Category Archives: hope

patterns below

When random sound moves to even a hint of rhythm, instinctively human ears take note to listen more carefully. Patterns alert curiosity, giving clues as to some kind of intention. Imagine being in a deep woods when a distant tapping becomes metered. Anyone might begin to wonder “what is happening here that I maybe need to catch?” Is someone trying to send a signal? Is there some kind of purposeful activity going on up ahead?
Patterns in visual work bring a similar alertness. Our eyes look for the connections, for any relationships that reveal the pattern-maker’s idea. Sometimes even just the suggestion of intention is enough to sharpen the observer’s gaze.
Pattern is inherently interesting. It is curious while also even calming, especially in the midst of much else that appears random. But it is also mysterious and that is maybe also some of the draw.

I think some of our heightened interest is because pattern indicates some kind of promise behind the hints. Pattern then is like a veil that allures, that brings close while leaving us with more that needs investigation.
To observe pattern quite simply necessitates the expectation of more. And this I think is founded (wether we admit to this or not) in some expectation that there must be a pattern maker behind that veil. Crumbs are not left on a path unless there has been bread that has already been broken.
To glimpse the pattern and run without giving time to consider the character and intentions of the pattern maker is a sort of consumerist robbery. It is a grabbing of the gift without considering where it came from or why. One needs to take time and consideration when noting the crumbs and any other signs on the ground. One takes time looking at art because it is presupposed that someone made it with purpose. When observing the veins in a leaf, when listening to a sonata, the senses focus to understand. All of these things and many more quietly inform the observer.

Rhythms indicate a plan and a process. And process takes a measure of time.
We are hardwired, I think, to hunger after a sense of intention underneath the veil. The restfulness of this little video I shot last month is a good example of what I am thinking about still today. I sat and just observed that morning. I made myself take time. Then the gentle ripples seemed to be coalescing in a very quiet, very unified dance right in front of me. It was as if I was being reminded, again, that what is underneath, and what is far above is at work. Constantly.

ascent attempt

The Psalms of Ascent are a particular progression found in Psalm 120-134. Sometimes called the Psalms of Degrees, these 15 declarations were memorized and sung as pilgrims stepped their way up to Jerusalem for the festivals appointed earlier by Moses. I am not Jewish. But I have long been interested in these songs and what they reveal to any God-seeker about significant forward movement in any true spiritual journey.

There are patterns here that are fascinating. The 15 have several groupings in a sure progression. There is a rhythm that continues unabated even through the seeming randomness, and in some cases desperateness of human trial that is spoken of in the Psalmist’s language. The imagery is a rich and meaningful minefield. The collection repeatedly speaks to the past, the present and the future. It is actually a recipe for hope, and a picture of the concerns of an enlarging heart.

Ascent Attempt What I am posting today image-wise is a little embarrassing. I did this in 2002. It is a rather large piece: 3’x2′, laid down originally with acrylic. I was ambitiously hoping to put into imagery what I see happening in this collection of Psalms, but critiquing my own attempt, this is brash looking, really uninteresting visually, too direct. For these reasons and others this piece sat hidden behind much else for the last 13 years.

Thinking about this progression of ascent again however, and studying the Psalms further, I decided I had to rework this attempt–to go right on top of it. Already the piece here viewed is much different (thank goodness–necessity becomes the mother. . .).

I worked on it all day yesterday and I have much more to do before I will show the finish. It is turning into a subtle landscape. I hope to veil the progression, while also making it more vital, hoping to articulate the wonder in these steps of inner and outer ascending. I am committed to it now.

completing

On the first day of the year 2015, in the morning, we finished a puzzle. This was a vexing one. We’d already invested many hours consulting the map that goes with it, checking and rechecking sizes and shapes, colors and markings. “This shouldn’t be so hard!” “This piece must be lost!” “This is ridiculous!” At one point I was sure, “Do you think the manufacturers of these things (National Geographic in this case) leave out a couple pieces just to get you irritated?”

Why do ordinarily useful people get involved in such a time waster? There was something so satisfying about getting a little odd piece of colored cardboard into its perfect spot, more satisfying than on the face of it cardboard deserves. We both love to see things well completed, we both love looking into things carefully, we both love meaning that is mysterious but sure, pretty confident that the manufacturers did not give us a bum puzzle.

I started thinking about the parallels. Our journey with the Great Manufacturer is like this. He has a plan and a map that is somewhat discernible. He has pieces that are not yet in place, but so many now quickly coming into place. We are in the puzzle and working it.

working in flesh

My studio is a mess and unattended. Ideas have been stacking up, awaiting their turn. But just about every waking moment this semester has been tasked to a course I was given to teach. I love to simplify and to probe, and so Art History Survey II–which races through 7 centuries of art all around the globe was a treat and a culmination of years of thought. We’ve looked at the historical, scientific and philosophic precursors that have then shown up in the visual response through time. The big questions get asked again and again in all this work; we seem wired to ask and to seek, to keep on asking, to express and to provoke.

