Category Archives: looking at art

when your heart finally wakes

Most our lives we’ve moved right along to “the next thing”: school assignments, testing dates, graduations, interviews and invitations. Labor pains have led to births, births to nursing, to raising, to cheering and teaching, then finally to letting them go. Then doing that again alongside others. Both my husband and I are “to do list” people, and so this stay at home order has been good for getting simpler things done which have long missed our lists. We’ve taken walks on the empty campus near our home and marveled at the sprouting of spring. He has taught himself how to tie his own flys between zoom calls, and I have created an online story time with two of our grands as part of their homeschool. The attic has been cleaned out, and now my studio. Never in 70 years have we had to consider what to do with paused time. How has it been for you? We are mindfully grateful that we are not stuck in an apartment in some dense city, nor in the Congo where our friend tells us people are much more scared: where hunger at home is challenged by danger outside. Being older, we’ve been urged by our daughter who works in a hospital emergency department to “stay home!” But all of us, around the globe, no matter circumstance, have been given poignant pause to weigh “what do I do now?”

Pauses have a way of reaching us where the pace of normality never did, and never could.

I recently taught a Bible study on Revelation, and it is startlingly noteworthy that midst the horrors that sequence through that prophecy, there are valuable pauses. All heaven seems to wait while those on earth decide what it is they are going to do. In that I find a great sign of mercy. The time we have now is mercy. We’re all quite good at numbing ourselves through things just to get to “the next thing”; maybe that’s a mercy too, but easily we miss a lot that’s important when we do.

I highlight a famous Baroque painting by the Italian dramatist Caravaggio. We studied this up close at the National Gallery in London in 2012. I had always wanted to see it, for it portrays in theatrical fashion the moment when Jesus (yet unrecognized by his fellow travelers) breaks bread at the table. They’ve been clueless as to who it is they have been traveling with in their distracted sorrow. Try to get past the early 17^th century garb and the insipid looking Jesus and place yourself at that table as Caravaggio intended. There is a place for you there. And it was only in that pause — in the tearing apart of what was common and basic, that the strangers finally understood who was sitting right there next to them. The real Jesus is still looking to join you where you sit too. Will you take the pause you have and allow Him?

face to Face

“We’re living thru a period in which we’re de-facing things…” said Oxford Philosopher Sir Roger Scruton, “we no longer see the light of the soul shining in things”. In many of his writings, Scruton argued that as cultural materialists, we’re no longer valuing ourselves (and therefore others) at the core because we don’t look face to face. “What core?” says the careless atheist. Scruton, recently deceased this month, would have countered that the immaterial part of each of us is the real lasting story. What is entirely unique in each face is a reflection of a deeper substance: the soul–which is self-conscious, multi faceted, freely distinct and making decisions even to the end of physical life. Scruton also posited that we never become real with ourselves, or known until we face another right in front of us. And further, he surmised that when one comes before the face of God, without a barrier between, that we become finally ‘in touch’ in the deepest of ways. The face is the front forward of the being, and to hide from another’s face is to devalue that one.

His words made me think of this painting. This was accomplished by an artist friend using various dilutions of coffee and crayon. The fugitive media she selected to describe her mother is itself a poignant counterpoint to the lasting depth she expresses! This was a real woman, caught in the heaviness of later life, before she passed away. Every line and wrinkle is only a marking of the deeper whole behind the skin. And because the artist faced her mom, honestly and directly, it is easy to imagine how she loved her.

This drawing may be one of the more beautiful things I have ever seen. The faces of my babies were certainly most beautiful in their purity, but this face shows the struggle of time. There is something accomplished here in the drawing that stops me. Scruton described it as: “The arrest of the self by the confrontation of beauty, the significance of tragedy…we’re taken up by it”

My work, and my skill sets are entirely different than what this artist accomplished. But Scruton’s words challenge me about elucidating some way into beauty, combined with the truth of tragedy in a way that takes others up also. It’s a matter of facing the Face.

direction

I’m noticing the direction and the repeated rhythms in line work. Because, where my arm wants to go with marking tools reveals where my heart has been simmering. Years back, when studying instinctive 1^st marks on a surface, I realized I was chopping with vertical slashes. I was angry then, and impatient. I’d had it with waiting. I was trying to bring the action down. (Woe to anyone who got in my way, aren’t you relieved I’m not God?). And interestingly, at the very same time I was finding how important, how necessary the horizontals were also: for rest, for balance, for compositional completion. You can see one example of a horizontal which remains in the background of my entire website.

