Art is that which despite all gives hope. – Frederick Franck, Art As A Way

In the midst of uncertainty we have a culture that insists on everyone becoming an "artist". In the art world, as well as politics, it is disconcerting to see the confusion between what is false and what is true. It is difficult to distinguish between show-offs, pretenders and authenticity. Even being an artist today often seems more about the openings, exhibits, galleries and critics than the work itself.

What happens to the artist when the goal becomes how to make a splash? For this aspect of the art world my husband coined the word celebritrosity.

The pilgrimage of the maker is not about how you appear to the crowd, about fame or fortune, but rather the process of finding your place in the family of things. As Mary Oliver in Wild Geese said:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting --
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Valerio, who is a PhD student in the philosophy of art, took us to the town where he lives in his grandmother's house, and where he was born. Collestatte is bulit inside the walls of a medieval castle. There is one grocery, a small post office and a "bar" which is where everyone in town, including the town dog, gathers in the morning for espresso and the evening for aperitivo. The contrast of a place that is built from eleventh century Roman walls and churches– with the most elaborate, immaculate espresso machine I have ever seen, is keen–and really magnificent for a coffee lover. 

I have Flannery O'Connor with me for my travels in Europe. I haven't read her before. I resonate with her fierce earnestness in wanting to clear her mind, to find her place in the world, to be able to do her work. But not just any work– the work that belongs to her, and connects her with spirit.

One of the paradoxes is that to find your place in the world you have to set down your fears and ambitions, at least for the moment. She writes in A Prayer Journal: 

Please help me to push myself aside.

I have the opportunity in teaching, at moments, to forget about myself and find the presence in the room. This would not be possible without the students who show up– willing to give full attention a try, to see what arises in an atmosphere of creativity and silence.

All across the country there is an opportunity to pause together, and be united by watching the solar eclipse on August 21. The scientists have named the trail where the complete eclipse can be seen–spanning from Oregon to South Carolina– the path of totality.

We are sustained by the bigger picture, by a source that is invisible to us. When this presence becomes felt in any way, our reaching is touched by what is timeless. Looking upward, seeing the vastness of sky, takes us out of our small world and into the unknown. Seeing a shooting star flame across the vast desert sky puts my achievements, and my losses in perspective.

In the case of the coming eclipse, being on the path of totality refers to being able to observe the full event, to be enveloped in darkness in the middle of the day. We get to witness a profound image of the dark being circled by light: the corona appears as a golden halo around the black sun. What an image of wonder this evokes– and the inevitable force of the necessity of both the darkness and the light. 

If only for once it were still.
If the not quite right and the why is
could be muted, and the neighbor’s laughter,
and the static my senses make–
if all of it didn’t keep me from coming awake–

Then in one vast thousandfold thought
I could think you up to where thinking ends.

I could possess you,
even for the brevity of a smile,
to offer you
to all that lives,
in gladness.

The Book of Hours, I,7 – Rilke

To be creative, the not quite right voice must be muted. The critical voice paralyzes experimentation. The perfectionist mind forbids stumbling– and stumbling is necessary for discovery. If you want your work to be alive, to be authentic, to come from the seed that is yours–the dragon of perfectionism must be slain. As makers, the key is to participate fully, to lose ourselves in the act of creating. There is bravery, and perhaps even faith, in being willing to fail. 

I have decided upon the theme for my classes next year (Taos and St Meinrad are posted: http://www.lauriedoctor.com/new-events/). For a workshop to be meaningful to me, and hopefully, to my students, my teaching has to address fundamental questions about how to operate: How does one work? How do you paint? How do you know where to begin? What holds your work together? How and when do you put together image and text?

The theme for next year is absence and presence.  The blank page, the white canvas– these are universal symbols of absence for the writer, painter, calligrapher, or maker. Fear and doubt often rise to the surface. It is humbling. How, I wonder, can I ever improve on the possibility inherent in this nothingness? 

The urge to fill absence with presence impels every urge to write, draw, perform, paint and tell stories. Absence is the creative force, the initiation, the spark, for the making of anything “new". Without this, we are just “cranking things out”– which is a temptation, as it seems much easier, and often quicker. Still, I know that cranking things out depletes me– while allowing something to emerge from the presences that gather around absence is confirming on the deepest level. It is this that leads to an (albeit unpredictable and fleeting) effortless flow in my work.

For over six months I have been writing letters to an artist in Colorado. The rules were that whatever we sent had to be in a seven inch square format and the actual piece had to be stamped, canceled and sent by Pony Express– the Post Office. During this period we were allowed no other form of communication– no email, phone, or social media. My partner and I agreed on a monthly rhythm of sending correspondence that included time in each of our respective woods, without even a camera, and parallel uninterrupted time in our studios. We were propelled by curiosity– about discoveries in the natural world, and about how this mid-1800's way of dialoging would work. (The telephone was invented in 1876).

Exhibit opening June 2 at the Project Shop Gallery: http://max.ink/

http://www.deborahjonesart.com/about/

This week I am thinking about spring– the unquenchable return of the warblers, the eastern bluebirds making their nest, and the first glimmer of color in crocus and wild iris. On a walk in the winter-woods in March, when song was absent, there was all at once a noise in the air that was new. It was too early for cicadas, and too late for sleigh bells, what was it? The spring peepers! Those tiny tree frogs that begin their chorus in early spring. And what follows are the robins, cardinals and mockingbirds that begin to sing again.

The exultation of spring was partnered by the sudden knowledge that someone dear and close to my heart had fallen seriously ill. How do I hold both of these experiences? What did William Stafford really mean when he said welcome whatever comes?