francis is interesting because he also practiced Imitatio Christi. He cultivated suffering, but he also accepted God-given suffering in his early illness and through receiving the stigmata later in life.
I realized while I was sculpting today is that for along time I carried this idea that I had to suffer to serve God. I am not just talking physically either. I was not comfortable with joy and at ease with the calm passage of time. Some how it felt selfish and wrong to be happy when there was so much work to be done to heal the world. But now, this seems incredible hubris to me. I realized that I have released the need to suffer and I chose to serve God and humanity through light rather than through the darkness of suffering. Sculpting today I felt the light and was grateful.
You can have an illness and not suffer. For me this is one of the main lessons of St. Francis’ life. His stigmata smelled of roses.
St. Francis: His early Illness
I’m reading St. Bonaventure’s (1217-1274 CE) Life of St. Francis. Early in St Francis’ life, before he embarked on the path to sainthood, he became seriously ill. He as just a regular young man until this illness transformed him. This is what Bonaventure says about it:
Since affliction can enlighten our spiritual awareness (Isa. 28:19), the hand of the Lord came upon him (Ezech. 1:3), and the right hand of God effected a change in him (Ps. 76:11). God afflicted his body with a prolonged illness in order to prepare his soul for the anointing of the Holy Spirit.
It was after he recovered that he began to take on the role of mystic. I’ve written a lot lately about the beauty and role of illness in spirituality. I find it everywhere throughout mystical literature. St. Francis left few writings, he taught through the example of his life. The numerous transformations he under went to become one with God are intense. I’ve written about a few of them before, including the meaning of his stigmata. His life shows the effect of illness Divinely given and humanly accepted. Tomorrow I’ll post about some medieval women mystics who cultivated suffering as a way of serving humanity. This is a completely different, willful thing.
Bonaventure’s writings are beautiful. Besides his Life of St. Francis, I also love The Soul’s Journey into God. In it he describes the physical world as “vestiges,” foot print of God. Every living creature and every object contains God’s grandeur. I spent one summer trying to apply this to everything I saw: Chihuahuas, garbage, car exhaust, hideous neon yellow jackets, you name it. I finally started to get and now it seems like second nature after of years of practice. Well most of the time! Heavy perfume and spitting still get me!
Airport Security & the Artist
Red Pigment Powder
Airport security has severally cramped my artistic style. I remember the days when I commuted between LA & New York for college. I would wear my entire hat collection (15 or 16 hats mostly of a 1940’s style) at once; one piled on top of the other. I carried my raw powdered pigments in plastic baggies, all piled into a giant black garbage bag. Once when I was doing this, I guess I must have had 20 large bags of colored pigments. On this occasion, the security guard actually bothered to look into the garbage bag after it had gone through the x-ray machine. Of course, he reached in and pulled out a bag of titanium white. It looked exactly like a bag of drugs. But, I explained to him what it was, how it was used to make paints & he believed me. Maybe it was the hats that convinced him I was really an artist. Anyway, that would NEVER happen today!
Skipping Etching
I have to skip my etching studio time again today. It’s frustrating but I’m trying to breathe with it. It’s a continual process understanding who is in charge. It’s not me. Most people have the illusion that they control their own lives. I don’t have that luxury. But luxury can be deadening, connection is of much greater importance.
Spirituality & The Physical World
Check out this amazing post on spirituality & the physical world by Gartenfische.
Hildegard of Bingen: Illness & God
When I was first introduced to Hildegard of Bingen in 1987, it was a revelation to me. First I was taken by her visions and writing, but it’s the story of her life that has really effected me. Hildegard lived a life of Divine direction. She was the youngest of 10 children and, as was common at the time, was place in a convent at a young age probably to defray costs. It was placement that she had no voice in. Early in her life she had visions. At some point she received a Divine message that she was to write down her visions. When she refused God’s will she became ill, when she wrote she was healed. Later, she had a vision that she was to leave her convent and found her own. Again she refused and again she fell ill. This time she was so sick that she couldn’t even be lifted from her bed. And again, when she accepted her calling she was healed. God literally directed her life.
Interpreting Hildegard #2-full series
Much of my life has been about forcing things to happen, pushing for my own desired outcome. But since I became ill with scleroderma, that has gradually changed. God has taught me through my illness to surrender control. Ironically, now even though my life is more limited in some ways because of lower energy and other issues, I am happier and more satisfied with my life. Things, people, guidance, you name it, flow easily into my life because now there is space; space that was filled before with my own pushing, my own foolish will. Now, I wait and God comes. Illness is a road map to the Divine- a precious gift.
When I first read Hildegard’s life story I only perceived her connection to God through her mystical visions. But really God spoke to her through every aspect of her life. I am grateful to have account of her life to guide me.
