Archaic or Avant Garde

What is it to paint something in oil these days, with a live model sitting. Or to use one's imagination and paint upon a canvas that will be only one of a kind. We live in a digital age. Copies can be made through pictures, etc. and posted on the web or reproductions made, but the original is the original. It seems very archaic and out of date to paint in oil paints. Why not simply use digital photography, photoshop, and manipulate images?
There is something personal, I find, when I paint. I become the camera or lens through which the image is understood. How I process, experience and love that which I see is then processed even further though my limited abilities and limited material. The limitations of what it is to be a mortal are expressed even further in our limitations of expression.
With the availability of technology changing the way we see images, with so many people creating images and modifying images to post, publish and promote; might it be the avant garde of art to actually paint an image. To create a one of a kind work, with the visible strokes of the brush seen on the canvas, the human connection leading to the subject and the experience of the two - artist and subject- together makes for perhaps the ultimate edge of art within our human journey.

Self Portraits

Over the years I have endeavored to portray myself. Efforts at self portraits have been very enlightening. It is good to visualize the experience of oneself, the combined efforts of what one sees of oneself and what one perceives of oneself. It is a great form of self analysis and has been a help in guiding me to see myself more honestly. It has also been a fun exercise to play with the medium of paint in a portrait, painting myself means that the model might not be as upset with experimentation.

Some thoughts on painting portraits

When I look at someone, what I see is the light reflecting off of them. Some of the light has been absorbed by their body and the other light is reflected towards me and by seeing the light that has been reflected I can determine the shape and features of the one before me. There is a deep longing in my soul and heart and mind to connect with others. How can I see who they are apart from my assumptions and history with them? This is what I look for when I paint them. It is the act of praying with paint the longing to see, to know, to understand and honor this other life; knowing that however I portray it, it will always be transmitted through how I have received this light and experience. It is in these prayers that I hold onto people dear to me and keep them ever before me in my heart, as reminders to keep looking at them. The prayers of paint are only the establishing of new habits of relationship I hope.

Primitive Stories

In my journey to paint, I have found that the stories of faith to be an important place to begin. The problem for me is that the images of these stories have been so often made and manipulated that I they have lost their power for me. The image of Jesus praying on in the garden, with perfect hair and pious gesture on the eve of his death is the ultimate sanitized surrender to meaning in faith paintings. At such a point it is simple decoration style and no meaning nor engagement. Along with the vast tidal wave of images made of the biblical stories I have found a phenomenal lack of awareness of these stories in our life now. What was the defining stories of our culture and society are now historical, academic and quaint shadows of another time. So for me the journey back to the stories of my faith and where I find my meaning leads me to a very primal or primitive expression. This began with a picture of the crucifixion, a key entry point of Christian faith. At a time when I was drinking much in college, I found that the fake wood knots that were formed into the table tops made for great face images and using them as a backdrop I went into the place of pain and loss in my own life and found the companionship of Jesus. The direct and spattered expression of someone being literally splattered on the cross is what came out. What surprised me was a friend’s reaction, it was not of the primitive nature, but the fact that the image of Jesus was black. The racial dimension of Jesus had never been a thought to me, and it struck me that perhaps all the images I had grown up with were caucasian, like me. He had trouble with seeing Jesus as being black. I had no thought in this as being any racial statement at all. This unintended consequence made me aware that by going into a more emotional and primal place in my expression was also an entryway into unmasking my own and perhaps others limitations placed on our faith by the limited and very controlled expressions of the stories of our faith.

A Call to Create

My calling to the Episcopal priesthood came from my calling to be an artist. One led to the other, without the call to create I could not have come to the call to be a priest. As a visual artist I see my role as a priest to help people see more clearly who they are and the mystery and majesty of God's love all about us. The earlier call to create also helps me to see and understand my journey in this other calling better. Some of the pictures of myself in this journey reflect my attempts to see better who and what I am doing.