Art is good for you Art is healthy. Like exercise, drinking water, and getting enough sleep - art helps keep us happy, and engaged. Art is a tool that can help us become better stronger people.
Essays by: Elizabeth Hammond, Maureen Montague, Tim Janchar, and Erin Dengerink Poem by Jim Martin Artwork by Erin Dengerink All photos by Cristin Noreen
Elizabeth Hammond is a Writer, Educator, and Entrepreneur. She is Codirector of Baja Expeditions, an environmentally responsible adventure travel company in Baja California Sur, Mexico. Maureen Montague is the Executive Director of Columbia Springs, in Vancouver Washington. Montague is an Author, and Artist. Her artwork has been show extensively in the Pacific Northwest. Tim Janchar is an Artist, Doctor, Musician, and a founding member of the artist collective Danger Punch. His artwork and performances have been showcased both nationally and internationally. Jim Martin is an Artist, Poet, and Educator. Martin is a member of Clark Creative Support, and is advocate for arts and culture in Southwest Washington. Erin Dengerink is an Artist, Curator, Entrepreneur, and Educator. Her artwork has been shown throughout the West Coast and beyond.
Make Freer Art Maureen Montague I recall an interview with one of my favorite singer/songwriters after the release of her fourth album. The journalist asked her how making the newer album was different from the previous one. Her reply was simple, “I wasn’t nearly as depressed with the latest one.” Interestingly, the former album was her best and notable in modern rock. The album she recorded when she was feeling better was good, but nowhere near her high watermark. What is it about an artist’s emotional state and the quality of her art? When one is in a state of mind that is free from inhibition, whether by way of mental anguish or elation, the audience can sense it. How free we are in our minds translates directly to how pure we are in our work. Whether it is spiritual revelation or emotional catharsis, elevated states of feeling are unmistakable in art. I know this in my own work and I’ve seen it in others. The art I make during periods of intense personal reflection, so often brought on by pain or loss, is braver. My voice is clearer, my technique more stylized, and my passion more distilled when I create from a place of emotional intensity. When life is calmer, fairer, cleaner, I struggle to find the same quality in my work. I can be more courageous as an artist because I feel I have less to lose when I am struggling with hurt or have been challenged by a spiritual experience. When the peace within is disrupted, there is nothing to lose. Herein is the true gift of being an artist- no tragedy is wasted, no anguish made useless, and no disarming spiritual quandary deemed superfluous. All disruptive experiences are source material for what could be the best work of one’s life. There is plenty of disruption in everyone’s life- even if one has a relatively easy life there is death, illness, and conflict. No one gets away from suffering. Beatific art is the end result of the transubstantiation of discomfort to joy. So here is a challenge to all working artists- make freer art. Take the material from your heart and mind that disrupts your status quo and allow it to free you from inhibitions. Surrender your modesty, if just for one body
of work, and tell the world what you really mean. Seize the opportunity Change has given to dig into the deepest, richest loam of your Soul and unbury the treasure within. Unfurl your art as if it is a flag announcing your freedom.
I’d rather be a poem than a corporation. It is because art heals. Elizabeth Hammond A dancing typewritten virtually-captured reflection November, 2016 When asked to pray, I always danced. So I guess that is what I came here to do too. I can’t do everything at once, but I can fill a small space with love. Some of the best writing I have ever done was in the form of love letters to half-convinced men. And a little later on, I settled on that fact that is better to write something that can serve as a love letter to myself, and one to you as well, whomever it is that you might be. That’s the practice, best I can tell… to figure out a way to love everyone. Even the people we are sure we should hate. Not sure how? Art knows. I think that if we activate the few small hearts inside the bodies of enough of us, there might be some hope still for our planet teeming with the small human people, most of them generating garbage and either suffering from or creating unrest. I write because I think we can all do better, myself included. we can tell stories and read stories and write stories, climb mountains, sail across oceans, run rivers, walk paths, body surf waves, fly through the air, sit quietly, walk together, walk apart, breathe. thinking. breathe. there is so much for us. to us. don’t look at me, you said. look in here. you used two fingers to tap my chest. Love is the answer. “Cinco, seis, siete, OSH-O,” (rather than ocho). Memo, on short notice from his longer name of a conqueror, sang the counts of the poetry he wanted to watch us dance. Like a real dance company dances, Memo would scold, dance-pouting scolding to the rhythm of reasons even you would buy. I bet his dream is that of many dance teachers in small or far-
