Category Archives: time

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.

good egg (or after Emily: “awed by my errand”)

I’m aching to get back to work…but there’s other work to do-
This morning when I timed his eggs I found a little clue.
There in my trusty cookbook, from many years gone by,
The yellowed pages, torn, so dated, startled me “Oh My!”

I do not feel like an antique, though things around me show
That time has passed, so much time has passed!
Yet in my insides “No!”
What is this mystery of deep down soul that feels forever young?
That holds some torch through every storm, and still is want to run?

My mind’s distracted by “many things” that I need to do.
But here’s a clue that touches close to such a different view–
That what’s inside me does not age.
Creator’s gift is true!
So I can rest, we’ll get it done, what He has planned to do.

(and Happy Birthday to our first born–forever young)

visual aid

“What do you see, Jeremiah?” (Was this the first teaching using a visual aid?) God gets Jeremiah’s attention. God, the original socratic prompter puts His young prophet in the uncomfortable position of having to search out an answer. Jeremiah blurts out the obvious. (Were they literally having a conversation, did Jeremiah hear audible words? All I know is there was a very specific dialogue going on, and it is important enough to have been recorded.) Jeremiah answers, “I see a rod of an almond tree.” There was something physical they were looking at then. Jeremiah needed help understanding. Maybe there was a pause; pauses are pregnant with God. Maybe Jeremiah kept looking at this almond branch, wondering to himself “what in the world…” God breaks in then “You have seen well, for I am watching over my word to preform it.” And that is all we have in that beginning of their long relationship.

God makes His point with a simple natural object. The almond branch is a symbol that signals substance. And with this frail object, God offers an incontrovertible guarantee. I so love this, for pregnant are His words still remaining, yet He is watching over every one. There is so much that Jeremiah heard and reported from what God said to him, and so much of that is even yet to be seen on the ground. There are hard words and there are amazingly hopeful words, “to build and to plant,” “to give you a future and a hope…” But this first assurance clearly puts God in the driver’s seat. It puts God taking the responsibility for the faithful executing of every word He has ever said. He is clear that He is actively watching over the sprouting of His consummating work. Long after Jeremiah’s time then, I sit pondering the faithful words, from the faithful word giver. From these amazing assurances does my hope come. I did this monotype in ’08, “Sign of the Almond Tree.” It just came back from Philadelphia. I am so glad to see this again.

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.

dancing memory

Yesterday a generous friend let me use her fabulous intaglio press. I spent the entire day inking monotypes and dancing to music in her perfect little studio. It was perfect timing too, for today a curator from the University had scheduled to come over to see some new work for a Fall show she is planning. I was glad I had some really new work to add to other things she wanted to view. The ink was still wet.

I have a series I started in ’07 called “Core Samples.” The idea that interested me behind this is what geologists do to test the hidden parts deep in the earth. They drill down a tube and grab up the layers of sediment, exactly as they have rested unnoticed for centuries. The layers are a record of time and passages, even the decaying of many organic things. The vertical pieces I have done recall this geological practice, but they are really landscapes in a sense. They are to me inner as well as outer landscapes. Landscapes I have come to understand are important work, or they can be. The Chinese have been doing sublime landscapes for centuries, and the best of them are not pretty pictures but worldview statements about the position of man in the grand scheme of wonder.

What I am posting today is one that I inked up yesterday. It is a direct response to what I wrote last time about the images that showed up in my pocket. I agree that the photo images I somehow gathered on my hike are better than this core sample representation. However the inked semblance reminds me of the gift of that day and is therefore a record of joy. I used an old racquetball of my husbands as a drawing tool to make the marks in this image. I hope you can dance with it too.

fragile return

A friend gave me this lovely plant as I have been grieving the loss of my Mother. Yellow was my Mom’s favorite color. Mom would have enjoyed seeing how lovely this is, such a tender reminder. I am not a great plant person, so I hope I can keep this alive to bloom again. It is so interesting to me. These tender orchid blooms emerge out of long tendrils, pencil-like stalks. And the long blooming stalks (which look like nothing when they appear out of the base of the much showier leaves) need to be supported as they lengthen. For it is out of these emerging outgrowths, that the beautiful blooms finally appear. Someone else set up the support on my bloomed stalk. I am told that without that support the bloom simply would not have happened.

Friday, I received back a huge box from the Monotype show in Massachusetts. I have been traveling, so I forgot about this simultaneously traveling piece of artwork. It was neat to have my piece “Selah” come back to my door. I had set up return shipping, and without any more effort, my piece came back.

