Moving, as we are, from the fossil age into the solar age, everything around us seems subject to tumult. We witness nearly daily the implosions of our institutions and the erosion of our perceived stability. Ours is a balancing act of desires for both change and equilibrium within a world in constant flux, and balance requires fierce focus. Upon what…? We can and must learn from the past, but we can only be inspired by the future –i.e. a vision that combines elements of past and present to create wholly new ideas, perspectives, sensations, and approaches. Such is the everyday work of artists.
Art is witness and manifestation both. Its power is born of the marriage of extremes. Reinvention is the artist’s métier; creativity is our way of functioning. We are practiced at shaping new form out of fragments, of drawing new reality out of pure imagination. We strip, edit, combine, reduce, enlarge, shape, and reshape. We rely on instinct as much, if not more, than on critical, analytical, or linear processes. We naturally think outside the box because most of the time we’re not even aware of the box. We value fluidity over order, possibility over authority. We are inherently collaborative, and we recognize change as opportunity. Our passion is transformation. Our commitment is to “see anew.” In this way, art is a spiritual undertaking, for as artists, we are constantly remaking Creation.
Anything born of creativity is a devotion. In making art, in surrendering reliance on intellect and habits of ego, we transform ourselves and, thereby, as quantum physics tells us, ALL Creation. The spiritual aspects of art take us beyond historical, geographical, and cultural boundaries. They reveal the illusion of catastrophe and dispel the paralysis of fear.
In his article, “Desperately Painting the Plague,” (The New York Times, July 29, 2005. p. B25) Holland Carter wrote, “Pandemics of one kind or another have always terrorized human history. And where science has been helpless and politics mute, religion and art have responded…. Christian ‘high art’, when considered as devotional icons rather than as old master monuments, are viewed from an existential rather than a doctrinal or sociopolitical perspective; through the eyes of a believer for whom a picture of the Virgin is a moral lesson and an emotional encounter, a culture’s cry of pain, before it is a Tiepolo or a Tintoretto. …. the focus is not on the comparative quality of objects or styles, but on intangible elements that science tends to be shy of: how art provokes emotion and conveys belief, and how a certain kind of art, at a certain time, gave certain people who felt the earth had been swept away beneath them a place to stand.”
Taped to my computer is the following quote from A Course in Miracles (Lesson 70): “My salvation comes from me. Nothing outside of me can hold me back. Within me is the world’s salvation and my own.” With that reminder, I consistently reset my ragged inner compass, even as I go in search of my savage self, the fearless Mother/warrior needed to look straight through the ego to the beauty/peace/security inside. Fierce focus and a savage self. Yes, these are as much the artist’s instrument as contemplation, study, and devotion. And without a savage self, the artist cannot surrender the inappropriate or outmoded images endlessly spewed by that ubiquitous constellation of family, religion, and culture.
The artist’s stare is a metaphysical tool, for pure observation is transformation’s fuel. Quantum physics speaks of the effect at an energetic level of the act of observation on the object of observation. Once the observation is tainted with judgment, sentiment, or opinion, the evolution is stymied.
Art is the illustrated story of our humanity, and we are that story’s creators.. Let the nation turn to its most effective illuminators to make our aspirations recognizable. Artists are practiced at creating and deciphering; we are at ease in right-brained or metaphysical states of mind (from which visionary thinking emanates). We understand how fiction, not fact, is the most powerful agent of transformation.
Science, logic, and linear or left-brained pursuits have their value in the objective weighing of fact and detail. They serve best when put to use in service of the imagination, for no calculation surpasses in power or effectiveness supremely articulated passion.
Lasting change occurs not in a static environment or by varying a theme, but as a result of challenging our behaviors and perceptions to recognize another way of being. Faced daily with reports of our perpetual and ubiquitous crises, I wait with ever growing impatience for this country’s national call for artists. Though our president was elected on a platform of promised change, the imperative for innovation seems buried under our campaign of resurrection through repair. When, I wonder every day, will we ever put our faith (and money, energy, and determination,) into the skilled and blessed hands of our visionaries?