away dance schools. How do you teach someone to dance poetry? I once asked the Philosophy student and best friend of a once-lover of mine to teach me how to ice skate backwards. French Canadian guy. “How do you teach someone to walk?” he asked back first. From what I understand, he and a once-lover of his argued once over who was more in charge of the concept of organic life. Philosophers find funny sticks for growing flames. It would seem that they did not come for no fire, and less, to be bored. Memo’s plug-in electric mane is the kind of hair that would like its own show, a variety show in an early morning or late night slot. His voice ballad-weeping like the lady singers built like bedazzled tanks. In his voice he flash sings his numbers in the Spanish of the small city where he was raised. The choo-choo sound he blends into a shush. Dance that. Named for Peace, the small, but guess what, no-longer-small, now larger, small-ish city. Peace. The Peace. I can imagine that the folks who named the spot were asking the other people that show up late later to keep that in mind. Maybe reminding us all what we must keep in mind as we hurtle ourselves forward into our own sea of plastics, dancing the steps beyond their Cuban crosses… no one notices which Spanish-speaking place you may mean any way. The Angels. The Peace. And I guess that sooner or later, there is no dancing away from La Santa Muerte. “Cross it behind. Until behind!” Memo’s words are a quick switch to the burro’s legs or to near the burro’s head. Quick switch when it is time to wake the feet up, move them, dance them one at a time together in a Cuban cross faster than the ceiling gecko, gecko just faster in front of the cat-with-the-ear-scabs’ swipe. You bet, faster than that. If only by a bit. “Ouácala.” (“Gross.”) (Just like it sounds.) I know exactly where to “pull up” inside my body in order to make my feet go faster. It’s not something everyone learns how to do. Like most things. I smile to myself. Most things are things not learned, and therefore not known by most people. Can that be so, asks a rotating dancer? But if I drive the center point of my heel to the ground and the impulse radiates out in a way that lets the sole of my foot expand the surface area of ground that it is able to cover while at the same time activates the curvature of the arch to train it away from the floor, then my leg grows longer than I thought a small leg could grow and my feet can go faster. To the front, side, back, side, interior back, front back front, close front. Begin back.
All the pretty dark haired girls with late Winter red lipstick and hair healthier than horses, slicked into twirls of morning pastries adorning their heads, chirped, between talking and smiling. Leotards covering small forms now aware of stacking shoulders on top of hips and dropping shoulders away from ears down the back, training their swan necks in craning abilities in a way that would never have been possible strictly with top shelf moonshine produced from the Mexican agave plant, and we will have to leave sustainability to discuss another day. Wearing candy colors usually hidden inside chocolate, but in small enough quantities that you know to expect a next time, their waiting wings flapped, but you would only notice if you paid close attention. “De la clase de ballet,” from ballet class, they answered, smiling, when asked. The mirror reflected behind the bottles, goblin-makes-a-longfaced-skeleton-laugh kind of bottles. I grew up dancing stories against a backdrop of wheat. I saved up my spare time for falling in love. But what you do in your spare time is something for talking about maybe once you know someone better. But dancing you can jump right into. Well, some folks can. Folks like me. I jump right into dancing. If everything is right. Sometimes I won’t dance for anything. Probably like you. Unless you are an always- or never- type of dancer, if you catch my drift. We are each our own kind. My kind was a promenade siren tutu-ed kind. It all depends of course on all of the stories of where and how the people are like they are and what dancing with bodies means round their parts. Round all those parts and all those people. My point being, there’s a lots of ways to dance, and to be about dancing. Now in my experience of love early on in life, children tended to fly around with the birds in their own air currents of kid love, same way I flew around studios and stages, floating soaring with dance teachers and dancers, small and large… the kind of love before the rules of “why not to” get leaked by the grown-ups. Dancers were like stage grown-ups to me. Playing themselves under stage lights, painted and character-shoed, timed saunter and swagger to the Russian holiday orchestra’s strains of story music. It always made as much sense as anything to me to interpret being a wood nymph or a swan or a dancing cultured candy as a fine way to spend a Winter season in your body. I had a kid head of hair straight enough to make you wonder why so much insistence; strawberry brown I called it, also green from swimming hundreds of yards and meters of freestyle and breaststroke, the swimming kind, por favor. quickly create the girl dancing inside and the girl dancing outside
(don’t mention the beach donkeys – neither near Cartagena nor the ones magical in the quiet of a coastline…) we can tell stories and read stories and write stories, climb mountains, sail across oceans, run rivers, walk paths, body surf waves, fly through the air, sit quietly, walk together, walk apart, breathe. thinking. breathe. there is so much for us. to us. don’t look at me, you said. look in here. you used two fingers to tap my chest. Love is the answer.