The direction of line work is the skeleton of a piece; it informs. The line work tells something about the aim or the mood of the work. Lately, for me, 1^st marks are often diagonals. Now if I make this into a formula, or a pre-planned aspect the work will suffer but there is something really interesting in the tension that diagonals bring. In any work diagonals suggest potential or possible instability. Such marks seem fitting for the time we’re in. I insert here a segment of a recent work called “Boone Lake Down” so you can see one example.

Especially when considering non-objective, non-literal work, the direction of the lines give clues as to the artist’s intention. When literal words can’t express, the lines offer calligraphic hints. Someone named Ali I encountered on Instagram says on his bio clip that “As the world becomes more scary, art becomes more abstract.” Indeed. We reach for the mystical when what is around us cant be named. In fact, the birth of Abstraction in the Western art world came out of the publicly revealed horrors after World War 2. There is a direct tie. We could no longer remain naïve. Pretty pictures were now trite. Os Guinness says in his book Unspeakable, that Auschwitz put an end to enlightenment assumptions that the world on it’s own was becoming something better.

So, given that, how are we to live in any time that we have? How to yet make meaningful work that can still hold hope? How to rest and play with those we love? It is at least by not denying, or skipping past the hard and excruciating things. But, for me hope comes when getting in sync with the rhythms heard still in our darkness. If cicadas can sing in the dark, we should be listening to what it is they are responding to, for “night unto night reveals knowledge”.

work in progress

Process involves time (a gracious given) and developing skill with steps (mine to do). I like quick. That tends to mitigate against process. But, I don’t like junk and that requires better process. Do you catch my working tension?

This is a quick start I’ll example today. I respond to the mark making, the palette, and this idea I’ve been mining of rock faces and what’s on the inside of those cuts. But something stops me from being satisfied that this is “done” visually and maybe even conceptually. It needs some work.

Sometimes Miss Quick needs to slow way down before next steps can complete the visual whole. I want to be done, but I need some careful time. This is partly why: it’s just startling to my reasonably trained eye that I can’t see flaws when they’re staring me in the face sometimes, and can’t see good when I’m ready to toss or cover up something. My judgment, needed and free, has inherent flaws. I bring some unseen filters or blind spots often. A different day sometimes gives a fresher view.

This blog is about the intersection of what is seen visually and what is being referenced from that which is not seen. Both the seen and the unseen are why I work visually. And when I move in to work I bring with me unseen concerns. Sorting out what is precious from what is worthless is part of this tension. That’s really part of the fun too, but it is humbling: for knowing the difference is bigger than my eyes can often see. The hindrances in my vision may at least have to do with a vested expectation or a prejudice which clouds my seeing.

That’s precisely why I need to step away, and come back looking with clearer eyes. One of the tricks of seeing is to divorce, even repent from a settled orientation by rotating the piece while working. I’ll do that here. Another is to hold the piece in a mirror. Either trick forces the evaluator to look for the bones and balance apart from other attachments.

I have a pile of starts waiting for a finish. Some will get covered completely over, some will get interestingly repaired and some will get trashed. Not everything in my stack of un-dones shows promise, but then I’m not sure of that yet, so I keep them around. Time reveals, and time allows for better practice.

capturing “it”

I was in the Salvation Army thrift store this week fishing through stacks of old frames, ignoring the pictures. But one small piece started me thinking about why folks make representations and hang them on walls. The prompt was a rather darkish watercolor of a flower stalk. It wasn’t badly done, the artist set it up on paper, selected a muted palette, articulated petals, signed it carefully, then framed it for some wall. I imagine she was proud of it, wanted it seen. Now, I reckon that the real flower stalk was more stunning however short-lived. The panting remains. It’s a token or a signifier of something. What motivated the artist to capture this stalk on a piece of paper? What gave her the impulse to copy what was before her? Was it some kind of sentiment? Or was it something else that would move her to set up and spend time? Is she still alive? Would the painting have prompted a rich memory of a moment? Or was her composition just a thing, a stand alone, made for adornment without any reference?

