–Nothing happens? Or has everything happened,
and are we standing now, quietly, in the new life?
-Juan Ramon Jimenez (Trans. Robert Bly)

Hello everyone! It’s been a while and I’ve missed you. My deep thanks to everyone who reached out to me in my absence, especially Jan & Karen.

I’ve been on a deep journey inside, a sort of excavation to make more space in my rough earth vessel for Light to enter. When I posted my picture here, it was such an overwhelming experience for me that I needed to withdraw to assimilate the massive spiritual change that act caused. I have lain silent and still, like the ocean, between waves gathering my energy, basking in the Light, in so it may rush forth again into the world.

That energy is now rushing into a series of sculptures of mystics from diverse religious traditions. I feel alive with new purpose in this work, as if I have touched something very deep within myself. Hildegard of Bingen & the pregnant Virgin Mary are complete while St. Francis is 95% of the way done and St Theresa of Avila is at about the halfway point. I plan Moses de Leon, Thomas Merton, John Muir, St. John of the Cross, Black Elk, & Meister Eckhart among others. If you have any suggestions, please let me know.

Photos do these sculptures justice, so I have put together some videos. These are my first try with videos and I hope you like them! (Constructive criticism welcome…)

The second video is of the pregnant Virgin Mary. To me, she represents the ideal we can only strive to reach, the artist as a perfect vessel for Divine Creativity.

Thanks for viewing. Talk to you again soon.

My best to you.

Related posts:

1. On Process, Sculptures and Kindness
2. The Virgin Mary as Artist’s Exemplar
3. The Pregnant Virgin Mary

Clays are extraordinary, layered, crystal structures which have, built into them, what amounts almost to an innate tendency to evolve…Clay has plans.
-Lyall Watson, from An Introduction to Clay Colloid Chemistry

I started as an artist at the age of 6 in clay. The altars I built from clay I dug directly out of the earth are some of the most satisfying pieces of my career. There is an innate connection between God and earth. Clay is a meeting place, a doorway to Heaven.

I have been an avid gardener for years. I began to garden for the fragrance and color of flowers but now I garden for soil. It is easy to miss the Divine is the humble trappings of dirt. There is something about soil that is just afire with the light of God. It is the lowliest of things, we tread on it, ignore it, sweep it away, and yet it sustains us all. The soil pulses with life that we cannot or will not see. There is no more satisfying feeling than seeing what appears to be a barren, wormless plot of land transform into a teaming mecca of life.

Working with clay gives me the same satisfaction. Clay itself is very dense, like the material word itself. It takes effort to move it and to see in it the true reflection of the Divine. And yet it is responsive. There is something in clay that wants to grow and transform and which responds to that same impulse within the artist. Clay is a partner in the creative act, not a submissive servant.

In the biblical story of the creation of man, God chooses to blow the breath of life into clay to create Adam. I have discussed this from the perspective of the gilder who must use breath, but the clay’s perspective is just as interesting.

That God chose clay to receive his direct kiss, should illuminate the central importance of Earth. By gardening or working with clay we engage the Earth. And if we empty ourselves and enter fully into the present moment something amazing happens. The artist becomes the physical vessel for Divine creative energy, holding it, that it may be translated into, fused with matter. The particular way in which an artist engages matter allows for greater concentrations of Macrocosmic energy to enter the world.

But that is not all. All matter, to a greater or lesser degree has consciousness of its Source. Clay is like a sponge that actively seeks to draw in Divine fecund energy. It and Earth itself has its own active spirituality and deep connection to God.

Contemporary theologian Thomas Berry argues this persuasively.

There is a spiritual capacity in carbon as there is a carbon component functioning in our highest spiritual experience. If some scientists consider that all this is merely a material process, then what they call matter, I call mind, soul, spirit, or consciousness. Possibly it is a question of terminology, since scientists too on occasion use terms that express awe and mystery. Most often, perhaps, they use the expression that some of the natural forms they encounter seem to be “telling them something”.- Thomas Berry, The Great Work: Our Way into the Future, Page: 25

He also says:

“Gardening is an active participation in the deepest mysteries of the universe.”

Medieval theologian St. Thomas Aquinas wrote that

All things love God. All things are united according to friendship to each other and to God.

And mystics such as Teilhard de Chardin and Hildegard of Bingen see it everywhere:

Crimson gleams of Matter, gliding imperceptibly into the
gold of Spirit, ultimately to become transformed into the
incandescence of a universe that is person- and through all of this there blows, animating it and spreading over it a fragrant balm, a zephyr of union- and of the Feminine.

The diaphany of the Divine at the heart of a glowing universe, as I have experienced it through contact with the earth- the divine radiating from depths of blazing matter.
-Teilhard de Chardin

Hildegard of Bingen says:

God’s Word is in all creation, visible and invisible. The WORD is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. All creation is awakened, called, by the resounding melody, God’s invocation of the WORD. This WORD manifests in every creature. Now this is how the spirit is in the flesh–the WORD is indivisible from God.

