Samuelson's Art and Spirituality

Leah Samuelson Arts and Spirituality May 26, 2007 Spirituality and Art Therapy The Spirituality of Art Reflection Paper What scares me most about art is viewing something I do not recognize but being unable to call it alien because it has come from within a creature like me, joined to myself. There is a panic caused by urges to run away and toward art at the same time – or maybe alternately, like an AC/DC current, or a nervous squirrel caught in the road, or a +1 -1 algebra action, leaving me at zero. The power in seeing a sight is too much to be content left standing at zero. The strange blend of things in art I recognize and things I never knew could be shifts and evolves as the category of familiar and unfamiliar slap one another around. The fearful thing is that often what I look to in art for comfort is, upon examination, threateningly incomprehensible. I experienced this viewing “Pan’s Labyrinth.” In the film, the state of the Spanish world was abominable and terrifying and the alternate world was supposed to be the pre-existing, destined, redemptive, rescuing world. But the alternate world was inhabited by a giant, disgusting toad, unending darkness and a murderous monster. For days following, when I thought of the real God, I pictured the toad. I was afraid of learning God is the toad, or like it, which is something I never knew. I was afraid a deeper knowledge of the divine had been shown to me, and it was too beastly to make me feel safe. I am afraid this is true because I believe the

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Divine shows itself to us, through us, through our visions and creations. I’m afraid because I cannot control what visions come to me by way of people sharing them. I cannot escape my connection, very union, with strange people who are not me, who do not know me, but do know me. At once they invade my privacy, but cure my loneliness, with images that teach. They populate my existence withimages to do life with, like friends, and enemies, and strangers. The scary thing about art is that it reveals the real, the forgotten, the familiar, and never slows down to let me catch up with synchronizing its dichotomous demands. It knows truths I do not. It will not let me master it, nor allow me to leave.

A thin space found me in a visit to a village in Greece whose name starts with an “M.” The village had a museum to show its ancient objects. I had no business being in Greece. I had not been invited. In the museum stood clay human figures. They were sized like chess pieces and painted a type of red. They barely resembled humans in their appearances, but in their essence the resemblance was unmistakable. They did not invent an invitation to Greece for me – but we saw each other – we looked into each other’s eyes. They did not have heads, nor eyes, just pinched tops.

Because of them, I did not have a head or eyes either. They were older than three thousand years. They both had made me and I had made them. But they knew more about the universe than I do because of their age advantage. When we saw each other, I was alone, but also with everything that ever was. They reminded me of a forgotten desire of mine. We intimidated each

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other, but suffered silently over not knowing when we would see each other again. We did not speak the same language. We were behind glass, so I could not pick them up. In the thin space, the figures were fixed and I was transient. The space afforded timelessness and communication across language barriers. It was both a welcoming and unsafe place.

I would like this educational experience to help me form a goal. I am adept and delighted in making selections from a lineup of options, but miserable at creating or recognizing options. I would like to discover the form my passions will take by answering the questions: “Will I make art? Teach art? Sell art? Promote art? With whom? For whom?” The most important question for me is, “under whom?” I am looking for a guide, or an organization with specific vision. I feel like a blind woman with pieces of a puzzle. I am familiar with all their shapes and am eager to fit them together for a purpose; I only need someone with vision to direct me. I am hoping to expand my knowledge of art therapy, art as healing, and urban development, so that I am smart and focused. My next hope is to be in the path of someone who will include me in a strategic community journey of transformation. For some reason I cannot get a job in Chicago. Ready and willing, I wish to plug my energy in somewhere there is a match of a need.

I like to draw and paint with watercolors. My strength with paints is my broad experience with almost every type. I can paint big and fast, or small and controlled. I understand paints soaking into a ground or mixing together. Paints I do not recognize I gladly utilize and to them I introduce myself. I like to paint abstracted skies in oils. I want to

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watercolor small documentary sketch skies next. I have been a faux finisher for three years, decorating mansions, visualizing layers, and inventing techniques. I also paint with the children at River City Church in Humboldt Park every Sunday. Our children’s program is brand new.

My first goal is to develop an arts program for our racially and economically diverse group of kids. This masters program is supposed to help with that. The second goal is to awaken the kids’ senses to the eternal, cosmic, microscopic, structures, colors, and experiences that are hidden but form and inform our existence. Liquid colors effortlessly fascinate. The third goal is to build into the children a level of comfort with painting supplies. If they defeat early the learned intimidation that often accompanies the media of creative expression, they may grow to be healed and healers. This is our ultimate destiny, so I would like to start in now.

I would like to address the charge or expanding my horizons using the arts for transformation because it is the most difficult question to answer, as I feel visionless. I am currently working with our varied church children population. The children in our group represent our predominately Latino neighborhood, “fringe” teens brought to church by social workers, several elementaryaged boys with joint-custody parents, and children of white parents working for social justice.

From nine to five, I work as a muralist and decorative painter with individuals from the wealthiest one percentile of our world. As it stands, I show up to any given place and let the paint do the talking. It has not needed an accompanying lecturer. Using brushes, pushing and

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pulling glazes, staying in one room for one to six hours, all who are near begin to be healed with that recipe alone. The question is how to expand. An obvious answer is public murals. But I wonder about murals. I am critical of them because they are not a lifestyle or etude. Perhaps a series of murals painted over one another would have breath and relevance to life’s cycles.

Another obvious answer is a studio workshop where kids, mothers, cyclists, or diplomats can sculpt and draw as a part of a lifestyle. But I wonder how to follow up with the artwork. People often wish to display or disseminate their creative expressions. I am critical of shows because of their brief timing and their artificial environment jolts artwork out of its previous life speed and application roles. I do not know what to do with my own work. I usually do not think much about it. This is a problem. If this course of study does not help me out, I am sunk.

The thing that scares me most about spirituality is how loosely affixed is its nametag. It is the strongest force in the universe, but the least dogmatic as to the nature or duration of its stay in our consciousness. Spirituality seems willing to allow itself to be morphed into physicality, mentality, causality, virtuality, nature, choices, sleep, time, or stories. I am afraid of the possible incredible waste in ignoring spirituality because my awareness is dulled and deluded by the original lie that there is not enough of any given thing and that the objects of all choices are mutually exclusive. I am afraid of spirituality because it is strong enough to control me but will not. I do not know that it is the smartest of all realms, but its treasures are the

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least excavated and consequently, for its nutrients we are most wanting. I am afraid of the potential storm of diminution that will overwhelm me if I meet spirituality after death and it is a stranger. I am afraid that means I would not recognize God’s face, and he would be as a stranger.

It is easy enough to adore idols and invest time getting to know infidel spirits. Spirituality is exceedingly lovely and dangerous, and if I cannot form an attachment to it, my life will end before my heart gives out. But it will not sign human treaties or assume human responsibilities.

It will grow within and along side me according to its own fancy and knock on the door of my whole being with the invisible fervor of roots growing through a solid building. This is alright.

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