The text finishes near the present moment with this quote which I find telling. “Art in the new millennium seems to be heading in several directions simultaneously, constantly shifting and recalibrating new perspectives and concerns as part of an increasingly complicated global discourse.” You can see this in the visual results.

Stokstad and Cothren, Art History (Boston:Pearson, 2014) 1129.

But I go back to words that have moved me deeply, and set me again into wonder. In a letter to another artist, Vincent VanGogh said this in 1888:

“Christ alone–of all the philosophers, Magi, etc.—has affirmed as a principle certainty: eternal life, the infinity of time, the nothingness of death, the necessity and the raison d’être of serenity and devotion. He lived serenely, as a greater artist than all other artists, despising marble and clay as well as color, working in living flesh.”

and what stays the same

My last post was about “what moves”. I am prompted today with a contrast idea that some things stay the same. Important and enduring things will remain. A French thinker captured this idea and since first hearing it as a high-schooler, I have not forgotten: “The more things change, the more they stay the same.” We think in our arrogance that we are in charge of shaping destiny, but what we send out always comes back around, like a boomerang.

So much is changing, but I am observing with open eyes and no fear, because the things that really matter are secure. And to those who think they can say or do stupid things, and no one hears, I say, wait a bit, it will come back onto your own lap. For we will all see one day that every hidden thought, and every action will be accounted for.

Are these just thoughts of naive imagining? I say not, for a life of observing people has reinforced it to me over and over. More significantly, the words spoken by God to settle our hearts in tumultuous times give great reason for hope. He is what does not change. Everything else that is stable is only a sign pointing to Him. And His promises are meant to be held onto, because He means what He has said. And He says what He did so your own heart can take courage. Psalm 50. One who trusts these words finds what comes back onto his lap has a completely different character.

Airs No Ocean Keeps

To illustrate a scrap of what I am thinking, here is a piece I made this year and just got a good image of today. This is entitled
“Airs no Ocean Keeps” Yes, that’s a phrase I found and loved from Emily Dickinson. The tumultuous, and seeming random crashing of waves, are themselves superintended. Grasping even a glimpse of this puts us into the right place if we are open to admitting that we are not the ones in charge. This very idea alone begins the soul’s rest in God.

Grace Moving

Yesterday as I was driving, the BBC was on my radio with more details about the despair of nations. I have not watched the video of a man’s beheading, and I will not. But I have seen enough still shots. And I was hearing on the radio the voice of a mother pleading for another son who is being held captive. These killers have power for a time. What interests me is that they are keeping their heads covered. If they truly believe that what they are doing is right. . . then why are they hiding behind face masks? It would be good to think about that.

This is what I know. God (if He is true, by definition, to His name) is not absent. He is aware and He is moving. The same Master Creator who hovered over chaos many times before and from the beginning, is at work still. I am hearing those stories too, but they don’t make the main press outlets. They will not.

This image, which is the last in a 4 part series (still hanging at the Reece Museum on ETSU’s campus) is a visual glimpse. There are two parts to it’s form: a wispy cloud-like from in the upper horizon, and a more grounded darker mass. Both these forms show movement in one direction, and they are moving together that way. The bottom form is enclosed, and seems to be a holding place that is dynamic and not completely shut. This is a picture of fearful grace. Fear must come first for grace to even be a topic of concern. Both these ideas are glimpsed here. I could say more. I would be interested in how this image affects viewers who may well see more, or who may see what I did not intend as this gets viewed and judged and passed over as part of the public record. For me, as I made this, and as I still muse on what dried in front of me with the inks settling: this is a glimpse of hope that still hangs in time.

As the BBC carried on, I looked up and noticed the cloud forms far above the highway. Wispy and delicate they were, so beautiful, so available for any to enjoy with just a glance in their direction. The view settled my heart, and aided my prayers so that I could keep on moving.

Incarnation

In Philadelphia’s Museum of Art there hangs one of my favorites. Henry Osawa Tanner painted this image of the surprising encounter Mary had with the angel Gabriel. This visitor to her chamber, rendered as ineffable light, is speaking. He is announcing the Messiah’s entrance into matter. Of all the attempts to visualize this wonder, this to me is the best. Mary looks as she certainly was: frightened, young, simple and Semitic. She was no blond Italian (in Renaissance finery) blandly receiving such news. Such news. People still think it impossible. Tanner did not.

My Incarnation is the third in a present series (shown until September ’14 at the Reece Museum, ETSU). My rendering is meant to look as moonlight over part of the circumference. The hues are not dramatic, and not surreal. Light is reflecting quietly over matter, like a very purposed hovering over chaos.

