AN ART STATEMENT IN TWELVE PARTS
1. INTENTION
The central focus and intention of my artwork is a particular contemplative gesture. It is the quiet of the centered, straight-backed monk, deeply rooted in the earth, joyfully uplifted in the world. It is not confrontative, but is nevertheless at odds with the apparent world.
All contemplative work is countercultural. Today's American culture is awash in over-stimulating, under-nourishing imagery. Most of us live in visually busy cities. We drive cars, go to the movies, and watch television. Most are also online, confronted daily with the stimulus on our computer screens. The scale of this assault on our senses is historically unprecedented. Today’s eyes, relentlessly taxed with the effort of sorting this bombardment of emptiness are sorely in need of a more contemplative visual engagement.
The challenge for any artist in the twenty-first century is to contend with the ubiquity of imagery and to meet the growing need for something more substantial for viewers. Unfortunately, much of what surfaces in the world of fine art contributes to the problem rather than to a solution. It tends not to be contemplative, more often mirroring the neurosis of the culture that produced it. It is an unacknowledged tragedy of our times. What happens when so much of the use we make of our eyes is to fend off overstimulation? We do little but sort and define and clarify the seemingly endless barrage of information. What happens when there is no relief for the eyes, no gift from the artist that allows for rest and restoration of our busy and abused vision? How are we to find peace in the midst of chaos? When our eyes do not rest, neither do our spirits. When our eyes are abused, so are our hearts.
However there is also art that is good to spend time with, art that arises from a deep and full visual engagement. This is art that creates space within and apart from the chaos. It has a restorative and calming effect. It is quiet, but engaging, soft spoken, yet articulate. It creates space wherein we can breathe. This is work that, when seriously absorbed, restores the spirit and brings goodness to the heart.
This is contemplative art. Though it is all around us, it is not readily apparent. It needs to be sought out. Like a hermit monk, it will not be found unless it is looked for. It is effectively invisible to any but those who search, though nonetheless real and alive. Readily visible, it is easily missed because it does not compete for attention. It is nonaggressive. It has no agenda and does not demand to be seen. I have often noticed that when I visit an art gallery the art that I most value in the end is the art that I didn’t see on my first walk through the exhibit, because it didn't require anything of me, not even my presence. This art is often hidden in plain sight, like a short poem in a long book.
The artwork I make is intended for just such cultural invisibility. It Is not meant to be discovered by the unquiet eye, the encultured heart, but to feed the engaged and honest seeker. I do not ask it to be easy, but to bring ease to the struggling spirit.
2. CHALLENGE
I believe that it is important to challenge the nature and ubiquity of imagery in the world at large, as well as the more rarified world of fine art, to discuss how best to address the problem of visual overstimulation in our culture. It’s no wonder, I think, that so many people have so little use for the fine arts. Few people have the capacity to seek out more imagery, more visual challenges, in an already overstimulated, busy life. As an artist, I have to confront the reality that much of what surfaces in the world of fine arts today contributes to the problem rather than alleviating it.
Many people who decide to brave the "art world" in the galleries and museums of our cities, will find it offers many images of perverse and violent statements by artists who have something to say to us about a number of topics, but fail to bring healing and quietude to the viewer. Neurosis is the order of the day. We are advised to value the singular vision and personal expression of these artists as talented and culturally relevant voices. -- And maybe we should. It may be that we ignore these voices at our own peril. -- But what happens when the only use we make of our eyes is to sort and define and clarify this overstimulation, as we struggle to find peace in the midst of chaos? What happens when there is no relief for the eyes, no gift from the artist that allows for rest and restoration of our busy and abused vision? It seems to me there is a high price to pay for this way of life.
Many, understandably, look for relief in a softer visual backdrop. Either they do not adorn their walls at all, or they buy posters with pastel colors and innocuous imagery which are like Musak for the eyes. You would not want to spend serious time looking at these pictures. They are not visually satisfying. And in fact I am confident that they are seldom looked at at all.
But there is an art that is good to spend time with, an art that arises from a deep and full visual engagement. This is art that does not add to the busyness of the world, but has a calming effect. It is quiet, but engaging, soft spoken, yet articulate. This is work that, when looked at seriously, restores the spirit and brings goodness to the heart.
It will not be seen unless it is looked for. It is seldom found in the bins of pre-framed pictures in the chain stores. It is rarely featured in art galleries or large museum exhibitions. It is effectively invisible to any but those who seek it out. This art is often "cloistered" in private homes, churches or meditation centers. It is certainly not what we have come to expect to see in so-called "public art." And yet it can be found if looked for. But who will seek it out? Many, perhaps, will not know that it is what they are missing until they stumble upon it. Contemplative art tends to disappear because it looks at the world in ways that are culturally invisible. Its attention is... elsewhere.
3. THE RELEVANCE AND USE OF ART
To contemplate an object means to pay attention to it, to consider the thing, in some way, and at whatever depth, in terms of the mysterious reality of its presence. It is an ontological engagement. Visual contemplation implies a considered looking. It is the sort of attention that is generally discouraged in our culture. We tend not to look at things so much as glance at them. Well-considered attention takes time, and we are busy people. It also takes effort, and we are a culture accustomed to ease. Few of us walk to where we need to be, cook our own food, or even entertain ourselves. We have all the entertainment we need, it seems, professionally performed and packaged, readily available at the touch of a button or two. Most of us find we would rather drive cars, nuke an entree, and turn on a little screen. Or a big screen.
It is a culture in which an artist might easily feel marginalized at best, more likely completely irrelevant to what is happening around us. Art is not quite at home in twenty-first century America. People are not much inclined to seek out new visual experiences when there is already so much for the eyes to deal with in day to day life. We are tired. So much driving, nuking, and TV watching can be rather exhausting in the end. Our eyes are fatigued from so much glancing.
So why would anyone take the time and energy to slow down, to stop, to really look at art? There is no convenient time for it, there are no readily available spaces in which to look at it. Of more concern, when a need for art is felt we don't know where to go or how to look for it. We do have art museums of course, places where we may find it professionally packaged and presented. And that can be satisfying. It is good to have places to which we can go and find what has been canonized in the past and officially approved of in the present. …But when we get to the museums we are so often disappointed. When we make the effort to engage the latest installation of art we usually come away disturbed, disquieted, and disappointed.
So what do we do? Where should we go? Where might we find the art that may contribute to our daily need for relief from our busyness? Where is the art that can feed our abused eyes and heal our wounded souls? We have to look for it, seek it out, not settle for the emptiness of the usual distractions. What will we look for?
4. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPLATIVE ART
At the heart of all contemplation – or at least all deep contemplation – is an awareness of one's own mortality. The short life of each Stone Poem and Disappearing Journal image is to some degree a meditation on the brevity of life. I'm glad that the Sistine Chapel is still there, of course, but it won’t always be. Notions of immortality in art are, I believe, overrated.
I want to say a little bit about what I see as the main characteristics of contemplative art, with the clear understanding that not everyone finds the same things contemplative. Not that this quality is "in the eye of the beholder" exactly, but because we are talking about relationships, the living interactions between artworks and viewers. Naturally, relationships, being inclusive of both object and viewer, differ from person to person as well as from artwork to artwork. I believe, like all relationships, they also change from one day to another. I don't mean to say that I find them to be fickle – they're not – but the best relationships grow with time. They are never quite the same from one day to the next. They might depend to some degree on a person’s mood, or even the circumstances under which the art was seen. For instance, how crowded was the art museum when you were there? How quiet was it? What was the lighting like? In the case of the Sistine ceiling, were you craning your neck to see it?
So the parameters are fluid, and I don't think there is any wisdom in trying to nail them down or try to be too categorical about the term contemplative. That being said, I would like to try to describe what I mean by it. "Peaceful and restful" might be excellent descriptors. Unless by those words you imagine I mean innocuous and insipid. I think contemplative art is deeply engaging. Frankly, the most engaging. Or the most meaningfully engaging anyway. As such it might even be unsettling in some ways. Not aggravating and annoying, but possibly disturbing. Disturbing in a good way. Something that gets your attention on a certain level. Like contemplating your own mortality.
Contemplative Art…
…is Healthy for the viewer, i.e. it is experienced as "good for" the viewer, if not necessarily easy to view.
…is Meaning-ful – without necessarily having a particular meaning. As we often think of “nature,” as important to us, as contributing to the meaning of our own lives.
…is Quiet-Voiced and non-demanding. I think it might have something “to say” to me, possibly even something quite specific, but it’s not going to insist that I stop and listen, much less change my views accordingly.
…is not about the artist. It is often anonymous, as almost all western art was from the fall of Rome to the Italian Renaissance. Usually art is expected to be self-expressive, but contemplative art is more often a self-less expression. It will not be understood in terms of what the artist is “trying to say.”
…is not Aggressive or neurotic, but considerate of the viewer. If it is therapeutic, it is more likely therapy for the viewer than the artist.
…is not Strident, pushy or threatening. It does not have “attitude.”
…is Non-Topical, Non-Political. It has no agenda. It may indeed have political implications for the viewer, but only as a byproduct. For instance my Stone Poems may serve to raise a viewer’s awareness of the beauty and mystery of nature, and that may inspire them to take a political stand on environmental issues, but these images are not a call to arms.
…is not Ironic. It is not clever, tongue in cheek, or otherwise insulting to the viewer. It has no hidden message or subtext that only the in-crowd will “get.” It is for everyone. It is meant to be taken at face value. As such, it is respectful.
…is Non-confrontational – without being innocuous.
…is Attentive… though not to the usual distractions of the prevailing pop culture or “art world” concerns. It is not mindless, but its mind is elsewhere.
…is Humble. I like the Japanese word, shibusa, meaning the “spirit of poverty.” The implication of it is that this artwork does not expect great things for itself. Million dollar price tags, gala gallery openings, and splashy reviews are of no concern.
…is more interested in residual impact than immediate impact. Contemplative art might be quite simple on the face of it, but it is never simplistic. Like a poem, it does not scan well. It might take time to really connect to it.
…is interested in the specific and the particular, as opposed to the general and the typical. The contemplative gaze is not interested in the “sort of thing” being examined, but rather in the object itself, as if it is unique in the world. It wants to know its subject as opposed to its mere optical identity. It is not interested in finding a perspective on it, but rather on the phenomenological nature of its existence.
Contemplative art finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.
5. THE CONTEMPLATIVE GAZE
Contemplative art might come into being by many different routes. My concern is artwork that elicits a contemplative gaze.
To this point I have not made a distinction between contemplation as a source of artwork and as a result of artwork. Generally speaking, there is no need to separate the two. Contemplative art generally arises from contemplative engagement. However, this need not always be the case. Artists, digging deeply into the psyche, may access a place that they identify as contemplative, however this process may not produce anything that is healthy for the viewer. More interestingly, an artist may both begin with a contemplative sensibility and end with one, yet the process might take many twists and turns in between. An artist may in fact use rather violent means to achieve contemplative ends. I think of the process of pouring iron, blowing glass, or firing pottery with extremely high temperatures.
So, a viewer, given to a contemplative mindset, may bring an engagement to the work of art that the artist never anticipated and declare it contemplative. Which is just another way, of course, of saying that the process of making art and the process of viewing art, is subjective. No news there.
But I would like to suggest that there is more to what we are talking about. To say that art is subjective is merely to say that everyone is free to form their own opinions. That’s all well and good, but it is demeaning to artwork to suggest that all that can be said about it is that it’s a matter of taste. You may like broccoli and I may prefer cauliflower, but to suggest that there is no difference between vegetables and candy except personal preference is just silly. Just because both can be eaten doesn’t make both of them food. To argue that they are the same thing because both are interesting to put in one’s mouth, or that both may satisfy certain cravings is bizarre at best. And yet, in visual art that is precisely what we are seeing these days. There has been a great effort put forward in the fine art world to equal out all visual experience, as if to look at one thing is the same as looking at another.
This has, perhaps, been done with the best of intentions at times. When Marcel Duchamp put a snow shovel into an art gallery, perhaps he intended that the next time anyone is in a hardware store they will pay more attention to the beauty of the implements for sale there. And if that has happened, if someone’s eyes have been sharpened and they are now more alert to the aesthetic experience of everyday life, that’s great. But as hardware stores have become more interesting, the reverse has also happened. Art has become more mundane. Looking at snow shovels may now be more contemplative, but contemplating art has become less satisfying. If every snow shovel is now a work of art, very often what is called art now takes on the mundane aura of a snow shovel.
This may not be seen by everyone as a problem. And in fact, I am sure that some will point out that my complaint sounds like I have a problem. They may say that it is as old as Modernism itself, that people said the same thing when Manet applied to the French Salon in the 1860s with his ordinary looking subject matter. It wasn’t artful enough, they said. “Olympia” doesn’t look like a goddess so much as a naked human being. It’s embarrassing. That’s not art, it’s just life. So to make the same complaint now is to sound like a stuffy old academic who wants art to look more like art, like in the good old days. What am I asking for, for art to be “special” and “uplifting?” “Heroic” maybe? Do I have notions that art is here to change the world?
No. Well, not exactly, anyway. Art can only do so much. But I believe that art does, like every other action, taken by anyone, influence the world every day, for better or worse. This means that artists, like everyone else who creates something, yes, even snow shovel manufacturers, have a responsibility to bring goodness into the world. Isn’t there enough junk in the world, created with shoddy workmanship and careless manufacturing? Isn’t there enough planned obsolescence without artists contributing to the mess? I think there is.
But does all this just beg the question of what is good art? After all, Manet, who was a very great painter indeed, was accused of shoddy workmanship too, wasn’t he? He didn’t smooth out his brush strokes enough. What’s the difference between his paintings and the ordinary objects being displayed in galleries these days? You will think me a fool, but I am going to say that the difference is sincerity. I think it interesting that Manet’s detractors took pains to accuse him of just trying to get attention for himself. He was just stirring up trouble. (Ralph Nader, one of our most sincere public figures, is also frequently discredited in the same way.) We live in a cynical age where it is understood that sincerity is very important, that “if you can fake that you’ve got it made,” as the old joke goes. But that only makes a mockery of the concept. In the age of irony we can hardly imagine anyone being sincere. We don’t trust it. “Everybody lies,” as House M.D. liked to say. So we trust no one. And Manet’s paintings were just another style that may or may not be to your taste.
Well, you are “welcome to your opinion,” as it is said, but if you are not capable of sorting out sincerity from insincerity then you have a difficult row to hoe in this world. It makes all the difference in the world in relationships.
And, I would like to suggest, art is about relationship. Beauty is not merely “in the eye of the beholder” any more than it is merely in “the object itself.” It is in the relationship between the object and the eye. And so, between the artist and the viewer. Therefore it is important that both the artist and the viewer approach the work of art with sincerity. If either fails in this the relationship breaks down. Manet was sincere in his painting, where the critics in his day were not sincere in their looking. Duchamp was being sincerely ironic, but that doesn’t count. Not anymore, anyway. Not sixty years after Andy Warhol brought his “deeply surface” work to our attention. Surface is surface, no matter how deep, and to be sincerely insincere is to still to be insincere. Duchamp and Warhol and all the rest may be sincerely mirroring the insincerity of our culture. I have no desire to debate the honesty of their intention. But I do question the value of what they have brought into the world. What is there for the contemplative gaze?
6. RECAPITULATION
"I want to see nothing but my corner and dig away obediently. Art doesn't grow wider, it recapitulates." – Edgar Degas
In the same way, I have no ambition, as many of my peers may, to expand the horizons of art, going ever further afield in the search for something new. I see the same world as Degas and others from ages past; it's just my own corner that draws my eye. It is not very different from anyone else's corner, I don't think, but it is enough. I, like Degas, am content, in my artwork, to quietly recapitulate the world as I find it.
7. COURAGE
To create contemplative art requires great courage. In a world that finds safety in distraction, the contemplative chooses to look more closely at life. In a culture that seems to depend heavily on a steady stream of busyness, the contemplative selects a quieter path. That which is lost in the ongoing frenzy of the countless distractions our culture offers – and increasingly demands – is exactly that which the contemplative embraces.
In meditation we sit closely inside the mystery which so many find uncomfortable, embracing our suffering and our fears. In setting aside distractions we risk despair – but we find meaning. Or, at least, meaningfulness. In that vulnerability, unprotected by distractions, we find the richest grace.
In the creation of contemplative art we find the substance that is silence, and marvel at the phenomenon of life itself. The joy of this art lies, largely, in the simple fact of its incontrovertible presence.
8. OTHER CONTEMPLATIVE ASPECTS OF MY OWN ARTWORK
There are three characteristics of my own artwork that did not make the list of characteristics of contemplative art. These are distinctly contemplative characteristics, yet I did not include them as “attributes” because I do not find them to be universal. However, they are by no means unique to my own artwork, often popping up in other contemplative art, and bear a closer look.
There are three:
1. My subject matter, usually called, still life,
2. A temporal, often extremely ephemeral quality.
3. A general verticality.
STILL LIFE
The contemplative gaze is very commonly caught by ordinary things from everyday life, things that hold still. Objects on a table and other such quotidian forms are more likely to be contemplated because they are so ordinary, they don’t move, and they are with us every day. They almost seem to have a quiet life of their own, waiting patiently to be noticed. They create a time and a space in which the eye may become engrossed. It is a safe place for our vision to settle, perhaps to heal from the abuses of speed and boredom. Part of their appeal, certainly, is the comfort of the familiar: the simple vessels of mealtimes, the odd decorative knick-knacks that almost subliminally engage the corner of the eye as we move through the rooms of our homes. These objects of still life, the simple ordinary everyday odds and ends of life, have often captured my attention and engaged my looking.
As a student in painting at the University of Minnesota (1986 – 1992), I found this interest to be quite unique in the graduate program. My colleagues had largely moved on from the subject matter of their earliest classes to subject matter that is generally considered more important. There is no surprise in this. Historically still life has been the least credited genre in western art. Over the centuries it was largely considered to be the subject most appropriate for student artists. The most important subjects for serious artists were usually stories from the Bible or Greek mythology, “history paintings” as they were termed. My colleagues weren’t painting Bible stories, but the contemporary popular equivalent, works about major issues of our time such as gender and racial equality, homosexuality, and multiculturalism. Issues important to mainstream culture. I mean no disparagement of such work, but my mind was… elsewhere. Large themes, often layered in dogma and didacticism, seldom seem contemplative to me. The study of the subtleties of light and shadow, the interaction of unmoving objects, and the ever changing spaces that each thing holds, are aspects of my visual world that I have consistently found to be more interesting than anything else.
