Category Archives: painting

Religion as Art

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I was reading a while ago about the Ban-Yatra, a Hindu pilgrimage which is performed in the Braj region of northern India.  Unlike many pilgrimages the ban-Yatra isn’t focused on reaching a sacred locale or the place of Holy Relics but rather is about uncovering the sacred in the profane as the pilgrimage progresses.

Braj is believed to be the birthplace and playground of Krishna.  Many of the stories of Hindu literature mention places and land forms here as sites where Krishna performed his miracles, cavorted with his cowherd friends and engaged in love-play with the Gopi’s and his beloved Radha. The pilgrimage involves circumambulating Braj, visiting shrines and temples and partaking in various rituals.

Unlike some eastern religious philosophies the worship of Krishna isn’t about renunciation of this world-denial of desire, but quite the opposite: realizing desire in the beauty of nature and celebrating the love of Krishna as being non-different from it. In order to do this the pilgrim cultivates bhava, an emotional and imaginative energy that allows him or her to see beyond the mere commonplace and experience the presence of Krishna in the natural surroundings.

One scholar suggests that in achieving bhava the pilgrim becomes like a poet creating meaning in the landscape as he or she passes through it.

Wow!  What a great observation. The artist certainly creates alternative worlds through imaginative emotive means; a significant parallel to the creative religious practice of the Ban-Yatra pilgrim. Maybe the difference between the two lies in just how literally one believes in the existence of this other world and its inhabitants. The artist, I suspect, is less likely than the pilgrim to embrace his/her imaginings as factually existent.

It seems to me religious practice in general could profit from a bit more creative play and a bit less dogmatic belief.

Krishna and the Walking Dead3

Sacred Images

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While reading about Byzantine Icons the other day I was amazed to learn that the painter, before he is able to paint one of these Holy Images, has to transcend earthly existence and enter the heavenly realm.  Apparently such a trip will instill the painter with the knowledge necessary to render a truly sacred image.

The resulting object is, only then, understood to be a Holy Relic and a living icon.  The holy personage thus rendered is seen as emanating the light of truth.  As I viewed some of these objects many did seem to have an inner glow.

Well, I had a friend do a painting of me in the style of the icon painters.  I don’t think his work was preceded by any voyage to the Great Beyond so I suppose the resulting icon is disqualified from the realm of ‘living relic.’

As I look at the finished product I can’t quite tell if my image expresses benevolence or self-importance-maybe a bit of each.  I suppose that might very well be consistent with the attitudes of the early church patriarchs who achieved sainthood. The painting does seem to emanate a sort of inner glow.  That may be because my plastic body is a bit translucent.

I showed the painting to the Barbies and they agreed unanimously it did nothing for me whatsoever.

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Intelligent Design

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LeonardD the artist doll just completed a series of artwork using only objects and materials he was able to find around the house.  He came by the other day to tell me about the work.  He said that he felt confident he could make art out of anything.  Well, I thought that was pretty interesting, so to challenge him I asked what art he could create if he were locked in a windowless room with nothing in it.  He said that he believed he could come up with something.

We talked about it awhile and decided that the artwork would need to be a tangible object that he could bring out with him when he left the room; we ruled out performance or conceptual art like John Cage’s 4’ 33” (a pianist sits at a piano in front of an audience for four minutes and thirty-three seconds without touching the keys) and the zen idea used by various artists in which blank white walls inspire a meditative immersion.

My friend said that to make something tangible from nothing sounded like something only God could do but decided to give it a try nonetheless.

I locked him in one of the empty rooms in my doll house.  He was in there quite some time.  When he emerged he held in his hand a small object of indescribable material that glowed as if lit from within.  The object clearly exhibited the creative intelligence I know my friend to have.

I was blown away.  LeonardD was uncharacteristically reticent about what occurred in the room, where the material came from and how he produced what he did.  After he left and I thought about it for a while there was only one conclusion I could draw: my friend is God.

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Goodness

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In the novel Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy has the character Levin say: ‘If goodness has a cause it is no longer goodness; if it has consequences, or rewards it is not goodness either.’  Since Leo based the character Levin on himself he must have thought there was truth to such an idea.

If  I accept Levin’s statement as true then following the Golden Rule is not an example of practicing goodness because then I’m being good in the hopes other people will be good to me.

I guess Adam and Eve were inherently good, always obeying God until the serpent introduced them to the fruits of the Tree of Knowledge, the one thing forbidden by God who evidently wanted to keep Adam and Eve from knowing too much.

So, I suppose the moral of the story must be that the only way to be truly good is to be oblivious.

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What emotions look like

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I was thinking the other day how emotions sometimes creep up on a person, how they seem to come out of nowhere.  Suddenly one finds herself overwhelmingly attracted to someone, for instance, or some trivial incident leaves one extremely agitated for no apparent reason.

When one finds herself deeply in love it often comes as a revelation; one moment content in singularity and suddenly deeply connected to another.  Or, consider anxiety, how it can wheedle itself into your consciousness.  It lies in wait, bides it’s time until finding you at your most vulnerable, teases you with what in normal circumstances would be ridiculously mundane but now is horribly threatening.

It makes me think the ancients weren’t just being poetic when they personified emotions and that makes me wonder what these personified emotions might look like. Emotions, of course, aren’t simple; take love: it isn’t only erotic but can be love of beauty and wisdom or altruistic care for others. Does that make Love a multiple personality?  Maybe there are a whole team of Loves that travel around together. I think Erotic Love might look like Eve in the Garden; the original innocent lover and first mother. Anxiety I can see as a clown. He hides his true nature, presenting himself as something he’s not; a malevolent entity harboring one’s deepest fears.

But then, as I think about it, perhaps it’s the other way around.  Eve is the temptress, the cause of man’s downfall, the conspire r with evil; the clown is the innocent, timid, lover, his unrealized passion revealed in his attempts to please.

I guess it’s up to the individual to paint the picture with the colors she finds most appropriate.  I’m inclined toward the evil clown but I must admit it may be because I can’t get Pennywise the dancing clown from Stephen King’s ‘It’ out of my head.

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Beauty or Beast?

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Have you ever thought about how much physical appearance determines the person one becomes?  I mean, would the Barbies be so shallow and smiley all the time if they didn’t have such symmetrical, svelte features?  Would Woody Allen have developed a nervous, quick, humorous repartee or Christopher Reeves have been the strong silent type?

Even among children the larger toddler seems to command greater respect from her peers.  Given normal intelligence such a child is likely to fall right into the role of leader of the pack.

I guess my diminutive size and unexceptional appearance has led me to a life of solitary introspection and contemplation.  I’m not complaining.  It’s pretty clear to me one can be too exceptional; take King Kong.  All he wanted to do was spend some time with Fay Wray but because of his size everyone was afraid of him and wouldn’t leave him alone.

I’ll be content to just be who I am.

with horror movie extras3

Born Again

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For me, I don’t think there’s anything as energizing as the onset of spring.  As the temperature becomes mild, the birds began to sing and the crocuses began to appear I feel my spirits lift.  There’s a sense of rebirth in the air; life reappears after months of dormancy.  In some ways it’s like a religious experience.

My friend Pearl said this idea reminded her of an experience she had while attending a revival meeting a while ago.  She said the evangelist told the congregation that life was suffering because of the guilt of their sins and the only way to overcome the depths of despair, the fear and trembling of existence was to leap into faith and be born again.

Pearl thought about this awhile but being a bit of a skeptic and seeing rebirth wasn’t in her plans for the evening, she decided to pass on the leap and just deal with the despair and absurdity of human existence the best she could.

Well, all I can say is if our existence is essentially despairing and absurd then why do I have spring fever?

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Women’s Business

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I got a letter from Juju Wilson the other day.  She informed me her family had recently gained ownership rights to their ancestral lands near Kununurra in Western Australia.  The land is very important to her and her family and she wanted to let everyone know.

When I visited Juju and her grannies a few years ago, they told me about women’s business.  Juju said women sing songs of power that are forbidden to men.  She said the songs are as old as time; that they were sung by creator beings in the dream time to bring the world into being.  The birds and animals, the goannas, rivers, water holes and billabongs all came to be in this way. One day while I was there Juju and her grannies took me to a sacred site where they had each been, in their time, initiated into womanhood.  It is a place where two supernatural spirits, the Namarrgarn Sisters, reside.   On the wall of an alcove there, is a painting of the sisters  transforming themselves into crocodiles.

I think these women are truly fortunate to live so close to their spiritual origins.  I wonder how different the world might be if everyone had such a meaningful connection to place.

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To be or not to be?

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I was digging around in my closet the other day when I came upon a small stuffed girl doll that I had completely forgotten about; it’s as if, until I found her again she had ceased to exist.  It got me thinking about what it means to ’be’.  You know, does existence depend on acknowledgement?

So, I went to the library where I found a book called Being and Time written by Martin Heidegger.  He starts off by saying Being isn’t a thing so it can’t be defined by logic.  Well, I found that fairly confusing: How can something be without………..?  But then as I continued reading it all started to make sense:  If I am a Being in the process of being-in-the-world and sometimes being-for-others but being careful not to be inauthentic in being so (and might be better off being alongside instead) it would seem my Being is being conscious of being a Being and by being a Being I know for a fact that I am, indeed a Being.

I went home my head spinning all the way.  I took the little doll out of the closet and set her on my dresser where she would always be in plain sight.  There, she will always be for me, that is as long as I am, I guess.

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On Morality

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I’ve always thought morality to be pretty simple: follow the Golden Rule or as Kant said, “act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should be universal law.”

Or, I guess, do no harm.

Well, I was enjoying a Happy Meal the other day and I began thinking about all the packaging that would end up in the landfill, the plastic toy that was produced by pumping poisons into the atmosphere and the meat that represented destruction of the Brazilian rain forests.  I started feeling pretty guilty.

So, I gathered up the remaining fries and supersized soda and gave them to the obese little boy in the next booth who thanked me profusely.

It feels so good to undo a wrong with a right.

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