Matthew Fox on Art........

Fabric arts Holy Book, Bath Cathedral, Bath, England (artist unknown)

"Art is the only language we have for awe....what artists are here to do is teach us to behold being, to go into grief, and show us the intrinsic power of creativity.  Art is not for art's sake, it's for creativity's sake, which is for evolution's sake."

 Matthew Fox,

 CREATION SPIRITUALITY

Thinking about painting, I found myself bringing some of my favorite quotes into the  studio.  Friends along the way..........

"The Spiritual Energy System" by Alex Grey

"If you reach down far enough, we're all made up of the same archetypes.  If you go deep enough into yourself, you find yourself in a noisy place with a lot of other people. And if you draw symbols from there, you plug into a collective form of consciousness."

~Alex Grey, 
"The Sacred Mirrors"

“I am interested in art as a means of living a life; not as a means of making a living.

The object isn’t to make art, it’s to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.” 

~Robert Henri

"Buttermere Lake" by William Turner

 “The truest art I would strive for in any work would be to give the page the same qualities as earth: weather would land on it harshly; light would elucidate the most difficult truths; wind would sweep away obtuse padding. Finally, the lessons of impermanence taught me this: loss constitutes an odd kind of fullness; despair empties out into an unquenchable appetite for life............Everything in nature invites us constantly to be what we are."

 Gretel Erlich, 
THE SOLACE OF OPEN SPACES

Frieda Kahlo, "Sun and Life"

“O tell us, Poet, what you do?

 I praise. 

 But the dark, the deadly, the desperate ways, how do you endure them- how bear them? 

 I praise."

Padraic Colum

A Barbed Heart Finds Refuge Among the Palos Verdes ( found 2008)

"Go and make interesting mistakes, make amazing mistakes, make glorious and fantastic mistakes. Break rules. Leave the world more interesting for your being here. Make. Good. Art.” 

~Neil Gaiman

Solstice Celebration, Willits (2012)

“We dance for laughter, we dance for tears, we dance for madness, we dance for fears, we dance for hopes, we dance for screams, we are the dancers, we create the dreams.” 

~Albert Einstein

Self Portrait with Green Heart (2009)

‎





   “A piece of art is never a finished work. It   
     answers a question which has been      
     asked,  and asks a new question.”

     ~Robert Engman

 

 

Happy Spring Equinox!

SPRING

The Big Thaw

starts with a trickle

water running through silence

as innocous as breath

a slight relaxation

at the corners of your mouth.

Just when winter has become

habit, an old coat

with a touch

the sun peels back

the emerging mud

shiny as new skin

or primed canvas.

On which your foot leaves a signature.

You notice

a blade of grass

green

defiantly green.

Inhale, you take your coat off

a crocus opens

in the blue iris

of someone's glance.

 Vermont, 1982

 

Black Swan Feeds Fishy Friends.........

I loved this..........a black swan feeds its fish friends every day to the amazement of passers by. He picks up the feed & takes it to the mouths of the waiting fish, proving that friendship is not only something unique to humans, but can cross species as well!

"They became close friends after 3 years of playing together," say staff at Safari Park. "Every time I come to feed the swan, all the fish follow him to the bank, with mouths open & he takes the food & puts some into each of the hungry mouths .When everyone has eaten enough, the swan goes back in the water & plays with his fish friends again."(http://www.thefeaturedcreature.com/2012/09/black-swan-feeds-his-fish-friends-daily.html)

 

It's different being a kid............

My friend Charlie is a substitute teacher, and I guess it gets to him sometimes.......he sent me these cartoons, which I couldn't resist posting. Anybody think there's some truth here?

 I confess, I do wonder.  At a recent show, the 10 year old daughter of my neighbor sat, hypnotized, with a little box in her hands for the entire duration of the day........about 7 hours.  She didn't speak, interact with anyone, or walk about.  They say that TV has been the babysitter of children for the past 40 years or so............but now, with video games, the "TV" is portable and available 24/7. I worry about the introversion into cyberspace/video space, and the lack of interaction with the "real world" ("Nature deprivation disorder"?)