But look more closely. A detail of the moon face shows the entrance of life in seed form. Soon a crowd of angels would break their silence when this baby would arrive full term. But even that arrival was surprising, only a few even “got it.” His own Mother, who witnessed it all would treasure up all these things, pondering them in her heart.

It all began here, tangibly speaking that is. In time, in a certain fragile space, the One who “is before all things, and in whom all things hold together” reduced Himself to the same dust we are made of so that He could justly win for us the only way out of this ground of dust. He came “all in” to both life and death as we experience it. And He purchased the way into the Life our hearts somehow know to yearn for. We are more than dust, because He became dust for us.

Character of Good vs. Evil

To have a sense of character, one has to spend some time observing and experiencing. We make decisions on character based on what we see, sometimes quickly, sometimes considerably. When someone then does something “out of character,” we state our surprise according to a prior set of expectations, coming out of some kind of history. Shift to the realm of ideas. When it comes to knowing or recognizing what is good and what is truly evil, it seems to me that we have lost our way. We have given up caring to know. Discernment is hard to find in a culture which denigrates any reflective judgement.

I decided to name these two pieces (last post and this image). “The Nature of Evil” and “The Nature of Good” because of their complete contrast in visual character. These two serve as a primer, using symbolic imagery to introduce the notion that there are two material poles: one is good, the other is fearfully evil. And if this reality is even remotely true, being alert to the character of these poles would be a significant pursuit.

The first image, that of evil, called Abaddon, is dominant and encroaching, seemingly boundless and fearful. The second image is much quieter, gentle but life-giving, boundaried but free. It penetrates the ground rather than taking it over. And it is rimmed by this mysteriously fragile red enclosure. When I made this second image it was after studying some illuminated manuscripts from a book a friend had given me. The first image, as I wrote earlier, took over when I made it, surprised me, troubled me. But it seemed necessary to consider. This second image was planned more carefully, but its making also involved some serendipity. I used a brayer to lay down the veils of blue watercolor, loving the delicate surprise in the markings that resulted, and that were still “in character” with the quiet beauty of good.

This from Art & Fear, p.103 “What Science bears witness to experimentally, art has always known intuitively–that there is an innate rightness to the recurring forms of nature.” If you are able, please come see these pieces along with work from several other fine artisans at the Reece Museum on campus of East TN State, until September 12th, 2014.

vista land

This is where I get to live! My husband and I still revel in such a place to be. He loves the quiet the most. I love the long views. I grew up in flat lands. I was always looking out the windows though, searching, even as a child for something (I knew not what to even call it). I just remember the ache and the longing. And I especially was enchanted by the lines that seemed to point to horizons. Now my horizons are much more enchanting, irregular, changing, suggesting deeper promise.

This small representation is called “Beauty’s Kiss.” It is an attempt to show the incredible response on the land when light enters and embraces the contours. There truly is a very tangible ache in such beauty. The land responds to its maker. We can/I can so easily miss this in our own preoccupations. Isaiah says that one day these trees will clap their hands for what they are waiting for. Paul in Romans says that there is a groaning going on in all this waiting. But meanwhile we get treated to glimpses like this!

plotting next steps

Unusually tired today, but thinking ahead. I was exhorted this summer about the need to draw every day and I am aiming to. I have minimized drawing as facile, but am reconsidering that dismissive attitude. Drawing is an easy entry, but important exploring that sets the stage for way more considered painting. I whipped out several large monotypes earlier this month and I think the drawing may have set the better stage for that. More to come.

given glimpses

I offer two images today that I did not make happen. We were on a hike after two solid work weeks. We were aiming to take a rest, some re-creation, to gather some beauty. I could show the images from the waterfalls, or the lovely plants along the path, of my grandson’s smile, of the big Lake Superior’s sunset. . . a feast of beauty; but it is these shots that really deeply spoke to me. They are not even pointing to anything concrete. They came unsolicited into my iPhone. The device must have remained on, while inside my pocket in between my grabbing it for a shot. Somehow the little wonder of my phone kept clicking away and there were maybe 20 of these frames that day, some intensely beautiful. I am removed therefore from the selecting of these. I just get to enjoy them. The shimmer and the glimpsing of light through the fabric of my nylon pants, is like a gift I did not expect, as I walked the path.

Around the same time I was reading Frederick Buechner’s “Magnificent Defeat,” and also pondering the words of Peter’s first letter to struggling Christians. Rich words those, from two mentors. Peter encourages hard choices in hard places, but does not assume this can ever be done alone. He shows the enabling example we have, he tells of the rewards coming and he reminds that it is possible “if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord.” I have been holding onto the sweetness of that phrase and what it points to, then seeing the evidence right inside my pocket.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape