Mitchell and I made a commitment this year to keep Sabbath … a day set apart to reconnect with what is truly of value and importance … a day to live as God intended us to live and not tied to work, marketplace or consumerism.  We fail miserably at this!

I have wanted to do a blog for years … to get those consistent voices and ideas out of my head and into print … so people smarter than me can comment and reflect … or point out my misdirection.  So … here it goes.  Remember how bad I said Mitchell and I are at keeping Sabbath … so you will not have to endure these reflections regularly!

THE WHITE BOX

“The White Box” or “The White Cube” is a term some art historians and art theorists use to describe the modern art gallery and museum experience as a special place set apart to allow human beings to be in solitude with the art they have come to see, admire and be inspired by.  The design of the space … even the journey from the parking lot through the entry way … is purposely designed to transition the potential viewer from the chaos and distractions of the real world and into a world of aesthetic contemplation.   This model holds that the object we set apart has the power to transform human lives.

I have come to believe more and more that the white box/cube misses the mark and distorts the understanding of the ultimate purpose and power of art.  My faith tells me that our relationship and interactions with our world (natural and human) are our primary form of growth and transformation and change.  Transformation happens in the messiness of a life lived in relationship … even the chaos and distractions.  Likewise, great art emerges from a desire to visualize the human struggle to transform our world … a return to Sabbath if you will.

Any model for experiencing art that separates it from the real world experiences that actually inspired their creation builds a wall around the art object and obscures and truncates its work in the world.  By separating experience from both the object and the artistic process, the white box/cube is asking and expecting art to do something art cannot do by itself.  Art was not conceived in isolation (although the artist might need time alone to produce the work), so the way we view art should reflect the way in which it was conceived and brought into being.

Every time I go into local bistro Town Kitchen & Provisions (TKP)  I get the feeling that the way we view art … and celebrate art … needs to evolve.  At TKP folks experience art in the primary way that humanity forms a relationship, a family, and a community … at a meal!  Art becomes a conversation between friends … or the backdrop of a shared experience … or just the landscape of our life together.  The art and the artist becomes the server and not the sideshow … not unlike owners Melanie or Jared preparing and bringing the meal to the table.  The meaningfulness of the experience is not just rooted in an amazing sandwich like the “Miss Piggy” or the “Friar Cluck” … but in the relationship that is shared.

While many folks found them dark, I loved that Suzanne Paddock’s work, many depicting her dad’s final days, accompanied the opening of TKP … rooting a shared meal in a new place with the visual complexity of human life and death.  I love that local artisans display and sell work that folks actually take home and use.  I love the playfulness of Shelley Koopmann’s vignettes as they mimic life both inside and outside the bistro.  I love Carol Burnett’s primitive mixed media works that poke fun at small town life and relationships.  But most of all I love that art has become a backdrop for a place of hospitality, a shared meal and transformational conversations.  Art that is in relationship … not set apart.

This feels like art headed in the right direction.

Blessed Sabbath

- VPE

This vignette by Shelley Koopmann catches an overweight and balding maintenance worker hosing off three large green dumpsters.  The scene appears to be in a paved alley of an apartment or office complex although the dark purplish background gives no real clues to the actual location.  The worker has his back to the viewer and wears a green tee shirt, a long grey latex apron and lime green galoshes.  The clothing is both protection and convenience and suggests that this task is merely one of many worker will perform today … a mandatory requirement of a shared and close living environment.  Piles of collected garbage bags scattered on the ground and on top of the dumpsters suggest an inattentiveness of some to the etiquette of communal living.  The wet ground catches the shine of street lights or the morning sun to reflect the brighter hues and colors of this urban landscape. The worker’s task seems near completion as an abundance of dirty water flows away from the scene into some unseen receptacle.

The refuse amassed in the complexity of our relationships with each other and the world around us, the need to regularly discard the garbage of our brokenness and the real and symbolic power of water to clean makes this a powerful image for new beginnings.  All cultures and religions find ritual ways to wash and start life again as a new person.  All cultures and religions recognize a weakness in the human creature that necessitates repeated chances to restore right relationships.  All cultures and religions provide ways to start life over with new insights and fortified with renewed strength to do better next time.

Sometimes these religious or cultural rituals are rooted in an historical event, sometimes in a mythological narrative, sometimes in the human lifecycle, and sometimes even in the turning of the seasons.  Whatever the origin of the ritual, these symbolic actions are recognition of the human need and desire to seeks ways to begin again … to seek reconciliation with our families, our communities, our world and with our creator. 

Koopmann’s small painting captures this ancient human ritual’s most modern manifestation.  The workman’s task in the darkness and even his clothing becomes an apt metaphor our desire to seek a shield from the muck we have created or to seek reconciliation outside the bright lights of accountability of life in community.  Like this workman, we will hang our apron and galoshes on a hook because we know we will retreat to the privacy of the dark hours and perform this ritual again throughout our lives.

But reconciliation and a truly transformative renewal require something more.   For the Jewish prophet John the Baptist, reconciliation required a ritual washing done in public place in the bright light of day and in the presence of the lives and broken relationships that necessitated the cleansing.  He knew that the bad choices of our brokenness can destroy the very relationships and communities that give us the ability to be the fullness of what the creator made us to be.  Reconciliation is not a private action, but rather a public act of allowing the community to restore the brokenness.  A truly transformative renewal requires more than a private act of atonement.  For reconciliation to be complete, we cannot seek out the cover of darkness or the solitude of back alleys to fix what we broke apart.  For reconciliation to be transformative, we need the bright light of day, the presence of those we have wronged and a throng of observers to keep us accountable to our proclamation and promise for new life.  A long grey latex apron and lime green galoshes cannot shield us from the messiness of this course of action.

