reflections

I find myself in a strange kind of melancholy mood today. I was looking at some of the old realist/visionary paintings I did, and never showed, because I suppose I always thought they were "commercial", "illustration", not up to "fine arts" par.... all those derogatory words that got heaped on us in grad school. I occasionally wonder if I ever actually recovered from all of that!

I've made the mistake, perhaps, of reading Tom Wolfe and THE PAINTED WORD recently.........he will always be a great wit! In his famous 1970's book, he argued that contemporary art had become far too much a creation of art critics and the phenomenon of marketing and media. And, I reflect, there is still some truth to his cleverness. Who does create "value" and "aesthetic", if not the cultural backdrop or paradigm that the artist operates within?

I went to the National Museum recently, and stood in long communion with old friends......... two of Monet's vibrating Cathedral series, Manet's wonderful "slice of life" moments in a long ago French countryside, in the very flesh, some of Gauguin's dark Tahitian goddesses, Van Gogh's face looking out at me in all its tormented energy, Degas dancers forever suspended en pointe, Toulouse Lautrec's ladies of the Moulin Rouge forever drunk and sadly vulnerable.........oh, what a delight!

Claude Monet
Rouen Cathedral, West Façade, Sunlight, 1894

And John Singer Sargent's portraits, so close I could touch their textured surfaces, if I wasn't sure the guard would then throw me out. How incredibly Sargent was able to not only capture the "remains of the day", the colors of light at bay windows, endless New England summers, the feel of silk skirts and a still uneaten peach in a painted bowl.........but most of all, the way he could capture, with true sympathy, the soul of his subjects. A society woman peers at her audience with spirit and humor, a child laughs with intelligent eyes, Madame X scandalizes with the cool, elegant sensuality that oozes from her bare shoulders and her sheer essence. And Whistler, fluent in all his arrogant mastery, whistles effortlessly from 30 years of exploring color and shape at viewers from across generations, pulling you into his world. Robert Henri and company paint the fierce struggle of life in New York tenements and hopeful immigrants at the turn of the century, while his colleagues further upstate paint peaceful scenes of the gorgeous Hudson River valley.

John Singer Sargent
Nonchaloir (Repose), 1911

And then you cross a long, very impressive hallway, into the new, Contemporary Art section of the National Gallery. Well, I here comes some heresy. C'est la difference!

Frank Stella
Sacramento Mall Proposal #4, 1978

A huge, vast, cavernous first floor ........some interesting large mounds of black rocks outside the glass windows (I liked them because they reminded me, naturally, of prehistoric Irish Cairns, but the artist called them something else) , a Max Ernst bronze with a Minotaur, a colorful Caldor mobile, and a large intentionally rusty thing by Richard Serra that looked like a piece of the side of a shipwrecked battle ship sticking upright in the sand (he called it Five Plates, Two Poles).
A few abstract paintings with stripes (Stella) , and one entire (vast) wall with about 10 canvases climbing it at different levels. The canvases were each about 4 feet square, and were each painted a different color - by this I mean, they were flat squares of yellow, magenta, teal green, red, and I think some black and white as well. They looked pretty much like latex house paint, no need for brush strokes or Liquitex there, by golly. They were "Untitled". Yeah, I guess if the artist is so unimaginative he (or she) couldn't come up with anything better to do with such expensive canvases as to pull out left over house paint and a paint roller and cover the offending white, why should he be expected to come up with a creative name?

But, and I have to ask, why? After emerging from the rich, vibrant, complex mastery of the impressionists, the post-impressionists, the portraiture of the past century............I don't care what anyone says, this piece at least certainly shows distinctly less imagination!

