I did not expect the discomfort and emptiness that developed as we got closer to the opening of the Prayer and Wisdom group installation.  I felt the nakedness of having put my work out there and the anticipation of how it would be received, the crushing weight of trying to find my worth or validation through creativity, of trying to save myself, literally, by the works of my own hands.  Of course that’s not what I say my artmaking is about, but hours before the opening I felt naked, exposed and fearful and had to own up to my own misguided, crooked ways. 

And while trying to get the courage or clarity to work through these thoughts, or maybe avoid them, I did something I had never noticed before (though I am sure it has happened) I threw  myself into a new project.

Passing by the same plastic top of a shopping cart by the railroad tracks I do each week, the thought of actually picking it up seemed more immediate and pressing.  The images and projects I had imagined for it seemed close, coupled with the crushed red heart shaped tin I picked up earlier in the day from off the street in front of an abandoned Catholic church, energized by a week of installation building and fueled by a desire to hide from my own fears I got home and got right to work. 

I have been interested in religious folk art and wayside shrines for years.  From Gothic statutes and their unfinished look and edges, to lead singer Perry Ferrell’s cover art for Ritual de la Habitual for Jane’s Addiction, part of my own interest in assemblage stems from this art form and tradition. 

I have collected candles and prayer cards, rosary beads and symbols from the Catholic faith and I am not even sure why.  My own Protestant impulses and beliefs are not drawn to honor God through these means but I think I always feel an affinity for the ritual, the idea of sacred space or sacred ways.  I think we as humans are drawn to rituals and sacred spaces, even if we are not believers.  We attribute more value to certain activities or places or objects than we do others.  And while these may be simple folk ways, not part of a centralized belief system they do point to a larger human experience.

Yet we are also reluctant to name this or even recognize this in ourselves or society.  We speak of God with no content, no specifics.  Our discourse is polite to the point of having nothing to really say.  It is embarrassing to speak of specific beliefs, just belief in general. 

“TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” was an inscription the apostle Paul found on an altar in Athens.  He spoke to the people present, to declare to them the God they worshipped in ignorance. 

I wanted to illustrate our unwillingness to name this god of no content and make him specific.  I also wanted to point out the mystery is less mystery as it is willful ignorance.  A lot of great “spiritual” feelings get “ruined” by the specifics of faith.  We want to believe that Love is really all you need, as John Lennon sang, but we only seem disturbed by the lack of others to express this love.  We chose to not know, we chose to hide and not answer some questions or know some answers, symbolized by the heart, crushed in the streets of the city, guarded by barbed wire, unwilling and unable to answer or ask.  The saints have been removed from the candles, all that is left is an empty space surrounded by religious trappings.  And the whole structure is not what it appears, it is not special, it is not sacred, it is part of a shopping cart from Kroger and discarded and fashioned anew into a space, put on wheels to make it mobile, not stationary and thus not set in a special or sacred space.

It did not work to hide myself from my own nakedness or to try to save myself by my works.  My art is not sacred and it has no power to save me or move others to validate my efforts.  It’s just art.  We can hide in our little ritual spaces or we can run to them for help but as Paul told the curious onlookers,

 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things”

Below is basically the letter I wrote for my brother in law, a great kid, still in High School who really inspired me this last week by his desire to give gifts for his family, earning and spending his own money to get gifts, real gifts, for his family, and his new brothers in law.

A little about this gift…

It is a portion of a letter tray, used for holding type, I love trying to figure out how to design and create in small spaces and it allows for there to be more than one thing being said at a time…like our lives, but we are also beyond compartmentalizing ourselves.

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Your initials, mine too, and I was glad to share the few letters I had to make you a gift.

The first little jar has the phrenology head you like, sorry I don’t have a spare one I can part with right now, but if I did, you would have it.  But the image is powerful to me because it is a great example of humanity’s attempts to understand ourselves, our behaviors and our souls.  It is a scientific attempt but it ultimately fails.  The jar contains withered grass and a pinch of dust; both from a graveyard, reminders of our mortality and that there is a terminal limit on searching for self knowledge.

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You are one of the few people I talk with who both enjoys political discussion and also sees limits to our system the way it is.  I did a piece called “Neither Ballots NOR Bullets,” you saw it and this little piece is based upon it.  Christianity and the Bible are above politics though they have political relevance, Jesus didn’t come to setup a political system or support a political party.  The bullet I found in a parking lot and the Rockefeller campaign “pin” is from either his 1960, 64 or 68 presidential bid and it is the kind of “pin” that you would fold the back over the top of your shirt pocket to clasp it.  I had Goldwater too, but thought you’d appreciate the Rockefeller pin more; money, moderate social stances, fiscally sounds, etc.

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Key holes to me represent mystery, we don’t know everything, nor can we…it’s not wrong to ask questions as long as you can handle not everything has an answer or more accurately we may not understand the answer. 

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”

Light bulb, because you are very bright, as in, intelligent, but the bulb also must be connected to the source to shed light to others. We are at our best when connected to the source,  and we also, despite our understanding and intelligence must also be ok being next to mystery.

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Family Curse Jar

You are the first to receive or even see this piece (besides my close confidant, your sister).  I am working on a new piece that is about curses, and family curses, but it isn’t about our immediate or even distant ancestors, it is about Adam and Eve and their fall and the curse we all bear now.  It is based upon hoo doo (African American folk religion/magic)  of the mojo bags and conjure men and women)  So the jar collects symbols of the curses…cursed earth, from the graveyard, snake skin, tears/sweat from child labor and hard work, thorns and thistles from a ground no longer easy to work, a “nation bag,” used by women in Memphis to allure and dominate men, symbol of Eve’s struggle and fig leaf stamps, exiled from the garden in our nakedness…­

But our God is in the heavens; He does whatever He pleases.   Ps 115:3

Dan2:28,37, Isa 34:4, Ps 19:1-3

As we read through the exile books of Nehemiah and Ezra the phrase “the God of Heaven” appeared over and over, and not just in the mouths of the Israelites, but in gentile kings and leaders. 

In Daniel we see this again as both Daniel proclaims it is the God of Heaven who is the revealer of mysteries and as Nebuchadnezzar is humbled by the Most High God and acknowledges Him as the King of Heaven.   

Not identified as a national deity or cult figure, the God of Heaven, with a domain that has no boundaries, is thus also the God of all the Earth. 

And while it is impossible for us to look past the heavens, we are assured that God will one day roll up the Heavens like a scroll and will reveal all things that are now hidden. 

I was inspired by the woodcut below, thinking at our attempts to comprehend the heavens and how humans have struggled to understand our place in the cosmos.  For the piece I chose both ancient astronomy pieces and charts from the Apollo 11 voyage.  The key hole, which represents the unknown, is off center hinting at our inability to even guess at the right place to go for answers, much less get them.

 “Of that place beyond the heavens,” wrote Plato, “none of our earthly poets has yet sung, and none shall sing worthily.”  Undaunted by Plato’s warning, artists sought to depict what might lie past the sphere of the cosmos as this well known woodcut illustrates…The sun,  moon and stars—the known celestial bodies—appear within the arch of the heavens.  Outside are unfamiliar orbs, turbulence and the machinery that moves the universe

-David Ulansey