I muse on this because I wonder about the drive to “capture it” when I am working and when I am thinking about what it is I want to work. It is not representation that moves me. The references, the things I see with my eyes, hear with my ears and am moved by are only jumping off points. To render anything precisely for me misses the point of why I want to fill a frame. To perfectly imitate something on a board presents only a false stand in. It’s a pacifier. For the real material thing I first experienced is way more lovely than the best of copies. There is rather for me something in a glimpse or a suggestion which better captures the mindful “it” so many beautiful moments only allude to.

In C.S. Lewis’ lectures series The Weight of Glory, he uses words to try to explain: “Pictures are part of the visible world… and represent it only by being part of it. Their visibility has the same source. The suns and lamps in pictures seem to shine only because real suns or lamps shine on them; that is, they seem to shine a great deal because they really shine a little in reflecting their archtypes…it is a sign (these representations) and also more than signs for the thing signified is really in a certain mode present”.

The “it” I aim for, what I hope is rendered as “present” here, is the cut-away revealing of something solid. It’s getting the chance with some material stuff to see the gem like exposure planes, the multi facets in common things of earth. This rock wall used to be covered with dirt, but now we can see what is underneath, strong and exposed. It’s also the contrast between illumination and cavernous shadow. It’s in contrast and color planes where forms are distinguished and understood. And for me the “it” is the suggestion of a different dimension that cannot be precisely laid forth on any 2 or 3 dimensional material aspect. Case in point: Jesus prompted his closest followers privately that what they were seeing right in front of them was more than what prior prophets and Kings wished to see.

In other words, even the seeing cannot grasp full import. We need time and thought. The gestures therefore leave you looking, studying, connecting dots, and I hope desiring to apprehend more of what all these beauties are pointing toward.

broken bits and an emblem toward the Restoration

This past weekend our University Art Museum was opened up on an off day so that a grieving family could gather in the space. The woman being remembered, was a unique local artist of incredible talent. She would take found objects, broken discards, scraps of fiber, bone, clay and make assemblages that could reach deeply into your soul. Her work spoke, and I was so privileged to know her. This is an image I shot from a juried show in 2016 where I was first introduced to her.

But in these last months she was not in good health, single, very private, and she sadly died alone. The family and community are heartsick. So, folks brought in things this artist had made and given away: One was a book of mixed media type quilt scraps with words of direction as if these were signs on the underground railroad. A tall wood pillar, with a house top roof, had a book within it and objects depicting Jesus’ story of the parable of the sower. Another set of notes were for women recovering from trauma in which the artist encouraged one “You know when the final piece is complete” she said, “it will result in a thing of beauty…”

I thought of how she herself is complete now, the real her, not what stayed behind. All the material bits found around her were vestiges of the unfinished, but her soul is safe, beautiful and certainly now intact. “for the spirit of man is the candle of the Lord, where He searches all the inward parts” Proverbs 20:27. I thought of words we shared, reminding each other of the promise Peter gave in the 1^st century to believers: assuring that such a developing Jesus follower would not be “useless nor unfruitful”. And I expect she died just as she lived, holding onto the One she was following.

This same week I found a fascinating article about the Japanese method of repairing broken clay vessels. The ancient practice continues where cracks are filled with a lacquer-like glue, then carefully sanded and finally coated with a cover of gold. The resultant piece, with its particular history of brokenness, shines with that same jagged brokenness made beautiful. And I thought again of my friend. And I thought of the broken edges in my own life too. And I thought of what Peter says: that the proof of one’s faith in the promise of Jesus is more precious than perishable gold. And Paul said that we hold these truths in broken vessels that the surpassing greatness might be apprehended as coming from God Himself. “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though the outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” So the clay pots pieced back together are a sign of something that broken souls long for. If it were not true, it would not resonate.

public art

If you are local, this Friday night the Johnson City Public Art committee (JCPA) is holding a “pop up gallery” at ETSU’s Tipton Gallery space downtown on Spring Street.