EPHEMERALITY
To consider life is to consider its limitations. Contemplation, as I experience it, is intimately connected to a sense of my own mortality. My work reflects this vulnerability. There are many artists at work today, in whom this awareness may also be found. Much work is temporary: installation work and performance art, for instance, are deeply connected to time. Environmental work is typically intended to deteriorate naturally with the changing seasons. Even art created for museums is sometimes made from materials that are less than archival and clearly not meant to last. Some is crumbling on display, more is deteriorating in storage. I believe our culture, in general, is not as interested in making a “permanent” mark on the world as has been fairly typical in art over the centuries. The old trope about art being a path to immortality for artists is not so true as it once may have been. This may be due to a general skepticism over the long-term prognosis for our culture, or, indeed, our planet, and much work is reflective of that viewpoint. Many artists see no point in making things that will live for centuries. Ephemerality and entropy are themselves common themes.
I identify to some degree with these artists, however I associate myself more closely with those who are interested in temporality as a simple human awareness of the fragility of life. In my contemplative engagement I am invested more in the natural, everyday end to things than in the fate of the planet. In my Stone Poems and in my Disappearing Journal series, I consider the ordinary shortness of life in the natural cycles of all nature. As the seasons come and go, so too do we all. This is an ancient wisdom, and the ephemerality of my work holds this truth, treasuring the transitory nature of all creation.
VERTICALITY
“The vertical axis is ‘ontological.’ It corresponds to a scale of the degrees of being that extends from the visible matter of this world to absolute divine Spirit.” - Bruno Barnhart, Second Simplicity, p.230
Father Barnhart has perhaps described here why I am drawn to the vertical in my work. In contemplative awareness I dwell on the ontological connection between heaven above and earth below. This is not a reaching so much as a discovering and honoring sensibility. I find in this statement, as I find in much of Fr. Barnhart’s writing, affirmation of my visual and contemplative experience.
However my interest did not begin with this conscious awareness. I was first drawn to the vertical for the way in which it holds the contemplative gaze. There is no wandering in this looking. It is a more centered visual engagement. There is a focus in the consideration of vertical forms that is absent in the broader horizontal.
When I first began making Stone Poems, in 1999, I was very touched by the braveness of the gentle but urgent vertical gestures of precariously balanced stones against the broad Montana skyline. How they stood up against the odds. They echoed the energy of the fragile flower arrangements I had been painting, as well as the delicacy of the Suspended Objects in that series of painting-constructions. There is a prayer in that gesture, a physically enacted yearning of the spirit, to know this ontological axis intimately. In fact, to live inside it, in a way, grounded, yet upright, engaging both heaven and earth.
9. THE WORLD OF SILENCE
“The man who lacks the substance of silence is oppressed by the all-too-many things that crowd in upon him every moment of his life today. He cannot be indifferent to the fact that new things are being presented to him every moment, since he must somehow enter into relationship with them. There must be an emotional reaction to each new object so that he can respond, and it is part of the nature of man that he should respond to the object before him. When too many objects crowd in upon him and he has within no silent substance into which a part at least of the multitude of objects can disappear, the resources of emotion and passion which he has at his disposal are insufficient to meet and respond to all the objects. The objects then lie all around him menacingly and without a proper home. To save man from this invasion and congestion of the too-many objects that are beyond his powers of assimilation, he must be brought into relationship again with the world of silence, in which the many objects find their true order automatically, in the world of silence where they spread themselves out into a balanced unity.” – Max Picard, 1948
10. THE PROBLEM OF MEANING
Do objects have meaning outside the meaning we ascribe to them? This is an age old question, to which the prevailing answer in our culture would appear to be a clear no. Objects, in most people’s minds, only mean what they mean to us. In fact, the question itself appears to have been forgotten entirely.
It also seems to have been lost somewhere along the way in the art conversation, where the only meaning art is assumed to have is seen in terms of the artist. The notion that an art object may have any sort of inherent or ontological meaning is simply not considered.
Choose an object. Any thing. What is it called? Is the name of that object complete? Does it do justice to the object, describe it completely? Is that its full and true identity? Or does an object have an identity apart from that which we ascribe to it? If a tree grows in the forest and there is no one there to call it a tree, is it still a tree?
Our culture seems to see objects only in terms of our culture, with no hint that there may be more to the world. We find things meaningful or not, as we wish, and that’s the end of the story. We stop looking. This seems to me to be a sad take on the world. As a painter, I am interested in the world as it exists before it is named. There may be a wealth of riches in naming things, in cataloging, numbering, sorting and labeling them, but there is also a significant loss, an impoverishment. Even describing an object in a painting can detract from the ontological identity of a thing, as the artwork will almost certainly be read in terms of the artists “viewpoint.” People will ask what the artist “is trying to say” rather than see the object for what it is.
My challenge as a still life artist, inquiring as to an object’s life, is in presenting objects without my own expression, to hold it up and say only, Here It Is, without offering what I think of it. I value the thing above my own valuing of that thing.
11. THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN ART
The problem of the self in art is that the self does not exist. What we generally call our selves, at least, is essentially a package of our neuroses. The concept of the self is a fiction, more or less useful to the individual, and generally encouraged by our culture, a culture which has no other sense of how to relate to you. From an early age children are taught that it is their job to “find” themselves, then, later, to assert themselves. Artists are taught that it is their job to express themselves. It is all foolishness. We know that the self is an invention, an assemblage of parts cobbled together to create a sense of individuality and identity. So art is encouraged as an extension of a false premise, the notion of self expression being somehow noble and important, and most art is understood in terms of this fabrication that has no basis in the deeper realities of life. In the end, art that is self expressive has little to offer but illusion. It has little to no value beyond the artificial value of marketability. As personality coupled with celebrity has largely replaced character as a lynchpin of culture, the only value left for the artwork might be the price tag.
12. UN-STILL LIFE
No object, however inanimate it may appear, is truly lifeless, and life itself is never entirely still. Contemporary culture, in its persistent, indeed obsessive, effort to tame and subdue the earth, has propagated death as if it were ours to endow. But not even television, with its daily legion of murders, or the internet, with its ghastly gallery of porn, has managed to kill all hope. These things have, in the end, only dulled our eyes with illusion and anxiety.
But the quiet eye sees life, and will not despair. The quiet eye embraces the energy of all creation and the fire that burns within, illuminating every stone from within as if it means itself.
1. INTENTION
The central focus and intention of my artwork is a particular contemplative gesture. It is the quiet of the centered, straight-backed monk, deeply rooted in the earth, joyfully uplifted in the world. It is not confrontative, but is nevertheless at odds with the apparent world.
All contemplative work is countercultural. Today's American culture is awash in over-stimulating, under-nourishing imagery. Most of us live in visually busy cities. We drive cars, go to the movies, and watch television. Most are also online, confronted daily with the stimulus on our computer screens. The scale of this assault on our senses is historically unprecedented. Today’s eyes, relentlessly taxed with the effort of sorting this bombardment of emptiness are sorely in need of a more contemplative visual engagement.
The challenge for any artist in the twenty-first century is to contend with the ubiquity of imagery and to meet the growing need for something more substantial for viewers. Unfortunately, much of what surfaces in the world of fine art contributes to the problem rather than to a solution. It tends not to be contemplative, more often mirroring the neurosis of the culture that produced it. It is an unacknowledged tragedy of our times. What happens when so much of the use we make of our eyes is to fend off overstimulation? We do little but sort and define and clarify the seemingly endless barrage of information. What happens when there is no relief for the eyes, no gift from the artist that allows for rest and restoration of our busy and abused vision? How are we to find peace in the midst of chaos? When our eyes do not rest, neither do our spirits. When our eyes are abused, so are our hearts.
However there is also art that is good to spend time with, art that arises from a deep and full visual engagement. This is art that creates space within and apart from the chaos. It has a restorative and calming effect. It is quiet, but engaging, soft spoken, yet articulate. It creates space wherein we can breathe. This is work that, when seriously absorbed, restores the spirit and brings goodness to the heart.
This is contemplative art. Though it is all around us, it is not readily apparent. It needs to be sought out. Like a hermit monk, it will not be found unless it is looked for. It is effectively invisible to any but those who search, though nonetheless real and alive. Readily visible, it is easily missed because it does not compete for attention. It is nonaggressive. It has no agenda and does not demand to be seen. I have often noticed that when I visit an art gallery the art that I most value in the end is the art that I didn’t see on my first walk through the exhibit, because it didn't require anything of me, not even my presence. This art is often hidden in plain sight, like a short poem in a long book.
The artwork I make is intended for just such cultural invisibility. It Is not meant to be discovered by the unquiet eye, the encultured heart, but to feed the engaged and honest seeker. I do not ask it to be easy, but to bring ease to the struggling spirit.
2. CHALLENGE
I believe that it is important to challenge the nature and ubiquity of imagery in the world at large, as well as the more rarified world of fine art, to discuss how best to address the problem of visual overstimulation in our culture. It’s no wonder, I think, that so many people have so little use for the fine arts. Few people have the capacity to seek out more imagery, more visual challenges, in an already overstimulated, busy life. As an artist, I have to confront the reality that much of what surfaces in the world of fine arts today contributes to the problem rather than alleviating it.
Many people who decide to brave the "art world" in the galleries and museums of our cities, will find it offers many images of perverse and violent statements by artists who have something to say to us about a number of topics, but fail to bring healing and quietude to the viewer. Neurosis is the order of the day. We are advised to value the singular vision and personal expression of these artists as talented and culturally relevant voices. -- And maybe we should. It may be that we ignore these voices at our own peril. -- But what happens when the only use we make of our eyes is to sort and define and clarify this overstimulation, as we struggle to find peace in the midst of chaos? What happens when there is no relief for the eyes, no gift from the artist that allows for rest and restoration of our busy and abused vision? It seems to me there is a high price to pay for this way of life.
Many, understandably, look for relief in a softer visual backdrop. Either they do not adorn their walls at all, or they buy posters with pastel colors and innocuous imagery which are like Musak for the eyes. You would not want to spend serious time looking at these pictures. They are not visually satisfying. And in fact I am confident that they are seldom looked at at all.
But there is an art that is good to spend time with, an art that arises from a deep and full visual engagement. This is art that does not add to the busyness of the world, but has a calming effect. It is quiet, but engaging, soft spoken, yet articulate. This is work that, when looked at seriously, restores the spirit and brings goodness to the heart.
It will not be seen unless it is looked for. It is seldom found in the bins of pre-framed pictures in the chain stores. It is rarely featured in art galleries or large museum exhibitions. It is effectively invisible to any but those who seek it out. This art is often "cloistered" in private homes, churches or meditation centers. It is certainly not what we have come to expect to see in so-called "public art." And yet it can be found if looked for. But who will seek it out? Many, perhaps, will not know that it is what they are missing until they stumble upon it. Contemplative art tends to disappear because it looks at the world in ways that are culturally invisible. Its attention is... elsewhere.
3. THE RELEVANCE AND USE OF ART
To contemplate an object means to pay attention to it, to consider the thing, in some way, and at whatever depth, in terms of the mysterious reality of its presence. It is an ontological engagement. Visual contemplation implies a considered looking. It is the sort of attention that is generally discouraged in our culture. We tend not to look at things so much as glance at them. Well-considered attention takes time, and we are busy people. It also takes effort, and we are a culture accustomed to ease. Few of us walk to where we need to be, cook our own food, or even entertain ourselves. We have all the entertainment we need, it seems, professionally performed and packaged, readily available at the touch of a button or two. Most of us find we would rather drive cars, nuke an entree, and turn on a little screen. Or a big screen.
It is a culture in which an artist might easily feel marginalized at best, more likely completely irrelevant to what is happening around us. Art is not quite at home in twenty-first century America. People are not much inclined to seek out new visual experiences when there is already so much for the eyes to deal with in day to day life. We are tired. So much driving, nuking, and TV watching can be rather exhausting in the end. Our eyes are fatigued from so much glancing.
So why would anyone take the time and energy to slow down, to stop, to really look at art? There is no convenient time for it, there are no readily available spaces in which to look at it. Of more concern, when a need for art is felt we don't know where to go or how to look for it. We do have art museums of course, places where we may find it professionally packaged and presented. And that can be satisfying. It is good to have places to which we can go and find what has been canonized in the past and officially approved of in the present. …But when we get to the museums we are so often disappointed. When we make the effort to engage the latest installation of art we usually come away disturbed, disquieted, and disappointed.
So what do we do? Where should we go? Where might we find the art that may contribute to our daily need for relief from our busyness? Where is the art that can feed our abused eyes and heal our wounded souls? We have to look for it, seek it out, not settle for the emptiness of the usual distractions. What will we look for?
4. THE CHARACTERISTICS OF CONTEMPLATIVE ART
At the heart of all contemplation – or at least all deep contemplation – is an awareness of one's own mortality. The short life of each Stone Poem and Disappearing Journal image is to some degree a meditation on the brevity of life. I'm glad that the Sistine Chapel is still there, of course, but it won’t always be. Notions of immortality in art are, I believe, overrated.
I want to say a little bit about what I see as the main characteristics of contemplative art, with the clear understanding that not everyone finds the same things contemplative. Not that this quality is "in the eye of the beholder" exactly, but because we are talking about relationships, the living interactions between artworks and viewers. Naturally, relationships, being inclusive of both object and viewer, differ from person to person as well as from artwork to artwork. I believe, like all relationships, they also change from one day to another. I don't mean to say that I find them to be fickle – they're not – but the best relationships grow with time. They are never quite the same from one day to the next. They might depend to some degree on a person’s mood, or even the circumstances under which the art was seen. For instance, how crowded was the art museum when you were there? How quiet was it? What was the lighting like? In the case of the Sistine ceiling, were you craning your neck to see it?
So the parameters are fluid, and I don't think there is any wisdom in trying to nail them down or try to be too categorical about the term contemplative. That being said, I would like to try to describe what I mean by it. "Peaceful and restful" might be excellent descriptors. Unless by those words you imagine I mean innocuous and insipid. I think contemplative art is deeply engaging. Frankly, the most engaging. Or the most meaningfully engaging anyway. As such it might even be unsettling in some ways. Not aggravating and annoying, but possibly disturbing. Disturbing in a good way. Something that gets your attention on a certain level. Like contemplating your own mortality.
Contemplative Art…
…is Healthy for the viewer, i.e. it is experienced as "good for" the viewer, if not necessarily easy to view.
…is Meaning-ful – without necessarily having a particular meaning. As we often think of “nature,” as important to us, as contributing to the meaning of our own lives.
…is Quiet-Voiced and non-demanding. I think it might have something “to say” to me, possibly even something quite specific, but it’s not going to insist that I stop and listen, much less change my views accordingly.
…is not about the artist. It is often anonymous, as almost all western art was from the fall of Rome to the Italian Renaissance. Usually art is expected to be self-expressive, but contemplative art is more often a self-less expression. It will not be understood in terms of what the artist is “trying to say.”
…is not Aggressive or neurotic, but considerate of the viewer. If it is therapeutic, it is more likely therapy for the viewer than the artist.
…is not Strident, pushy or threatening. It does not have “attitude.”
…is Non-Topical, Non-Political. It has no agenda. It may indeed have political implications for the viewer, but only as a byproduct. For instance my Stone Poems may serve to raise a viewer’s awareness of the beauty and mystery of nature, and that may inspire them to take a political stand on environmental issues, but these images are not a call to arms.
…is not Ironic. It is not clever, tongue in cheek, or otherwise insulting to the viewer. It has no hidden message or subtext that only the in-crowd will “get.” It is for everyone. It is meant to be taken at face value. As such, it is respectful.
…is Non-confrontational – without being innocuous.
…is Attentive… though not to the usual distractions of the prevailing pop culture or “art world” concerns. It is not mindless, but its mind is elsewhere.
…is Humble. I like the Japanese word, shibusa, meaning the “spirit of poverty.” The implication of it is that this artwork does not expect great things for itself. Million dollar price tags, gala gallery openings, and splashy reviews are of no concern.
…is more interested in residual impact than immediate impact. Contemplative art might be quite simple on the face of it, but it is never simplistic. Like a poem, it does not scan well. It might take time to really connect to it.
…is interested in the specific and the particular, as opposed to the general and the typical. The contemplative gaze is not interested in the “sort of thing” being examined, but rather in the object itself, as if it is unique in the world. It wants to know its subject as opposed to its mere optical identity. It is not interested in finding a perspective on it, but rather on the phenomenological nature of its existence.
Contemplative art finds the extraordinary in the ordinary.
5. THE CONTEMPLATIVE GAZE
Contemplative art might come into being by many different routes. My concern is artwork that elicits a contemplative gaze.
To this point I have not made a distinction between contemplation as a source of artwork and as a result of artwork. Generally speaking, there is no need to separate the two. Contemplative art generally arises from contemplative engagement. However, this need not always be the case. Artists, digging deeply into the psyche, may access a place that they identify as contemplative, however this process may not produce anything that is healthy for the viewer. More interestingly, an artist may both begin with a contemplative sensibility and end with one, yet the process might take many twists and turns in between. An artist may in fact use rather violent means to achieve contemplative ends. I think of the process of pouring iron, blowing glass, or firing pottery with extremely high temperatures.
So, a viewer, given to a contemplative mindset, may bring an engagement to the work of art that the artist never anticipated and declare it contemplative. Which is just another way, of course, of saying that the process of making art and the process of viewing art, is subjective. No news there.
But I would like to suggest that there is more to what we are talking about. To say that art is subjective is merely to say that everyone is free to form their own opinions. That’s all well and good, but it is demeaning to artwork to suggest that all that can be said about it is that it’s a matter of taste. You may like broccoli and I may prefer cauliflower, but to suggest that there is no difference between vegetables and candy except personal preference is just silly. Just because both can be eaten doesn’t make both of them food. To argue that they are the same thing because both are interesting to put in one’s mouth, or that both may satisfy certain cravings is bizarre at best. And yet, in visual art that is precisely what we are seeing these days. There has been a great effort put forward in the fine art world to equal out all visual experience, as if to look at one thing is the same as looking at another.
This has, perhaps, been done with the best of intentions at times. When Marcel Duchamp put a snow shovel into an art gallery, perhaps he intended that the next time anyone is in a hardware store they will pay more attention to the beauty of the implements for sale there. And if that has happened, if someone’s eyes have been sharpened and they are now more alert to the aesthetic experience of everyday life, that’s great. But as hardware stores have become more interesting, the reverse has also happened. Art has become more mundane. Looking at snow shovels may now be more contemplative, but contemplating art has become less satisfying. If every snow shovel is now a work of art, very often what is called art now takes on the mundane aura of a snow shovel.
