As a trained calligrapher, artist and designer, Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris started out building her career on the ‘art as a product’ route. Gradually, she came to realize that art is not just products or a vocation, but that it is also intimately connected with healing, transformation and community-building. The process of deep and far-reaching change in herself was influenced by artists she was inspired by.
Sarah contends that it isn’t the task of the artist to fit into the market ideology, but rather to bring artistic values, beauty, soaring imagination and fearless skill into that arena. This beautifully illustrated book maps how the arts are a powerful force and how artists are stepping outside the boundaries of the studio, untethered by the emphasis on money, to re-awaken their original function as the intermediary between sacred realms and the newly emerging everyday world. Art is once again fulfilling its visionary role in creation and renewal, offering fresh images to light up our imagination and alternatives to how to live on our planet. Art can transform you: it can awaken your generous spirit.
ART: Criticism & Theory £19 $24
Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris
Art, like friendship, has an intrinsic worth without having to be a means to an end like fame or money. Viewing art as a link to the natural, wild and sacred realms, Sarah’s work shifted to seeing art in relationship to others, the world, and generosity.
A GENEROUS SPIRIT
Discover how art can heal, inspire, and bring solace and more meaning to your life
EXPLORING NEW DIRECTIONS
FOR THE
ARTS
Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris with a foreword by Keri Smith
As a trained calligrapher, artist and designer, Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris started out building her career on the ‘art as a product’ route. Gradually, she came to realize that art is not just products or a vocation, but that it is also intimately connected with healing, transformation and community-building. The process of deep and far-reaching change in herself was influenced by artists she was inspired by.
Sarah contends that it isn’t the task of the artist to fit into the market ideology, but rather to bring artistic values, beauty, soaring imagination and fearless skill into that arena. This beautifully illustrated book maps how the arts are a powerful force and how artists are stepping outside the boundaries of the studio, untethered by the emphasis on money, to re-awaken their original function as the intermediary between sacred realms and the newly emerging everyday world. Art is once again fulfilling its visionary role in creation and renewal, offering fresh images to light up our imagination and alternatives to how to live on our planet. Art can transform you: it can awaken your generous spirit.
ART: Criticism & Theory £19 $24
Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris
Art, like friendship, has an intrinsic worth without having to be a means to an end like fame or money. Viewing art as a link to the natural, wild and sacred realms, Sarah’s work shifted to seeing art in relationship to others, the world, and generosity.
A GENEROUS SPIRIT
Discover how art can heal, inspire, and bring solace and more meaning to your life
EXPLORING NEW DIRECTIONS
FOR THE
ARTS
Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris with a foreword by Keri Smith
Published by Kaminn Media 272 Bath Street Glasgow G2 4JR Scotland kaminnmedia.com Copyright Š2020 Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris (text and illustrations) The right of Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris to be identiďŹ ed as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. A CIP record for this title is available from the British Library. ISBN 978-1-912698-98-1 (print) ISBN 978-1-912698-99-8 (ebook) Front and back cover illustrations by Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris Cover title font by Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris Project managers Rende Zoutewelle and Kathleen Thormod Carr Edited by Aline Douma Cover, text design and layout by Thierry Bogliolo Printed, bound and distributed by Ingram Spark
Contents In Memoriam
7
Acknowledgments
8
Foreword by Keri Smith
11
Introduction
15
Re-Envisioning the Arts: Old Roles and New Directions
19
Stepping Off the Path
31
Autobiographical
41
Expanding Definition of Artist
55
A New Kind of Artist
73
New Art Activism
93
Art’s Value
103
Art Gift Market
117
Artists and Change
133
Beyond Craft
149
Afterword
173
About the Author
175
A Generous Spirit
Print sources
177
Online and audio-visual sources
179
Endnotes
180
Also available by the same author
184
6
In Memoriam
A couple of days before she died, my wife Sarah jotted down the title to the book she had almost finished on a slip of paper: A Generous Spirit: Exploring New Directions for the Arts referring to the idea that runs through the book, that art is a gift, not a product. I find the title especially fitting because Sarah was herself a truly generous spirit, who enriched the lives of many people she encountered in her wonderfully creative life.