This is a first time event and already there are over 100 pieces of 5×5 inch originals from regional artists. Drawings, sculptures, photography, oil paint: the pieces are varied in media and expertise, each framed and ready to be shown.

Excitement is building but best to arrive right at the opening (5:55 PM) for what you’ll view there will only be on sale that night, and each piece is only $25! These small beauties were created for this event alone as a donation to both the Public Art Committee and also the Boys and Girl’s club of JC. We’re accomplishing exposure for the artists, excitement in the community, and funds to do more. So, come on down, the red “sold” stickers will be flying!

Speaking of Public Art, here is a blog post I recently submitted for our community organization, which offers more on why Public Art exists in our town and in other creative municipalities. The arts make visible what has been seeded in the soil.

standing O

I got a standing ovation this week. First ever. I forgot to say thank-you. I just watched, stunned: in relief that the talk was over. The whole room of some 50 people stood up in spontaneous applause. This was a group of courageous folks involved in recovery from addictions and I was asked to speak to them about the meaning in my work and how I came to it. It was clear to me that their thanks was for the One who was really shining through, and that was my prayer. It was so sweet! And, I sold every one of my books that I brought along that night.

The emphasis I’d planned was how my own life was changed by the same God who can change them. I am used to more hardened audiences. I prepare for skeptics and others who “have to be there” like the kid in a University class last month who asked in the Q&A “how old ARE you?”

But this group of hurting folks was the most loving and alert large group I’ve ever encountered. I heard a verse from a song by Chris Rice this morning that summarized the experience “Raise your head for love is passing by”. That’s the way I felt when with these earnest recover-ers. They are raising their heads, and with them we all got to see Love in the room.

I showed them some pieces like this one, “Time and Mercy” where the chaos is falling down all around the inner life. But there on the inside is the mark of a heartbeat, and the recording of time. There’s a history that is undeniable, part of the fabric that cannot be changed. There’s a span ahead yet unknown. But in this present moment I can breathe and pause. This is the potential moment where beauty is born. For right now I can lift my head because the evidence of love is still shining through for those who are eager for it.

what mercy requires

A recent show opening this past week (well attended by students, artists and appreciators) was a kaleidoscope of ideas and emotion. The Fl3tch3r Exhibit’s aim is to further social and politically engaged art. The juror, Canadian Anita Kunz, is an internationally published illustrator who selected from over 350 entries coming in from around the world. Because of space restrictions, she eventually had to limit down to a 20% submission ratio. The show is strong. The ideas varied and electrically charged. And, I admit that with some tenderness, even as my own piece was among those passed over. Rejection stings. But good work, well curated, lifts even those who are observing from the reject pool.

Openings are not a good time to really let the whole sink in deeply, so I went back today to consider more. There were the usual political diatribes against prominent public personalities. There were powerful aesthetic statements against guns and drugs and racial violence. Some of that work was remarkably masterful. But then, I noticed a diminutive collage, chosen as a favorite by the museum staff, “Art to Stop Traffic: What Mercy Requires of Us”. The piece is only 5”x 3.5”. This submission is a poignant contrast, rendered from found images, paper, pen and pencil. The value and color contrast is immediately obvious, but peering closer one sees the uncomfortable juxtaposition of plastic expressions, skin color, garish lighting, things hidden and things exposed.

This very idea of things hidden and finally exposed is something I’ve been placing my heart on recently, and so I was gripped again.

Jesus is the one who called this out as a promise to His followers: “for there is nothing covered that will not be revealed”. Such a paradox this: that the ultimate mercy giver is also going to be the final adjudicator. The harshest words He had to say when walking our ground were to the religiously complacent (visualized in this collage). And the most lavish praise he gave was to a woman, not unlike the one pictured in this fragile piece, who wept at His feet. I am moved by this. And I am heartened that the museum staff would even notice a less prominent submission for this very grandest of ideas.

collage by Lucy Julia Hale, Cave Spring, GA

signs and blindness

Yesterday an artist friend and I viewed an exhibit at Penland having to do with human perception. The artist/printmaker’s aim was to “dislodge humankind’s assumption of its centrality.” Her work was inventive, but left me empty. For, if we artfully (and alertly) remove humankind from the throne of mastery, what is being offered as a guiding replacement? Is that not a concern? I see, and I sense the implications; and I need more.