I adore the way that Koopmann captures vignettes of the common practices of everyday life … our joys, our quiet moments, our day to day interactions with others … and sometimes Koopmann catches something else.

- VPE

In August 2014, we have the privilege of jurying an curating and exhibit titled "Concerning the Spiritual in Art" at the Lynchburg Art Club.  The following is the statement we wrote from the show and a gallery of images.

CONCERNING THE SPIRITUAL IN ART
Juror's Statement

For Wassily Kandinsky, the modernist movement was not only about liberating art from the strict confines of 19th and early 20th century social and aesthetic constructs, but he believed that this new movement in art could enable artists to be active conversation partners in larger societal questions.  In his 1912 treatise “Concerning the Spiritual in Art”, Kandinsky sought to awaken in each artist both their inner voice and their aesthetic intuition and focus art and artists on the tremendous changes occurring in human life and culture. Kandinsky recognized in this liminal period of human history profound

challenges to the way humanity understood themselves in relationship to industry, economics, politics, religion, science, and medicine … all areas of modern life that needed to be explored, challenged and even critiqued. 

Artists, Kandinsky believed, were uniquely qualified to be partners in the emergence of a truly modern world.  When he wrote, “the artist must have something to say, mastery over form is not the artistic goal, rather the use and adaption of forms to communicate or represent inner meaning,”  Kandinsky wanted to shift the focus of art from object to ideas.  He wanted to awaken in each artist their internal voice (inner necessity) and give both artists and their creations a place in the larger social dialogue.  Kandinsky’s idea not only transformed art, but also how artists understood their place in the world.  All art of any social or historical importance is spiritual.  Great art always connects the viewer to larger social questions, ideas or longings.

The works in this show are proof that Kandinsky’s ideas are alive and well a century later.  These works represent a wide range of inner voices and aesthetic intuitions; religious, philosophical, political and aesthetic.  The show also includes a rich cross section of skill and craftsmanship.  In the midst of this diversity, a common denominator that emerges is the desire of each artist to be a conversation partner with the world around them.

While we utilized Kandinsky’s ideas as a starting point, we also looked for art that spoke past the here and now toward a more universal expression.  Three distinct categories emerged as the entries were received for the jury process that ultimately resulted in this survey. 

Vision and Mystery:  This category includes works that are poetic or visionary.  In these works, there is an intentional juxtaposition of images or objects to create meaning or narrative.  Some works draw on traditional religious iconography while others draw on more personal stories or memories.

Journey and Place:  This category includes representational works that highlight the human figure or landscape.  In these works, the created world holds the key to eternal truths.  The healing power of nature or the rich complexity of human relationships becomes a way of seeing and understanding the world we inhabit.

Brokenness and Redemption:  This category includes works that are often difficult to view.  In these works there is a sense of “prophecy.”  Not so much looking into the future, but rather an intentionality to awaken the viewer to a destructive reality that is in the present moment.  In some works this narrative is redeemed. In others, the narrative remains painfully unanswered.

We were honored to be a part of this process … and are genuinely and deeply moved by the works in this exhibition. 

We're doing some catching up on things that have been happening over the last nine months.  In December, we gathered a group of artists to reflect on birth, death, faith, and the cost of discipleship in an exhibit called "25/26."  “25/26” references the two days in December that the Christian church celebrates the Birth of Christ (25th) and the death of Christianity’s first martyr, St. Stephen (26th).  Not only are these two celebrations filled with powerful imagery for the creative imagination, the juxtaposition of these two pivotal events represents common elements which all faiths and all peoples struggle to reconcile and understand.  On these two days the gift of salvation is set against the cost of that salvation … God’s work in the world is set against the world’s response to God’s love and care.

This expression (peace and all goodness) was a greeting St. Francis used when encountering a brother, a friend, or a foe.  It was his prayer for all humanity  For our inaugural exhibition, we asked artists to reflect on some aspect of Francis’ life and work (care for the poor, animals and the ecology, the simple lifestyle, poverty and humility or church reformer, etc.).  Much thanks to everyone who contributed!

The word portiuncula (Latin for little portion and pronounced port-see-UNcle-uh) comes from a nickname of a simple church that St. Francis rebuilt with his early followers.  St. Francis loved and cherished this little church because it symbolized both the simplicity of lifestyle he wanted to model for his followers, as well as the healing power of shared work and community.  This little church became the birthplace of the Franciscan movement. 

A guild is an egalitarian association of craftsmen in a particular trade or handicraft.  Guilds were formed as confraternities of artisans who sought to support one another in need, establish standards of craftsmanship and back one another in business ventures.

It is our hope that Portiuncula Guild will become a place of hospitality, community, education, spirituality and the creative process.  It is also our hope that ours studios and the retail shop will be a part of the growing local creative economy through the Bedford Artisan Trail (open by appointment only) and other Centertown arts related events like 2nd Fridays, Centerfest and Holiday Art Studio Tour.