"The Work of seeing is done,
now practice heart-work
upon those images
captive within you"
Rainier Maria Rilke
Recently I applied for a grant, the only grant I am aware of that is specifically for spiritual artists ("spiritual" and "transformative" are very taboo words in the Fine Arts World). I very much doubt that I will win the grant because no one gives art grants to people in their 70's unless you are famous..........but it was worth the entry fee to answer the questions and provide "Bio" of my work as a "spiritual artist". In that endeavor I saw the threads that woven through my career so clearly, from a young 20 year old declaring I was going to be an artist.....to here, and now, at this touchstone. Here's what I wrote to them:
"The deep parts of my life pour onward,it seems as if things are more like me now,that I can see farther into paintings.I feel closer to what language can't reach."Rainier Maria RilkeI would have to say that the journey of being an artist has been my spiritual journey. The artworks, the performances, the collaborations I’ve shared with others…..all are the artifacts and touchstones of that journey.
Artists are the myth makers of their time, and myth is the means I've threaded through all my experiences. I've come to feel that we, as artists, have a responsibility to ask what are the myths, the stories, we are telling. How do they serve, on our personal quests for meaning, healing, and love? How do they serve a world in crisis? My own thread has been to find ways to envision how we are woven into the fabric of planetary life, interdependent and cyclical, one with the mystery and intelligence of nature. I see that I have evolved a personal iconography over the years that has followed me on the journey, an iconography that twines and branches, like the interwoven roots of trees that hold up forests, throughout all the work I do now.
Indeed, there are certain images "captive within me" as Rilke wrote that are firmly encased in my heart, and over and over and over again I renew them.
Thankyou, Rainier Maria Rilke.
I am aware of the American need to continually be "new" "innovative" and "revolutionary". We love to be "shocked", so much so that "shock" has become de rigueur to the point of boredom. We are not a contemplative culture, and a youth-oriented consumer culture particularly demands that which is advertised as "new" and "life-changing" (which is often that which is old, re-packaged in shiny plastic and trimmed with buzzwords).
plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose
As May Sarton said, at 70+ "Now I Become Myself'. I can rest in contemplation with those renewing images that are sustaining for me, my personal "iconography". Some, indeed, I find I very much want to share!
"Earth Birth" (2015) |
I suppose such a 'justification" is unnecessary.....we all desire to share, surely, the richest and best of what we have learned along the pathways.
"Past Desire, Hope or Loss, I Rest in You, A Seed" (1993) |
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