Hildegard of Bingen Sculpture
A couple of people have asked me to post about Hildegard of Bingen, 12th century German mystic and visionary. Today I’ll post about some of my artwork she has inspired; tomorrow I’ll write about Hildegard’s life & why it’s is so important to me.
About 20 years ago (Now that in itself is crazy!!) I made sculpture of Hildegard. I was recently looking for the documentation of it and it’s vanished. So, I’m going to describe it here.
The sculpture was of Hildegard undergoing a mystical ecstasy. She was standing naked, writhing in that sweet agony- somewhat akin to this etching detail.
I rigged a door in her stomach which when opened, played Hildegard’s music. Inside were stashed my Hildegard drawing series. But the door was locked with a padlock. I placed the key inside her womb. You had to reach up into her birth canal into the womb to get it.
So, I arranged a trap. I briefly attended Mount Holyoke College, women’s college. Probably a good school, but I was trained to be such an elitist at my high school (Crossroads) that I couldn’t interact with the other students. They hadn’t read Rimbaud, man was I a snot! Fortunately, I am nothing like that now. Also I wanted art school, but promised my Dad to get a liberal arts education. Anyway my trap:
I invited my Medieval Spirituality professor along with my class to view the sculpture. I asked him to open the sculpture. He accepted and found himself sticking his arm up to his elbow into Hildegard’s birth canal in front of a group giggling girls. He was beat red. It was a beautiful thing! Everyone was thinking about sex all the time, but no one ever said anything. The only men were the professors and it was kind of like turning the tables. When the stomach panel was finally unlocked and opened, the sound of the music was shocking. Music entered a charged space. Very dramatic, but also a lot of fun.
UPDATE: I want to say a little bit more about yesterday’s post. When I had that professor stick his hand up into Hildegard’s birth canal. It wasn’t meant as a sexual moment, although it obviously has those overtones. That professor was afraid & self conscious when he did it. He didn’t know what he would find and he knew he was being watched by his class.
Hildegard’s womb in the moment of a mystical ecstasy is charged with the Divine. It is the microcosm of the Divine womb, the source of all creative energy. Remember the mystical rule, as above so below. So I meant to evoke the terror that we feel when approaching God: the fear of the unknown and the fear of annihilation. Squatting down and reaching up into an unknown darkness, all the while feeling you are being watched and judged. To me that sounds a lot like entering into the mystical path.
Hildegard of Bingen’s Music
I found this charming video of Hildegard’s music. It’s called Shelf of Walks. It captures something of Hildegard’s spirit- especially her ability to see God in the material word. All the other Hildegard entries were so over the top it was painful. I used Hildegard’s music as part of a sculptural piece once. I’ll post about that tomorrow. Tonight I’m going to work on finishing my sculpture.
New Sculpture
This is a lousy picture, but this is the sculpture I’m working on today. Hopefully I’ll finish by tomorrow.
More on Sadness: Tagore Poem
This Tagore poem links sadness with creation:
It is the pang of separation that spreads throughout the world
and gives birth to shapes innumerable in the infinite sky.
It is this sorrow of separation that gazes in silence all night
from star to star and becomes lyric among rustling leaves in
rainy darkness of July.
It is this overspreading pain that deepens into loves and
desires, into sufferings and joys in human homes; and this it
is that ever melts and flows in songs through my poet’s heart.
-Gitanjali #84, Rabindranath Tagore
Sadness: Is It Necessary To The Spiritual Path?
On The Wild Things of God (I love that name!) today there is a about sadness. He describes the feeling of needing to fight sadness, to snap out of it. I know I’ve felt like that, but, it is interesting to ponder whether sadness is a necessary part of the spiritual path.
On the mundane level, sadness is definitely something to be avoided, but it seems very likely that the spiritual journey requires us to go deeper into sadness, to embrace it and not to resist. Every experience we are given has meaning. It is up to us to find it. By feeling every second of sadness with intensity, we cleanse it.
The judgment that sadness is wrong just because it doesn’t feel good is prevalent in our society. We are taught that we must understand the causes of sadness, and rid ourselves of it like a disease. Understanding sadness actually gets in the way of releasing it. It is more important to feel it than to understand it. Reason is irrelevant. We must trust that if God brings us sadness it is for a Divine purpose. Maybe we are processing something in our own past which is blocking our closeness to God or maybe we are bearing the burdens of a cultural sadness. By delving into our own feelings, we are helping humanity to discharge it. We are all intimately connected.
Our bodies are like river beds. We are the channel through which the Divine flows into the material world. It is our duty not to block the river. Denying our sadness, running from it, leaves the sadness to settle and damn river. So, in the conclusion (from someone who know nothing at all!), as uncomfortable as it is, sadness is necessary to the spiritual path.
Thanks for reading my blog.