And then there is this actual school answering machine message from  Maroochydore state high school in Queensland, Australia .............

http://youtu.be/Pwghabw4N80

"The Awakening" in Willits this Week!

Photos by JJ Idarius

 

  With "The Awakening" being performed in Willits this week, I'm very sorry that I won't be there to see it in person, but very sure it will be spectacular!  Thank you to Ann Waters, Mana Youngbear, Janie Rezner, Ileya Stewart, and the Cast! Thinking about sacred masks and theatre, I felt like excerpting an article I wrote about the subject back in 2000.  Circle round!


THE ART OF THE CIRCLE

"The primary function of the mask is to unite the indwelling wearer (and the observer) with a mythic being, or as Jung would say, 'an archetypal power'.  The mask, as we have found in our own work, becomes a transformer of energy, a medium of exchange between ego and archetype.  Thus in traditional societies one finds the taboos surrounding the mask, its recognition as a power object."

Stephen Larsen, The Mythic Imagination

In the 80’s when I was in graduate school I joined a group of women artists.   Although I was a visual artist, I wanted my work to be a shared art form, participatory as our group was when we meditated, shared our work, and made moon rituals.  I sought ways to share the process beyond having an “audience”, and in the process of my own process, I began to seek transpersonal experience. 

I believe all arts have sacred roots. "Everything was once made for the greater meaning and use of the tribe" Sarah Mertz, an artist I interviewed said to me.  "A spoon was more than a spoon, and a sacred pot was also used to store grain in - because they understood there had to be a weaving between the material world and the other worlds in order to live right and well.  An artist was one of those who did the weaving.  Except they didn't think of themselves as artists in the way that we do."

Prehistoric petroglyphs, within this understanding, were touchstones, sympathetic magic for the hunt, for fertility, for healing, a way to contact the Earth Mother. Traditional cultures today continue this magical practice in their arts.  Tibetan sand paintings, like the sand paintings by Navajo medicine people, are prayers, offerings released to do their work in the spirit realm and then ritually destroyed.  When I studied mask arts in Bali, I found the Balinese had no understanding of our western discourse on the "meaning" of art....the use of temple masks, to them, was a way to refresh their contact with the deities of their Hindu religion.  Certainly the origins of Greek theatre are rooted in ritual as well.

 "Within these traditional participatory traditions" performance artist Rafael Montanez Ortiz has commented, "there was no passive audience.  That’s a recent idea.  Ancient art process was a transformative process.  It wasn’t a show, it wasn’t entertainment."  Ritual enactment, with masks and dance, was one of the primal ways people petitioned the gods, enacted rites of passage, and achieved heightened states of consciousness since time immemorial.  Although historians may view tribal masks as "art objects", their original use was as "power objects", vessels for the in-vokation ("joining with)  of the spirits.    They were meant to be threshold tools that literally "brought the gods to earth" in order to bless and instruct the tribe.  As such, sacred masks were never made lightly - there were important procedures to be followed, including choosing the right materials from the right place at the right time, asking ancestral spirits what kind of mask they required for specific ceremonies, and consecrating the finished work.  A great deal of psychic preparation was necessary, and masks were activated and de-activated with great respect.  

An artist I know once told me of an African mask at the Museum of Art in Milwaukee that, legend had it, sweated.  She said she went to view it over a number of days, and sure enough, there it was, if carefully observed, sweating away.  How is it possible something like that can occur in a glass case before hundreds of people unnoticed?  Magic is literally on display! 

Among native peoples of central Mexico, masks used for corn and rain dances were destroyed after a number of years, because they believed that they accrued too much power over time, and could become dangerous as the spirit of the deity increasingly inhabited the mask.  This same sensibility is found in Noh Theatre.  Noh masks are created according to traditions that go back many generations, and represent stories that have firmly become animated by the mask.  Actors will often sit for days with a mask, creating fusion with the character.  And in Bali, they are kept in the Temple, where they are purified before and after performances. 

I have sometimes felt, when working with masks, I joined a mysterious network of invisible collaborators. Synchronicities, it seems to me, are part of that  grand mythic conversation.  The mask I made for Kali is such a story. 

Approaching 50 I needed to release old, self-destructive ways of being in order to gain a more mature empowerment.  My mask for Kali symbolized my desire for change. I wanted to create a dance for the new mask, and I vividly imagined a dancer twirling with fire at her very fingertips.  But I had no idea of how this could be actually accomplished.  So my vision of a fire dancer remained in my sketchbook.

A year later, I moved to California and opened a gallery.  I hung the mask for Kali in the opening show, and in the course of the evening I noticed a young woman standing rapt before it.  As we talked, I learned she was a professional dancer. “Would I be interested in doing something with her?” she asked.  She showed me a tattoo of Kali on her midriff, and told me specialized in fire dancing!  

And so, a month later, my friend Serene Zloof danced the mask of Kali at our next opening, flames bursting from all her fingers.

Drissana Devananda also danced the mask of Kali in two events.  Drissana has been a life long practitioner of Hindu Tantric dance and philosophy. "When we create rituals," she said, "we're really praying.  It's a way to remember. We're physical emanations of the Goddesses, extensions of them. Not bodies seeking the spirit, but spirits seeking bodily experiences. Sacred dance is about re-membering that we function from our whole bodies, the "body mind".

A sacred theatre, in this understanding, like the cycles of nature and the serpentine symbolism always associated with the ancient goddesses,  is about participating within an aesthetic of "circulation".   Because “circularity" is the very essence of the Great Mother.  The wheel of the year and the moon's passages take place within the great seasonal circle of nature, water and wind move across the landscape like a sinuous snake, life spirals out and then in again in an ever expanding spiral.   All things circle. (copyright Lauren Raine MFA 2000)

Two Interviews, One with Janie Rezner on 3-11

 Mask of Chaos and Order (2012)

 I feel very honored  that I'll be interviewed by Janie Rezner for her "Women's Voices" radio program on Monday, March 11 at 7 pm Pacific Time (8:00 my time).  I'll be talking about masks, the new Numina collection, and the evolution of Ann Waters and Mana Youngbear's community performance "The Awakening". 

You can listen in at  90.7 Philo, 91.5 Willits and Ukiah, and 88.1 Fort Bragg.    The interview can also be   heard live at www.kzyx.org  7 pm Pacific Time.  As with all of Janie's programs, the show will also be archived at www.radio4all.net under  Janie  Rezner, MA  Programmer KZYX.

I find that I am often reticent to "promote" myself, so I often don't announce things I'm doing on behalf of my work, such as interviews, articles published, etc.  I'm very proud of these masks, and absolutely delighted that they are being animated and filled with story by these talented and dedicated people.  So in thinking about this upcoming interview,  I looked up another interview I did a few years back with Joel Le Blanc from New Zealand, Editor of  Wildberries Journal .  Reading the interview again, I felt like sharing here (I've edited it a bit for brevity).

Now to not be too nervous on Monday!

The Medicine Basket Mask

..................................................................................................

Interview May 3, 2011, with Joel Le Blanc, WILD BERRIES JOURNAL OF MYTHIC ARTS: 

Joel:    How has your art evolved over the span of your career? 

You know, I don't know how to answer that. Our art is about our lives, and if we're fortunate enough to do great art, then we've touched something universal, and our art is also, somehow, about many lives as well. Art process is the residue of life, its record, exploration, archives, memory, and sometimes, its future memory as well. So, looking at my work, I see two things:   I see something that has always been there, something intrinsic to who I am., and 2., I see my maturation as a human being, the art reflecting that growth.