Don't get me wrong. There is much abstract art I love (especially Kandinsky, who wrote the wonderful "Concerning the Spiritual in Art". ). Within Modernism, I especially enjoy Jackson Pollock. I can look at the dapples cast by the sun on pavement and see beauty in the patterns and texture, and in the same way, I can look at Pollock's canvases and see color and texture, the same random patterning at artful play. I also feel what a lot of fun he must have had in creating them. His paintings are all about process, and the vitality within that process. Still, I can't resist quoting the man who had so much to do with marketing, if not publicly creating, the phenomenon that was Jackson Pollock. Harold Rosenberg was THE influential art critic of his day. His quest was for some kind of "pure" aesthetics, which he imagined and celebrated with the emerging Abstract Expressionist movement. As Rosenberg wrote in 1952,

"The turning point of Abstract Expressionism occurred when its artists abandoned trying to paint Art (Cubism, Post-Impressionism), and decided to paint - just PAINT. The gesture on the canvas was a gesture of liberation from Value - political, aesthetic, moral."

But, to liberate art from aesthetic or moral value is to render it meaningless. It becomes thus an intellectual exercise, an objective endeavor isolated from any larger context, like ethics, meaning, cultural mythos, etc. I don't know, from my point of view, if such a thing is even possibly, no matter how heroically the artists in Soho tried to imagine such a thing. Artists are generally human beings, and thus firmly embedded within their cultures and social constructs/contexts, at least, as long as they speak a language, and have mothers. I also pause at that old, tiresome argument from the long ago days............"Does art have to mean anything?"

Well, ultimately I suppose not. What's the "meaning" of a rose, or a dragonfly? We impose those meanings upon the inherant mystery and beauty of nature. But, returning to the peculiarly human environment of a museum or art gallery, maybe the question can have a bit of relevance, as a viewer, tour guide in hand, stands before a canvas. If the art, being part of a long cultural discourse that began somewhere in the Renaissance, aggressively doesn't "mean" anything, then it's "meaning" is still a rebellion against meaning, context and aesthetics.............and we're right back at the chicken and egg proposition. I can't believe I'm still doing this!

Jackson Pollock
Number 1, 1950 (Lavender Mist), 1950

Anyway, I quickly retreated back across the corridor, into the sweet, familiar landscape of the Impressionists. I know the aesthetic of the Post Modern Era is harsh, and I'm feeling quite lonely these days (being in a strange city), so, I even lingered to have tea beneath the graceful, corny 19th century nymph eternally cradling a marble art nouveau water lily.

Regarding my Peace Corps application, here's something completely unrelated to the above rant. An extraordinary person to know about. Muriel just turned 85, and she is into her first year as a PC volunteer in Morocco. Read about her at her blog "Muriel in Morocco" . What an amazing woman!

The Native American Museum in D.C.

You have
noticed that everything
an Indian does is in a circle, and that
is because the Power of the World always
works in circles, and everything tries to be round. In
the old days when we were a strong and happy people, all
our power came to us from the sacred hoop of the nation, and
as long as the hoop was unbroken, the people flourished. The
flowering tree was the living center of the hoop and the circle of the
four quarters nourished it. The east gave peace and light, the south
gave warmth, the west gave rain, and the north with its cold and mighty
wind gave strength and endurance. Everything the Power of the World does
is in a circle. The sky is round and I have heard that the Earth is round like a
ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds
make their nests in circles. The sun comes forth and goes down again in a
circle. The moon does the same, and both are round. Even the seasons
form a great Circle in their changing, and always come back again
to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood
to childhood, and so is everything where Power moves. Our
teepees were round like the nests of birds, and these were
always set in a circle, the nation's hoop, a nest of
many nests, where the Great Spirit meant
for us to hatch our children.
----Black Elk

I had an interesting syncronicity occur this past week. While enroute to the National Gallery with my friend Rose, we went to the Horticultural Museum. There, Rose decided she absolutely had to have a cup of coffee before proceeding, and the nearest place to obtain such, we were informed, was down the street at the American Indian Museum. So, even though unplanned, there we went - an amazing building, very modern in design and concept. After coffee, we decided to see the exhibits, which were so well done as the museum attempted to address the myths, histories, and what has survived of some thousands of Native American tribes and languages. Their logo? A circle of hands around a circle!

On the way out, we stopped at the bookstore, where my eyes were immediately drawn to a book by psychologist and storyteller Susan Hazen- Hammond, called Spider Woman's Web - Traditional Native American Tales About Women's Power. Such a wonderful collection of stories by many different traditions, many of which I did not know. And the logo running throughout the book (at the end of each story, with the title "Connecting the Story to Your Life"?) A hand holding a thread!

All tales are born in the mind of Spider Woman,

and all tales exist as a result of her naming."

---Paula Gunn Allen

The Sacred Hoop, 1991

The Peace Tent

"Blessing Hands" by Dorit Bat Shalom

Since I have participated in discussions about art and spirituality while here, I felt like sharing the work of a colleague of mine, Dorit, whose "Peace Tent" project has travelled throughout the Middle East and the U.S. for at least 10 years, bringing together Palestininians, Jews, and others under the "tent" of creativity. She has also been touring for the past 6 years with Salima Shanti, with whom she has created a 2-person play.

Dorit Bat Shalom is a native Israeli who can trace her family back seven generations in Israel. Her

not-for-profit theater company in Israel became the source of the concept for the Peace Tent. Dorit used theater as a medium for participatory discussion of social and psychological ills, so that theater became a forum for understandoing, issue mediation, and resolution. The Peace Tent becomes a teaching forum.

Dorit travels throughout the United States and Israel with the Peace Tent project, bringing individuals and groups from foreign and domestic locations to participate. In the past 5 years, Dorit has taken five delegations for peace from the United States to Isreal to give workshops and participate in inter-faith healing sessions and ceremonies as part of her Peace Tent mission. Dorit uses her own art work as well as work from other artists to further the reach of the Peace Tent.

"Creating and sharing art is how I personally pray for my homeland Israel and the Jewish and Arab world. I invite you to join me on a journey that embarks on a pilgrimage into the collective story of Israel and Palestine.

A Peace Tent in the Middle East is an ancient tradition, creating a sacred space for reconciliation where people in conflict can safely share their vulnerability without threat of blame or judgment of right and wrong. Entering the Peace Tent is thus a portal into the Holy Land with fresh eyes, a tender heart and courage to fully be present with images of the enormous pain, inner terror and uncontrollable rage of traumatized, crushed and angry souls.

After my brother was killed in action in Jerusalem during the Six Day War (1967), I decided to dedicate my life to peace work. As a mother and artist, I especially am concerned with ways that we, as women - whose very beings are about bringing new life into the world - can step forward with

courage into our divine role, so that peace will manifest in the world."

Salima Shanti, her collaborator, is also an artist, an actor, and a dancer and choreographer.

Salima is a Sufi teacher who has led Dances for peace as part of the Peace Tent's instructional performance segment. She is an ongoing instructor.

Australian Art

Saw a very good show of contemporary indigenous Australian art at Katzen Gallery at American University here in D.C. Australian Indigenous Art Triennial: Culture Warriors This is a travelling show that is well worth seeing and reflecting on, and for any friends who are in this area reading this, it's also free.

September 8–December 6

Australian Indigenous Art Triennial: Culture Warriors showcases the works of artists from each state and territory in Australia that represent a diverse range of contemporary Indigenous art. This traveling exhibition is organized by the National Gallery of Australia.

Julie Dowling Walyer 2006.

The paintings I liked the best were by Julie Dowling (above). They were masterfully executed representational paintings, one of a woman who is a historical cultural heroine, having escaped slavery to become a kind of Australian Geronimo, making defiant war on settlers until her death. Skillfully painted, the eyes were especially striking in the way this artist rendered them........there was an essence communicating there I haven't felt in a painting in a long time. Frankly, I tend to feel that representational art gets less attention than abstract, non-objective art these days.

One other thing I loved about this painter, and something I saw in other less representational paintings as well, was the overlay of patterns, suggesting to me indigenous perception of interpenetrating energy fields or dimensions of being; in the figurative paintings transparent glitter paint was dotted about the outlines of figures, suggesting auras. Or perhaps, suggesting participating in the "song lines" of their native land, the interweaving "song lines" of their ancestors.

