Category Archives: meaning

patterns above

One evening late, near Canada this month, I was walking outside and looked up.

It was startling!

Above me was a tableau sparkling with wonderment. I remember as a child pondering the patterns in the wilderness skies. I had no concrete belief in God then, at least I didn’t until I started looking up.

I remember not too long ago having a probing conversation with a young Navy man. I asked him “have you ever looked up and just wondered about all those star clusters . . ?” The young man looked at me and said, “Ma’am, we can’t see the stars in the ghetto.” I was stopped short. He returned my silence with sadness. He knew he’d stopped my wonder. Poverty is not just material.

When the vacuous haze of our own artificial light is dimmed however, when we can get away to where the simple sky is visible we have opportunity to see so much more. It hangs there for free. It has no boundaries of nation or class. In all the other centuries of history the brilliance was so much more accessible. There are star names from ancient Persian, Chinese, Greek, Coptic, Arabic, Ethiopian, Hebrew and Chaldean observers who studied and followed the patterns.

I so wanted to photograph the night sky this time. I emailed a friend to find out if there could be a way to catch a record with my simple camera. No, she said, “you will just have to burn the sight onto your retina, and then paint it for us!” So I did, I burned it into my memory and in some way, I want to translate it.

The real display is still there. Find some way to look up.

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.

Blinded by the limits of sight

An artist, explaining her work at an opening, spoke of a biologist whose important research informs her imagery. I was moved by how she described her loss when her scientist friend died; she paused and simply said “. . . so much knowledge. . .gone”. Her sadness wafted into the room, while her work hung behind her carrying the synopsis.
For me, this was a moment of seeing.

This week we learned that another man, with a trove of skill in his head is now also gone. The loss is incalculable. Our friend had unusual gifts in ancient languages and was investing his passion training others in Asia. A motorcycle accident, seeming so random, snuffed out his life. “so much knowledge, so much to give . . .gone.” No one can repeat what this man did. His students will take up what little they caught and try. A few may carry the synopsis.
For me, this is a moment where I am blind again.

How does one measure a life, any life?
This depth of value is so much more than simple breath, or years lived. I remember when I held the lifeless body of an hours-old child. We were pierced through with grief. This little girl had no time to realize embedded skills and passion. We were robbed of her, the whole world was robbed of her, before she could even try.
Death is a cruel thief, snatching intrinsic value we hardly can speak of. This is why tears come. We cannot hold it in, something leaks out, this is too much for us. This pause at grief is where what is seen blinds us to anything beyond. We cannot settle well with what is unseen.

The Psalmist, carrying the same question, blurts several times, “What is man, that you (God) are mindful of him?” (Psalm 8) The writer is wrestling with wonder, at unseen value. “. . .that Thou dost take knowledge of him. . .that Thou dost care for him?” Important men, and unknown men have this value, tiny baby girls hold within them this inestimable value, even though each “is like a mere breath, his days like a passing shadow.” (Psalm 144).

image above: “Notes from the Miocene (turtle)” by Suzanne Stryk, 11″ x 8″, 2007. Used by permission of the artist. See more of her work here>http://www.suzannestryk.com

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.

able as the dust

from Emily (#1221) this morning as I ponder the sad loss of another soul.

Some we see no more, Tenements of Wonder
Occupy to us though perhaps to them
Simpler are the Days than the Supposition
Their removing Manners
Leave us to presume

That oblique belief which we call Conjecture
Grapples with a Theme stubborn as Sublime
Able as the Dust to equip its feature
Adequate as Drums
To enlist the Tomb.

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.

persistence of meaning

In an afterschool program I am involved in, we have been continuing to look at the major themes in art as a means of understanding “why bother?” The kids I have are bothered by a lot of things in their young lives. I showed them some work by the Abstract Expressionists; and tried to explain how these guys insisted that art was for art’s sake alone; that it had no inherent meaning. The artists of this period had to use words to explain this insistence, for people looking at the random markings and collages, kept searching for meaning. I told the kids, “This is freedom day, your piece need not mean a thing, just tear the paper and. . .”

And here, I had to give some kind of guidelines for what makes a finished composition good (meaning?).

They started in. it was so interesting to me how even with freedom from meaning they kept trying to make meaning on their two dimensional panels.

The next time I came in, the theme for historical art making was “saying something that is true.” We looked at some important examples using Homer, and Grant Wood. How quickly the kids could catch the artist’s intent. Then it was their turn, continuing with torn paper. Their grasp on what is true easily focused on their own personal worlds, self portraits mostly. We only have about 45 minutes for the craft part of this curriculum. But they dive in and these are kids who feel little confidence otherwise. As we talked and worked they taught me a new text code: tmi=too much information. I laughed out loud at that, as I watched them work with their materials. Without words, without tmi, they were showing me in their constructions what was on their minds.

it’s not about the hay

With a group of middle-schoolers, I am doing a big overview art history module. These kids are so eager and ready. We are exploring themes and examples as to WHY art has been done through time. We talked about beauty last time and I asked them to tell me what that was. Quick answers came until they had to think more. It was so interesting to watch them struggle and then engage with this important question. We looked quickly at the Greeks, and then the early 19thc. American Hudson River School, an abstract piece and then focused on what Monet did with stacks of hay. We then tried to practice with random color in four set values. In one half hour they knocked out some pretty exciting stuff! I told them about the time, when not much older than they are now, I saw so many of these haystack studies, done at various lightings in Monet’s days, all displayed together on a wall in Chicago’s Art Institute. How could such beauty be rendered from piles of wasted grass? The vision of that day in Chicago was transforming for me. It wasn’t about the hay!

I recently came across this quote from Peter Kreeft who describes this wonder well: “Glory is greater than we can contain, comprehend or control. It ravishes us right out of our skins, out of ourselves, into an ek-stasy, a standing-outside-the-self, an out-of-body experience; and we tremble in fear and delight. It is not in us, we are in it, like being ‘in love’: ‘it’s bigger than both of us’. “ (I would add: it’s bigger than all of us) Kreeft continues, “Thus it does not enter into us, we enter into it. “ For Monet, the hay was a prop, a device he used for what he really was studying to say.

overlook

Philosophically, and very personally this is an important word for me, more than I even understood. OVERLOOK. You will sometimes see signs that beckon you to pull over, for there is an incredible view coming up behind the trees blocking your vision. Overlooks give us that opportunity, but you must stop to see them. I have been enchanted by the big overlook for a long, long time; am coming to see reasons why in ways that are deeply satisfying and spiritually stretching. I remember a lecture I heard over 40 years ago about the Hebrew prophet Isaiah. He was a visionary who was given vistas to verbalize that were greater than he felt he could capture. He was a big picture guy. His words skip over the peaks of time, they run ahead, then linger back with comfort, and other times with terrible disruption. Time conflates in Isaiah’s visions. Assurances are way, way beyond him but he sees it! He scribes what he is given with his own unique voice.

I read just this morning this wonderful bit from chapter 26: “Lord, Thou wilt establish peace for us, since Thou hast also preformed for us all our works.” It is already done, according to Isaiah, even as it is yet to be done.

Also I saw this morning this wonderful statement from the wise thinker, Ravi Zacharias: “Enchantment needs a mind, and the emotions are given as a wellspring” he said this as he too was contemplating beauty and wonder. To be enchanted, especially in the times we’re living in, one must exercise the mind with true vision. Unlike my spider (last post) I have some equipment (a mind, emotions and a will) that give me the possibility of seeing and sharing wonder! We have to stand back from the messy things (some really awful things) however, and take the longer view in. I recommend Isaiah (but he is not for the feint of heart!). Or just open your own eyes with some humility. There is reason for expectation for there really is a daily vista right in front of every one of us. Oh, for eyes to see! And for skill to get it down.

the question of beauty

When I was in high school, I had a remarkable teacher in a world history class. I remember his name (and wonder if he is still alive). I cannot remember any of the exact words or streams of thought in his lectures, but I remember how his ideas ignited things inside me. He spoke about the question of beauty, this in the context of worldwide movements of upheaval (!) and without dropping packaged answers into the hearts of skeptics, he left at least me wondering. . . what exactly is beauty? Why do I respond to certain things and not others? Could there be a code of meaning here that speaks beyond language and culture and time? This further fueled a life long interest in art, and in the meaning behind things.

This morning I watched as a spider finished her web. She had several strands tied way beyond her tiny body up to the gutters of the house. Then she had one tied to the Laurel bush, and another anchored on the Japanese Maple. She swayed in the beautiful center of her fragile trap. Her brain, or instinctive operating center, or whatever she has that makes her move with such deliberation, has to be no bigger than a pinhead! How does she do this, and can she possibly know the beauty here? She certainly cannot see the bigger picture of what she has constructed. And it’s a trap of death for goodness sake! There is something bigger that has set things in play that she has no ability even to imagine.

And so I continue, my pencils making webs, my brushes searching with color, my tiny awareness of the things brewing worldwide at great disadvantage. This same morning I saw this in Psalm 2: “Why are the nations in an uproar, and the peoples devising a vain thing?” And I realize that before we can really handle answers, we have to be somehow startled to grapple with the big questions. And beauty, it seems to me, is one gentle way of walking us there.

casting

My husband likes to fly fish, and we carved out time to fish and paint together. We are so fortunate, that we live near such beautiful places to do what we both love. Carving out the time together is the task, and then we wonder again why it took us so long. . . anyway, what he usually does is cast, catch and release. What I do is cast and try to capture! I laugh often at his ability to give up so easily what he has worked for, but then I often end up doing the exact same thing. We are both on a silent quest. This activity is much more than the result that either of us comes home with. I love this photograph my husband took because even here he is selecting and searching, more like an artist then a fisherman. I am in the center background sitting on a rock, working on a small watercolor sketch. He composes his photograph nicely, such good color too! The image says a lot more to both of us than a viewer might see.

An art critic I resonate with, James Berger, says this same thing better when he defines the act of drawing. “Drawing is a form of probing. And the first generic impulse to draw (to fish? to paint?) derives from the human need to search, to plot points, to place things and to place oneself.” We are in fact both doing just that when we go out and work: searching, selecting, plotting and placing. That is why we can come home filled even when there is no concrete result. The activity is accomplishing something deeper.

This past week also, I attended the art showing mentioned in my last post. Stephen Wicks, curator from the Knoxville Museum of Art gave an engaging talk about the collection he had assembled, and even highlighted my two pieces with prescience. I spoke with him afterwards to thank him and gained even more, for he said something like this ‘Your work is not just about the collection of color, isn’t it; there is something much deeper going on.” Oh! How encouraging for me, he could not have said much else to propel me further.

Meanwhile, the watercolor piece I laid out, painting by the stream has since been gessoed over. (The paper was worth more than my result that day!) But the morning was memorable, marking both of us. We were both casting for what we knew not. I think we captured something that day; nothing got away.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape