Chapter 5
The Art Spirit
The Art Spirit
Moving on from dashed expectations of creative cookery adventures in a brand new kitchen, I made do with the old one which was perfectly serviceable, if not wildly fashionable. I also found some consolation in contemplating the creation of a vegetable and flower garden but Louis, an excellent gardener who grew up on a farm in South Texas, told me the season wasn't right for putting in a garden, we would have to wait for next spring. "But buck up Mel," he told me, "we'll just nourish ourselves with recipes and menus from all those cooking classes you've been taking." I could see he was trying to be encouraging and that he had a good point. We did need suitable sustenance for the remaining domestic tasks at hand.
Our current project was finishing up the interior of the house, something that held great intellectual and emotional appeal because in a certain way of looking at the world, once your house was ship shape, so was your life. Was it just us I wondered, or is there something about getting those never-big-enough closets in order that never fails to set hearts aflutter with a sense of all's-right-with-the world? Appreciating small blessings where they appear, we gave thanks for now being able to locate errant items of clothing that had gone missing in the move. With wardrobe choices increased a hundredfold, we could at last step out into society with the confidence that we were dressed in proper attire. About that time the muse showed up and we accepted an invitation from our friend Rabbi Bernie ("More joy, less oy!") Kling to join a group of modern day pilgrims who met monthly in one another's homes for an interfaith service and potluck. On the appointed morning we donned our newly rediscovered Sunday best, whipped up a splendid Waldorf salad in our perfectly fine old kitchen and off we went. In a time when the traditional world of religion was experiencing enormous changes in how matters of faith are experienced, we found the idea of a modern interfaith home liturgy inviting. Based on the ancient practice of congregating in personal spaces, it was meant to foster authentic conversation, a sense of shared community and new bonds of friendships. There was an interesting and inviting mix of people from various spiritual traditions, some who'd been here for years, others new to Sedona, each with a remarkable story about finding a personal spirituality. Hosts for that Sunday were painter John Warren Oakes and poet Libby Oakes, both of whom had arrived at their own wisdom's edge some time back after years of travel, study and professional careers in academia. The topic for discussion was prayer. Not an intellectual exploration of spiritual supplication and reception,but more of a creative literary journey through time, a tour de force of the origins, styles and traditions of divine communication through the ages. The service included a melodic audio accompaniment of an Old English version of The Lord's Prayer played on an iPhone using a clever volume amplifying device John had made and attached to the phone. As it turned out this little invention was only one of many innovations John had put his hand to over the years. After the informal service we all headed to the kitchen for a bounteous potluck. Our salad, a festive quartet of apple, celery, raisin and pecans, looked right at home among the other offerings and we felt at home too. I spied John standing near one of his paintings, an abstract with an unusually enticing display of geometric shapes and rollicking colors offering a delightful coherency with John's shirt. Those two gorgeous riots of lavenders and purples laughed and shouted good energy into the room. John told me lavender was his favorite color, very spiritual, he said. This remark opened the door to a fascinating conversation about a rather remarkable painting experience he'd had some years back. Growing animated, he told the story of how he and Libby had created Meditations On The Holy Cross, a boxed set of twenty five meditation cards with John's arresting abstract images of Christ on the cross, accompanied by 'messages' composed by Libby, memorable passages she described as intuitively received during meditative walks. As John's narrative unfolded I recognized it as the story of someone who had traveled a very long road that in the end brought him to wisdom's edge. In essence, it was the timeless and universal tale of surrender, transformation and rebirth. He'd been an art professor for some forty years and as he began stepping away from a painting paradigm bounded by rationality and planning, he found himself stumbilng into a completely new way to paint. His Meditations on the Holy Cross paintings were a remarkable example of what could happen when one surrenders to the call of the art spirit.
The Holy Cross series, which ultimately would be available in boxed sets of inspirational cards at the world renowned Chapel of the Holy Cross in Sedona, started taking shape in 2008 and by 2011 there were
some two hundred paintings and eight hundred drawings. It was different, John said, from
anything he'd ever done before, images seeming to appear out of thin air
as if by magic. The muse had obviously come calling because the resulting paintings weren't at all about self
expression, as much of his previous work had been. These new paintings were instead about surrender, he said, because he felt he had become a kind of
channel for abstract representations which were breathtakingly powerful in their stark simplicity. Others, more traditionally executed, spoke of sweet moments of acceptance that open the door to true transformation. It was the project of a lifetime, he acknowledged, one that would change him forever as it played out over the next several years.