This whole paradox between effort and supplied reward in time has me musing. And the reality of fragility…That anything so beautiful exists for any length of time is quite extraordinary here, it seems to me. My heart feels as fragile as these blooms. But I can feel the support right inside my heart.

Selah

A good portion of my work is an intuitive response, rapidly laid down. This does not mean that the result seen on paper was altogether quick, though if you had watched this piece and others being birthed out of the press you might think so. What is visible is an end product of a long term simmering from my mind and spirit and body. The thoughts that collide toward and then into a particular working day, the prayers that have been raised and linger as I work, and the arms and legs that labor this forward are mine. But I live influenced and challenged in time by much around me; and that can be seen here too. Of particular note is an apprehension regarding the mystery of beauty. Add to this: mourning over so much that is broken. And finally, every piece I craft comes out from a long term feeding in the words of Scripture that continually ground and then lift me.

The word “Selah” for example is used often in the emotive expressions found in the book of the Hebrew Psalms. The word seems by its usage to be a deliberate pause for pondering. “Pause and think of that!” is how the Amplified version translates “Selah.” It is a call therefore from the penitent to other listeners. We stand together on ground that is broken, but some of us are looking up and leaning forward, yearning for His appearing.

This piece is presently hanging at the Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. “Selah” was juried into a show for the monotype guild of New England’s 3rd National Exhibition. It will be up from February 23rd to April 6th.

unfinished

Here’s a beautiful little passage out of a piece I am working on/struggling with right now. I will not show the whole, for it is kind of a mess. The whole piece actually may never get finished in the way I want it to. In fact this morning, I realized that my problem is that I am trying to “make it happen”. I am trying to aesthetically force a conclusion, and it is not working! I have learned/keep on learning that once energy moves in that direction, it is a recipe for failure. So, I will work in my garden today and ease back.

The vision I’ve had for this larger piece is the prophetic statements of Balaam over Israel. You can read that strange but true series of events in Numbers 22-24. If you know that story then maybe the irony is already hitting you, for Balaam too is confronting an unfinished vision. He could not curse Israel, though he was given much incentive to do otherwise with his prophetic skill. What Balaam sees in his last vision is a dramatic statement of something sure to come, but far distant. I have been thinking on his utterance “I see Him, but not now. I behold Him, but not yet” for years and years…

As for my piece…it may get torn up and used as fragments in many new pieces. That would be fitting. I can settle with regeneration, might actually be better.

Go Forth, Abraham

I was awakened one evening long ago. My young Jewish friend wanted to talk about Abraham. I listened out of respect, surprised by her wonder, startled actually by her belief. This was a fairy tale to me, but she held onto it as if it were true. We took many steps that night, one foot in front of another, hiking around a lake, high in the Colorado mountains. I was quiet mostly while she spoke. But that night, something ignited in me because of the words she exclaimed about one man, long ago, who simply decided to trust what God had told him. “how could that be?!” I wondered.

“Go forth, Abraham” is a piece I finished this year. It is an emotive response from 40 plus years of steps for me, in which I have been reminded so very often of Abraham’s example.

I don’t think it is a very pretty piece, and therefore, to me, it is all the more true.

Abram, (renamed Abraham by God), was a real man, a very unique man. He listened. His radar was tuned for wherever there was God-frequency. And when he heard what God said, Abraham took it seriously and he stepped it out. If you read of his life in Genesis 12-25 you can actually follow the learning curve of this man’s developing trust in the One he was aiming to follow and learning to love. Though a Mesopotamian ancient, culturally distant from us, the human-ness of Abraham’s growing trust comes through. It was a real-time process that took decades. And God did real time revealings and interventions into Abraham’s process. The key throughout though is this verse: “Abraham believed God, and it was reckoned to him therefore as righteousness.” Abraham was not righteous, as his history only displays. But God made a call, based on Abraham’s distinguishing characteristic: and Abraham simply believed what God said. This is big. It was Abraham’s believing that accomplished righteousness. This believing Him is a big deal with God; it is defining for us.

Abraham lived according to the promises given him. These promises came in clear when they came, but they did not come often. And so there had to have been so many steps where Abraham was just putting one foot in front of the other, trusting, trying to remember what he had heard, relying on the character of the promise giver. That is what I was thinking about when I made this piece. This is a linear picture of all the heavy steps being made in desert sand, as Abraham moved out trusting. This piece looks at his whole journey. High in the stratosphere are markings: recordings of the words that rumble in his memory and bring light to his heavy soul. There are shining bits that come on the ground: the epiphanies he would tell us of if we could hear his whole story at the end. But a lot of the steps for Abraham as he lived them out, I expect felt dry and hard and shifting under his feet. Each step was consequential. And there is this dark hovering cloud overhead. It is not one that brings rain, but one that brings only darkness and static. Discouragement is hovering not far away.