I don't know how exactly to express it, but interested as I am in indigenous art and symbol around the world, the elaborate, ritualistic, and often very subtle patterning of Australian native art very powerfully illustrates our "layered" and interwoven world, the many fields of perception and meaning these ancient people experienced themselves participating within. A web of spiritual and environmental relationships.

On Sacred Arts

"A Navajo rug may be a commodity for trade. 

It also may be the voice of the weaver’s prayers and dreams"

It's my great privilege to be a resident artist at Wesley Seminary this fall, and I'm excited to be in Washington D.C. as well........excited to be learning all that is to be learned and shared here. They are very generously also giving me an opportunity to realize my "Circle of Hands" piece, which has been in my imagination for a long time; now to figure out how to execute it. Finally I can get this image out of my head and on to a wall! Yesterday I had a brief conversation with a young woman who mentioned that spirituality (or religion) is often discouraged, almost "taboo" in the world of contemporary art. I had to agree, although perhaps things have changed a bit since the 1980's when I received my MFA. I remember emerging from that time with a body of work ("A House of Doors" and "When the Word for World was Mother") very much concerned with metaphysical and spiritual exploration, and felt quite angry at the resistance I received at the U.A. for my subject matter. I had an enormous desire to find out who, what, and where art and spirituality were united in contemporary life.

"If you bring forth what is within you it will save you.

If you do not bring forth what is within you, it will harm you."

.....from the Gospel of Thomas

So I did what I've always done, took off travelling on a "vision quest" that lasted almost 5 years, visiting California and New York City, and points in between. The result was a collection of interviews I intended to make into a book called "Seeing in a Sacred Manner"; the book was never published, although some of the interviews were published with the kind permission of those artists who granted them to me, among them Alex and Allyson Grey (The Sacred Mirrors), Rafael Ortiz (Physio-Psycho-Alchemy), Rachel Rosenthal (Pangaean Dreams), Kathleen Holder (The December Series), and others. In retrospect, I wish I could have made their conversations more available to others, because what they had to say was so profoundly inspiring to me, and so important to others seeking to understand the same questions. Artists in our world have an "identity crisis". We are surrounded with structures that say art is important - schools, museums, galleries, magazines, books, churches. And yet, a contemporary practicing artist is often not given credit for pursuing her or his profession, often not seen as doing something with social significance. I cannot tell you how many times people have asked me what I do, and afterwards responded with "so what's your real job?". We define value in monetary terms, and equate quality or "professionalism" to how much money a "product" makes - which is an insane way to evaluate the "worth" of an innovative work of art, or any innovative work for that matter.

Illuminated manuscript by Hildegard Von Bingham (11th century)

Many of the greatest, and most profoundly transformative, contributions to our world had no "monetary value" whatsoever. Among them, the works of poets such as Rainier Maria Rilke, Rumi, and Gary Snyder, the solitary musings of Emerson at Walden Pond, the great visions of Lakota Medicine Man Black Elk and Hildegard von Bingam. When Van Gogh went into the fields to ecstatically paint the energy he saw in sunflowers or a star strewn night sky, when Georgia O'Keefe gathered bones she found in the New Mexico desert and contemplated them in her studio, when Louise Nevelson found pieces of cast off wood and furniture in the rain- slick streets of New York city.....they were not thinking about anything except the beauty and story they each saw, the creative energy that welled up from that source.

"Compassion is the rooting of vision in the world, and in the whole of being"

....David Michael Levin

Jesus of Nazareth lived as an itinerant teacher, living no where except where he was offered a place to sleep, asking no money for the teachings he offered to all who came to listen and to learn. I can think of no greater example. I often think of Bali, the amazing way art making, ritual making, music making are so much a part of daily life, from the woven offerings that women make first thing in the morning to the elaborate festivals held on specifically auspicious days.

For the Balinese, art is a devotional activity, constantly renewed within the traditions of their Hindu religion.

The Sacred Mirrors (Alex Grey)

"Vision that responds to the cries of the world and is truly engaged with what it sees is not the same as the disembodied eye that observes and reports, that objectifies and en-frames. The ability to enter into another's emotions, or to share another's plight, to make their conditions our own, characterizes art in the partnership mode. You cannot define it as self-expression - it is more like relational dynamics.......Partnership demands a willingness to conceive of art in more living terms. It is a way of seeing others as part of ourselves." 

