Category Archives: language of imagery

beside the embers

I found her sitting outside alone when I went back out to douse the campfire. Her heart language is Chinese, but here in my back yard she was using her phone to find words in English to capture what she was feeling. She showed me the little screen and a collection of words she thought perfect. Then we both were thrilled. She had just discovered one of my very favorite poems on her own. Here is Yeats’ “When You Are Old”

“When you are old and grey and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace
And loved your beauty with love false or true,
But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,
And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,
Murmur a little sadly how love fled
And paced upon the mountains overhead,
And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.”

Sometimes there is immediate communication, if even just a sweetest glimpse, that touches beyond culture and light years, and languages and time. Even if I had her language ability, I am not sure I would have been able to search out words as meaningful. But we both know the same well spring of deepest meaning. We speak out of completely different cultures, but we both have come to love the One who is “riding atop the mountains.”

abstraction–like a poem

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise

As Lightening to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

Emily Dickinson penned these words in 1868. I believe she was grappling with how to bring important things forward into human awareness. She used what she saw in nature as sign posts for bigger ideas. She was therefore an abstractionist, looking for simple indicators that could tease the way forward for blind men. Reading through her poems I catch her spirit though we live in such different times. She was not didactic, but she was determined.

Yesterday, as I was lying on an exam bed, the scanner moving back and forth above me, my eyes looked to the wall at an image similar to this. Here, like with Emily’s words, is a suggestion that dazzles gradually. Images are “quick talk” without words, and language (we are given to expect, or we are deaf as well) holds meaning.

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.

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.

the present moment

I just finished a small series of pieces illuminating some favorite poems I have been finding in Emily Dickinson’s chronology of work. Here is one for your pleasure too:

How much the present moment means

To those who’ve nothing more–

The Fop–the Carp–the Atheist–

Stake an entire store

Upon a Moment’s shallow Rim

While their commuted Feet

The Torrents of Eternity

Do all but inundate–

ED, 1876, #1380 according to Johnson’s Chronology

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.

Abaddon

I am framing this week, a series I did that has never yet been seen together. Four images done with ink and watercolor on polypropylene paper will hang for two months in the Reece Museum at East Tennessee State University’s main campus. I will show here each of the images from this small series in coming posts.

The paper these were worked on was an experiment for me, this surface is completely synthetic which allows the marking media to set up and modulate on the surface in such interesting ways. The first in this collection, seen here, is an image that startled me in the making of it. Artists sometimes speak of allowing the work to become what it is. . . not fighting or over-editing what emerges. I partially agree with that idea. In fact, using new materials and process that hinder my tendency to superintend while working has been important in what I have found to be my best work. This piece however strong, I do not want to call best, though it leads the series. For the nature of this piece’s subject is daunting to say the very least.

This is an exposure– a hint in a small visual way, of a most difficult concept: the problem of evil. An excellent writer I admire has crafted a brilliant attempt to understand the challenge of real evil. In Unspeakable, Os Guiness says “Modern people have shown a chronic inability to name and judge evil and to respond effectively. . . Evil dwarfs our best discussions and remains a mystery even after our best explanations.”

Abaddon was the obvious title for this once I saw what melted and dried onto the page before me. I would have rather this be something else, but it would not. To me that fact alone is an illustration of the dilemma I share with every reader and every viewer. We would all rather deny or dismiss this subject. Abaddon is a Hebrew word of the place refered to as the bottomless pit, or the abyss of fire. It is also used as the name of one identified in Revelation as a being, called in Greek “The Destroyer.”

Quoting the prophet Daniel: “As for me, my spirit was distressed within me, and the visions in my mind kept alarming me.” 7:15

a manner of speaking

Emily had me in tears this week. I cannot wait to meet this woman once we are both behind the veil, when we “wade in Liberty” as she puts it. What a gift of words E. Dickinson had to hint us there, what a manner of speaking. Here is one sample I recently came across, #276:

Many a phrase has the English language—
I have heard but one—
Low as the laughter of the Cricket,
Loud as the Thunder’s Tongue–

Murmuring, like old Caspain Choirs,
When the Tide’s a’lull
Saying itself in new inflection—
Like a Whippoorwill—

Breaking in bright Orthography
On my simple sleep—
Thundering its Prospective—
Till I stir and weep—

Not for sorrow, done me—
But for push of Joy—
Say it again Saxon!
Hush—Only to me!

Here’s another monotype I did in December and titled in January, “A Manner of Speaking.” It is that similar sense of language (though not English) out there that is continually speaking, if we will look and earnestly consider, for joy and for healthy weeping.

speaking the spire

I have been back to reading Emily Dickinson. My vain resolution is that if I simply read 5 of her poems a day, I can get through the complete collection in a year. Try me.
She has a similar aesthetic sensibility to mine, though from a much simpler time, I am afraid. She worked in words, but called out imagery. She looked hard, she mused deeply and she took great courage from simple glimpses out in the natural world (landscape). Her hopes and her struggles were anchored, again and again in her childlike, sometimes whimsical trust in the Words of her unseen Father. I have actually been mining some of her apt phrases for titles of my own images. Here is one, “The Twilight Spoke the Spire”

Here is that whole poem, #1278

The Mountains stood in Haze—
The Valleys stopped below
And went and waited as they liked
The River and the Sky.

At leisure was the Sun—
His interests of Fire
A little from remark withdrawn—
The Twilight spoke the Spire,

So soft upon the Scene
The act of evening fell
We felt how neighborly a Thing
Was the Invisible.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape