The Work of Seeing: An Artist's Journey

            

"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,

as if the river shores were  opening out.

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 Rilke

I 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 think most Elders find themselves wanting, indeed, needing, to Tell their stories .  This is not just a need unique to an individual - I believe it is  a primal genetic urge just as the urge to mate or reproduce  are universal; it is not very long in the history of humanity that people were literate.  Throughout most of human evolution tribal knowledge was passed on orally, through the stories of the Elders, and through the ever evolving tribal mythologies (which later became concretized into religions). 

The stories and the tellings (mythologies) held the knowledge each generation needed to  go forward in their quest for survival, as well as the discoveries or innovations of each Elder's generation that assisted evolution.  Which plant was healing, and which was poison?  How to birth and care for a newborn?   How to worship, how to talk with the ancestors, how to behave for the common good  of the tribe, what days were auspicious or sacred..............and so on.   

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.  

ROOTS!  My next journey, I think, will take me not only ON, but IN.  Into the Roots.......... and as Thanksgiving draws near,  I leave this post with great gratitude, as well as appreciation for the rejuvenation and rest of the season.

"Past Desire, Hope or Loss,  I Rest in You, A Seed"  (1993)