 .........Suzi Gablick (The Re-Enchantment of Art)

So what is "art process"? Well, for me art is a spiritual practice. I think if one considers it in that light, it becomes so much easier! Making art gets me out of the tyranny of my mind, and into a greater world of seeing, sensing, color, light......being. Sometimes (like with the "Prayers for the Dying" series I did this winter) it helps me to understand grief, to heal emotional losses or conflicts. Increasingly, I am interested in sharing the creative process with others, finding ways to connect with others in creative community.

Spider Woman Revisited

“What might we see, how might we act, if we saw with a webbed vision? The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk, yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”

Catherine Keller, Theologian, "From a Broken Web" (1987)


"It is through the poetry of myth, mask and metaphor Spiderwoman comes alive. The rock surface of an ancient petroglyph site is merely a veil between the observer and the other transcendental realms; it becomes a portal through which to enter the world of Spider Woman. As others have written before me: "She is with me now as I tell you these stories."

Carol Patterson-Rudolph, "The Trail of Spider Woman" (1997)

I'm crossing this great country now enroute to Washington D.C. for my residency at the Henry Luce Center for the Arts at Wesley Seminary. I find myself reaching again for the almost transparent strand Spider Woman has cast my way, and felt like reviewing some of my writings from 2007 (my "Spider Woman's Hands" project at the Midland Center for the Arts) as I head east.

Mississippian "Spider" Gorget, ca. 1,000 a.d.

Grandmother Spiderwoman is also called "Thought Woman" by the Pueblo people of the Southwest. She is a Creatrix deity found among the Navajo, the Lakota, the Zuni, Hopi, and Pueblo peoples, and images of "Spider" are found among prehistoric peoples throughout the South and Midwest. Perhaps the earliest representations of a Spider Woman (who was also associated with the Earth Mother) are found among the Maya.

I have always felt inspired by this ancient myth, which for me is a metaphor on many levels. Spider Woman's threads weave from the center of life, a symmetry of interdependency. We are all Relations.

Anasazi petroglyph, Arizona desert

Here are a few notes I felt like sharing. I wrote these comments in my journal enroute to Michigan in 2007, and they became some of the "text" for the show we had at the Midland Arts Center that summer:

Years ago I was enjoying a panoramic view of the Sonoran desert. I happened to be sitting near a spider web stretched between two dry branches. I realized, by shifting my point of view, I could view the entire landscape through the web’s intricate pattern…..revealing a vast landscape, seen through the ineffable, shining strands of an almost invisible web.

Perhaps, that was the moment Spider Woman first captured my imagination. I knew that the Great Weaver of the Navajos, who they believed lived on top of Spider Rock near Canyon de Chelly in Navajo country, was revered because she taught them how to weave.

Spider Rock, Canyon de Chelly

Weaving is a sacred art. In Navajo rugs, “Spider Woman’s Cross” is sometimes seen, a symbol of balance or completion, the 4 directions. T0 this day, a bit of spider web is rubbed into the palms of infant girls, so they will become a good weavers.

Another story I've heard is that weavers often leave a flaw in the work - because the only perfect web is that of Grandmother Spider Woman.

As anthropologist Carol Patterson-Rudolph has commented, to the Navajo Spider Woman is an initiation into a more expanded and interconnected way of seeing. She is able to bridge the sacred and prosaic dimensions of life - but for those who are not ready, Grandmother Spider will be invisible, nothing more significant than an insect so small she can sit on a shoulder and never be seen or heard. And yet, for those with eyes to see, her Web is everywhere.

There is a legend that Spider Woman will return at the end of this era (which, according to the Hopi calendar, is now). In his book on Hopi religion, scholar John Loftin writes that:

“Spider Woman was the first to weave. Her techniques and patterns have stood the test of time, or more properly, the test of timelessness – because they have always been present. It makes sense that one would follow the instructions of a deity who helped form the underlying structure of the world in which one lives…..…..Weaving is not an act in which one creates something oneself – it is an act in which one uncovers a pattern that was already there.”