Most artists would recoil at my desire for a follow up plan. They would say they want to ask the questions, not provide any next steps. I counter, such posing is soberly irresponsible in an era of increasing trauma. The signs are all around us with record breaking hurricanes, earthquakes, fires, famines, and mounting armies. Artists are pretty good at noting some signs of the times, but have a poor track record at managing the seismic shifts. We need more than what artists (or politicians, or academicians) are laying out. So much is dying.

Christian philosopher Norman Wirzba observes that in Modernity, we rendered ourselves the Masters. The resultant cultural mind-set assumes that whatever sense there is in the world needs to come from us, and us alone (for God was dethroned long ago). That explains the dogged insistence that ‘we can still figure this out’, that ‘we can fix it all’; even while post-moderns are at least admitting that we have lost control. Few are looking at much beyond the walls of their own perception.

Blindness has been a human problem since long before Modernity. And Jesus had much to say about it. He knew the people around him (with working eyes, ears and brains) had a perception problem. He loved them anyway. He artfully spoke and performed signs right in front of all in a way that revealed who was actually perceiving. In fact, He said that the signs given by Him then, and in the future that He predicted, would not be grasped by the willfully blind. And even better than a prophet with perfect accuracy, better than any artist with probing questions, Jesus offered the next steps for the only sure way through the chaos. He’s Creator after all; and chaos was, in the beginning, just a working canvas.

artwork: Susan Goethel Campbell, detail of Ground No.5, 2017, Inverted, dried earth, dead grass

clarifying the door

This piece startled me. Unmistakably Chagall, unmistakably modern, while being uncharacteristically direct as a narrative. I was already thinking about targets, about careful communication with the viewer (see last post). And then this. Chagall nails it. And he wants to make sure you can see it too.

Normally Chagall’s work is typified by dream like, color-filled reflections from his charmed Lithuanian childhood. The artist grew up in a happy Hasidic community, which shaped his worldview. “Ever since early childhood, I have been captivated by the Bible. It has always seemed to me and still seems today the greatest source of poetry of all time.”

But by the end of the Second World War, his hometown, of 240,000, Vitebsk, had been decimated with only 118 survivors. The year for this crucifixion piece was 1938 just after the Nazi’s raided synagogues in Kristallnacht, “Night of the Broken Glass.” And so the artist has placed Jesus right in the middle between advancing Communists on the left, and German destruction on the right. Above the cross are lamenting Jews, including one of Chagall’s characteristic prophet figures. The mourners are reacting to events even as they are clustered before the speaking prophet. This is in contrast to the Jews on the ground, below the cross who are fleeing every which way. One wears a sign “Ich bin Jude”. The dying man on the cross is obviously also a Jew, wearing only a Tallit or prayer shawl.

Too easily is Jesus dismissed in any age. Chagall in his age makes a distinct effort to point him out. The dying Messiah is the focal point compositionally midst everything that distracts. The light from the candelabra is missing one lit branch, while light from way above the prophet illuminates the prophet’s call to listen. And so no one can miss it, Chagall letters it out in Hebrew: “Jesus Christ is King of the Jews”.

This is not Chagall’s first attempt at a crucifixion. Such a sign is difficult for any Jew. But the events in Chagall’s history, both personal and global, demanded an ultimate statement of conviction. There is no question but that this is deeply felt, and as is so often the case with Chagall: picturing hope. In case that is too abstract an assumption, let the artist speak for himself: “For about two thousand years a reserve of energy has fed and supported us, and filled our lives, but during the last century a split has opened in this reserve, and its components have begun to disintegrate: God, perspective, colour, the Bible, shape, line, traditions, the so-called humanities, love, devotion, family, school, education, the prophets and Christ himself.”

‘My painting represents not the dream of one people but of all humanity’.

Listen to how a contemporary singer-songwriter has tried to illuminate this.

I recently came across another clarified statement from the writer John Updike, reflecting on the resurrection which followed this death of the Jew Jesus:

Let us not mock God with metaphor,

analogy, sidestepping transcendence;

making of the event a parable,

a sign painted in the faded credulity of earlier ages:

let us walk through the door.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape