A Christmas Gift of Chagall Windows in a Country Church

All Saints Tudeley 

We were visiting my daugher's inlaws in Tunbridge Wells, about an hour outside of London, and after lunch the first day the talk turned (not surprisingly) to art in churches. Did you know, said someone, that there is a little country church with a full set of Chagall windows just a few minutes from here? No, we said, much surprised, we had no idea! So, after breakfast the next morning, four of us piled into the car and soon, just as advertised, we were standing outside of a tiny, 14th century church surrounded by a graveyard with ancient headstones and soggy, wet fields for miles around.

Interior showing two of the windows

The church is called All Saints Tudeley, and is said to be the only church in the world to have all its twelve windows designed by Marc Chagall. You can read about it at http://www.tudeley.org/allsaintstudeley.htm but there is no substitute for coming in out of the cold, damp wind into this tiny, neat, church that probably seats no more than forty or fifty people. Its footings were laid before the Norman conquest, and in the nearly one thousand years since, it has been changed and restored many times. As their website says

"A list of incumbents hanging in the church begins in 1251, but most of the structure that can be seen today is from the 18th century. The brick tower dates from around 1765, as does the delicately marbled ceiling; the North aisle was added in 1871." 

The church was remodeled again in the 1960s when a prominent family commissioned the windows in memory of their daughter, who had died in a boating accident at the age of 22. 

The Chagall windows are startling in such an otherwise traditional setting. Nearly all of them are at eye level, so close that parishioners can lose themselves in the details during a long sermon or an extended period of silence. The bright blues and yellows sing, especially when contrasted with the grey, cloudy sky outdoors and the heavy stonework that surrounds them. The shapes and gestures that are familiar from Chagall's other work come alive in a new way in the living intimacy of this worship space. Unlike his windows in the Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem, which I saw many years ago, these windows are for a very specific congregation that worships together week after week. 

It was a privilege to see these windows, especially today, on Christmas Eve. Like Christmas itself, they proclaim that the love of God extends even beyond death. I give thanks for this unexpected gift of art, and for the chance to sing "Joy to the World" tonight at midnight, although I am thousands of miles away from my home. 

Giving Thanks for a Life in Art

Memories of Coatlaxope (Guadalupe), 1993,
acrylic and copper on wood, 24" x 24"

Twenty years ago, I was in a deep depression. I had left the school where it was clear that I would never get tenure, and had no vision of where to go or what to do next. I felt that I was in a very, very dark place. Then, one day, it seemed to me that God had shone a small spotlight in front of me, illuminating one step that I could take towards an unknown future. That next step was to remember that I was an artist.

I gathered what little energy I had, went to the hardware store, bought some 2' x 2' squares of plywood, covered them with black gesso, and began to paint. Little by little, the image of the Virgin of Guadelupe emerged from the darkness, hidden among tree branches and surrounded by the barest beginnings of flowers. Over the course of the next few days, I completed two paintings that were unlike anything I had ever made before.

As I was completing those works, God lit up another step-stone on my path: the Center for the Arts and Religion invited me to be an Artist-in-Residence at Wesley Theological Seminary. When I accepted the invitation, I had no idea that I would be the director of the Center twenty years later! All I knew then was that someone valued me as an artist when I wasn't even sure that I really was one.

She is a Tree of Life to All Who Cling to Her
(also known as Queen of the Angels of Small Portion)
1993, acrylic and copper on wood, 24" x 24"

Today, I give thanks for everyone who has encouraged me on this strange and wonderful journey, and made it possible for me to spend my life learning, teaching, talking, and writing about art as well as making images that other people value. I am especially grateful to the people who bought those first, two dark paintings that set the themes and images that continue to appear in my work all these years later.

Unfortunately, the only record I have of the paintings are fuzzy, low resolution photographs. So if anyone knows where they are now, please let me know. And, if you can, please take a good, high resolution photo, and send it to me. I will be eternally grateful!

Wild Art

Today at the American Academy of Religion, I attended a session on Outsider Art. Because the session was presented by the Psychology, Culture, and Religion group, and not art historians, much of what was said about the relationship between what in France had been called "art brut" and the early Modernists was very familiar to me. As they ran over the early 20th century territory in which artists like Jean Dubuffet, Paul Klee, Kandinsky, and others became fascinated with the drawings and paintings of psychiatric patients, children, and other naifs, I began to think I was wasting my time. 

 

Things got more interesting, though, when the discussion turned to the question of whether there might be a better term than outsider to describe these works. The usual words were mentioned, like naive, primitive, or visionary. But then one of the presenters said that Roger Cardinal, the art critic whose work made the term famous, never liked outsider art. Rather, it was his publisher who insisted on it as a translation for art brut, which more properly means something like raw or rough art. Or, as the presenter put it, wild art. 

It is, of course, this wildness that appealed to the early avant garde, as they sought to throw off the constraints of an academy that dictated which were acceptable subjects and exactly how to depict them. Since then, several generations of wild, rebellious, young artists have become teachers themselves. Ironically, these new arbiters of the academy have tried to institutionalize the wildness that so entranced them in the artworks of the untutored, even as they drill their students in color theory and the elements and principles of design. As the wildness becomes tamed, though, it too often degenerates into an attempt to shock, a desire to do something original, rather than the truthful exploration of the inner landscape that is the hallmark of the untutored artist. 

Like the avant garde artists of the early 20th century, and, indeed, my own teachers, I am drawn to the idea of wild art, of art that cannot be confined to academies or genres or movements, of art that flourishes outside the boundaries of galleries and museums and art-critical theories. And yet, like my own teachers, I believe in teachable skills, in the transmission of values and techniques from one generation to the next, and in the responsibility of artists to speak into and for the communities that support them. I guess what I want to believe is that art is both the thoughtful, intentional, skillful product of patience and practice; and also the incarnate imagination of the Holy Spirit, which blows wherever it wills, bringing life to whatever it touches. Wild art, indeed.

The Arts, Money, and the Future of the Church

My father with his twin brother
and my grandfather in 1931

More than 25 years ago, one of my daughters was accepted as an acting student at the then-brand-new Los Angeles County High School for the Arts. At the orientation session, a teacher waved her hand in the direction of the students gathered in front of her, and said, “Parents, you are looking at the future of the American theater!” Looking at the hopeful, young faces and hearing the passion in the voices of the faculty, I was swept away with emotion. What a grand vision we all shared in that moment!

That daughter went on to study acting at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts, and now is a film executive in London. My son, who attended the equally-ambitious Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Washington, DC and the Berklee School of Music in Boston is now an Emmy-award-winning sound designer in Hollywood. I have been supporting the performing arts for a very long time.

To those who know me well, none of this is surprising. The arts run deep in my family. My father’s family were musicians for as long as anyone could remember. I, myself, was a dancer before I was a visual artist. So when I heard that teacher talk about the future, my heart sang. I wanted to help that future become real.

Tonight, I attended a benefit cabaret and auction for the Theatre Lab. I wrote about their Life Stories project a few weeks ago, and tonight’s event reminded me of the excitement I felt when I heard about the work they are doing with people in homeless shelters, prisons, assisted living facilities, and other places where people feel marginalized and hopeless. Although no one said those words, as I watched talented, hard-working young people transform themselves into Cosette from Les Miserables, Midsummer Night’s Dream’s Puck, and other familiar and unfamiliar characters, I once again felt myself to be in the presence of the future of the American theater. And when Deb Gottesman asked us to support Theatre Lab’s work financially, it felt right and natural to make a bigger donation than I had planned to when I walked into the room. 

On the way home, I thought about how the arts have the capacity to open not only hearts and minds, but wallets. Part of my job as the Director of the Center for the Arts and Religion is to raise money so that we can continue our work, but I have struggled to find the right words to explain to potential donors why they should support a program in the arts in theological education. Tonight, at last, I think that I have found those words. Let me try them out on you:

If the Word of God is more than mere words can convey, then the church needs the arts in order to help people experience and express God’s life-giving, astonishing Word. The arts bring scripture to life, make worship vibrant, and keep people awake and aware of the world around them. The arts are the future of the church, and we at the Center for the Arts and Religion at Wesley Theological Seminary are providing the skills and resources for that future. Please give.

Eileen Guenther |at The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

Yesterday, my colleague and friend Dr. Eileen Guenther owned the Kennedy Center Concert Hall stage, playing a masterful one-hour program on their new, Rubenstein Family organ. The organ console was placed front and center on the otherwise bare stage, so that everyone could see as well as hear the confidant hand- and footwork with which she drew such beautiful sounds out of a beautiful instrument.

While I have heard Eileen play countless times here at Wesley, the console in Oxnam Chapel is hidden from view, thus effectively hiding the musician, as well. Last night, for the first time I was able to appreciate not only her musicianship, but the athletic range of motion that playing the organ requires. It was as though she were dancing, and the music and the dance were one.

From the moment that she took the stage, resplendent in sparkling black with golden trim, until the thundering, standing ovation as her daughter handed her a huge bouquet as she walked towards the wings, Eileen held the appreciative audience in her accomplished, sensitive hands. Since I am not capable of writing sensibly about the music itself, which was mostly unfamiliar to me, I can only advise you to watch the video of the entire concert, which the Kennedy Center has thoughtfully posted as Eileen Guenther | Explore the Arts - The John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts

The Extravagant Gift

a view of the gallery,
with paper lace trees and silverpoint drawings

 Our own Amy Gray's extraordinary, lovely, peaceful, and mysterious installation, The Extravagant Gift will grace the Dadian Gallery through the end of the semester. Although I could add my own inchoate and extravagant thoughts, I think that Trudi Ludwig Johnson, our clever, insightful, hard-working Curator has already said what needs to be said. Trudi writes,

The Dadian Gallery has been transformed by Amy Gray’s Extravagant Gift.

All Roads Lead to Dounby, silverpoint
and watercolor on wood, 90" x 48", 2013

 Traditionally, a ‘gallery’ is a room or building devoted to the exhibition of works of art, where people look at paintings, sculptures or other art objects.  Some of us have even (uneasily?) experienced a gallery as a business ‘dealing’ in works of art, and we expect to be approached by someone who has something to sell.

But this Extravagant Gift is an installation; it is not an object per se, it is an opportunity.   It is not just a grouping of two- or three-dimensional things, but a site-specific four-dimensional experience. 

Amy Gray’s Extravagant Gift offers visitors a place, some time, and a cloistered space, to shed extraneous mental chatter.  We are allowed to wander amongst gentle, giant, swirling vortices of paper lace, pause under a twinkling tent of heaven, and ponder evocations of nature created by repeated flicks of a stylus filled with a semi-precious metal on prepared ground.  

perforated painted paper becomes the tent of heaven

The creative process murmurs  here.  This ‘wonder’ land didn’t just magically appear, but evolved and morphed over three seasons.  Contemplating, configuring, revising, drawing, cutting, stitching, placing, hanging, lighting . . .  its impermanence is equally poignant.  The paper will be pulled down and recycled; the drawings dispersed, the gallery space restored to ‘normal.’   But for a few weeks, wanderers may be swaddled in the elegant, subtle, prodigal generosity of this contemplative passage on their faith journey, allowing the possibility to reconsider, refresh, renew, re-invent, resume . . .

May the viewer may be transformed by this Extravagant Gift:  worship in the making, joy in the receiving.

So, come see the show! If you can, come hear Amy talk about her process and her perspective as an artist working in a theological seminary at noon on Tuesday, October 29. You, too, may be transformed!

The Extravagant Gift, paper and thread, 12' x 12' x 12', 2013

The Dadian Gallery is located in the Kresge Academic Building at Wesley Theological Seminary, 4500 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington, DC. You can see more photos of this installation at http://www.wesleyseminary.edu/en-us/lcar/gallery/exhibitions/past/extravagantgift.aspx

Another Offering

All the elements are waiting to find their proper place.

Amy hangs up the backdrop

The time has come again for the Center for the Arts and Religion to make another offering into the life of the Seminary community. The Day of the Dead ofrenda has become a much-anticipated annual event over the years, since Artist-in-Residence Lauren Raine first invited us to help her create a temporary place to remember those who have joined the great cloud of witnesses of those who have gone before us. This morning, Amy, our student assistant Narae, and I gathered the odd collection of candles, silk flowers, fabrics, icons, calaveras, and other objects from our offices and the studio, as well as Chip’s always-expanding contribution of things he has collected on his various journeys, especially in the US Southwest. This year, we were delighted to find a sugar skull that looks like it came directly from somewhere along the Mexican border.

Narae untangles some strings

One of the innovations this year is that the ofrenda is asymmetrical. When Amy climbed up on to hang the backdrop of tissue flowers and paper lace that Narae had made by adapting patterns she found in a book called Day of the Dead Crafts, we discovered that the screws in the wall would not allow it to be centered over the table. With only a few words and gestures, we understood almost simultaneously that the visual weight of the hanging on one side could be balanced by piling all nichos on the other. 

The basic structure

Once the basic structure was in place, we began placing the smaller elements, all of us working in an easy, non-verbal, collaborative dance. An accomplished artist and graphic designer from Korea, Narae had seemed a bit confused last week as to why we were asking her to do this simple craft project, but by the time she was untangling strands and arranging silk flowers this morning, I think it made a lot more sense. After all, every culture has some tradition of making offerings, of remembering loved ones who have died.

The ofrenda, ready for the prayers
and memories of the community

When we finally finished placing the last, gaily painted, wooden shoe, the ofrenda still looked a little empty. And that, of course, is the intent – we only provide the framework, the outline, the starting place for something that only becomes complete when other members of the community participate. This morning, the ofrenda belonged to us artists, our years of studio practice guiding our aesthetic decisions. Over the next couple of weeks, other people will put photographs and mementos and memories wherever it seems good to them to set them down. As the Feast of All Souls approaches, the Wesley community will fill in the blank spaces with their prayers.

Process

Artist-in-Residence Peggy Parker graciously invited me and another faculty member to sit in on a recent session of her course, Drawing to Woodcut. As I told the students, I was there because somehow I missed learning woodcut when I was in art school. Ever since I watched Trudi Ludwig Johnson work on her huge plate for “Venus, Cupid, Folly, and Time”, which I wrote about here and here, my hands have been itching to feel the bite of blade into wood, and to learn how to turn the image in the block into a print on paper.
   
So I began to prepare a few days before the planned class session by cutting paper into 6” x 4” pieces, the size of the practice block that Peggy said we would be working on, and drawing variations based on this photograph, which I took in Guatemala. When I first saw the plant, I thought it looked like a cross between bird-of-paradise and banana. After some searching it is called heliconia, and is, indeed, related to bananas. Although I was first drawn to the contrast between the deep, green leaves and the bright magenta of the flower, I became increasingly intrigued by the birdlike shapes as I began to think about its possibilities as a monochrome print.

The next step was to transfer the basic drawing, using tracing paper to draw over the lines so that the image would be reversed on the block and show up the right way on the resulting prints. Periodically, I would lift up the paper to make sure that the lines were really there. Then, as I recall, I went over the lines again, to make them clear. Finally, I was ready to start cutting.
   
I had expected that cutting into the wood would be difficult, but, to my surprise, the sharp, v-shaped blade glided easily through the thin layers of a special plywood called shina. There was very little resistance, more like drawing than cutting. After some timeless amount of time, I had the main outlines, and it was time to ink the block and pull the first print, using a big, wooden spoon to press the paper onto the ink. Here’s what it looked like:
   
When I pinned the proof onto the wall and stepped back, I was dismayed at the big glob of white at the end of the small branch below the leaves. Going back to knife and block, I added ribs on the leaves, white tips on the flowers, and the wavy, freehand lines that evoke vines and tendrils without trying to describe them literally. A few days later, under Peggy’s watchful eye and careful coaching, I tried again, using the same back-of-the-spoon technique, first on a rather stiff, opaque paper and the second one on a softer, more translucent one that allowed me to see the ink adhere. Finally, Peggy encouraged me to ink the block one more time and run it through the press.
   
The play of rich, even black and sparkling white seems like magic to me, even as I see all the places where the cutting is clumsy, the line is awkward, and the composition not quite right. Now, I cannot decide whether to spend more time with this block, fixing what I can fix, knowing that it will never be quite right; to try again with the same basic drawing, making a better block with what I have learned in doing the first one; or to start something new, finding new mistakes to learn from.  It’s so much fun that I will probably do all three.

Alison Saar: Still at the David C. Driskell Center

Alison Saar, Hankerin' Heart

Last Thursday, I drove across town in rush hour traffic as a spectacular downpour sent huge streaks of lightening flashing across the sky. I was trying to get from my office to the David C. Driskell Center for the Study of the Visual Arts of African Americans and the African Diaspora in time to hear Alison Saar talk about the extraordinary, enigmatic, moving, works in her exhibition, Still. Rushing up the back stairs nearly an hour after the reception was scheduled to start, I was sure that I was too late. So I was delighted to her her amplified voice as I walked into the spacious gallery, which was filled with so many visitors that it was hard to see either the artist or the art.

Alison Saar, Black Lightening

As I was to soon discover, Saar had just begun to talk about the eleven sculptures that were scattered around the room, filling it with their energetic presence. The first, near the entrance, was a strange-looking contraption consisting of a mop; a low stool; a bucket, two boxing gloves made out of glass; and an assortment of wires, pipes, and machinery, including a hand-operated pump. The boxing gloves were filled with water that had been dyed red, to resemble blood. As the artist demonstrated, working the pump causes some of the red fluid that is in the bucket to move up through the pipes into the boxing gloves, so that it spills out over the wrists and falls back into the bucket. As Saar pointed out, Black Lightening uses the images of boxing gloves and blood to evoke the violence of many professional sports; while the closed circuit of red fluid suggests the limited and limiting choices between entertainer and janitor that society offers to the young, Black men who are given little education and less hope. This does not, of course, exhaust all the possible interpretations of this piece -- the artist's thoughts are only the beginning of the conversation.

Alison Saar, Weight

Young, Black women are often similarly limited in their life choices. In Weight, Saar balances the sculpted figure of a young, nude, Black woman sitting on a swing against shackles, boxing gloves, pots and pans, a scythe, and other objects suggesting domestic labor or work in the fields. In describing her process of working on this piece, Saar mentioned that she has been criticized for insisting on making images about the injustices suffered by African-Americans, since she looks as though she is a White woman of privilege. What these critics seem to ignore is that Saar, herself, is a person of mixed race. And even if she were not herself of African heritage, Saar feels keenly that injustice to one is injustice to all.

Alison Saar, Hankerin' Heart (detail)

Justice, however, is not Saar’s only issue. The awkward, leggy cast bronze sculptures called, collectively, Hankerin’ Heart are three meditations on the universal desire to feel loved.  Mosey, Hincty, and Gimpty (I never quite figured out which is which) are variations on the theme of having one’s heart exposed, naked, vulnerable. Each one is about the size of a human being, if that human being were reduced to nothing but nerves, blood vessels, and longing. At certain angles, the torn, scarred, sewn-together hearts resemble faces, scrunched down between hunched shoulders, yet peering out hopefully. Haven’t we all felt like that sometimes?

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, part 2

Cynthia Angeles, "Grief", oil on linen, 31" x 25"

A few days ago, I attended the opening reception for the Watergate Gallery portion of Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion. Owner and Curator Dale Johnson showed the work of 33 artists. Of course, Cynthia Farrell Johnson and Helen Zughaib, as the instigating spirits of the show, were represented, but since their work is so familiar to me, I spent most of my time looking at works by artists who are new to me.

Nancy Frankel, "Lemmings", paint and toy cars, 54" x 60"

As is true at the Dadian Gallery, a group show like this one shows many different, idiosyncratic interpretations of the theme. Some works, like Nancy Frankel's whimsical, yet insightful, "Lemmings", reflect stressful situations or the multiple demands of everyday life. Others, like Cynthia Angeles's balanced, harmonious, luminous, yet somber "Grief,"respond to the image of "Our Lady" with images of women weighed down by burdens named and un-named. Still others, like Alfredo Ratinoff's "42 Icons for the Relief of Exhaustion," offer respite in references to the past, suggesting that it is not only modern life that drives us to the brink of giving up. As Ratinoff writes,

Alfredo Ratinoff, "42 Icons for the Relief of Exhaustion",
glass and litho transfer

The idea of the 42 icons for exhaustion relief was conceived with many of the stories that I have used all my years as an artist: Romeo and Juliet, Helen of Troy, Adam and Eve, Aphrodite, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Turandot, Tristan and Isolde, Aida, and others. These are not icons in the traditional religious sense, but are icons in their own right in that they represent various literary, epic, and historical themes that over the course of human history have brought us respite when we have felt exhausted or were on the verge of giving up. They remind us of the best in ourselves. I believe that icons have a very strong spiritual power that can help to bring us back to ourselves. However, even icons need inspiration and often were spurred on through the influence of a muse. Interspersed in this collection are a series of muses, exemplifying their positive relationships with these icons. In the midst of all of these characters and stories lies Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, her life a thread that has run through the course of each of these tales and in the story of each of our lives.

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion is one exhibition in two venues. With nearly sixty works by almost as many artists, this collaborative effort probably increased the fatigue level of its curators by a considerable amount. By inviting so many artists and audience members to think about the same subject, it also increased the sense of community and mutual support, reminding us all that, no matter how exhausted we may be, we are all in this strange and wonderful world together.

Towards Ontario

Jeffrey Lewis, Towards Ontario/mirus caelum I,
encaustic on linen, 1998

Christ Pantocrater
encaustic, 6th century. Sinai

In 2004, Jeffrey Lewis spent a few months in the Center for the Arts and Religion studio, patiently laying tiny dabs of hot, colored wax onto a stretched, linen canvas. In his quiet, patient presence, time seemed to stretch into eternity. Even when I stood watching for what seemed like a very long time, nothing much seemed to change on the canvas. Yet, when I came back the next day, or after a weekend away, the image would be transformed.

Mummy portrait of a young woman,
encaustic, 3rd century, Louvre

The technical name of Lewis’s favored medium is “encaustic.” This slow, demanding way of working has its origins deep in the past. Some of the earliest icons that have been preserved at St. Catherine’s Monastery on Mt. Sinai, like the much-reproduced icon of Christ Pantocrater, were made in this way. Art historians link such images to the even earlier portraits made in Egypt from the first century BCE through the third century CE. Often called Fayum mummy portraits, they were painted on boards that were attached to the linen wrappings covering the faces of the deceased.

The works that Lewis made in our studio are not portraits, however, but skyscapes. An earlier piece, titled Towards Ontario/mirus caelum I, hangs just outside my office, where I see it every time I come in or go out.

Jeffrey Lewis, Towards Ontario/Matins, encaustic, 1998

Although Lewis used photographs as reference materials, these paintings are not copies of any particular photograph, nor records of any particular moment in time. Rather, they are built up from memory and imagination. These delicate evocations of sky and land glow with an inner light. Their deeply textured surfaces reveal meticulous observation coupled with a keen sense of abstract relationships, creating a sense of mystery and of deep familiarity. In looking northwards, towards Ontario, Lewis invites us into a meditation on color and form, and to join him in wonder as he contemplates the vastness of God’s creation.

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion

Cynthia Farrel Johnson,
Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, mixed media 2012

When Cynthia Farrell Johnson gave us her mixed-media piece, Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion, at the end of her year as Artist-in-Residence, all I could do was laugh. Here was a woman with downcast eyes, a serene expression, and her hands in a position of prayer, but her hair was standing on end while all around her little girls played and cried, pages ran out of the copier uncontrollably, and one man stood expectantly behind her with a wry, amused smile while another proffered flowers with worried, apologetic eyes. Meanwhile, offerings of canned goods and fresh fruit piled up on the table in front of her, along with boxes that might contain cake or chocolate or some other sweet surprise. Who in our busy, multi-faceted, multi-tasking society hasn’t worshipped at the shrine of Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion?

For Cynthia, just one artwork wasn’t enough, however. Along with her friend, Helen Zughaib, she proposed a collaborative effort with the Watergate Gallery, a commercial gallery and frame shop in the notorious Watergate complex on the banks of the Potomac River. For the next few weeks, through early October, artists’ interpretations of the patron of all who work too hard and rest too little will be on display in the Dadian Gallery and at the Watergate. Since the Watergate part of the show doesn’t open until September 7, I will have to wait to see it before I can say anything about what  gallery owner Dale Johnson has put together. Today, I will just say “congratulations” to Dadian Gallery curator Trudi Ludwig Johnson (I don’t think Trudi and Dale are related!) for this group of strange and wonderful embodiments of our collective fatigue.

As much as I would like to write about every single piece in the show, I will show you only one more piece, since I hope to entice you to come and see the rest for yourself. Perhaps the loveliest, and certainly the most enigmatic, is Helen Zughaib’s Veil of Dreams. In 2005, the Dadian Gallery exhibited Helen’s poignant, precise, and vibrant paintings exploring her father’s stories. As the curator of that show, I wrote

Helen Zughaib’s complex, jewel-like, gouache-on-board paintings, selected from her series, Stories My Father Told Me, reveal a world of memories and dreams in which horses and cattle graze near old men telling stories, maidens bear water jugs on their heads, and children carry candles as tall as they are in the Palm Sunday procession. The traditions and customs of this world, that of Orthodox Christian Arabs, are unfamiliar to most Americans, but are the stuff of Zughaib’s own childhood memories as well as her father’s tales. The flattened perspective and dense patterning of these narrative images remind the viewer of Persian miniatures or magic carpets, evoking a sense of loss that colors the bright, joyful sweetness with sorrow. [http://www.luceartsandreligion.org/gallery/2004-2005/memoryandstory.htm]

Helen Zughaib,
Veil of Dreams, gouache on board, 2013

Veil of Dreams, like these earlier works, is painted in gouache on board, but is much more restrained. Here, the bright eyes and forehead of woman peek out through a thin scrim, the rest of her body entirely hidden beneath a veil of pink, white, and purple dots. On closer inspection, the veil reveals itself as the flowering branches of a single tree which glows against the flat, black background, and the woman recedes like a mirage or a dream. When I look at it, I think of the phrase “Arab Spring” and all the hopes that sprang up as people all over the Middle East began to protest against tyrants and oppressors, and how many of their dreams have now turned into nightmares. I think also about women who write of feeling empowered rather than oppressed when they wear the veil. One of them is Umema Aimen, who wrote this for the Washington Post blog, She the People:

Hijab, for me, is a way of rejecting the culture that wants to characterize me by the angles and curves of my body…. You see, the whole point of a burqa is to de-sexualize the way people think of me. I do it to defy the male gaze and force people to see me for my intellect and my abilities…. My hijab never stopped me from traveling across the world, or participating in long hiking trips or being a professional at work. My mother covers her entire body, except her hands and feet, but that did not hinder her from becoming a philanthropist and a shrewd businesswoman.["Dear Lady Gaga, 'Burqa" sends the wrong message," Washington Post, August 19, 2013]

For Aimen, the burqa seems to function for Muslim women in the same way a suit does for men. It acts like a neutral uniform, freeing the wearer to think and act without reference to what her body is doing. Of course, not everyone agrees with Aimen, which is part of the power of Veil of Dreams. Who is dreaming here, the woman or those who project their ideas and desires upon her image?  Is she bound by the veil, or does it free her to dream? 

Our Lady of Perpetual Exhaustion has evoked many other powerful, enigmatic images that raise equally perplexing questions about women’s roles and activities, and about how all of us, men and women alike, worship at her shrine. If you cannot get here to see the show, read about it on our web page and we’ll post some photos in our Flickr gallery soon. 

Saving the World

"I Love Typography" by Zachary
courtesy of http://ilovetypography.com/love/

Every month, I receive an email that asks nothing of me but rather brings me a very quiet, intellectual kind of joy. As those who know me well can attest, I love words and all the things that make them sing – not just poetry and elegant prose, but also punctuation, grammar, spelling, and that most subtle yet necessary of arts, typography. So when I receive my monthly reminder to visit the Chicago Manual of Style’s Q&A page, I eagerly anticipate a pleasant quarter hour reading the pithy, witty, informative replies to questions addressed to the manuscript editing department at the University of Chicago Press.

About a year ago, CMOS Online added a new feature called Shop Talk, which features interviews with copy editors, translators, indexers, and other people whose love of language helps the rest of us learn to be better writers. Yesterday, Shop Talk introduced Sara Bader, whose website Quotenik not only provides memorable quotations on a variety of subjects, but verifies their provenance. I wish I had known about Quotenik when I was writing my book. It would have saved me hours of sleuthing!

Today, however, Quotenik gave me something even more precious than accurate attributions. It gave me a poem that I can hug to my heart whenever I doubt that art is a worthy calling. Many artists, myself included, secretly fear that the hours we spend in the studio, rehearsal hall, or writing desk are a selfish indulgence, that the time we spend honing our craft and exploring our visions should instead be given to volunteering at a shelter for homeless people or marching in rallies for or against some political cause. In addition to worrying whether whatever we are making is any good, we often are beset with the fear that we are wasting time and resources that would be better spent doing something more obviously useful.


So it was with relief that I read Steven Heighton’s poem, “Some Other Just Ones”, subtitled “a footnote to Borges” as the March 23 entry on the Quotenik blog. I want to respect the author’s copyright, so I will not repost the entire poem. Instead, I will simply thank him, as well as Sara Bader, for this reminder of the delight that rises in my body like hope whenever I, like the poet, see “precious obscurios—pomegranate spoons, conductors batons, harpsichord tuning hammers, War of 1812 re-enactors’ ramrods, hand-cranks for hurdy-gurdies” or hear someone play the banjo with skill and heart. In Heighton’s evocative listing of the small moments that make life worth living, each carefully-chosen word sings the praises of those whose willingness to give themselves fully to the task at hand are, without knowing it, saving the world.

Peace and Goodness at the Portiuncula Guild

Last week, printmaker Peggy Parker and I attended the opening reception for the Portiuncula Guild. Located in the small town of Bedford, Virginia, the Guild is a community gallery and a meeting place for artists who are working at the intersection of faith, spirituality, and creative expression. It is also the site of production studios for Mitchell Bond’s fused glass and Patrick Ellis’ liturgical and devotional art. As the guild website says,

The word portiuncula (Latin for little portion and pronounced port-see-UNcle-uh) comes from a nickname of a simple church that St. Francis rebuilt with his early followers. St. Francis loved and cherished this little church because it symbolized both the simplicity of lifestyle he wanted to model for his followers, as well as the healing power of shared work and community. This little church became the birthplace of the Franciscan movement. (http://portiunculaguild.com/1/category/all/1.html)

Presence, 2013, acrylic and copper on panel.

At this first exhibition, entitled Pax et Bonum (Peace and Goodness), most of the works were by local artists (including Patrick and Mitchell, of course), with a smattering of pieces by their friends from other places. It was fun to catch up with textile artist Celeste Lauritsen and her woodworker husband Jim, whose Tree of Life Studios are located in Gettysburg;  and to see the delightful work of Mickey McGrath, even though he couldn't be there himself. In addition to Peggy's visual meditation on the Canticle of Saint Francis, and my own painting juxtaposing the wounded hand of Christ with the hand of the saint bearing a similar mark, there were many images of Saint Francis himself, others of Brother Sun and Sister Moon, and still others that were less specific but nonetheless evocative of the saint’s love of God and of God’s good creation. I wish that I had thought to take some photos, or to write down a list of the artists, but I was having too good a time taking it all in – looking at the art, connecting with old friends, and trying to remember which person had made which painting or drawing or sculpture.

Surrounded with images watered by the deep springs of a common story, and by people laughing and talking and enjoying whatever was offered, the gathering was what the church is meant to be – a foretaste of heaven. From time to time, I was tempted to put on my art-professional hat and critique the works according to the standards of the international art world, but, I am glad to report, I resisted that temptation. Instead, I reveled in the fact that so many people were gathered to celebrate and support one another in their quest to be faithful to their calling as artists and as persons of faith. With a place to gather and to share what we make, we learn from one another, honing our craft and our vision not in the spirit of competition, but rather in the midst of caring community. I like to think that Saint Francis would have been proud.

Life Stories

preparation for "My Soul Look Back and Wonder"
(photo courtesy The Theatre Lab)

Although it seems like a lifetime away, just three short weeks ago I was at a reception in Antigua, Guatemala, where one of my fellow pilgrims mentioned her connection to the Theater Lab, an important school for actors here in Washington, DC. As she began describing an event called "My Soul Look Back and Wonder" at the Kennedy Center last year, in which women from the N Street Village shelter presented monologues drawn from their own struggles with homelessness, addiction, and other issues, I said, “I wrote about that in my book, Sanctifying Art!” It was just a short reference, one of many ways I described in the chapter called “Art and the Need of the World” in which the arts help people who feel hopeless and helpless find their way towards dignity and hope.

Last night, I was privileged to join my friend and a whole lot of other people at a screening of clips documenting The Theatre Lab’s work with at-risk and incarcerated young people, senior citizens, children with physical and developmental challenges, and homeless women in recovery. With tears in my eyes, I wholeheartedly joined the overwhelming applause at the end of each segment, awed by the courage, strength, and discipline of the artists who facilitate the Life Stories workshops and of the participants who share their stories and learn how to turn them into art.

a moment from "My Soul Look Back and Wonder"
(photo courtesy The Theatre Lab)

In introducing the video clips, The Theatre Lab founders Deb Gottesman and Buzz Mauro explained that each workshop meets weekly over the course of fourteen weeks. During that time, participants learn to turn the unformed stories of their lives into scripts, and gain the acting skills to turn those scripts into moving, accomplished monologues which they perform not only for one another but for appreciative audiences of family, friends, and sometimes strangers. And because live performance – as wonderful as it is – is an ephemeral art, the entire process is documented on video, so that participants can have something tangible to take away with them, to show other people what they accomplished.

In the panel discussion that followed the screenings, Thomas Workman, an actor, drama teacher, and director who has been working with The Theatre Lab for the past five years, observed that the goal is not theater, but getting to the important stories. Nonetheless, it is the process, the learning, the disciplined engagement over time that changes lives. As incarcerated young men find their voices in drumming, dancing, and telling their stories poetically, they begin to imagine themselves into a future in which violence, drugs, and crime are less interesting than making music with others and helping to create caring, supportive communities in which others like themselves can thrive. As middle-school children act out the stories of teen-aged angst told by people 60 or 70 years their senior, both the young people and the elders find out that they are not so different after all. As women who have lost homes, families, and self-respect to the ravages of addiction learn the difference between raw emotion and carefully crafted performance, patiently try out different approaches to their material, and keep starting over when they forget their lines, they gain the confidence to continue their education, embark on careers they had never before had been able to pursue, to recover dreams that they had forgotten they had.

Life Stories Intergenerational Program
(photo courtesy The Theatre Lab)

As inspired as I was by every performance I saw, every story I heard, I was even more heartened when Buzz Mauro said, “You cannot learn this overnight.” Too often, the arts are overlooked as serious instruments of social change as well as vehicles of personal redemption. Instead of receiving the recognition that persistent, disciplined engagement over time is the only way to accomplish anything, the arts are too often relegated to some small corner of time, either treated as mere entertainment or expected to perform miracles with no funding and no long-term commitment. As the Life Stories workshops show, inviting ordinary people to develop their latent talent into genuine skills can open hearts and change lives. That’s what we try to do here at the Center for the Arts and Religion. That’s what I hope my students will take away from their courses in the arts at Wesley Theological Seminary. I feel as though I have found kindred spirits at The Theatre Lab, thanks to my friend and a chance conversation in an unexpected place.

Sanctifying Art, hot off the press!

Here it is, hot of the press! I can't quite believe it, even now, but a copy of my new book, Sanctifying Art: Inviting Conversation between Artists, Theologians, and the Church, is on my desk, looking about as beautiful as I could ever have imagined! I am beyond grateful to my editor, Chris Spinks, who shepherded the project and patiently answered all my questions; to the designer, Amelia Reising,who used my painting, Jesus Dies on the Cross, as the centerpiece of the gorgeous cover; to typesetter Heather Carraher, who cheerfully made changes even after what should have been the last minute; to James Stock, who personally phoned me to let me know that copies were on their way much sooner than I expected; and to everyone else at Wipf&Stock who helped make this book a reality.

Sanctifying Art grew out of my sense of a disjuncture between the ways that many theologians, pastors, and other people in churches talked about the arts; and the ways that painters, sculptors, musicians, actors, writers, and other artists understood their own processes and products. It really began with the following story:

About twenty years ago, I was installing a rather complicated piece of art in a small church. There I was, teetering on a ladder, trying to reach a pole across a six-foot gap without dropping the linked pieces of copper that were suspended from it. Suddenly, a member of the congregation walked by, saying, “Oh, I had no idea that art was so physical!”

For my part, I had no idea that anyone could have thought otherwise. From the prehistoric painters drawing by uncertain firelight deep in the caves at Alta Mira; to Michelangelo aiming hammer blows at blocks of marble to force them to release the sculpture held captive within; every printmaker who ends each day with cramping hands and aching back after endless hours of bending over a work table, painstakingly chiseling fine lines into a hardwood block; every potter who stays up all night to tend the kiln, every muralist who scrambles up and down scaffolding to get a better view of the day’s work, every dancer who comes to the final act of a ballet with bleeding toes, and every guitarist who practices for hours despite the blistered fingers and throbbing shoulders, artists have always grappled with the sheer physicality of what they do.

For the church member who marveled at my balancing act, however, art was not physical, but spiritual. Art, she believed, was something ethereal, mysterious, sacred, a way of apprehending the holy. Art, she seemed to think, was made in an instant, a painting breathed onto the canvas, a sculpture formed by thought alone, with no effort or compromise between the moment of inspiration and its realization as object. Art, for her, was something set apart, an experience outside of normal life, a divine gift unsullied by human labor.  

This book is for anyone who, like my friend, believes that art is simply a mysterious gift rather than the result of conscious thought and physical labor. It is also my attempt to answer the twin questions, What is good art? and What is art good for? For artists, I offer a challenge to work collaboratively with others, sharing leadership, skills, and ideas freely and fluidly. For the church, I offer some ways to recover our primal relationship with artists and the arts, for understanding symbol and metaphor as a means for telling the truth about human life and the life of God. If you want to read more, Sanctifying Art is available right now on the Wipf&Stock website.