THROUGH ALL THE WORLD THERE GOES ONE LONG CRY FROM THE HEART OF THE ARTIST: GIVE ME LEAVE TO DO MY UTMOST!
Babette: Babette’s Feast
When we love something, we grant it soul, we see its soul, and we let its soul touch ours. We must love something deeply to know its soul (anima). Before the resonance of love, we are largely blind to the meaning, value, and power of ordinary things to “save” us and help us live in union with the source of all being. In fact, until we can appreciate and even delight in the soul of other things, even trees and animals, we probably haven’t discovered our own souls either. Soul knows soul through love, which is why it’s the great commandment (Matthew 22:36).
Fr Richard Rohr, daily devotions 6 26 2020 CAC.org
When all the world suffers the threat of infection and the risk of death by suffocation, the resonance of the gasping plea, “I Can’t Breathe” takes on enormous significance. Infection has many faces of deception and many weapons of invasion: Corona Virus, Police Brutality, Radical Insurgence, Political Polarization, Wealth Redistribution, Malnutrition, Environment Pollution, Domestic Violence, Spiritual Warfare, Sexual Abuse and the list continues in as many ways as humanity can conceive to attack and diminish the others in order to privilege ourselves. It is in the midst of the darkness of the threat of destruction and the imminence of death that the creative heart cries out from the depth of the soul to proclaim the power of life in the being, mind, and act of the least among the privileged.
The creative soul of the artist yearns for a statement of compassion and justice to console those wounded by infection and resolve the tension between opposing wants and “entitlements”. How does the creative heart do its utmost to capture the unfathomable angst in the cry of a man for his deceased mother, knee on his neck or gowned and isolated from holding her hand, while echoing the hopeful peaceful signs and voices for change, the promise of faith in the spiritual unity of creation. And in the beginning, chaos is separated into earth, sky, water, and air by the Word, the Turtle, Gia, or the Drum.
Creation begins with Love as the antithesis of Anger. From the depth of the artist heart comes the cry of love for creation, Creation, CREATION! Create a statement in the word, Word, WORD of the creator in your soul to do your utmost. Document a resolution to this chaos. Demonstrate a message of hope and promise for this conundrum or humanity. Demand a response to design the structure, form, and shape that will evoke a practical plan and intended behavior for change. From the depth of the artist heart comes the cry of love that outlasts the tear gas and armed violence of anger in the state of rage, defense, and power control. A single blue flower on the bill board tapestry of black and white images of war devastation is the word of hope (Picaso), and the cartoon image of the cannon dripping a single tear with the caption “weap on” (New Yorker), is the word of compassion.
Without Love there is no awareness of pain and devastation. What we do not see we do not know. What we can not imagine, we will not understand. What we choose to ignore, we are destined to deny, defend ignorance, and protect the unsustainable. What we separate ourselves as better than whatever is different, we commit the “original sin”, or disharmony of the universal balance, that separates the unity of creation from the source of all being, the soul of all being.
The creator heart of the artist cries out with the call to awaken. Create the expression of the soul of self, knowing the soul of other, and joining with the soul of all creation. Find the soul in the being of the other, oppressor and oppressed. Expose the love of liberty, justice, and health in each, a yearning and protecting behavior. Explore the resolution plan and structure proposed from the depth of understanding for a common ground. Generate the energy of connection with a unifying purpose. Confirm the meaning, value, and power of the ordinary elements of life that sustain and expand the extra-ordinary potential of human enterprise.
The heart, soul, mind, and strength of the creator calls forth the artist voice in the silent forms of ceramic, image strokes of canvas, structure concepts of sculpture, notation direction of music. Whatever the medium of the artist, the craft, skill technique, or theory orientation, and the venue of presentation, the universal message of creation is itself the unifying voice. Speaking with One Voice, the collective voice of the artist enables the personal message of the creator to connect with the discovery of our own soul journey. The love that seeks to know the pain of the other, informs the soul of each to the unifying touch. Artistic compassion lights the path to imagine hope for a resolution promised by the power of creative expression to fashion a new form of understanding and construct a structure to empower the well-being of all creation.
The process of
creation is complete in me the artist, when all gradation of comparison and
juried acclaim is lost, and the being of the creator is free in each one to “give
me leave to do my utmost”. In those
moments of conceptual imagination, design configuration, material assessment,
skill technique application, venue selection, then display presentation, the
artist creative process evokes the soul knowing through love the soul of the created,
each loved by the Creator. And here the “love
one another as I have loved you” (Matthew 22:36) is fulfilled in our being, in
the being of the selected subject, and in the being of the one beholding.
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