What can art do Erin Dengerink
A couple of years ago I had a discussion about Wayne Chabre’s The Wailing Bell with a group of college student while I was leading a tour of the public art on their campus. The bell is a large bronze form with a wood clapper suspended on a huge tree branch hanging between two 17’ wood pillars. The sculpture is placed off the side of a trail in a wooded area that feels isolated despite being near the center of a college campus. The sculpture looks ancient and ominous. The students and I stood in front of the bell. I invited a student to read aloud the inscriptions on either side of the bell. Both texts refer to the extinction of species and the human responsibility to rectify that loss. Heavy texts. I asked another student to ring the bell. The sound that bell makes is unexpected. It does not ring. It wails and groans. The bell is loud! The students jumped, yelped in surprise, and laughed. Although the artist intended the bell to wail for the extinct species and the degradation of the environment, I suggested to the students that it also has another use. People often use the Wailing Bell as a way to express personal loss or difficulties. Several people have told me stories of using the bell to ring away angst or sorrow. One woman I met on a similar public art tour told me she had regularly visited the bell to think about a friend who was going through chemotherapy. When I relayed this to the class one student was obviously annoyed by that idea. He rolled his eyes, groaned and said “ I just have to say: ART DOES NOT CURE CANCER!” True. Art does not cure cancer. Art is a balm for those conditions that have no cure. Art has the ability to be healing and helpful. Art is tool that we use to examine and explore ourselves, and society. Tools are made for a particular purpose. A hammer is made to pound nails, but I could also use it for self defense, as decoration, or as a paperweight. A tool in action is a result of combining the toolmakers intent, the tool, and the user. When we observe and contemplate a work of art the experience is equal parts the viewer, the object, and the artist. The viewer molds the experience to their needs. Art is a tool that has infinite uses. Art can serves a specific purpose for people who are in pain or in need by providing a place, an object, or action on which to focus that need. Art is a way of taking something
internal and making it manifest in the world. Ideas and feeling become images and forms. Art makes the invisible visible, bringing things out of the dark so we can see them and resolve them. The Wailing Bell can fill a need by giving you an action to do. It creates a space where you can go. The placement of the bell is integral to its function. It is a secluded shade covered place off the trail. The surroundings are such that you cannot view the sculpture from a distance without it being obscured by the trees. Distance makes objects appear smaller, but the Wailing Bell is always large. There at the Wailing Bell we are small, vulnerable, in the shadows. The Wailing Bell makes an industrial sound. It’s is the sound of work, effort, strain. It wails for you. It can relieve you of some of the work of grieving. The Wailing Bell keeps you company. It can be less lonely to have the noise of the bell echo the feeling you have in your chest and belly making those feelings a groaning clanking clatter. At the bell when the student proclaimed the art does not cure cancer, the class erupted. Everyone had a comment or jeer. It was fantastic to see the group became fully engaged and debating. Art does not cure cancer, but has many healing qualities. Art can mend a broken heart, bring joy, and ease loneliness. Art can ignite our passion and help us be more alive.
Art has wings Jim Martin
loud voice behind closed door a cry sharp sound of fist on flesh outside pleasant day neighbors on porches in yards screen door slams open figure dashes clutching soul to self her only possession time heart slows stills mind mulls thoughts a room beckons offers solace humble but safe home new thoughts a friend talks a need to know yourself what do you want to do with your life help others to use art to heal practice with an artwork make it express yourself painting dark
a room broken window closed curtained how do you feel about it insignificant are you no do another art work
and
window’s curtain open now wants to do more feels proximity of hope details plan to help others through art more art work bird looks out window then quickly staccato rhythm of art works pulse of incipient life window opens bird looks out bird on sill eye cocked to sky bird flies as does her own heart and soul flies to know her person accept respect who is there to know become her self
The Remedy Is In The Affliction Tim Janchar “Medicine is a science of uncertainty and an art of probability.” Dr. William Osler
Medicine, though founded in science, often claims to be an art. I think that’s the only way doctors can deal with the randomness and unpredictability of the human variable. Especially in a busy emergency room, which often serves as a stopgap for our social shortcomings, the flux and flow of trauma and illness almost has to be viewed with the insight and creativity of the artistic eye. Scenarios unfold that the pedantic approaches of logic and science can neither predict/explain, or effectively handle. I’m coming to this conversation from 15 years of working night shifts at inner city emergency departments and an art practice that I didn’t realize was inherently connected to the work there. I took the Hippocratic Oath years ago to “Do No Harm”. That seemed pretty easy — just don’t hurt anybody. But people are already hurt, and often they can’t be cured. Shortly after finishing medical training, I realized that few patients actually have their illnesses resolved in the emergency department. I had given up on the concept of curing people long ago and approached the work as having the potential to heal. Curing is founded on tangible goals in a physical world — an abolishment of the illness — an intent to pretend the insult never happened in the first place. Healing acknowledges the necessity of a wound for healing to take place. Sickness and health are not dichotomous entities, but two parts of a whole, each needing the other. It is art that can help us understand and embrace this. Healing, as well as art, doesn’t necessarily try to solve problems, but instead asks questions and re-orients us down the right path towards transcendence — or at least acceptance. In both art and medicine, healing and transformation necessitate taking thoughts, ideas, an energy and presenting them in a usable way. Certainly the practical function of the ER is to attend to the immediate physical needs of patients, but it also it exists in a more general sense as a place for people to engage the vulnerability of the body — both its physical and mental entities. Art as well, functions as a system to negotiate and address these vulnerabilities. It understands that part of responsibility is vulnerability. Medical training focuses on dealing with the objective pathology of the body. That is the expected and technical part of the job. But there is no training or defined approach to the subjective part of emergency medicine.
Traditional medicine breaks the complexity of the human body into welldefined categories with an algorithmic approach to each. Though this approach can neglect the body as a whole, to say nothing of the soul — the unifier of the body’s separate parts. Dealing with the human variable requires a different approach — addressing the abstract wound requires viewing the person, not as parts of a physical being, but as a composite body and soul. The soul has a different type of pathology than the body and requires you to approach it as an artist. Regardless of the outcomes in medical and artistic practice, it is the act; the attempt, that is necessary and inherently worthwhile. No matter how many night shifts I work in the ER, there will always be patients waiting to be seen; the waiting room never empty. No matter how many years I pursue the creative process, there will still be questions to ask - the perfect work never made. If I believed that the patients who suffer the undeserved horrors seen in the emergency department have no eternal destiny, then I wouldn’t need a boldness of spirit to drive my soul. If I accepted that my responsibility as an artist carried only an aesthetic worldly end matter then all this would just be pro forma. I’m not that strong. I look to art to create a belief structure and purpose to go forward. Both art and medicine are undertakings to overcome societal, political, and personal division and conflict. There is a role for art/medicine to take us from fragmentation/alienation and move toward reconciliation. The process begins when we align ourselves with the suffering. The desire for transformation is the impetus for creativity. In a true sense, the healing spirit of transformation is present in every artistic act. If there is art in all components of life and everyone has the ability to be an artist, then the potential for healing is everywhere and in everything.
About the artwork This collection of artwork by Erin Dengerink was created as a series of talismans, objects that give strength or bring luck. They are tiny tools that are meant to bring joy to the viewer. Those tools can transport us from the banality of the everyday to places of great intellectual and psychic depths. They can be a balm for heartache, an impetus for action, a vehicle for contemplation and meditation. The artist created the work by combining and altering personal objects with a focus on healing. Many of the objects are the debris from medical treatment: the vials that medicine comes in, the glass tubes from syringes, and pills. Those objects can have a negative connotation. They are image of illness, pain, and uncertainty. As a means of coming to terms with those objects, to embrace that they are healing Dengerink combines them with rocks, flowers, toys and other objects. All the components of the work have been touched, used, loved, and worn; any clinical cleanness, and intimidating newness has been rubbed off. The artworks are as whimsical and they are weighty. Many of the rocks, shells, and plant forms in the sculptures were found on the trails and walkways of Marquam Hill where Oregon Health and Science University is located; a space devoted to healing and access to nature. Other objects were collected from the artist home and everyday life. The artworks small scale makes the pieces intimate; their delicate materials make them precious and fragile. Dengerink makes these items beautiful to focus on the positive aspects of their function. The artworks are lovely, enigmatic, and moody.
All of the artworks in this publication were created for an exhibit at the Corvallis Art Center January 2017. Thank you to the Corvallis Art Center Hester Coucke, the board, members, staff, and volunteers for the opportunity to exhibit this work. Thank you: Asa and Amelia Madarang, Joan Dengerink, Lindsay Williams, Leah Jackson, Cynthia Heise, Nicole Weiss, Alyson Day, Jennifer Abernathy, Peter and Dane Collier, and Laurel Whitehurst for being Friends and supporters of this project. Maureen Montague, Tim Janchar, Cristin Noreen, Jim Martin, and Elizabeth Hammond - Thank you for contributing your words, your talent, and your advice.
Materials used amber bottles, branches, beads bees, buttons, bones brass, bobbins butterfly wings copper, crystals, Christmas lights cement, ceramics dirt, dice, dogwood seeds Enbrel egg shells fabric, figurines, flowers, feathers, glue glass iris pods jars, leaves, lichen, light bulbs little girl hair clips, lids lily pods marbles, Methotrexate, moss netting pennies, pills, paper plastic chandelier pieces pigment plastic toys, paint rocks, rubber, roots, rust seeds, soap, spoons snail shells, sea shells, sea glass syringes two rings, tin cans, un-tempered glass vitamins, vials wood, wax, wings