Category Archives: wonder

palettes

“Our summer made her light escape into the beautiful”*

I’ve been collecting notes in a folder — from photographs taken and magazine tear outs — of color groupings. This is simply data, ongoing practice, recently revved up. For, I use these color collections as prompts into paintings. When I don’t know what to do, color seems to awaken. It’s as if my eyes, directed by a still beating heart, lead the way for my hands.

Last night, near the point of retiring for the day, I opened a small poetry book, a gift given to me in Canada. Therein I found an added bit of beauty between the leaves. Pressed in the pages of this lovely booklet was a singular remnant from a maple. I had almost squished this leaf with my shoe on a walk in Vancouver. My eyes must have stopped me then, but I forgot that I had this incredible thing. The re-discovery near a month later was more delight than I even remembered in the initial find.

Look at this specimen simply for its color: The greens have retreated to the background, allowing in that desaturation such quieter tones of olive. The removal of pigment provides a surprising highlight of pales, tans and muddy yellows, like the translucence of aged skin. This, in turn reveals the markings of veins ever more vitally. And the reds! The stars in this symbol, have their chance to shine now: like the bleeding herald of a great King. It’s the victorious finale! Even the stem has turned its signature to alizarin strength.

Any one of these hues could be matched somewhat closely in a paint store. But what would you have in the dissection? A clinical compartmentalization? It is only in the grouping where the colors dance, and play off each other, where they sing their song again. Even a dead leaf plays it. I am so heartened that I did not miss this.

*Emily Dickinson, #1540 Johnson’s Chronology, 1865

one year out

Today is the 1^st year anniversary of my book: published and seeing the light of day. Pictured here is an analytic that Amazon regularly updates. My little book has a heart beat: alive and doing well. In one search category last week I was #10 among 8 million books! Amazon provides another graphic which shows me where sales are happening. The areas where I’ve lived and know people are best represented, but the surprising thing is that places like New Haven, Minot and Reno (where I know no one) are showing up with sales too. Was the 7 year journey to see this happen worth it? Maybe so.

But books have a short life, I’m told; and marketers keep reminding you of titles because readers have shifting attention spans toward the next jazzy thing. It’s a chasing game, and it can be wearying. I entered this learning curve from its impetus to finished copy for the same reason that I make art: there is something important to get down on paper so others can see. I didn’t write to be a writer. I don’t paint to be a painter. I am a recorder, a responder, a translator of sorts who is hopefully becoming more fluent.

It is an earnest and deep-seated Wonder before the biggest matters that keeps me working. It is needed Humility that keeps me fit. And beyond my own natural chutzpa there is a Courage I count on and ask for from the Spirit who made the world, who made me. Perseverance is the last bit I have to own, and own again. (These 4 aspects–I gleaned out of the Creation account in Genesis–are a sort of working prescription; that’s why they are written big, with growing notes on my studio wall).

When young and spry, I used to be a competitive swimmer and taught lifesaving. Now I’m a grandma with even bigger aspirations. But a lot of days I feel like the water is deep, the shoreline is way out past where I am, and my nose is just above the surface. Am I complaining? No, just taking a tread while I size up my position. Thanks for looking with me.

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.

light bursting

The last image of the year is one my husband shot out our tiny cabin window. The garage light was on, and all was still on the darkest night of the year in the Northland where my grandparents settled long ago. The frigid air, the wild vunerability of this backwater place and the mystery of light penetrating, so surgically into enveloping darkness was what moved us both with this digital glimpse. This is only a token, an illustration, of a sublime reality. I’m thinking of a baby born on another dark night, in another backwater place, where light burst forth into their precarious situation. John’s gospel says at the beginning “light shines (present tense) into the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” John 1:5

How utterly strange, and beyond the ways we would stage it. God comes to rescue: through a humble couple willing to listen to Him, midst political chaos swirling beyond their control, with a baby of suspicious origin who is entirely vulnerable! And that is just the beginning of the story.

I’m reminded of the words of the 1st century thinker, Paul of Tarsus. His reflections were preached into my own ears by a master theologian in the early 1970’s. The passage being explored was the very 1st chapter of Corinthians, where Paul is contrasting what many seek vs. what God has simply given as greatest wisdom. I was deeply moved by the surprising ‘rightness’ of God’s way vs. all our own proud attempts. Paul ends his discussion with this summary: “…because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger then men.” (1 Cor. 1:25).

I used to wonder: if God wants our attention, why does He not make it more obvious? I was new to understanding Him then, and troubled that His existence was not as clear to my friends as it was bursting into my own heart so astoundingly. Here is how another writer expresses this mystery “Everyone supposed that You were limited, You Who cannot be contained by anything, all speech is not able to tell of You, and a mind that is compelled tries to grasp with yearning…”

This last quote excerpted from an Eastern Orthodox liturgy posted on Dec. 26th, 2017

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

Syrian Refugee

I plotted this sketch onto a full sheet of Arches oil paper, conscious that getting the value structure right was going to be pretty critical before color choices. Also, since my skills are not in the arena of literal portrayals, I needed a visual roadmap of sorts. I usually don’t do figures, but this one was persistent for attention.

I found this idea watching a video made by a humanitarian organization I trust. The story line clipped past this dark scene for just a matter of seconds. I stopped the video and went back a number of times looking at the dramatic contrast of a baby being celebrated in a dark place, even lifted up unknowingly in front of the English word “hate” scrawled against the wall. There is much here that speaks, and much that remains achingly silent.

I live removed from scenes like this. I expect my readers and viewers do too. But the crisis of peoples moving, of governments gassing, of politicians vacillating or only capitalizing, of bombs dropping, of hands wringing, of minds numbing makes me near numb. But I can’t go numb, for these are desperate, present tense realities.

My hope is that in the venues where this might be seen that people may be moved to awaken, to care just a little, to not be able to forget.

It seems to me that this lifting of a child is an act of faith. The man, though low is stepping up. The bystander notices. The glaring artificial light is not what is illuminating the heart. The folks in the back mumble and miss it. There are questions that are unanswered here too. How will they be sheltered? Where is home? Where is the Mother? What makes someone bother to care in a place like this? The brokenness is not all there is here.The brokenness is not where the real story lies. And hate is not going to win.

engagement

If someone were to ask me “what is the most fun thing you ever did?” I would easily say, taking my grandsons through the Metropolitan Museum of Art! They flew all the way out from their west coast to a family wedding. Our son flagged us to join them in NYC afterwards and we jumped in the car (retirement has it’s great rewards)! Another close to me said “mom, don’t get your hopes up, the boys won’t be interested.” Well, that only made me work harder to set up something that could keep three school age boys alert in one of my favorite buildings on earth!

Here are just a couple fun shots. We investigated the motivations of artists through history. From Greek dynamism to the Egyptian funerary rules. From Renaissance perspective to Contemporary abstraction, the boys stayed engaged sketching, and questioning for 4.5 hours! Am I excited? The images give a glimpse of a most fun day. I think what was gathered here won’t soon be forgotten. I know I won’t!

why do you work?

Artists examine things. Looking under rocks for clues is maybe another way to say this. And for many of us, digging at our own personal reasons for creating is a necessary hazard in that examining process. The inner motivation behind the working has to be understood and it has to be bigger than our ability or why bother? It’s intimidating to stay at it. There’s got to be a compelling drive that keeps one at it. Sometimes this is intuitively exciting, other times it is a slog that ends up surprisingly fruitful, or sadly not.

Until the next day’s try.

There’s a long road of other artists who have gone before to learn from. There are many right now who are making tracks. But what moves me the most is inspiration that takes off from some well-chosen and very fertile words.

I taught a small workshop this month with a couple eager beavers who were willing to try their hand at abstracting using some new materials. It’s true for me and I hoped would be for them that the cutting edge of “not knowing really how” would produce some exciting personal discovery. They came with only some favorite words to work off of.

Voila, or “There it is!” was the result after a couple hours of experimentation. We really are creative whether we understand how we’re made or not. The excitement in getting a glimpse of that is contagious. This finished result was just one of several little gems made that night. Liz illuminated a favorite quote from Brenda Ueland’s “If You Want to Write”: “Since you are like no other being ever created since the beginning of time, you are incomparable.”

a kindness multiplied

avery-head-print I’m not dressed for printmaking. Instead this one night, I attended an art opening of politically motivated art accompanied by an interesting lecture. The show’s juror, Eric Avery is a retired MD and an accomplished printmaker, who has been involved in humanitarian work throughout his dual career. A compassionate man, grappling with human despair, Avery is still mining an early experience he had viewing a man’s bisected skull during an autopsy.

The artist had shipped up to TN before his arrival a large carved block to be printed in our studio here at the University. My friend John Hilton, who teaches the printmaking courses this term was the printer for Avery, spooning the block print onto fragile mulberry paper. After the lecture, knowing John would be working late, I went up to say hi and got to put my hands on the emerging print.

It is only because John is such a generous friend that he let me work Eric’s piece for a few moments. It was only because Avery mentioned John with thanks that I knew this was going on. And only because Avery shared his own heart in the lecture that I understood the reasoning and the depth of pathos behind the head image. I am just a bystander to this particular story, but a graced one. Avery himself was a bystander during the autopsy that occurred early in his career. Sometimes though, grace gives you a stark and disruptive glimpse into the horror of death, the particular vacancy visible when all that’s left is gaping tissue and fluid. Where has what was precious gone then? None of us can be bystanders to this concern. We can barely handle this, indeed I think we cannot. We go numb. Avery keeps returning directly to it in his graphic images. God says repeatedly through the prophets to “Consider” (Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Hosea and Haggai). The fact that there are artisans and prophets who ponder in time and try to awaken us is just another kindness. For me it comes down to this: horror is mediated in ways that allow us to participate in a very necessary exchange.

Thank-you Eric, thank-you John, thank-you thank-you Jesus, the champion over death, the flesh reconstituter, the kindest of grace giving prophets.

holding Hope

A poet started to touch on it this way, “It might be lonelier without the Loneliness—“

Emily Dickinson’s self imposed house arrest allowed her eyes to see and her words to express things that other mortals often avoid. The poet is deliberate in capitalizing “the Loneliness” for she is speaking of something that is beyond surface. Her existential concern (hinted at by the capitol letter L in this case) grasps at that which casts forward past known time and limited place. Hope is a theme in her work because of the confidence she gained in the enigmatic hope supplier.

This is not Pollyanna dreaming. This is hard won, tested and true. It is mixed with fears and challenges and suffering. It wins only because of the Winner.

“When I hoped I feared—

Since I hoped I dared

Everywhere alone

As a Church remain—

Spectre cannot harm—

Serpent cannot charm—

He deposes Doom

Who hath suffered him—“

The small painting inserted here got finished today. It is one from the series I mentioned last post. Looking up is not the anesthesia of escape artists. It is rather a choice, based on sure evidence made more necessary in darkening times. It looks in trust toward that (rather Him) who holds beyond our fragile spaces.

first fragment cited is from Dickinson’s poem #405, the second is the entire poem #1181 (Johnson’s Chronology)

sky studies

Have you been looking up? We’ve been marveling at some of the moody blues and grays we’ve seen these past months. Online too, people are posting some amazing shots of cloud formations: some brooding, some exhilarating and some downright scary. What’s up with all this? I googled it and see that many people are dismissing incredible images as fake/photo-shopped alarmism. Am I and a couple friends just getting older and paying attention to basics that were always around? Or are these formations in the sky increasingly getting the attention of others as well? I’d love feedback on that question. What are you seeing?

moodysky This image from my backyard in June, is taken from my iphone and completely unretouched.

Meanwhile, I’ve been taking more shots of amazing skies from a certain hilltop near our home, at all different times of day and night, in all kinds of different weather. I have set these in a file called “sky studies”. skyStudies What you see here is an under painting value plotting (using simply burnt umber and ultramarine) for a series of 5. It’s about time, and wonder and expectancy. These, once finished with top layers of color, are going to go in a prayer room. I hope to get the finished series done this coming month. I worked on a couple of them yesterday and already they are looking pretty cool.

I’m working forward, even as I am looking up expectantly. And I have sound reason. Jesus made a promise of retuning. We don’t know when, time may continue for many more sky views. But my joy is increasing because Something’s coming.

Mary Barton Nees

Conceptual Landscape