Awakening journey

The past several days my mind has experienced a state of rapid expansion outward, absorbing more new information than has usually been possible.

Carbon and other pollutants are emitted into the air in such massive quantities that large areas of forest landscapes are dying from the effects of acid rain. Recognizing this crisis, as an artist I can no longer consider making art that is void of moral consciousness, art that carries no responsibility, art without spiritual content, art that places form above content, or art that denies the state of the very world in which it exists.

That statement by Chicago artist Othello Anderson appears in an article by writer and artist Suzi Gablik: The nature of beauty in contemporary art. She goes on to add:

As many artists shift their work arena from the studio to the more public contexts of political, social, and environmental life, we are all being called, in our understanding of what art is, to move beyond the mode of disinterested contemplation to something that is more participatory and engaged.

Further, she records part of an interview with Thomas Moore. I have only read part of his book The Re-enchantment of Everyday Life. That was several years ago, but it influenced the beginning of the sense of spirituality I have now: one which is not shaped by established religions or social norms, but by a personal experience of my community and environment. My mental health seems to have interfered with me absorbing and processing new ideas lately, but when I read this article it felt like a reawakening.

It turned up during my internet search about an artist clarkelane mentioned in a comment, Dominique Mazeaud. The past few days I have been reading about her, Allan Goldsworthy and another one who art_thirst named, Richard Long.

All these artists and writers relate in one way or another to the sacredness of nature, not necessarily in its mere existence, but in our human relationship to it. The writer who first inspired me to explore this was Elizabeth Murray, in Cultivating Sacred Space: Gardening for the Soul.

In hindsight I can understand why I have neglected these ideas. Reading these things I encounter echoes of the supernatural, a concept discordant with my own emerging beliefs, which were rougher and more confused only three years ago. Even the word 'sacred' itself holds associations with religious ideas I, as an atheist, didn't know how to embrace.

But today I recognized how my intentional record of the Eramosa River over the past year has expressed my sense of sacredness about a place that comforts, teaches and inspires me. Richard Long's sculptures reminded me of the footpaths I follow several days a week. Dominique Mazeaud wrote a journal of her relationship with the Rio Grande, just as I have been doing with my stream. These ideas do more than resonate in my head—they resound.

I can only begin to describe the journey my thoughts have taken today. This afternoon I headed to the park intent on exploring the river and surroundings with new eyes. I took many photos of paths and secluded spaces, not for their photographic qualities, but as a personal account. I have in mind setting up galleries for these. I also wish to establish a space which has some kind of special purpose to me. I can relate to the importance of ritual and symbolism.

Ironically, with my eyes tuned to the ground, to more intimates scales within the outdoors, I observed more than I usually do: a robin pausing on a park bench, a different elongated species of tadpole that looks almost like a minnow, a huge bracket fungus right beside the path where I have walked at least six times since the beginning of the month,




Leopard frog, Rana pipiens


My mind is rustling with ideas. I hardly have time to grasp them before new ones come bursting in. And like Lyra in The Golden Compass (a novel by Philip Pullman, which I finished this week), I'm afraid to shatter some of them by looking too closely. Even describing the experience this much feels dangerous, teetering on the boundary between art and a violation of something intensely personal.

This arises from the anxiety that something so important might seem ridiculous to others. Inevitably it will be so. All our creations run that risk.

Several years ago I realized that writing and art (and communicating with them) hit closest to the core of who I am. So I just keep going.