How has mythology and folklore influenced my art? At this point, it seems to be pretty much everything! Whether working with masks for individual customers, or pursuing "The Masks of the Goddess" project, or my current interest in the native American mythology of the Spider Woman, mythic mind seems to be my chief source of inspiration. Mythology, and the archetypes that undermine and "over-view" any given culture, are deep, rich, and alive, once one allows oneself to 'activate" them within your imagination. When you align yourself with myth, you align yourself with the mythic continuum, or "symbolic history", of the culture you live in.  Since we are now becoming a world culture, this continuum has expanded to include all of human culture.

Ocean Mask (2013)

Joel:  Do you feel mythology and folklore is still relevant to people living in today's modern society?

The great mythologist, Joseph Campbell, has been my personal muse and mentor. I met the artist Alex Grey ("The Sacred Mirrors") in NYC years ago. We were talking about the series of talks Campbell did with Bill Moyers (The Power of Myth) in the '80's, and Alex commented that Campbell was the "Avatar of artists". Myth and art are intimately connected.  I feel that myth is more important to todays evolving world than it has ever been. Mythology is one of the ways that human beings organize information - it is intrinsic to consciousness, and to how human beings have transmitted information from generation to generation. We think and comprehend and communicate through story.

The poet, Muriel Rukeyser, famously wrote that “the world is made of stories, not atoms”. Stories are at the center of our human nature, and our creative intelligence evolved from the tribal stories we told in our attempt to understand the mystery of the world. Story, myth, is our essence. Religions are also based on mythology, and for those who study the evolution of mythology, one begins to see the evolution of culture within the religious myths. They are threads that make the weave, and weave into present time from very ancient roots.

 For example, "Jesus died for our sins". I know this may be hard for a fundamentalist Christian to consider (and I am by no means negating the profundity and variety of Christian theology)......but this idea is a myth that  derives distinctly from pre-Christian Hebrew "Scapegoat" rituals. I don't believe it was ever meant to be literallized as it has become.  When times were hard in Hebrew tribal societies, the priest would gather the people and there would be a litany of all the troubles, as well as broken taboos that might have offended the gods.. Then these "sins" were symbolically loaded onto the back of a goat, and the goat was cast out into the desert, to literally "carry away" the sins. This was an important mythological/ritual process with a great deal of practical psychological use for the tribes........and it made its way into the later development of Christianity, along with ancient tribal customs of sacrifice ("the Lamb of God"). Same with the re-birth of the sacrificed God in the spring, the resurrection of Osiris, a huge myth throughout the Middle East for several thousand years.

"Scapegoat Mask" for TRAGOS by Antero Alli

So the question we have to ask is "how are the old myths serving us?" Are they still useful, or not? And if not, what kinds of new mythologies do we need? That's where artists come in.   I think, for example, of the recent film "Avatar" by James Cameron........ how gorgeous a work of art and myth making, and how entirely appropriate for our time.

Joel:  You often refer to the "Spider Woman" of North American mythology, and you have even titled one of your blogs after her. Who exactly is the Spider Woman and how has she influenced your work?

The Spider Woman creatrix myth is ubiquitous throughout the Americas, and remains a profound metaphor to re-discover for our time. Grandmother Spider Woman is revered by the Navajo, for example, as a great teacher, and to this day midwives rub a bit of spider web into the palms of infant girls, so they will "become good weavers." Pueblo peoples called Spider Woman “Thought Woman” (Tse Che Nako), the goddess who spun the world into being with what she imagined. I find the Spider Woman myth, or archetype, utterly relevant to contemporary ecology, human community, and contemporary science, including quantum physics, which now suggests that we live in a “thought universe” wherein all things are interconnected, entangled, and responsive.

Tse Che Nako Weaving the World into Being

To the Hopi, as well as the Navajo, weaving is a spiritual practice, an act that uncovers a pattern already there. A good weaver aligns herself with Spider Woman, and seeks to work with the deep patterns. I suppose it would be hard, at this point, to say how Spider Woman has influenced my work.........my 2007 community project, "Spider Woman's Hands" sought to imply that our own hands are also the hands of Spider Woman, weaving the world into being together with the "stories we tell and dream".

 Joel:  As a multi-media artist, do you have a current favorite form of artistic expression?