You will be hard pressed to find a better example of a mortal who risked it all to believe the One he heard speaking. It was not a pretty thing, but it was true. And it ended up being amazing.

I am delighted therefore to highlight this piece for it has been selected to be part of a traveling show called “Scribes of Hope II” which will be making the rounds in the coming couple of years. An artist whose work I have admired, Timothy Botts, was the juror. This is cold wax with metal filings embedded, using also sumi ink and gold leaf; it is on a panel 19×15”

hope seen

Recently we returned from a once-in-a-lifetime celebration (40 years married!) in London and the British countryside. There was so much to see, enjoy and think about that I found myself writing 13 poems on the flight home, next to my sleeping husband. The low point of the things discovered was at the celebrated Tate Modern, what a sorry disappointment! They did not have displayed what I had hoped to see there, and instead had a shambles of selections in a warehouse kind of a space. It was as if the emperor had been discovered naked and malnourished.

This timeline, which stretched way farther, illustrates the fragmentation of hope and ideas, like shrapnel, that have occurred since WW2. Surely both wars in the 20^th century set the ground for much despair in worldview. And the art, especially in Europe that came after, illustrates that. The only interesting work was where a few, like Joseph Beuys faced despair, and articulated it with intelligent concern. Despair alone multiplies despair however, and even more fragmentation. We could not wait to get out of there, actually.

This set us up however to go back over to Trafalgar square, where we had learned earlier there was a concert at St. Martin in the Fields. Oh, what a respite that was! This church has a vibrant understanding of its mission in that city. The concert, mostly Handel, was superb. The sanctuary is where Handel played his first recital in 1726! The crypt below was well arranged for feeding the crowds who come to this place. And they had several art shows going on down there and above that were astoundingly interesting. One grouping, “Odyssey,” was a series of wooden figures done by a Brit of Polish ancestry who, in his search for spiritual roots went back to the land and the trees among which his mother walked as she migrated through the horror of the war. The figures stand as sentries overlooking the diverse crowds in the square beyond the church. They are a silent warning. The other show we loved was “110Faces,” which was a collection of photo portraits of common and not so common Londoners. It was a celebration of the uniqueness, and the amazing victory of diversity in the human image of God that we all are.

And on the portico was a sculpture that was compellingly moving, illustrating John’s gospel chapter 1:1 and verse 14: “and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory. . . ” This tied it all together. Though the despair is ever present and remains, His indwelling is the reason there is hope of any substance, and ideas that are worth illustrating.

a moment in the slow fall

Since I first saw some of his work several years ago, I have been interested in Arthur Dove. Then later, in graduate school I looked at him more seriously and was amazed at the confluence of reasons that explained more as to why his work would/should interest me. He was a graduate of my same alma mater, he worked in Long Island, he was gentle and like a “babe in the woods” amongst the effetes of his time, yet he loved them as well as needed them. . . the listing goes on. Yet his visual work drew me in first, before I was aware of those other things. He was an American modernist who was serious, serious in his desire to use abstract language, rooted in that which is natural, to speak to that which is way beyond the natural.

There is a piece of his I saw at the Phillips collection in DC (how I got there is another wild and crazy story, I was actually thinking I was going to Beijing with my husband that day and ended up at the Phillips collection in DuPont Circle). This piece stopped me. Maybe it was not the reason I got detoured in DC, but it became one of the reasons. Without even knowing it’s intended meaning it had a rich resonance for me. Dove called it “Rain or Snow” which confirmed what I was thinking. He was both indefinite and also clear in this title: it was some kind of falling, but it was a falling. And it is slow, measured and sadly beautiful. It was done in 1943. Think about what was happening then in the world of 1943, just pause and think about it! This also is 3 years from Dove’s own death and he was not well. But look at his gentle voice. wow.

I did a piece in 2005 that surprises me for its similarity to Dove’s work here. By the way, I can say that I am pretty sure I had not seen this particular Dove piece before this last month. It really did surprise me. My own piece is hanging right now at a gallery in Philadelphia. Mine is called “Lingering Moments.” It too is about a slow falling. It too involves pain and love, urgency frozen in a slow-motion moment.
As I write this, it is the 11th day of the 11th month at least in the way we count time.
My sense of things remains suspended like this ink work. There is beauty here (that I can say happened in spite of and way beyond intention and ability), but the beauty is wrenching and urgent. I think it is beckoning too. This is my sense of what happened on that piece of paper and what is happening even right now.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape