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.