Fear of goodness

It is one of those strange, irrational human behaviors. The looking into the rearview mirror, expecting to see the front end of a MAC truck ready to ram into your backside, right when the view in front is breathtaking. More than that, it is a vista sought after for years and finally when the chance to view it arrives, fear of a disaster looms, marring the longed for event. Fear is not so much the problem, but rather the cause for doubting the blessing that lies ahead, and opening up the possibility of self sabotage. We are so often our worst enemy. We seek out what is best and when it comes, we suspect it will be taken away, so we undo the gift in the name of fear. To receive the abundance that comes after years of travail is sometimes more difficult than we can predict. Life is best lived open-handed, ready to give and to receive.

Time and momments

Too many days have slipped away in the connected momments of interaction. Conversations, meals, critiques and lectures have filled the past four weeks. The space to write was lost in the rich personal flood of realationships deepened and new born. This is but a brief window of a momment to reflect on the recent space of time.

Re-enchantment of hope

Art made with a sense of hope provides a potent factor at the deepest levels of an artist's consciousness, since hope radically alters one's inner intention and feeling of purpose. (Gablik, 1991) Now may the God of all hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you will abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. (Letter to the Christians in Rome 15:13) v. to have a wish for something to be true. n. a feeling that something desirable is likely to happen. n (archaic) a feeling of trust.

As people of faith, we have hope in the Divine, we have hope in the power of goodness, we have hope in the positive transformation of people's lives, we have hope in a beter future and a more fulfilled present.

As artists, we have hope that our work will make a difference, we have hope that the time in our studios brings honor to the God we serve, we have hope that the success we experience rests in the hands of someone greater than ourselves, we have hope that a life spent in service to the materials and people of art is of value.

Hope.

Blindness in the midst

It was at the end a very difficult day that clarity struck with a vengeance. The moment when the day could have shifted out of hyperdrive and into a calm flow of work that both invigorated and "made a difference." The light shown upon the email like it was radiant with warning and advice. The words spoke of acceptance and embracing the results of the machine of command that grinds onward in spite of what may be right or fair. The bigger picture of institutional culture moves forward like a steam roller over voices of quiet and distressed concern. Taking a deep breadth of remorse and planning out next steps focused on the larger engagement of interactions brings some relief from the blindness. Seeing clearly allows for a different future and a letting go of the past, not in defeat, but rather with a learned understanding of the signs to look for right before the bicycle leans too far and the ground sweeps up to meet me.

Soul restoration

Fixing things up, repairing the damage, bringing it back to life, this is the work of restoration. How do you go about restoring the soul? The heart of our spirit is like a walled secret garden in need of our attention. Vines grow wild, flower beds are filled with weeds, the path is strewn with the leaf litter of many seasons. Where do you start? Clean up is a way into the work, a little raking here and sweeping there, pull a weed or two, find the beautiful stonework beneath the overgrowth. Each action fuels the next. Discoveries of forgotten toys, lost in childhood and benches uncovered with views of the sky reappearing. Pathways are cleared and patterns re-emerge. Our soul is a place of refuge as boundary walls and gates protect us from unwanted intrusions. A well-tended garden anchors us in the midst of life's chaos.

Clay under my fingernails

It is only when my hands touch clay that my mind is quiet. The voices of the day, the week, the year, those that seem to never stop echoing down from a distant past, go still. They all recede to a level I cannot hear and with permanent hearing damage, that is not so far as I would like. And in that absence of verbal assault, I can think, I can rest, I can become one with an earthen material of ancient origin. It is not unlike sleep, but in the studio, I get to experience life without the need for dreams. I become the dream, the soft rise of inspiration from the unconscious layers of my mind, embedded with the spirit. I have no dealines, no emails, no demands of time or appointments. Life is rich and full in a timeless state of connection with the matertial and the divine.

Breaking the dam

A name, a sound, a texture seen in a light cast by a late afternoon sun. These are what it takes. The unexpected, the moment of insight after scales have fallen with the dried mud made from spittle and dust. Yes, I have been blind these past few months, unable to see words worth writing, thoughts worth sharing, ideas worth investigating. For a reason unknown to me, I had to write today, tonight, I cannot sleep until I find new words, new phrases, new reasons to take the time to shape the invisible language of thoughts. A smell not easily indentified, waifs through the open door to the upper porch. The moon has not yet risen, the heat lingers from the new summer. There is a kind of simple release in the connecting of words. It is a way of health, a path down which I have not traveled in many weeks. I feel the damage from negligence, from ignoring the pain, from the damed up silence leaking through the cracked reservoir. It is like tears falling in rain, unnoticed in the flood, but stinging like alchohol as they squeeze out from under closed lids. Unseen: the way of sadness. A new sculpture finishing in the studio, the head upturned, blackened nose and mouth with its stain running down to the chest. The ladder made of damaged branches tied with twine not strong enough to hold. A piece of the lingering sadness that moves at the deepest levels of the unconscience. At the still point of the turning world, there the dance is. Ever still and in stillness ever moving. The way.