A sky full of stars after the death of my love which one are you dear? —Rende Zoutewelle, June 2020
7
Foreword by Keri Smith “The more you’re here, and the more you’re alive, the more you realize you’re a mortal human being and that you’ll pass from this place. And will you actually turn up? Will you become a full citizen of vulnerability, loss, and disappearance, which you have no choice about?” —David Whyte
magine an art studio, a white room filled with lots of natural light. On one side there is a large drawing table covered with a myriad of art supplies of all shapes and colors. A candle is burning on the table. There are handmade bowls and baskets filled with materials that have been lovingly collected on long walks, during all seasons, from many different landscapes: rocks and shells and pieces of wood, moss, grasses and herbs that offer pungent smells when rubbed. There are things that beg your fingers to touch them, to pick them up and turn them around in your hand. There are colors, so many colors of oil and chalk pastels and paints. Beside the desk on the floor are baskets full of long colored fabric scraps, some tied together in anticipation of a project. The room smells pleasantly of art supplies, beeswax, wood and dried herbs. In the middle of the studio there is a colorful handmade rag rug. On it are small bowls filled with more natural materials, each with the goal of enticing you to take a closer look. The rug itself is an invitation to take off your shoes and sit down. You are being asked to give yourself over to an important conversation with someone who believes in what the poet and philosopher David Whyte refers to as the power of a “beautiful question.” The beautiful questions in this case are of what it means to be an artist, and on what gives us meaning, on what our soul really requires to thrive. They are plentiful and not always easy. The questions being asked will push you because it requires you to go into the depths of who you are for the answer. I have spent several weeks walking through this conversation with my guide Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris. It feels as though I have been on a journey with a dear friend. And while we never got to meet in person I feel as though
11
A Generous Spirit
we are kindred spirits, both in how we think and how we pursue meaning — like someone with their hair on fire pursues a pond. Sarah’s line of questioning is thorough. She does not let you take the easy way out. If you are going to become an artist, if you are going to pursue a life of meaning, you must travel to a place of great vulnerability. But do not worry, you are in the hands of a competent guide who will take you through the beautiful questions one by one. Sarah provides you with her own thoughts and conclusions on what it means to live fully, on the potential of art to heal, and on how it can inspire us to “make sense of our experience.” This book is a beautiful journey through the landscape of an artist questioning her role and contribution to society. The themes presented will probably be familiar to artists and creative people: among others, a deep questioning of the merger of art and commerce, asking how we can use art to better our communities, exploring how we can use art to heal and find meaning, and more. You are in the expert hands of a deeply contemplative and thoughtful soul who will take you thoroughly through this questioning process only to emerge on the other side with some incredible gifts. During the course of the journey you will be exposed to an amazing number of writers, artists, and creative thinkers who will provide you with plenty of research material for your own explorations. As I write this we are living in the midst of a global pandemic. My family and I fled the US to Canada (my home country). We are very lucky to have had a way out. The situation in the US is worsening every day and people are struggling to survive. Wildfires are burning on the west coast causing thousands to flee their homes. People are losing their jobs and not able to pay their rents due the pandemic. The Black Lives Matter protests have grown all over the world. People have taken to the streets to say, “Enough is enough. We will not stand for racism and discrimination any longer!” There is an increased sense of hopelessness and rates of depression are through the roof. The federal government is doing nothing to help the people. None of us could have imagined just a year ago how much the world could change in such a short time. The American dream (which Sarah specifically mentions as distinctly problematic) is literally failing right in front of our eyes. The things that people have been aspiring to for so long (money, success, fame) have proven to be empty and lacking in the meaning that is so needed to have a soulful existence. Now is a time for re-evaluating, and re-imagining a better life. As Sarah says, “many have begun to seek images for a better life, one that is kinder and more sustainable, where there is less 12
Foreword by Keri Smith
inequality, violence, discrimination and poverty.” Hers is a message for precisely this moment. Covid-19 has reminded us of the fragility of all of it, that none of us are immune to extreme vulnerability. Because of Covid there has been a tendency to ask ourselves what is the importance of art now? Doesn’t it seem superfluous during times when people are truly struggling to survive? But this is precisely the thing that can and will help us through this time. Yesterday I rode my bike through a nearby neighborhood. As I was riding I noticed something white fluttering in my peripheral vision. I stopped and saw that someone had tied white prayer flags to an ugly thick metal wire and they fluttered in the wind. It seems like such a small thing to put up some prayer flags in an unexpected place. But the whole experience of it gave my heart a much needed jolt. This simple act communicated something much bigger than the sum of its parts. It said to me “Yes, life is still good. We are here.” And it gave me a moment of pause, to think about something else other than the struggle that we find ourselves in. I think this is the thing that Sarah is really trying to get at in the course of her investigations. How can we use our work to come to the aid of others? How can we make someone’s life more bearable? Because we are all in the process of struggling to survive. How can we do it with grace, passion, and love? This is the last communication of an artist to her community. It comes from someone who did indeed “turn up” and became a “full citizen of vulnerability” in her process as an artist and a human being. It is a true gift of questioning and insight. Reading it has left me questioning how I can both turn up and step up more in my own work and life. It has made me question what I can carve away and let go of, the unnecessary things (rules, societal expectations, beliefs). It has also made me excited to go forward and double down on the things that are really important, the things that as Sarah says “radiate out” and reflect in your art and life. Thank you Sarah for sharing this incredible gift with us. Thank you for inviting me to sit on your rug with you. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and ideas in this generous way. Thank you for using your gifts as a powerful tool for change. The world is better for it. — Keri Smith, author of Wreck This Journal Sunday, September 13, 2020
13
Introduction ‘An artist’s life used to be a vocation, a calling, often demanding sacrifices or renunciation of worldly values. When professionalism replaced vocation, artists started wanting art to serve their careers rather than seeing themselves as serving art.’ —Suzi Gablik1
rmed with our BAs in fine art/graphic design, the Carnegie-Mellon graduation class of 1973 moved out into the world more or less assured of earning a good livelihood. With some discipline and an ongoing commitment to producing high quality work (and with maybe a little teaching on the side), we could expect to live from our creative abilities. The phrase ‘Good work finds its own way into the world’ had meaning then, and truthfully, this is how the first stage of my career as an artist proceeded. For six years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I made my living from calligraphy and design commissions, from juried art fairs, and teaching adult art courses. All of this unfolded without the need for any branding or self-promotion, or social media (which didn’t yet exist). Relocating to the Netherlands in the 1980s when I was 33 years old was the beginning of a very different experience of being an artist. In Pittsburgh, I hadn’t realized that the ease of my success was also due to being embedded in several communities in the city, and that most of my work came from within those warm networks. From being a rising star in calligraphy and fine arts in the United States, I landed as an unknown foreigner in a vastly different cultural landscape than the one I had known. Alongside the usual challenges of integrating into a new country, there were other factors at play which made picking up my interrupted career exceedingly difficult. My specialty, calligraphy, was negatively associated in the Netherlands with the World War II German occupation and their use of Gothic script, which had dominated city streets during those years. Additionally, ‘calligraphy’ was firmly relegated to the hobby corner. While accepted in the US and England, the concept of calligraphic art as a branch of contemporary graphics and art was — aside from a handful of practitioners — virtually unknown here. Graphic design in the Netherlands of the 1980s was ever so avant-garde, all 15
A Generous Spirit
minimal lines and slashes. When I showed my portfolio to design studios, my work, which was warmer and more decorative, was labelled as ‘too American’ (whatever that meant) and ‘too traditional.’ In addition, the international fine arts scene, already seriously compromised, had by now become completely commercialized. As visionary and art critic Suzi Gablik wrote in the 1980s: ‘Trapped increasingly in a situation that seems both hopeless and inescapable, artists have become increasingly dependent on the ‘bureaucratic machinery’ which now organizes and administers the consumption of art in our culture.’2 For the first time I was confronted with a reality where doing good art wasn’t enough. It not only had to fit with the new times and culture I was living in, but above all the artist had to be a skilled entrepreneur to even get noticed, let alone earn a living. And so this book began as a search for meaning in my path as an artist. I was attempting to understand what I was experiencing all around me as the arts and artists were being devalued and marginalized. As society moved toward the commoditization of everything, I was questioning what artists could do, and what their purpose might be if they refused to produce art solely as a product. During the almost twenty years it took to write this book, many doors closed for me. I discovered that though I was passionate about much of my work, putting it in service to building and maintaining a career was unfulfilling. I didn’t realize it then, but in my heart there was a calling which was not being heeded. I gradually withdrew from art as a career, and began to question what art could mean not only for my individual life, but also for our collective lives. And over time, new doors opened. So this book is partly the chronicle of a personal journey; it starts with a successful life as a professional artist, and takes us through a search for meaning in an international spiritual community in Scotland, eventually landing as an outsider in the Dutch culture, establishing a career there, working as a healthcare artist in hospitals, and a gradual discovery of purpose beyond the selling of art and oneself. Some parts of the book were written during a period of transition between my old familiar way of life and a not yet discovered new one. It was a time full of doubt and isolation, yet I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing this. I wanted to share how I navigated a limbo period that went on for years and what I learned from it. I wanted to write while I was in the middle of it to describe the terrain for others who might be experiencing a similar situation. Choosing to write from an uncertain, constantly morphing period of life goes against the current formula of ‘how I succeeded despite everything’ 16
Introduction
books. There seems to be a new kind of myth that describes a process of overcoming obstacles to become the ’success that one is now.’ I can tell you early on that this book doesn’t follow that formula. Success can be defined in many ways. By veering away from a profession, the attributes of success changed from money and status to a set of other rewards. These only became evident after giving up the chase, and after a complete overhaul of my ideas and aspirations. In the end, I discovered that the period of feeling lost is necessary when you are radically changing your direction. Like the creative process, once you embark on it, there is no guarantee as to where you’ll end up. Though my life has moved beyond the years of limbo, I see that period as a necessary part of my story. I also found there was no way to tell my story without taking into account the enormous societal and cultural changes happening all around me. The scope of the book has expanded beyond the personal to consider new areas opening up for the arts and artists. It is not just a chronicle of how one artist had to change with the times, but also a story of the search for a more whole and connected sort of life generally. My artist friends were asking themselves if there is indeed a place in the world for them, and if there is any meaning in that path. I wrote this to get things clear for myself in the hope that others may also benefit from the insights gained along the way. This journey, including an ovarian cancer diagnosis during the writing of the book, has led me back to the rhythms of my own heart’s path, and a deepening connection with the soul of the Earth. Though the book is written from the perspective of a visual artist, it doesn’t matter what your area of work and expression is — creativity and creative thinking can be applied in every field. The artists you will meet in these pages have changed the rules. By following their calling with integrity and creative passion, they have each forged a unique path that others may in turn follow. They are strengthening the emergence of the “new arts” — arts done in service to the community and the land, and fully integrated into mainstream life. There are books I’ve read which have profoundly changed me: they have opened a door or taken away a worry, or sometimes lifted me so far above my little personal world that something in me just healed up which I didn’t even know was broken. This is the kind of book I wanted to write, and I hope for some of you it is. —Sarah, Autumn 2018
17