In Pueblo mythology Spider Woman is also called Thought Woman. With Tawa, the Sun God, She spins the world into being with what she imagines, with the stories she tells. I love this notion of creation - from her very being Spider spins silken, transparent threads that she organizes into patterns, ever expanding in complexity and scale. Tse Che Nako weaves her threads, sharing the creative power with all of her descendants. We participate in the weaving and the telling.

Tse Che Nako, Thought-Woman, the Spider,
is sitting in her room thinking of a story now -
I'm telling you the story she is thinking.

Keresan Pueblo myth

Like the Spider Woman we conceive with our minds; but we “weave” the stories of our lives with the manifest works of our hands, bringing the imaginal into the physical.

In 2007 participants in the community art project Kathy Space and I created in Midland cast their hands to make “personal icons”, united by a thread connecting them to each other. Because Spider Woman’s many hands are our hands, weaving our stories and dreams into the world. Casting our hands honored the unique creative powers each possesses, honoring our abilities to become "conscious weavers“ with that which is ineffable.


A spiritual paradigm is founded upon mythic roots - the "warp and woof” from which ideas grow. Following the metaphor theologian Katherine Keller has provided in her book "From a Broken Web" - can we can find contemporary mythic models that allow us to envision our world as it really is – a shimmering web of interconnected relationships, and ecology of being. Can we find ways to "see the world with a webbed vision”?

Having found ways to claim that vision, by whatever name,
may we then rub a bit of spider web into the palms of our hands.

References:

Loftin, John D. , Religion and Hopi Life, Second Edition, Indiana University Press, 2003
Keller, Catherine, From a Broken Web (1989), Thames & Hudson
Patterson-Rudolph, Carol, On the Trail of Spiderwoman, 1997, Ancient City Press

Everyday Poetry

It is the weed of life
that grips the garden to your need,
that roots you deep into its soil
which is immortal

Frank Polite

I wanted to share this cornucopia of various grains, including this beautiful plant ripe with berries, that has been growing exactly front of the number post (in the lot where I parked my motor home) when I came to Tucson in June. There is nothing else like it anywhere else, as far as I can see, and the rest of the lot is devoid of vegetation. As I prepare to leave, I reflect that I felt as if the Corn Mother left me a little blessing for the endeavors of this summer, a little "nourishment", a little reminder. I have not failed to be charmed every morning since, and pouring water on this lovely gift as a libation has become my morning ritual .

It's all a gift, a blessing of enormous generosity. I just want to affirm that, here, and every morning. Gratitude. I think that's what I most want to express in my article The Mask of Sedna about the Inuit myth (soon to be published) on Coreopsis A Journal of Myth and Theatre is ultimately about - our urgent need to remember that our relationship with our Living Earth must be based upon gratitude, and an understanding of spiritual as well as physical reciprocity and responsibility. And I'm grateful as well to this wonderful new magazine, founded by mythologist and performance artist Lezlie Kinyon.

I felt like sharing this poem, which I wrote on a long ago.

PRAISE THE DAY

The colors and taste of it!
Praise the light, dappled
among amber leaves, the light
framed by an open window.
And all things blue! Praise,
praise summer skies,
their endless exaltation,
and all waters reflecting blue,
and a blue-eyed cat, sleeping on the windowsill.
Oh, praise the light, and all windows!

Praise the sand between my feet:
Praise the Song the ocean sings
today and forever
with or without me to listen.
Praise these ears, these eyes,

praise to the pearl of sweat
on your brown arm,
Praise, praise to you!
And praise to all eyes,
to the woman
who regards me from mirrors.
Praise to the dark eyed waitress,
the bus driver, the cashier,
a child in a yellow sweater
running among the trees.

Praise them all!
All those I've loved,
the ones gone, the ones that remain -
the multitudes I've walked among
the company that's shaped me:

PRAISE THE DAY!

(1997)