The space in between

There is a distance between us, a gap that is invisible to the casual observer. The space between two people and the space between two buildings and the space between an artwork and a viewer and the space between an artist and their materials and the space between the physical and the divine and the space between the sensuous stuff of life and the rational intellect of our minds. It is in this place that great questions are formed, philosophy has its way, art of all kinds is birthed and religion finds a home. When we expect an answer that ends the questions we leave the gap and move on. So many do not even know that the gap is waiting for them to be enriched by the struggle for meaning, challenged by the transcendent nature of meeting the other in the space that lies in between.

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.

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.

Word power

"In the beginning Elohim bara(ed)". A simple phrase. Like all stories, they tend to start at the beginning. And in that part of this story, God created (but the word for God here is plural). So what does it mean for there to be a plural God creating? The creative act has many elements: the idea, the editing, the material choices, the "hands on" activity, the critique, the reworking, the stepping back and evaluating the progress, the interaction with the work, and the final "it is finished" and then the resting after the work. Is this the pluralistic work of a mutifaceted God? The word bara, implies intense or loud creative power. The sound comes up from the diaphram with strength, latent with expectation. And then this multi-dimensional being is interested in joining with us in our creativity. Let us bara with Elohim.

What defines us?

As I have been contemplating shadows this week, I was struck by the awareness that without shadows we lose our defining visual realities. Imagine a simple line drawing of a smiley face, now think of a black and white photograph of someone's face. What is the difference? Both have rounded outer edges, a nose, eyes, and mouth, but the photograph has value, in art that means gradation of black to grays to white. It is this shadowing that shows the textural structure of our faces, the distinguishing shapes that allow us to identify each other. We move from generic cartoon images to idividuals with unique features that encase our personhood. It is the tension between light and shadow that brings out the humanity we all share in. The same basic elements in diverse arrangements, exposed by the light and defined by the areas of shadow.

The color of gray

Like the expectations of grade-school teachers, (such as: trees are brown and leaves are green, sky is blue, apples are red and so forth) we have been taught that shadows are gray. A cast shadow is caused by the blocking of the most direct rays of light. The graying effect is from the indirect light that is present within the shadowed area. Without light, there are no shadows, only absolute blackness. So the shadow is filled with light at a lesser intensity than the areas in direct path of the light source, allowing them to be the color of the surface the shadow is resting on, only muted by the blocking object. The shadow becomes the blending of the (often distorted) shape of the object casting the shadow and the color, texture and shape of the surface that catches the shadow. So the shadow is a blend of diferent "things." Just like God is plural, (not referencing the trinity, but the Genesis use of the word we translate as God) Elohim, which conotates the multidimensionality of God. He is the light source, he is found in the things that catch the light and in the shadows that blend the object, the light and the surface holding the shadow. Shadows show us the complexity of the simple, the profound of the obvious and the richness of the visual world we so often neglect to carefully observe.