This may not be seen by everyone as a problem. And in fact, I am sure that some will point out that my complaint sounds like I have a problem. They may say that it is as old as Modernism itself, that people said the same thing when Manet applied to the French Salon in the 1860s with his ordinary looking subject matter. It wasn’t artful enough, they said. “Olympia” doesn’t look like a goddess so much as a naked human being. It’s embarrassing. That’s not art, it’s just life. So to make the same complaint now is to sound like a stuffy old academic who wants art to look more like art, like in the good old days. What am I asking for, for art to be “special” and “uplifting?” “Heroic” maybe? Do I have notions that art is here to change the world?
No. Well, not exactly, anyway. Art can only do so much. But I believe that art does, like every other action, taken by anyone, influence the world every day, for better or worse. This means that artists, like everyone else who creates something, yes, even snow shovel manufacturers, have a responsibility to bring goodness into the world. Isn’t there enough junk in the world, created with shoddy workmanship and careless manufacturing? Isn’t there enough planned obsolescence without artists contributing to the mess? I think there is.
But does all this just beg the question of what is good art? After all, Manet, who was a very great painter indeed, was accused of shoddy workmanship too, wasn’t he? He didn’t smooth out his brush strokes enough. What’s the difference between his paintings and the ordinary objects being displayed in galleries these days? You will think me a fool, but I am going to say that the difference is sincerity. I think it interesting that Manet’s detractors took pains to accuse him of just trying to get attention for himself. He was just stirring up trouble. (Ralph Nader, one of our most sincere public figures, is also frequently discredited in the same way.) We live in a cynical age where it is understood that sincerity is very important, that “if you can fake that you’ve got it made,” as the old joke goes. But that only makes a mockery of the concept. In the age of irony we can hardly imagine anyone being sincere. We don’t trust it. “Everybody lies,” as House M.D. liked to say. So we trust no one. And Manet’s paintings were just another style that may or may not be to your taste.
Well, you are “welcome to your opinion,” as it is said, but if you are not capable of sorting out sincerity from insincerity then you have a difficult row to hoe in this world. It makes all the difference in the world in relationships.
And, I would like to suggest, art is about relationship. Beauty is not merely “in the eye of the beholder” any more than it is merely in “the object itself.” It is in the relationship between the object and the eye. And so, between the artist and the viewer. Therefore it is important that both the artist and the viewer approach the work of art with sincerity. If either fails in this the relationship breaks down. Manet was sincere in his painting, where the critics in his day were not sincere in their looking. Duchamp was being sincerely ironic, but that doesn’t count. Not anymore, anyway. Not sixty years after Andy Warhol brought his “deeply surface” work to our attention. Surface is surface, no matter how deep, and to be sincerely insincere is to still to be insincere. Duchamp and Warhol and all the rest may be sincerely mirroring the insincerity of our culture. I have no desire to debate the honesty of their intention. But I do question the value of what they have brought into the world. What is there for the contemplative gaze?
6. RECAPITULATION
"I want to see nothing but my corner and dig away obediently. Art doesn't grow wider, it recapitulates." – Edgar Degas
In the same way, I have no ambition, as many of my peers may, to expand the horizons of art, going ever further afield in the search for something new. I see the same world as Degas and others from ages past; it's just my own corner that draws my eye. It is not very different from anyone else's corner, I don't think, but it is enough. I, like Degas, am content, in my artwork, to quietly recapitulate the world as I find it.
7. COURAGE
To create contemplative art requires great courage. In a world that finds safety in distraction, the contemplative chooses to look more closely at life. In a culture that seems to depend heavily on a steady stream of busyness, the contemplative selects a quieter path. That which is lost in the ongoing frenzy of the countless distractions our culture offers – and increasingly demands – is exactly that which the contemplative embraces.
In meditation we sit closely inside the mystery which so many find uncomfortable, embracing our suffering and our fears. In setting aside distractions we risk despair – but we find meaning. Or, at least, meaningfulness. In that vulnerability, unprotected by distractions, we find the richest grace.
In the creation of contemplative art we find the substance that is silence, and marvel at the phenomenon of life itself. The joy of this art lies, largely, in the simple fact of its incontrovertible presence.
8. OTHER CONTEMPLATIVE ASPECTS OF MY OWN ARTWORK
There are three characteristics of my own artwork that did not make the list of characteristics of contemplative art. These are distinctly contemplative characteristics, yet I did not include them as “attributes” because I do not find them to be universal. However, they are by no means unique to my own artwork, often popping up in other contemplative art, and bear a closer look.
There are three:
1. My subject matter, usually called, still life,
2. A temporal, often extremely ephemeral quality.
3. A general verticality.
STILL LIFE
The contemplative gaze is very commonly caught by ordinary things from everyday life, things that hold still. Objects on a table and other such quotidian forms are more likely to be contemplated because they are so ordinary, they don’t move, and they are with us every day. They almost seem to have a quiet life of their own, waiting patiently to be noticed. They create a time and a space in which the eye may become engrossed. It is a safe place for our vision to settle, perhaps to heal from the abuses of speed and boredom. Part of their appeal, certainly, is the comfort of the familiar: the simple vessels of mealtimes, the odd decorative knick-knacks that almost subliminally engage the corner of the eye as we move through the rooms of our homes. These objects of still life, the simple ordinary everyday odds and ends of life, have often captured my attention and engaged my looking.
As a student in painting at the University of Minnesota (1986 – 1992), I found this interest to be quite unique in the graduate program. My colleagues had largely moved on from the subject matter of their earliest classes to subject matter that is generally considered more important. There is no surprise in this. Historically still life has been the least credited genre in western art. Over the centuries it was largely considered to be the subject most appropriate for student artists. The most important subjects for serious artists were usually stories from the Bible or Greek mythology, “history paintings” as they were termed. My colleagues weren’t painting Bible stories, but the contemporary popular equivalent, works about major issues of our time such as gender and racial equality, homosexuality, and multiculturalism. Issues important to mainstream culture. I mean no disparagement of such work, but my mind was… elsewhere. Large themes, often layered in dogma and didacticism, seldom seem contemplative to me. The study of the subtleties of light and shadow, the interaction of unmoving objects, and the ever changing spaces that each thing holds, are aspects of my visual world that I have consistently found to be more interesting than anything else.
