Tea with Kali

 The Paper People are leaving the gallery today, making way for an invitational group show, BLACK.WHITE.REaD: Journey Through the Maze, guest curated by Cecilia Rossey.  But I couldn’t let all of Rosemary Markowski’s remarkable papier-mâché sculptures get away, so At the Table 2 - Tea with Kali is now installed on top of my filing cabinet, where I can see it out of the corner of my eye as I sit at my desk.

At a mere 12.5h x 12.5w x 5d, the piece occupies a psychic space that is much larger than its objective dimensions. A very proper-looking woman with cropped, brown hair and a sad yet quizzical expression on her face sits on a rickety chair, holding a red tea cup. At the other end of the table sits another woman, this one with blue skin, long unkempt hair, and four arms. Between them, the table, spread with a patterned cloth, holds a teapot, another cup, a plate of cookies, and a somewhat bewildered-looking male head. Kali’s tongue, which sticks out of her mouth nearly to her chin, is the same bright red as the tea cups, her eyes glare fiercely beneath glowering brows, and her necklace of skulls glitters against her bare, blue skin. One of her hands rests lightly on the head, two others brandish a sword, a spear, and the fourth makes a gesture which might be a fist but might also be a sign of blessing.

The fearsome Kali is a Hindu deity that is sometimes referred to as the Dark Mother. As she sits across the table from her bemused companion, she seems to me to be the embodiment of that part of myself that sometimes gets out of control with anger. It is said that Kali was trying to kill the forces of evil, but got so carried away that she almost didn’t notice that she was destroying everything around her. When her consort Shiva threw himself under her feet, she was so astonished that she stuck out her tongue and stopped her rampage.

I don’t really know Rosemary Markowski, having only met her once when she came to the gallery to give and artist’s talk, so I can’t really say if this sculpture is autobiographical. What I can say is that she knows a lot about human nature, and about the need we all have to make peace with the unpredictable wildness that dwells within even the most mild-mannered exterior. As I look at this small sculpture, it reminds me to welcome the passion that fuels my life, even though it sometimes feels dangerous. To have Tea with Kali is to welcome her to my table, to recognize that Kali’s upraised hand is not a threat, but rather a gesture that says, “Do not be afraid.”

Boundaries and Borders

I continue to think about the boundaries between art, ritual, and ordinary life. When does ordinary walking turn into a procession? When does a friendly wave turn into a dance? What is the difference between my solitary breakfast, dinner with friends, and Holy Communion? Can art that seems to mock religion nonetheless be holy?

In the Temple of Confessions, performance artists Guillermo Gómez-Peña and Roberto Sifuentes turned an art gallery into a place where people confessed their darkest fears about race, ethnicity, identity, and gender. Using American flags, images and objects derived from popular culture, and symbols evoking both Catholic worship and shamanistic practice, they created a space that was at once sacred and profane. Within that space, they and their collaborators enacted rituals with over-the-top theatricality, using costumes and props that were meant to disturb and provoke unwary gallery-goers into thinking about such loaded subjects as immigration, bigotry, and exploitation.

In a scenario called “Eating the Last Immigrant,” Gómez-Peña and his collaborators invite gallery-goers to eat a life-sized effigy made of gelatin. In this parody of the communion rite, the effects of political borders on everything from economic prospects to family relationships and personal identity are brought into sharp relief. In the video documenting the event at the Corcoran Gallery, one can see people shaking their heads when offered a small dish of dessert, unsure whether eating the dessert implicates them further as clueless devourers of another culture’s goods, or brings them into communion with Gómez-Peña and his group of holy fools.

Exploring of the edges where art, ritual, and everyday life coincide raises questions for me about how changing our rituals might change our relationship with one another, with the world in which we live, even with God. What if we didn’t keep Communion safely within the boundaries of our churches, but brought it out into the wildness of our everyday lives? What if we began every meal with remembering what Jesus said to his friends as he broke bread and passed a cup of wine from hand to hand? What if every time we ate and drank, we did so in remembrance of the One who calls us to be the living Body of Christ on earth?

Is it Ritual or is it Art?

a makeshift shrine for a ritual of remembering

This morning dawned clear and cool. The sky was the same bright, clear blue that it was on that morning eleven years ago, when we were all shocked out of our morning routines by death and destruction. On that terrible morning, I was unable to think about art. All I could think about was the horror of the moment, as I sat watching the same awful images being played over and over on the television.

Today in chapel, we remembered together. We prayed for those whose lives were forever changed, sang of God’s healing power, and received the bread and cup as tangible tokens of the love of Christ. In the readings from Scripture and in the sermon, we were reminded that death and destruction have always been part of the human story, that God has seen it all before.

Later, in my class on art, ritual, and symbol, we enacted a ritual described by Ronald Grimes in his book, Rite out of Place: Ritual, Media, and the Arts. At first, the students seemed a bit self-conscious, as if we were just play-acting rather than participating in something real. Very quickly, however, they entered into what had become a space made sacred by a lighted candle, a dish of small stones, a vial of clear water, and a single, white rose. One student lifted the rose towards the group as he read the verse,

This is living. . . but not for long
may its short life

and ours

enliven the planet.

As he finished speaking, he pulled off a petal, allowing it to drop gently onto the cloth that defined the make-shift shrine. The unexpected snap as the petal broke off from its stem seemed very loud in the silence, underscoring the fragility of all life.

Sanctifying Art

The semester is off to a new start this week, and I am back with good news. I spent the summer virtually attached to my computer, and finished the book. And, just because God likes to laugh, just as I was writing the last few words of the last chapter, and all worried about what I would do if I didn’t have a publisher, I received an offer of publication from Wipf & Stock, under their Cascade Books imprint.

The book is called Sanctifying Art: An Invitation to Conversation Between Artists, Theologians, and the Church. As you know if you have been following this blog at all, or have ever heard me talk about art and the church, I have often been surprised and dismayed by the unexamined attitudes and assumptions that the church holds about how artists think and how art functions in human life. In this book, I have tried to investigate these attitudes and tie them to concrete examples, hoping to demystify art—to bring art down to earth, where theologians, pastors, and ordinary Christians can wrestle with its meanings, participate in its processes, and understand its uses.

Needless to say, I am beyond excited to know that the book is on its way. I still have some editing and formatting to do, and then there is a long process one the publisher has it in hand, but I should have a physical book in hand sometime in the spring. Expect to hear me celebrating.

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.