Taking a Break

The semester is over, my grades are in, and I'm taking a break from my weekly postings in order to work on my book, Sanctifying Art. So far, I've written three chapters: Introduction, The Problem of Art, Visions of Beauty, and Art and the Need of the World. Today, I hope to get a running start on the next chapter, Art and the Body of Christ.

After that, I'm not sure if there is another big chapter, or just a conclusion, wrapping it all up in a nice, tidy bow. I keep having the nagging sensation that there is some important area that I am forgetting to address, but I guess I won't know until I finish the part that I can see. It's a lot like art, I suppose. Or like life. If I just keep stepping into the light that I see, the surrounding darkness doesn't seem to matter as much. So as long as I don't allow myself to get distracted, I should have a good, solid first draft by the middle of August. I'll report back then.

Into the Fire

The other day, one of my students submitted a ceramic communion cup and plate set as her final project. She talked about the process of making it, about the necessary compromises between her original vision and the concrete exigencies of available resources. Having no potter's wheel meant the cup had to be hand-built rather than thrown. Having no kiln meant a search for firing space to rent. Having no recent glazing experience meant trying to predict how the glazes would look after firing, based only on small color samples that someone else had made. Then, despite her careful planning, there was the sad moment when the nearly-finished plate shattered and she realized that she would have to start again. She chose the glazes as best she could, put the cup and re-made plate into the fire, and waited.

I have often observed that those who make objects of fired clay are the most courageous of artists, their relationship to their chosen medium most easily compared to the spiritual life. After all their thought and effort, they must quite literally submit their work to the fire, often multiple times. The heat of the kiln changes the clay, making it hard as stone, changing its color, and melting the glaze into a thin layer of glass. What emerges from the kiln may be shattered into a thousand shards; or slumped into an unrecognizable lump; it may become something near to the thing of shining beauty that the artist envisions. Whatever happens, the object that enters the fire always emerges transformed.

Like a potter who puts her work into the kiln and waits to see what will happen, all of us are forced to make compromises every day between our vision of perfection and the unpredictable messiness of our actual lives. Every morning, I arrive at my office with a list of what I hope to accomplish. Then, someone needs me to make a decision or answer a question, someone else needs a shoulder to cry on or simply an ear to listen, and someone else offers me an opportunity that I cannot pass up. By the time I leave the office, I have done a lot, but often not the things that were on my list. My student's communion set didn't turn out quite the way she had planned, but she is still happy with the result and hopes to use it when she is ordained. May those who receive Holy Communion at her hands be blessed by the fire that transforms us all.

On Seeing and the Art School Crit

In the gospels, Jesus is described at least twice as giving sight to the blind. In Christian thought, Christ is the light of the world. One may derive from this that the principle of seeing is very important, both literally and figuratively. To see is, in a very real sense, to know. Clear seeing may be understood as a way of knowing the truth.

Expanding the metaphor of sight, artworks invite us to look closely, to observe faithfully what is there (and what is not there!) and the relationships among the various elements. Learning to see through art may be a means of learning to see one another in love.

One of the most important rituals of art school is the group critique. In my memory, in this exercise each student puts up his or her most recent artwork, and everyone takes some time simply to look at what has been set before them. Then, the teacher invites the students to say what they see, interjecting or adding to the discussion as necessary. 

Done poorly or without charity – as is too often the case – the art school critique is a harsh evaluation of quality in which a work is designated as “good” or “bad,” celebrated as a success or relegated to the trash heap. Such heartless criticism does little to help the student know what has gone right or wrong, or how to do better the next time.

Done well, this is an opportunity for students to learn how other people receive their communications. While the artist certainly has an intention, at the crit only the reception is important. How does this color interact with that one? How do these shapes related to one another? What is the emotional charge of the negative space? As the teacher and the other students consider aloud questions like these, they may also make suggestions about what might improve the work. Meanwhile, it is the student artist’s job simply to listen and take it all in. 

Whether the distance between the intention and the reception is great or little, this exercise is almost always both humbling and enlightening. No opportunity is given to defend one’s choices. Rather, back in the solitude of the studio, the artist is free to accept or reject the suggestions, either making changes to the original work, or beginning again with another.

What I have learned though the kind of disciplined looking that I first encountered in the group crit and have honed through years of teaching and curating, is that any artwork can be read through the eyes of understanding, or it can be dismissed out of hand, without really receiving anything at all except a superficial impression. And, as Jesus shows us, when we see with the eyes of understanding and compassion, with the eyes of the heart, we see one another in the light of God.