EPHEMERALITY
To consider life is to consider its limitations. Contemplation, as I experience it, is intimately connected to a sense of my own mortality. My work reflects this vulnerability. There are many artists at work today, in whom this awareness may also be found. Much work is temporary: installation work and performance art, for instance, are deeply connected to time. Environmental work is typically intended to deteriorate naturally with the changing seasons. Even art created for museums is sometimes made from materials that are less than archival and clearly not meant to last. Some is crumbling on display, more is deteriorating in storage. I believe our culture, in general, is not as interested in making a “permanent” mark on the world as has been fairly typical in art over the centuries. The old trope about art being a path to immortality for artists is not so true as it once may have been. This may be due to a general skepticism over the long-term prognosis for our culture, or, indeed, our planet, and much work is reflective of that viewpoint. Many artists see no point in making things that will live for centuries. Ephemerality and entropy are themselves common themes.
I identify to some degree with these artists, however I associate myself more closely with those who are interested in temporality as a simple human awareness of the fragility of life. In my contemplative engagement I am invested more in the natural, everyday end to things than in the fate of the planet. In my Stone Poems and in my Disappearing Journal series, I consider the ordinary shortness of life in the natural cycles of all nature. As the seasons come and go, so too do we all. This is an ancient wisdom, and the ephemerality of my work holds this truth, treasuring the transitory nature of all creation.
VERTICALITY
“The vertical axis is ‘ontological.’ It corresponds to a scale of the degrees of being that extends from the visible matter of this world to absolute divine Spirit.” - Bruno Barnhart, Second Simplicity, p.230
Father Barnhart has perhaps described here why I am drawn to the vertical in my work. In contemplative awareness I dwell on the ontological connection between heaven above and earth below. This is not a reaching so much as a discovering and honoring sensibility. I find in this statement, as I find in much of Fr. Barnhart’s writing, affirmation of my visual and contemplative experience.
However my interest did not begin with this conscious awareness. I was first drawn to the vertical for the way in which it holds the contemplative gaze. There is no wandering in this looking. It is a more centered visual engagement. There is a focus in the consideration of vertical forms that is absent in the broader horizontal.
When I first began making Stone Poems, in 1999, I was very touched by the braveness of the gentle but urgent vertical gestures of precariously balanced stones against the broad Montana skyline. How they stood up against the odds. They echoed the energy of the fragile flower arrangements I had been painting, as well as the delicacy of the Suspended Objects in that series of painting-constructions. There is a prayer in that gesture, a physically enacted yearning of the spirit, to know this ontological axis intimately. In fact, to live inside it, in a way, grounded, yet upright, engaging both heaven and earth.
9. THE WORLD OF SILENCE
“The man who lacks the substance of silence is oppressed by the all-too-many things that crowd in upon him every moment of his life today. He cannot be indifferent to the fact that new things are being presented to him every moment, since he must somehow enter into relationship with them. There must be an emotional reaction to each new object so that he can respond, and it is part of the nature of man that he should respond to the object before him. When too many objects crowd in upon him and he has within no silent substance into which a part at least of the multitude of objects can disappear, the resources of emotion and passion which he has at his disposal are insufficient to meet and respond to all the objects. The objects then lie all around him menacingly and without a proper home. To save man from this invasion and congestion of the too-many objects that are beyond his powers of assimilation, he must be brought into relationship again with the world of silence, in which the many objects find their true order automatically, in the world of silence where they spread themselves out into a balanced unity.” – Max Picard, 1948
10. THE PROBLEM OF MEANING
Do objects have meaning outside the meaning we ascribe to them? This is an age old question, to which the prevailing answer in our culture would appear to be a clear no. Objects, in most people’s minds, only mean what they mean to us. In fact, the question itself appears to have been forgotten entirely.
It also seems to have been lost somewhere along the way in the art conversation, where the only meaning art is assumed to have is seen in terms of the artist. The notion that an art object may have any sort of inherent or ontological meaning is simply not considered.
Choose an object. Any thing. What is it called? Is the name of that object complete? Does it do justice to the object, describe it completely? Is that its full and true identity? Or does an object have an identity apart from that which we ascribe to it? If a tree grows in the forest and there is no one there to call it a tree, is it still a tree?
Our culture seems to see objects only in terms of our culture, with no hint that there may be more to the world. We find things meaningful or not, as we wish, and that’s the end of the story. We stop looking. This seems to me to be a sad take on the world. As a painter, I am interested in the world as it exists before it is named. There may be a wealth of riches in naming things, in cataloging, numbering, sorting and labeling them, but there is also a significant loss, an impoverishment. Even describing an object in a painting can detract from the ontological identity of a thing, as the artwork will almost certainly be read in terms of the artists “viewpoint.” People will ask what the artist “is trying to say” rather than see the object for what it is.
My challenge as a still life artist, inquiring as to an object’s life, is in presenting objects without my own expression, to hold it up and say only, Here It Is, without offering what I think of it. I value the thing above my own valuing of that thing.
11. THE PROBLEM OF THE SELF IN ART
The problem of the self in art is that the self does not exist. What we generally call our selves, at least, is essentially a package of our neuroses. The concept of the self is a fiction, more or less useful to the individual, and generally encouraged by our culture, a culture which has no other sense of how to relate to you. From an early age children are taught that it is their job to “find” themselves, then, later, to assert themselves. Artists are taught that it is their job to express themselves. It is all foolishness. We know that the self is an invention, an assemblage of parts cobbled together to create a sense of individuality and identity. So art is encouraged as an extension of a false premise, the notion of self expression being somehow noble and important, and most art is understood in terms of this fabrication that has no basis in the deeper realities of life. In the end, art that is self expressive has little to offer but illusion. It has little to no value beyond the artificial value of marketability. As personality coupled with celebrity has largely replaced character as a lynchpin of culture, the only value left for the artwork might be the price tag.
12. UN-STILL LIFE
No object, however inanimate it may appear, is truly lifeless, and life itself is never entirely still. Contemporary culture, in its persistent, indeed obsessive, effort to tame and subdue the earth, has propagated death as if it were ours to endow. But not even television, with its daily legion of murders, or the internet, with its ghastly gallery of porn, has managed to kill all hope. These things have, in the end, only dulled our eyes with illusion and anxiety.
But the quiet eye sees life, and will not despair. The quiet eye embraces the energy of all creation and the fire that burns within, illuminating every stone from within as if it means itself.
