Are you only as good as your last piece?

The question as asked in Gloria Dean's Blog is interesting to think about, but I believe this is question misses the true point of making art. Art is not about our own assessments of good and bad, it's about the work's relationship to world and its viewers. It is next to impossible for an artist to judge the true purpose or quality of their own work.

Case in point, several years ago I painted a piece about the Binding of Isaac. It is the moment Isaac hands are bound by his father for his sacrifice. The decision to paint the rope tying around his hands as actual Hebrew words from the Bible was automatic. I went through a period of illness, the painting lay abandoned, then judged by me as not so hot. Some time later I had the painting in a gallery and a woman in a wheelchair came in. She was in an almost reclining position. She had oxygen pumped to her nose, and she seem to only have movement in her arms and head. Her wheelchair was electric and she was determined to get into the gallery by herself. She wasn't going to be bound by her illness. I watched her struggle as she finally made it in, immediately drawn to my painting. I could see something in her body language shift as she looked at it.She told me part of her story: she was an ultra-orthodox Jew who had left her faith. Something out the Hebrew lettering and the image spoke to her about her illness. I don't think I've ever had someone understand my own work on a level so much deeper than my own understanding before. By seeing her reaction I received new meaning for the painting which helped me understand my own illness. Clearly, I had made this work for her and never known it. She said it helped to ease her. Sometimes we must surrender to our bonds to achieve freedom.By judging our own work & keeping locked away, we not only block ourselves but block the Divine. Our paintings and works of art can be portals for the creative flow of healing energy into the world. If we are truly creating, it's not coming from us, but through us. We are the filter through which light can pour. A filter is necessary for otherwise, the light would blind us. This is an awesome gift and responsibility- the responsibility not to judge. Even a piece, which by traditional artistic standards may not be great, may have a greater purpose. We don't and can't know. It's up to use to be humble enough to allow the process to work through us.

Privacy and the Artist

Privacy has always been a big concern for me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to keep private. I’m sitting in a café (Café Meow in Maplewood) and I just told a friend of mine that my mother was a comedian when I was growing up. I spent my childhood sitting in smoky nightclubs hearing my mom joke about me and her crotchless underpants. My friend was amazed. She had no idea.

This blog is a challenge for me, because I’m not used to sharing my life or my thoughts in such a direct way. When I posted my last entry, a picture of a sculpture in progress, I had a moment of vertigo. I think, in fact, it takes a lot of energy to hide my life from view. Right now, I’d rather spend that energy living. I also think that when your goal is to surrender into the creative flow of the Divine, you by definition must give up such rigid control of your life.

New Sculpture

Sculpture in process

I'm working on a new series of sculptures: here's a photo in process:I'm planning to do a series of women in different poses and then crack them open like eggs. I will fill their insides with cobalt blue, mimicking in coarse material form, the Divine light of creativity. It's going to be a lot of fun to work on.The next sculpture is going to be a pregnant woman laying on her back....

Plotinus

I'm deep into my copy of the Essential Plotinus.

This quote from "Contemplation" says everything to me about what it means to make art:

Were one to ask Nature why it produces, it might-if willing-thus reply:"You should never have put the question. Silently, as I am silent and little given to talk, you should have tried to understand...that what comes to be is the object of my silent contemplation: mine is a contemplative nature. The contemplative in me produces the object contemplated much as geometricians draw their figures while contemplating. I do not draw. But, contemplating, I drop within me the lines constitutive of bodily forms. Within me I preserve traces of my source that brought me into being. They too were born of contemplation and without action on their own part gave birth to me.

Plotinus is a genius, obviously! He describes so perfectly how an artist can go inside to find and connect with those "traces" of our Divine Source. By contemplating (observing & being with) these traces we automatically tap into them, resonate with their fundamentally generative nature. Creativity pours forth "without action". This means without forcing it, naturally without pain or struggle. This is probably anathema. Artists are supposed to suffer, how can you be an artist with out pain? This model of creativity opens the possibility of creation in a new way. The journey inside is not paddling up river, it's plugging in.More on Plotinus later...

Lauren Ari, Artist

Lauren Ari Atomized Home

If you're in San Fransisco on October 26, check out the De Young Museum’s opening of The Diane and Sandy Besser Collection from 5:30 to 8:00 pm. One of my favorite artists, Lauren Ari, has work in the collection.Lauren works on the pages of a ninety year old Funk and Wagnell’s dictionary. It's delightful how the words peek through at critical points in the painting. She then sculpts what she has painted. To me this is an utterly fascinating concept. Her work reminds me of the process of energy forming into matter. Language (symbolized by the dictionary page) creates a channel, a form, for energy to enter into this word. Lauren's work charts how, from this humble beginning, creative energy rushes forth into the world as a dynamic living force. First, she captures the energy, snaps it almost like a photo might be taken, in her expressive paintings. Then it comes to rest fully formed, solid and real, in her jewel-like sculptures.

Last night's dream

If you ever wondered what artists dream about:I dreamed I gave birth to twins but they were lost. Panicking, I searched and they were found: two sculptures of the Madonna in plaster(styled like I used to make for altars). Worried that they would die from malnutrition, I put the sculptures to my breasts and fed them with rich milk the consistency of thick plaster. Then, they were happy.

What does this dream mean? The work of artists feed the Divine presence on earth. Art is a doorway between heaven an earth. It is imperative for artists of all types (you know who you are...) to create. So, I'm off to work hoping to open that door...

Re-entry

Grace by Sybil Archibald

Making art is an act of spiritual surrender. It is stepping out of the way to observe while the natural creative process flows through. For the past 10 years I have tried to control the outcome of my art. No more. I am embarking on a great adventure with no known outcome. The journey back inside, tracing the roots of my creativity to their source, the fundamentally generative nature of the Divine.