 No, not really...........I think we find different ways of expression for the same idea. Because I've trained as a visual artist, that is what I'm most comfortable with, how I think, in images.

Joel:  What place does blogging and the world wide web have in your career and art? 

Well, the Pueblo people of the Southwest believed that it was Spider Woman who led the people, at the disastrous flood that signalled the end of the 3rd World, up into the new world (the 4th age). It is now, according to the Hopi (and Mayan) calendars, the end of the 4th World. There are a few prophecies that, as in the past, Spider Woman will return, perhaps, to lead us once again into a new world and a new age. I kind of like to think of the the Internet as Her latest appearance.

Spider Woman Spinning at Winter Solstice, 2012

Joel:  What are some of your upcoming and future projects?

 My question now is: "How do we speak with the Earth?". I hope my journey (to Glastonbury)  reveals some answers.

Joel:   Now for an obvious question: do you have any advice to offer for budding artists and writers out there? 

Nothing "practical" in a world that values money to the loss of soul. Art making, in whatever form, can be viewed as a spiritual practice that can reveal you to yourself, and can be a form of prayer or invocation. And artists are the myth makers and transmitters of cultural story......a very important task! I think it's important that artists, young or old, value the significance, personally and collectively, of our amazing worldwide artistic legacy, and the evolution and contribution each artist makes to that "Grand Conversation".

"The Awakening" - Numina Masks in Willits!

I  feel so honored that ritualist, community organizer, and choreographer  Ann Waters, along with her collaborator Mana Youngbear, creator of  The Muse In Willits, and the wonderful dancers of the community of Willits, California, will be performing "The Awakening".  

They will give voice to Our Changing Earth with a mythic journey all can participate in. 

From the Announcement:

"The Awakening" is a dance theater event in our newly revived Little Lake Grange Hall. We will experience the story of our times and our changing Earth using  'Masks of the Numina',  dance, poetry and music.

Do you think our current cultural direction needs revision? 

Are you concerned about the extreme weather we have experienced in the last decade - Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the Tsunamis, drought in the Midwest, GMO Labeling, Species Extinction, Plastic in the Oceans?

Would you like to go beyond your fears and find a place of peace and simple connectivity to nature? 

Join us. 

Local playwright Annie Waters has written this timely script with flowing renditions of poetry by Mana Youngbear, Lauren Raine, Marilyn Motherbear, Ilana Stein, the Grange Founders, and others. 

Many local dancers and speakers will bring their talents to the stage for this contemporary drama. The early Romans believed nature was inhabited and maintained by elemental forces they called the Numina. The mysterious forests, the generous orchards, the fields of grain, the healing springs each had an intelligent spirit, a Numen. Every Roman farm had a shrine dedicated to the spirit of place that lived there. Being in good relationship with the Numina, receiving their blessings and their wisdom was necessary for the health, prosperity, and spiritual well being of all who lived on the land.

As Rome grew storytellers began to give the Numina names, and the weavers of myth gave them faces, and temples were built for them. But their ancient origins were never forgotten, their primal grace always sought. Indeed - the “Spirit of Place” calls to us today. We experience it in our wisdom and concerns over the salmon, health of the ocean, hurricanes, summer heat and wild fires being experienced each year.  This unusual performance of Mask Art, Poetry and Dance presents the dilemma of our time in Classical Greco-Roman theater style. We will enjoy the enigmatic Masks of Ancient Numina (Spirit of Place) created by master mask artist Lauren Raine - as we face our fears, and find a key to re-visioning our collective future.

Newly installed theatrical lighting for the main stage at the Grange is being used for the very first time; we thank all of those who contributed to this great revival of our completely renovated Community Grange Hall.

Please join us for an evening of deepening and artistic vision.

Playing one weekend only- March 15 and 16th, 7pm
Little Lake Grange - 291 School St - Willits, CA 95490
Tickets $10 - available at Good's Stamp Shop
 and Grange Grains (Farmers Market)
General Seating. 

Call the Muse (707)  354-2475  for more information