watch the long light fall

I have begun re-reading Art and Fear, and it is very good. “The function of the overwhelming majority of your artwork is simply to teach you how to make the small fraction of your artwork that soars,” authors Ted Orland and David Bayles remind me when I pick up the book. So even though I fear my next project will be a failure, it will serve some purpose in propelling me towards the next project, the next skill learned and mastered. The authors also challenge me with this thought: “What separates artists from ex-artists is that those who challenge their fears continue; those who don’t, quit.” It is as simple as that. If I want to be an artist, I only have to keep making art.

This is a similar dictum to the one Crystal Downing, an English professor here, states firmly: “Writers write.” To call yourself a writer you must merely write. That is deceptively easy; although I say “merely,” I agree with Gene Fowler, who says, “Writing is easy: All you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until drops of blood form on your forehead.”

So why do we keep making art even though there’s fear associated with our vocation, even though it is not easy in the least? I keep asking myself that. I’ve been asking myself that for the last four years. I think, as a senior, I might have the smallest glimmer of an answer about why many artists, poets, or writers find it worthwhile.

Making art is a way through which we engage in and with the world on a whole different dimension from regular life. To really observe an object is to be filled with delight in it, to come to love it in some way. So making art keeps us full of vitality, observing the world and falling in love with it. The process of making art is sometimes pleasant and sometimes frustrating, but it always forces us to see the world in a way that enriches us.

There are a lot of authors (and some of my professors here) who’ve said the same thing, in one way or another, through this past year of study. So I’m not really being original in writing all this down. I’m also (hopefully) not entirely wrong.

I just know that creation necessitates removing blinders from the sides of my eyes. And when I stop to observe and meditate, creation flows naturally from that engagement with the outside world.

Filed under general, vitality, art rants | Comment (0)

the verb ‘to hymn’

“Come with me to the akathist if you’re missing liturgy,” Professor Perrin said, her Wednesday afternoon punctuated precisely by liturgical leanings. “It’s a service to commemorate the beheading of John the Baptist.” Christine Perrin, lecturer in English, taught my first-year seminar and now advises my senior honors project. She also remembers Italy with me, Italian mass and vespers and the Istituto San Ludovico where we lived in Orvieto.

Today I am having my first meeting with Professor Perrin about this senior honors project: a cohesive body of 20 poems before finals week next spring, followed by a reading of the work. “Bring a mug,” she said, “and a recent poem, and we’ll talk.”

For me, it is the idea of disciplined daydreaming, as introduced into my mind by Professor Perrin’s first-year seminar (she introducted us, tentative first-year students, to Elizabeth Bishop, William Carlos Williams, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Rainer Maria Rilke: minds on fire with the surrounding world), that bridges the gap between liturgy and poetry. Both are rhythmic and require discipline, both are bathed in verbal play. And, as so often my struggles to face God are the subject of my poems, my liturgical understanding is the subtext, propelling my search with the belief that metaphor or symbol or simile can be as much an answer as usual church dogma.

In the Eastern Orthodox tradition every service is sung. Even though I’m Mennonite, when I participate in an Eastern Orthodox service I’m engaging a centuries-old attempt to hymn the shape of God. It’s the same attempt that permeates my poetry work. I am creating (according to tradition I’m not sure I understand but which I love) a ritual structure, a rhythm and trying to imbue it with some lively, vibrant narrative.

I’m trying to hymn the shape of God and my own life, too.

After Italy (that phrase seems to find its way into every waking hour of my day; I am defined sometimes solely by being post-Italy), I find that I delight in participating in outward liturgy that reflects my attempts at inward poetic energy.

I especially love participating now that the services are all in English and I am able to clearly see how this narrative liturgy is forceful.

Yes. It works that there is correlation here, between liturgy and poetry. But in the case of poetry, I’ll decline to say “amen,” for the simple reason that I am not done working out this hymn yet.

Filed under general, reflections, tongues, literary reflections, vocation, vitality | Comment (0)

eleven more days of freedom

I cannot wait for my roommates to arrive. I moved into my on-campus apartment last Friday. . . and while I love having space which is solely mine, on some level I feel a little lost without roommates. My roommates next year, Katie and Elena, were in Italy last spring with me (that’s us on a field trip in that picture! It’s Katie’s photo, and from left to right it’s me, Katie, and Elena). They’re stimulating, challenging people, with whom I just have a whole lot of fun. Artistically, I value their judgments highly (I took wood-block printing and stone-carving with both of them in Italy) and conversationally, I value their wit. With them, any remotely interesting topic results in debate and hilarity. (The weekend trip to Sardinia pictured below definitely resulted in hilarity!)

And we’re all art majors, so we have plans afoot to decorate our apartment. Posters are key, as are photographs of Orvieto and our travels. And, since we are art majors, we decided to exploit the sketching process to decorate our apartment; we plan to hang huge sheets of paper on our walls and use them as giant sketchbooks. I’m jazzed. I think it will be heck of rocking.

Yes, we’re mildly art obsessed. Because at college, your major eats your soul (in the best way possible). I’ve never lived with art majors before, but I’m excited. I’m excited to live with people who really have an appreciation of what it takes to be an art major, the hours of work required, the all-nighters before projects are due, the delight in finally getting something you can be proud of. Also, I think it will be great to have other artists always around to bounce ideas off of – and not just artists, but artists for whom I have a solid respect.

In Italy, Elena and I ran together before class in the morning. I think I’m going to have to start running early in the mornings again, even before Elena moves in. My body has finally settled into a regular sleep pattern, one that wakes me up briefly at 6:30 a.m before I roll over and tell myself sternly not to wake up for another hour. In Orvieto, running provided me with a chance to see the landscape waking up – to soak in the new light pouring over the edge of the cliff and into the valley. If I could force myself to open my eyes as regularly here at Messiah, I think that I might find enough inspiration to carry me through my senior show.

Speaking of senior show? Yesterday I saw one of my favorite professors ever. His name is Daniel Finch, and talking to him is like drinking three cups of espresso. I’m lucky enough to be working with him for my advanced two-dimensional studies course next semester, and already he’s prompting me to consider senior show questions. What makes me make images rather than turning to any other form of self-expression? What do I lack that I try to supply through image-making?

I’ll admit, after talking to Daniel my stomach is doing nervous, excited flips. I’m a senior now, and I have to prove myself by making senior-level work! And there are so many fascinating, difficult, delving questions that I’ll spend the next year trying to answer. . . .

Countdown: 11 days to the start of classes

Filed under general, reflections, lollipops, Italian experiences, photography, vitality | Comment (1)

i was standing on the surface of a perforated sphere when the water filled every hole

Well! Today was an adventure. The photo shoot for the President’s Report happened down in Climenhaga, in Miller Auditorium. I’ve never spent much time on stage down there, but today I did - documenting the documentation, mostly (Donovan Witmer did the photography, Christina Weber organized, and Dan Custer and I took video and photos of the whole photo shoot process). The cover design adopted, as its theme, a conglomeration of faculty, employees, and students ala Annie Leibovitz’s Vanity Fair covers (except without the Hollywood stars).

I learned a lot, hanging out in the wings and running a video camera (or trying to slyly take notes in my sketchbook. Pretty sure I fail at slyness, though). Most of it was just little stuff - the tone of talking to large groups of people that you’re photographing, how planned all that body language that seems so natural is, how much life does not slow down after college - not if you’re a person passionate about what they do. I learned how much equipment you need to get a simple-looking effect, and how much knowledge successful, grown-up people imbibe through years of work (and they just whip it out instantaneously!). Also, I learned that sometimes a photo shoot containing seven people involves just sheer blind luck to get the perfect photo.

What hit me in the face the hardest, though, during my day of aiding the photo shoot (basically as a gopher) is this: I am so little prepared to face the real world. I haven’t got hardly any skills. Like, wow. Also, I lack social grace, which seems to always come in handy.

On the other hand, I felt an immense vitality going into this shoot - so many people with so many ideas and so much experience. You know how some people seem flat and dull, like they just never pay attention? And other people are vibrant and full of vitality, eyes wide open all the time? I want to be one of those vibrant people who’s full of vitality, and I want to be out in the real world acquiring that vitality and vibrant experience.

Sure, I’m not ready to graduate in an actual skills acquired kind of way (I’m sure as heck not ready to face my senior show even!), but I’m ready to graduate in an I want to get out there and learn all this stuff and be kick-butt at what I do someday kind of way.

I guess I just need to be stubborn enough to keep working with what I like even when I feel totally inadequate. And. . . if there’s any character trait I do have in abundance. . . it’s sheer stubbornness.

The End.

Filed under general, photography, the real world, vocation, vitality | Comments (2)