As his relationship with the muse deepened, he expanded his creative
boundaries by studying famous artists' paintings of the crucifixion,
then taking an icon painting workshop in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He and Libby
traveled and lived for a time in numerous spiritual sites including
Glastonbury, England and on visits to the soul of nowhere, the Arizona desert, where he settled into a extended period of deep meditation. After awhile he found his initial rational, carefully
planned approach to painting just falling away as he focused not so much on product as process. He wanted to try to
represent the energy of the living Christ and show new life resurrected and
reconstituted from the old and seemingly dead. He felt his experience
of artistic transformation through surrender to the unknown was akin to dying to the past so that he might be resurrected to his new life as an intuitive painter.
John's story pointed to possibilities of learning powerful new avenues to pray, of finding an intuitive and deeply personal way to communicate with the divine. It was a good story, one with a message for creative hearts everywhere looking for a way to meet the muse. When we left, John presented us with a beautiful box set of Holy Cross cards. He probably didn't realize how much his kind and thoughtful gift had inspired two travelers learning to meet the muse on their way to wisdom's edge.
Meeting Your Muse: The
Intuitive Paper Maker
I spoke again with John sometime later and told him I wanted to put his story
in my book. I asked him to tell me more about exploring different ways to
surrender to one's own personal muse and after a bit of thought he suggested learning to make your own paper as a way to
surrender to the muse. Sounds a bit odd, but bear with me.
I asked how would that work, since I'd never thought of making paper as a particularly spiritual experience. He said preparing a substance upon which one can juxtapose the elements of
surprise, innovation and originality can offer a creative excursion like none
other because the muse is involved every step of the way. the idea isn't so
much about planning the outcome as it is letting the muse lead you to
creating a unique substance and surface into which you can incorporate
anything you want. It's this addition of muse-led inspirations from what
surrounds you, that makes the beautiful metaphor for the process of
destruction, rejuvenation and resurrection. As an artist, you would then be creating something
new through your own willingness to be a channel for
creativity.
Making your own paper is easy to do, requiring virtually no tools and
materials other than old paper, a blender, a container with a screen and a
piece of felt for drying the paper. Let
your imagination run wild choosing and experimenting with old papers, colors,
and various elements to be added to the paper mix in progress. Anything goes
and you can try adding things like old dead organic matter from nature, like
soil or sand, kitchen spices, pieces of string, coffee grounds, or tea
leaves. Or experiment with using vegetable dyes for smashingly vibrant
colors, threads for tiny contrast, slivers of shells or rock for textures,
with perhaps some whispers of fur or hair. Metal slivers would work too.
Every person who tries their hand at paper making has their own particular
ways of working and types of equipment. There is a wonderfully wide range of
fibers, ways of pulping and forming sheets, and techniques for pressing and
drying papers. Here are a few methods for you to sink your teeth into.
Take a look at this illustrated summary of the hand paper making process
from paperslurry.com. Though not quite a tutorial, you can get a sense of how
hand paper makers, paper artists, and yes, how you too can create paper out
of cloth rags, plants (not wood or trees), and recycled paper
scraps. Here's a guide to paper
making to give you a sense of how to create paper out of material you might
otherwise discard.
1) Start by finding
some cellulose paper, cloth rags, plants, or scrap paper. Do not use shiny
surface card stock. 100% plant based cotton or linen works
best. Bast, leaf, grass, or seed fiber is also good. Boil the plants
with caustic to remove impurities and leaving cellulose fiber. If using
scrap paper, printing, watercolor, or drawing papers are best. You will
need to break down fibers to make pulp.
2) For scrap paper, use a heavy duty kitchen blender. Cut the paper into one inch squares, soak and blend with water.A Hollander Beater is necessary to turn rag into pulp, but can also be used for plants and recycled paper.You will want to use a Hand Mallet for Japanese style paper making paper with kozo, gampi, or mitsumata plant fibers.
3) To turn your
pulp into paper you will need a mould, a screen, a vat of water, and the
pulp. Lift the mould and screen up through the water filled with your pulp so
that you end up with a thin layer of pulp on the screen.
4) Finally transfer the layer of pulp to an absorbent surface. Now surrender to the muse to inspire what you will incorporate into your paper... organic or inert, colorful or monochromatic, textural or smooth. Let it dry. 5) Congratulations, you can now call yourself an intuitive paper maker! |
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