So let us not discount the importance of our physicality and out Earth in a reckless attempt to find a higher spirituality. Spirit is not up there, it here in every atom and molecule, every glowing and vibrant speck of dust. Let us be present and embrace the bounty God has offered us by entering into the unceasing flow of Divine Creativity on Earth. By embracing the Earth we embrace the Divine.

Related posts:

1. The Spiritual Earth
2. The Virgin Mary as Artist’s Exemplar
3. Creation Spirituality

Oh Sweet Irrational Worship
Wind and a bobwhite
And the afternoon sun.

By ceasing to question the sun
I have become light,

Bird and wind.

My leaves sing.

I am earth, earth

All these lighted things
Grow from my heart.

A tall, spare pine
Stands like the initial of my first
Name when I had one.

When I had a spirit,
When I was on fire
When this valley was
Made out of fresh air
You spoke my name
In naming Your silence:
O sweet, irrational worship!

I am earth, earth

My heart’s love
Bursts with hay and flowers.
I am a lake of blue air
In which my own appointed place
Field and valley
Stand reflected.

I am earth, earth

Out of my grass heart
Rises the bobwhite.

Out of my nameless weeds
His foolish worship.
-Thomas Merton

I had an amazing day at the studio! I was totally inspired by the video I posted yesterday. I realized that there is still a part of that edits my artwork in an effort to please people. I am sensitive to the fact that an image maybe too shocking, too unfinished, too too…. I never understood this before, and I see that I am unconsciously trying to control the way Divine Creativity flows through me.

So talking Vanessa Hildary as my exemplar, I drowned out my judging thoughts. I took other people out of the equation and just worked on a group of clay sketches. Quick and fun and totally, totally freeing. I’ll post some photos soon. I didn’t have my camera with me. I can’t tell you the last time I enjoyed myself so much!

Related posts:

1. Happy Birthday Thomas Merton
2. The Virgin Mary as Artist’s Exemplar
3. On Clay

Next post from the tropics!

Related posts:

1. Hildegard of Bingen Sculpture
2. New Sculpture
3. New Sculpture

As I was leaving for the ceramics studio, everything was covered in ice. It was tremendous. Here are some pictures of my front garden:

Drooping tree

Ice-Coated Tree Berries

Red Twig Dogwood

Sunflower

Related posts:

1. The Value of Artistic Peers
2. Art & Adventure
3. On The Ocean, Sculptures & Videos

Joyful for no reason,
I want to see beyond this existence.

You open your lips, laughing.
I think of a design for that opening.
-Rumi (trans Coleman Barks & John Moyne)

I love that poem.

——————————
Picture of my newest sculpture in progress…

Related posts:

1. Rumi Again
2. Via Negativa in Poetry
3. Rumi, Grey & the Responsiblities of the Light

Related posts:

1. New Sculpture
2. New Sculpture
3. Hildegard of Bingen Sculpture

Today
my life is mirrored in
a morning Glory.
-Arakida Moritake (1473-1549, member of the Shinto priesthood)

Making art is such an adventure. Yesterday at the etching studio I thought my plates were complete but when I printed I was surprised that the images needed so much more work (see draft print below). It’s hard to know until you print, like a mystery unfolding.

Today at the ceramics studio one of my pieces was out of the kiln and ready for glazing. Once you fire your glazed piece there is very little you can do to change it. It’s scary & I’ve heard many people say they always ruin their pieces in the glazing. Glazing requires a blind leap of faith. So much can happen over which artist has no control: Dripping, interesting or unpleasant interactions of color or texture.

This illustrates one of the ways in which art is a spiritual path. In glazing, the artist must face fear. If this is done with consciousness and the intention to grow, the act of glazing is an act of spiritual transformation. By facing fear, it is released and then there is more space within the artist to hold and transmit the Light.

Related posts:

1. Vijay Kumar: My Etching Teacher
2. On The Ocean, Sculptures & Videos
3. The Virgin Mary as Artist’s Exemplar

I had an extraordinary experience finishing it. I’ve been working for years on my own, most often in complete isolation. But to do ceramics, you must have a kiln, and I don’t. So I’m taking a class at the New Jersey Center of Visual Arts. They have really nice facilities and it feels like real artist’s studios, not just suburban moms with nothing to do which is what you find a lot of out here in NJ.

So, I was finishing up and I didn’t feel quite right about how the neck was working. I asked my classmate who had great insight into what I was doing and consulted the teacher as well. My piece is significantly better than I would have been because of these conversations. I’d forgotten the magic that happens between artists. It was a very meaningful experience for me and yet another reason for me not to hide my work away. These moments of deep connection are precious in life.

Since this blog is new, this is my first experience of writing about a piece while it is in progress. My entry of a couple days ago helped me clarify my intentions with this piece in a very different way than I’m used to. I believe writing about it was akin to cleaning debris out of a pipe. My creative flow came more quickly and with increased intensity.

Related posts:

1. Vijay Kumar: My Etching Teacher
2. Ice
3. Rumi & New Scupture

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….

Related posts:

1. New Sculpture
2. New Sculpture out of the Kiln
3. Hildegard of Bingen Sculpture