Loading Video . . . Artist Nicora Gangi explores the journey of redemption of Rahab in this mixed media piece responding to Joshua 6:22-24 in the first work of her three-part series: When the Lord Gives Us the Land. Joshua 6:22-24 So Shall Your Descendants Be By Nicora Gangi Credits: Curated by: Spark+Echo Arts 2023 Paper Collage Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link Two spies, sent by Joshua, found protection in the home of Rahab. Before they left the city to return to the Israelite camp, a request for deliverance was made by Rahab and granted with an oath by these two men. This image depicts a great number of Israelites coming towards Jericho. The stars represent the multiplication of Jacob’s family who were reclaiming their God-promised territory. In the front of this vast warring company are the two spies who were told by Joshua to keep their oath to Rahab and bring her and all that belongs to her out of Jericho. In the hill below them are images of the destruction of the city in addition to Rahab and her family carrying all their belongings on their heads, leaving the ruin of Jericho behind. The red cord that she tied to her window gave the visual aid to the spies to identify her home on the city’s wall. In the image, this red cord is seen—like a tear—coming out of the subtle image of a lion’s eye. Rehab eventually married into the tribe of Judah and became a part of the line of Jesus according to Matthew 1:1-5 . Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Nicora Gangi was educated at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA (BFA 1974 and MFA 1976). She was a Professor of Art at Syracuse University for 29 years. Gangi has been awarded many Grand Prize and First Place awards and grants. She has been and continues to be published in numerous artist’s books on pastel paintings. She has lectured regionally and nationally as a visiting artist at universities and artist’s guilds. She is represented by: Edgewood Gallery (Syracuse, NY), and Gangi Studio (Winter Garden, FL ). Website Nicora Gangi About the Artist The Mountain of the House of The Lord I See Him but Not Now This One The Body without the Spirit | 1 The Body without the Spirit | 2 The Body without the Spirit | 3 The Sealed Ones Peace with God The Everlasting Protective Love of God Our Father When the Lord Gives Us The Land I See Him but Not Now The Mountain of the House of The Lord Paneled and Ruins Series The Harvest Spirit of God-The Spirit Hovering Memories Lies Fool Dance Your Truth from the Great Congregation Psalm 18 Sound of Their Wings Psalm 16 Kiss the Son EAST, WEST, NORTH & SOUTH AT HIS TABLE Nicora Gangi Other Works By To see the other panels from Nicora's work, click the links below: The Mountain of the House of The Lord I See Him but Not Now To see the triptych, click the link below: When the Lord Gives Us The Land Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

heavens-declare-tibay-01.jpg Heavens Declare, Detail 1 Heavens Declare, Detail 2 Heavens Declare, Detail 3 Heavens Declare, Detail 4 Loading Video . . . Artist Job Tibay grounds his art in his Filipino roots and finding beauty in the imperfect as he marvels at the glory of God in Psalm 19:1-6. Psalms 19:1-6 Heavens Declare By Job Tibay Credits: Curated by: Rebecca Testrake 2016 35 x 25 inches Oil on Sinamay Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link We live in such an imperfect world. Yet, even in the midst of chaos, flaws and disorder, one can always find or create something beautiful and divine. Beauty drawn from imperfection captivates me. There is something mysterious and inspiring about it. This is one of the reasons I love working on sinamay . Unlike your typical canvas, sinamay is handwoven from the processed stalks of the abaca tree . The varying widths of each strand, the knots in random spots, and the loose open weave, give it a rough, uneven, sifter-like surface. These characteristics make each piece respond differently even to the same touch and technique. Yet, these nuances and seeming imperfections make the creative process an exciting journey and experience. Sometimes it absorbs, other times it pushes back, generating a level of unpredictability that stimulates a conversation along the creative journey. My choice to work with sinamay is also a representation of my roots. Sinamay is made of abaca fiber, an eco-friendly material, woven from the stalks of the abaca tree. The abaca tree is a banana palm native to the Philippines, where I was born and spent a quarter of my life. With every artwork on sinamay, I feel as though I am exploring new grounds without ever losing touch with the place I first called home. The concept behind this artwork is simply about His glory and majesty being revealed in the grandeur and beauty of the heavens and the skies. It always leaves me in awe when I marvel at breathtaking views of the skies, the movement of the clouds, and the sun shining through it. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Job Tibay is a New York City-based Filipino artist, who moved from Manila to New York in the summer of 2005. Entirely self- taught, he discovered his love and skill for painting shortly after college, when he decided to create several paintings (watercolor and pastel on paper) to replace all the existing wall art decor at his parents’ house, matching the new color scheme after a renovation project. However, it was not until after living in New York for almost 7 years that he started to pursue his love for painting. Living abroad inspired him to find a substrate that would best represent his heritage and style. In his desire to stay connected and true to his roots, he has chosen to work on sinamay instead of canvas. Website : www.jobtibay.com Facebook : www.facebook.com/artbyjob/ Instagram : www.instagram.com/artbyjob/ Website Job Tibay About the Artist Job Tibay Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . Composer and guitarist Lily Maase explores the theme of healing in her beautiful and personal work responding to Daniel 10:8-19. Daniel 10:8-19 Look Out Below By Lily Maase Credits: Composed and Performed By Lily Maase. 2014 Curated by: Spark & Echo Arts, Self-Submitted 2014 Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link One afternoon in 2009 I was walking home from a yoga class in the Flatiron District in Midtown Manhattan when I briefly had the most curious sense of myself…I flashed upon a brief awareness of where I had been in the morning, where I was at the moment, and where I was about to be in the evening, ALL AT THE SAME TIME. It was as if I had been lifted out of my body and was viewing where I had been, where I was, and where I was headed from an aerial standpoint, like a line drawn on a map. By the time I made it home, I was aware of a consciousness in my body that was not my own -- whose presence was so palpable as to be almost violent. I spent the next 10 hours on the floor of my apartment, shaking, as if something had been ripped from within the deepest parts of me. In a lot of ways, something had. A lot of people talk about putting their life in God’s hands. That night, for whatever reason, God reached out and grabbed me, shook me until I almost broke, and saved my life. The next morning I took myself to the hospital, and a week later I returned to my father’s home in New Mexico and was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. The events in my early life that led to the sort of ‘fracture’ between my childhood spirit and my adult body are of little interest and far better left in the past. But for me, the diagnosis was not so much an answer to a question as it was the beginning of an arc, and I can say with certainty at this point that, had my life not been so radically altered by a force beyond myself, continuing to run away from that diagnosis would have killed me. Many things have happened since then and I would have hated to miss any of them, both the good and the bad. So I am profoundly happy to have been offered a new lease on life. I have lost more friends, family and lovers to substance abuse and suicide than I can count on my fingers and toes and wondered every time why I was somehow spared. Through learning to let go of my own obsession with my past I have learned to truly value the friends and family I still have, and have slowly learned to let go of people that are attracted to THAT part of me, the deep-down bit, that never quite seems to heal. I have always considered myself blessed. And after a while I developed a sense that I was as healed as I was going to be, despite some glaring inefficiencies in my life, and some things I had been trying to make happen that simply wouldn’t budge. I took this commission almost on a whim nearly 18 months ago, and when I was assigned “healing” as a theme I had a sense that I might write something that was a sort of sideways nod to my life as an adult learning to live with a trauma disorder, or some oblique reference to my unpleasant childhood, and that would be that. I let the idea percolate for a bit, and went on about the business of trying to make a living writing music and playing the guitar. And then… Eight months ago, I was driving home from a rehearsal and was stopped at a red light when I became aware of a familiar presence beside me in the van. Unknown to me at the time, three blocks behind me a carjacker had just stolen a vehicle at gunpoint and was speeding in excess of 70mph an hour down Bedford Avenue, trying to flee the scene. Two seconds later I was involved in a rear-end collision that totaled seven vehicles, dislocated my hips and one shoulder, and broke the necks of the two people who were in the car directly behind me. I survived, I might not have, and since that moment I have had an awareness of a powerful force at work both within my body and in my life. The sense I have of it is, I had begun to think I was “healed enough.” My life was sufficiently positive and proactive for a person living with my condition, and I had learned to live and be content with the things in my life that just weren’t quite right. I was Doing Okay, and that was fine by me, so I had stopped working on myself. So once again, I was grabbed. And I was shaken. Here’s the thing about PTSD. It lives in your body, like a parasite. And, like a parasite, you sort of get used to it and it becomes a sort of familiar companion. An old friend. So, if you want to get rid of it, you have to go into your body and find it and encourage it to let you go. You don’t let IT go. Because having PTSD is like being possessed. And when you are strong enough to let it, little by little IT lets go of YOU. The accident completely changed my plans for the future, because it forced me immediately and irrevocably out of denial and back into my body. It completely changed my concept of myself as a person who HAD healed, into a person who HAD TO heal. In order to recover from the dislocated hip, the tear in my shoulder that has left my left arm with an uncontrollable tremor, the whiplash, the herniated discs–in order to get my life back, I have had to reach into my spirit and my body and come up with the courage to heal from ALL of it. It’s been terrifying. But I know I can do it. Because God set this arc in motion five years ago, and I know in my bones He did it because this is something I can do. Looking back, I can see now that a lot of my creative work leading up to that first event had a lot to do with my body trying to reconcile what it had been through with my spirit’s sense of who I was. So I fall in and out of love with playing it, which I know is difficult at times for the people who have agreed to play it with me. It’s pretty wild music! And I’m proud of all of it. But this is the first and most likely the only time I will write directly about trauma and recovery–and the way that God found me, knocked me down, and gave me a chance to do the necessary work to rebuild myself into the person He and I both believe I will one day be. “Look Out Below” is a reflection on a passage from the Book of Daniel, on the idea of being filled with the violence of the presence of the Lord, and on the idea that our ascent to perfection might best be started by being knocked down onto our knees. Many thanks to Gil Selinger for providing the image that inspired the conceptual material, to JP Gilbert and Scott Holland for the original inspiration for the music itself, and to Jeff Cook for realizing the recording almost exactly they way it had been swimming around in my head. You have all been amazing teachers and I am blessed to learn from each of you. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Lily Maase is a rock, country, jazz and classical guitarist raised in New Mexico, educated at the University of North Texas, and living in Brooklyn, New York. She is contributing writer for Premier Guitar Magazine and has contributed to Guitar World and Guitar World’s Acoustic Nation, who recently lauded her as a “master guitar teacher.” She is the founder and owner of Brooklyn GuitarWorks, a workshop-oriented center for guitar and bass guitar education located in Williamsburg. Lily is the lead guitarist, musical director and bandleader with the Rocket Queens all-female tribute to Guns N Roses and the Suite Unraveling (Tzadik). She is the lead guitarist with Gato Loco, and is endorsed by Godin Guitars. Her playing has been featured by Vans.com, Maxim.com, Guitar World’s Acoustic Nation, Teen Vogue, and Elle Magazine. Website Lily Maase About the Artist Artist in Residence 2017: Lily Maase Part 1 Artist in Residence 2017: Lily Maase Part 2 Artist in Residence 2017: Lily Maase Part 3 Artist in Residence 2017: Lily Maase Lily Maase Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Nicora Gangi Revelation7 2 With West Hands Smaller Loading Video . . . This dramatic piece by Nicora Gangi reflects upon God's decision to wait in Revelation 7:1-3. Revelation 7:1-3 The Sealed Ones By Nicora Gangi Credits: Curated by: Spark+Echo Arts 2022 11 x 14 inches Paper and digital collage Mixed Media Collage Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link This image represents the pending storm of judgment, and for a moment there is this calm. These angels—seen in the image as four sets of hands—are standing on the four corners of the earth, holding back the winds of destruction. The set of hands towards the bottom of the image are largest due to the fact I have set our vantage point in the West viewing this scene. John sees an angel ascending from the East. Like the mighty angels in Revelation 5:2 and Revelation 10:1 , this angel calls forth in a mighty voice. The command of God to the four angels is "WAIT!" Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Nicora Gangi was educated at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA (BFA 1974 and MFA 1976). She was a Professor of Art at Syracuse University for 29 years. Gangi has been awarded many Grand Prize and First Place awards and grants. She has been and continues to be published in numerous artist’s books on pastel paintings. She has lectured regionally and nationally as a visiting artist at universities and artist’s guilds. She is represented by: Edgewood Gallery (Syracuse, NY), and Gangi Studio (Winter Garden, FL ). Website Nicora Gangi About the Artist The Mountain of the House of The Lord I See Him but Not Now So Shall Your Descendants Be This One The Body without the Spirit | 1 The Body without the Spirit | 2 The Body without the Spirit | 3 Peace with God The Everlasting Protective Love of God Our Father When the Lord Gives Us The Land I See Him but Not Now The Mountain of the House of The Lord Paneled and Ruins Series The Harvest Spirit of God-The Spirit Hovering Memories Lies Fool Dance Your Truth from the Great Congregation Psalm 18 Sound of Their Wings Psalm 16 Kiss the Son EAST, WEST, NORTH & SOUTH AT HIS TABLE Nicora Gangi Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . Ottawa poet Suzanne Nussey crafted "Beggar Psalm" in response to Genesis 32:24-26, Matthew 5:3, and the theme of "poverty." Genesis 32:24-26 Matthew 5:3 Beggar Psalm By Suzanne Nussey Credits: Artist Photo by Ken Ross Artist Location: Ottawa, Canada Curated by: Self-submitted 2014 Poetry Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link Before writing “Beggar Psalm,” I researched the biblical concept of poverty and, particularly, the Hebrew and Greek terms used in the Old and New Testaments for the noun “poor.” The Poor of Yahweh, by Albert Gelin, and Raymond Brown’s The Birth of the Messiah were among my sources. The Greek term for “poor” is ptochos (πτωξος) or “one who is bent or folded; metaphorically one utterly destitute.” The parallel term in Hebrew is “anawim,” which can variously refer to the poor, weak, afflicted, and humble who seek God for deliverance. In both testaments, poverty is understood as complete destitution, a spiritual as well as a material experience. What struck me as ironic is scripture’s indication that those who are most desolate are also closest to God. The “poor ones”—the lowly, sick, downtrodden, the widows and orphans—lack worldly goods, sustenance, and power. Yet, in their utter poverty and dependence, they become heirs of God’s kingdom. To be poor is to be afflicted and blessed at once. While I “get” this (monastic life aspires to such poverty and complete reliance upon God), I still find it disconcerting. I have worked with street people and people living on the verge of homelessness. They did not seem particularly “blessed” to me, and I doubt any of them would have used that term to describe their situations, physical or spiritual. I was angry with social and political systems that kept people poor, and was frustrated by the limited resources my programs could offer to make significant and lasting changes in their lives. For my Spark and Echo Arts commission, I wanted to avoid writing a diatribe against the forces that create and maintain poverty. I also wanted to evoke the experience of being poor. Though I have witnessed poverty, I could never call myself poor—hard up for cash, unable to afford certain creature comforts, in debt: yes. But never truly poor. So I searched for a literary form suited to the topic, and for an aspect of my own experience to relate to the desolation of the “poor ones.” What resulted is a contemporary psalm, based on the structure and literary devices used in Old Testament psalms, as well as their themes, ranging in emotion from anger to despair to supplication of the Divine. The poem is also influenced by the Ignatian spiritual practice of reflecting on one’s consolations and desolations, and by my own experiences of loss and illness, perhaps the nearest I will come to knowing how such poverty brings one closer to God. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Suzanne Nussey graduated with a B.A. from Houghton College, majoring in English and Writing. She received an M.A. in English Literature and Creative Writing from Syracuse University, and an M.A. in Pastoral Counseling from St. Paul University in Ottawa, Canada, where she now resides with her husband, Ken, and daughter, Sophia. Suzanne’s career smorgasbord includes work as a technician in the University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, a program assistant with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio Archives, a lifeskills instructor with street people, an employment counselor for a community economic development program, and several stints as a writing instructor. She currently works as a freelance writer and editor, focusing on texts in biblical studies, spirituality and psychology, and helping folks write memoirs, children’s books, and effective CVs. Most recently, she has published articles in Healthwise Ottawa, poetry in The Fiddlehead, has won EVENT magazine’s Creative Non-fiction contest as well as The New Quarterly’s Nick Blatchford Occasional Verse Contest, and has been nominated for the 2014 National Magazines Award in poetry. Suzanne has also developed and facilitated writing workshops for women living in shelters. (Photo by Ken Ross) Website Suzanne Nussey About the Artist Suzanne Nussey Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art From my pillow of stone I arise from troubled dreams or none in lost hope's narrow room View Full Written Work Beggar Psalm by Suzanne Nussey Genesis 32:24-26, Matthew 5:3 From my pillow of stone I arise from troubled dreams or none in lost hope's narrow room I rise and leave this house I do not own under the shadow of a crooked doorwayI take my begging cup in search of You. Under an old moon that shadows the owl and drives small creatures shivering to their dens I prowl abandoned streets where streetlamps challenge night and night replies with light- defying fog and gloom. In mist that veils the mendicant from preying eyes I search for You O shelter of the dispossessed to lift my beggar's palm and wrest from You a blessing or a wound. My tenant soul's been pillaged its plates pantry cupboards laid bare as scavenged bones by longing and despair that feed upon the poor with teeth like needles jaws like sharpened swords. I am a ruined house where hope has visited and fled. O dwelling place with no fixed address if I make my bed among the destitute in faith 's deserted doorways and lie in wait for You 'til dawn to raise my beggar's bowl will You answer my distress and harken to the sound of everything that 's gone? Landlord of the living will I live to see Your goodness or will You deny me alms? You take my empty cup And fill it with this song. Close Loading Video . . . From my pillow of stone I arise from troubled dreams or none in lost hope's narrow room Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . Photographer Shino Yanai responds to Psalm 19:12-14 in light of the events from March 11, 2011 in a three-part series featuring artists from Japan. Psalms 19:12-14 Paradise By Shino Yanai Credits: Curated by: Rachel Carvosso 2015 Photography Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link In this section of Psalm 19 (v12-14) the Lord called to forgive all human beings. As I look at the terrible history in many places I continue to have questions I began questioning “Do we really deserve this forgiveness?” Even after seeing Hiroshima burned down by a nuclear bomb with an incredible temperature of 2000 degrees, the United Kingdom still conducted nuclear testing in Orford and became the third country to own nuclear weapons. In spite of being the only country with the experience of nuclear bombing, Japan became the third largest nuclear power plant holder with 54 power plants. On March 11th 2011 many people in Fukushima were evacuated and forced to leave the homes that they love due to radioactive contamination resulting from the unprecedented nuclear power plant accident that surpassed even the Chernobyl disaster. Despite this Japan are co-operating with Sellafield are planning to pursue plutonium thermal power generation . (プルサーマル). In Genesis, human beings are expelled from paradise due to their imperfections. I imagined the appearance of paradise after they have been banished in the photographs of Orford, in Sizewell, Dungeness (which are locations in the U.K. that have nuclear power stations). 詩篇19篇、12−14節は、主はあらゆる人間を赦すという。しかし、私はこれまで様々な土地で凄惨な歴史を見てきて「私たちは、はたしてこのような寛容な赦しに値する存在なのだろうか？」という疑問を持つようになった。 広島が核爆弾の2000度の熱線によって焼き尽くされた後、イギリスはオーフォードで実験を行い第三の核保有国となった。そして日本もまた唯一の被爆国であるにもかかわらず、54基の原子力発電所をつくり世界第三位の原子力発電所保有国となり、いま再びセラフィールドに協力してプルサーマル計画を行おうとしている。　2011年3月11日に起こったチェルノブイリを凌ぐ原子力発電所事故の未曾有の放射能汚染によって愛する故郷を追放された多くの人々がいるというのに。 創世記では、人間はその不完全さゆえに楽園を追放される。人間が追放された後のその楽園の姿を、私はオーフォードに、サイズウェルに、ダンジャネスに夢想する。人間が自らの手によって自らを追放するであろうその場所に Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Shino Yanai is a contemporary artist born in Nara, Japan. She completed a B.A. as an instrumental Music Major at Kobe College and a B.A. in Painting at Tama Art University, receiving her Masters from Tokyo University of the Arts. Exhibiting widely in various spaces in Japan in addition to Internationally in New York, Beijing and London. In 2014 she was awarded the Pola Art Foundation grant and guest lectured in Okinawa on the theme of “Art and Nation” in Okinawa Prefectural University of Arts. Her current base is in London, U.K. Website Shino Yanai About the Artist Shino Yanai Other Works By SHINO YANAI, PARADISE (FROM ORFORD / SIZEWELL / DUNGNESS) Ms. Yanai is the second of the artists in our three part series who come from Japan, selected by curator Rachel Carvosso. VIEW THE FIRST AND SECOND WORKS IN THIS SERIES: [THE EARTH IS ROUND NO MATTER WHAT HAPPENS] BY AYAKO YOSHIDA AND HOPE BY SHINO YANAI. Curious about Ms. Carvosso's process as a curator? Read some of her shared thoughts here. Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Vines Around Tree Pjr Hd 2 410X600 Loading Video . . . Artist Paula Roberts depicts the love of a wedding couple as "two vines around the tree of Christ" in this beautiful textile hanging. John 15:5 Ecclesiastes 4:12 Ephesians 5:25 Two Vines Around a Tree By Paula Roberts Credits: Artist Location: Wisconsin Curated by: Jonathon Roberts 2009 33 x 25 inches Textile, mixed media Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link This design and textile works was created for the wedding of Jonathon Roberts and Emily Clare Zempel. It depicts two people as vines around the tree of Christ, an expression of love that was special to the couple as they began this journey together. These concepts were also expressed in the hymn, Two Vines Round a Tree , written by the couple, and this carved rendering of the design by John Roberts. The design, textile hanging, hymn, and carving were all part of the wedding celebration. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection As an artist, designer, and watercolor renderer, Wisconsin native Paula J. Roberts uses her specialized skills to work with you to bring your project ideas to life. Paula is an accomplished watercolor renderer of religious and commercial interiors, exterior perspectives, and furniture drawings. She is also a designer in a variety of glass styles and techniques including stained and leaded glass, etched glass, and award-winning designs for stained-glass overlay. She designs statues, bas-reliefs, and interior and exterior sculptures for wood, fiberglass, metal, and ribbon metal. Paula is adept at the design and fabrication of textile pieces, including quilted hangings, seasonal decorations, vestments, and special occasion banners. Her abilities also include designing for mosaics, stencils, and book covers, and the design and painting of murals and inscriptions. All of her work is handcrafted, not computer-generated, with special attention given to your individual needs. Website Paula Roberts About the Artist Paula Roberts Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . John Estes brings us this impressive new poem in response to Philemon 1:12-16. Philemon 1:12-16 The Cell By John Estes Credits: Curated by: Kent Shaw 2015 Poetry Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link While I can hope it stands on its own, this poem is part of a longer work in progress called Utopiary which, broadly speaking, explores questions of apocalypse and perfectibility, the human inclination toward not only these ends but any projected and aimed for end, idealisms of any kind which remove us from the real present and, more importantly, from real presences. This section is a response (and a reaction) to the book of Philemon, and in particular Philemon 1:12, “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you,” which I found pleasingly ambiguous and pregnant with possibility beyond its context. Not that its context—Paul in prison, writing on behalf of a slave to his owner—isn’t suggestive enough. Christianity, like most religions, is grounded in a rigorous idealism, even as it attempts to deal with humanity in ruthlessly realistic terms, and the poem explores the question of human autonomy in its relation to images of bondage, and of life in relation to images of death, both central tropes of the Christian imaginary which inform history as well as the domestic quotidian in myriad, mostly disastrous, but occasionally beautiful, ways. As Hannah Arendt writes, “To raise the question, 'what is freedom?' seems to be a hopeless enterprise.” Yet, still, we do. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection John Estes directs the Creative Writing OProgram at Malone University in Canton, Ohio and is a visiting faculty member of Ashland University’s Low-Residency MFA. He is author two books, Kingdom Come (C&R Press, 2011) and Stop Motion Still Life (Wordfarm, forthcoming), and two chapbooks: Breakfast with Blake at the Laocoön (Finishing Line Press, 2007) and Swerve , which won a National Chapbook Fellowship from the Poetry Society of America. See more at johnestes.org Website John Estes About the Artist John Estes Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art Today I 'm trying to conceive a world without the word insatiable- what would become of that happy current, that urgent emptiness View Full Written Work The Cell by John Estes Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything. — Abba Moses Today I’m trying to conceive a world without the word insatiable — what would become of that happy current, that urgent emptiness, its pit-like pleasures, without a term to house it? Look it up: the opposite and negation of sad , which shares a root with sate , its math makes me wonder why we bend so hard toward fixity and fullness. We lack a curriculum of lack, a course of study in keeping the nothingness we need from devouring us. Keep turning, she said, as we parted, as if it were the last piece of advice I’d ever need, and maybe it was, or still is. She might as well have said keep tuning, or simply keep, following the laws of parsimony which describe the reduction of all utterances, in time, to their simplest, as these acts too serve across domains, serve like ring bolts which hold us fast to the anvils of what we’d choose to last until there’s nothing left to save. Too much depends, just to crawl out of bed, upon reckoning unreconcilable acts of conservation and expansion. Never finished the article, the one I started at my bedroom desk, the one I thought the paper would take, my eye-witness account of the overturned hog trailer, right there on the highway, right in front of the house, the road smeared with blood, offal, and pig shit, swine corpses ballooning in the summer heat. The stench and traffic. Never finished that list of words they should ban from poems— who would brook a world without stars and hearts or clouds and shrouds? — as if I, having jettisoned (or been jettisoned by) God one too many times already, don’t know too well that the closer one draws to (or is drawn by) sacral agitations, how bone-dry trust in the wordhoard runs, as if already Not body, not figure, not form not what has quality, quantity, or mass, not in space, not visible etc etc etc or so says Dionysius the Areopagite, pseudo-Denys some call him, but what’s in a name? What’s it to a life so long as we have the text left behind? Here in front of me is 542 pages of Frank Stafford, whose real name was Francis Gildart Smith, The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You , in the other room is a woman not speaking to me, and I can’t stop thinking about him, caught between his wife and lover, how he left the room where the three of them (fought, wept?) and put three bullets in the center of his chest, right into what that forger, the fake St. Dionysisus, might have called his single all-complete and single cause of all, his cordis, his roboris , his animus poeticus , and that was it, dead before 30, extinguished but for the poems they’re still cleaning up, this big fat genius mess on my desk, unreadable but read aloud anyway, as all epic poems should be, a sport in Arkansas apparently (if only Kansas would claim Ronald Johnson’s Ark as theirs): I longed to be one of the monk saints so silent tending the fields then I wanted to be one of the wandering students that had taken me under their wind then I dreamed of a life on the sea a common sailer I sing but I am not a singer I write but I am not a writer Like that, on and on, hour after hour. You can read Milton in 12 (which I last did in Kansas, with a table full of students and a pot of chili), Stafford takes more like 15, but what’s time, no more than another name, another word we give, to mark an anomaly, Mark being the wrong name my psychoanalyst called me. Who is Mark? This is the question Andrew asked me over breakfast at Fred’s, hash and eggs for him, oatmeal with half biscuit and gravy for me. I stressed the diner waitress by asking for fresh fruit—wasn’t sure how the cooks would react to a request like that—and she was quicker on the take than I had anticipated, starting a glib repartee that bordered on flirtation; I remembered my uncle, years ago, once people started worrying about me or wondering, saying that you just never know where you’ll meet her, maybe a waitress, he said, it will surprise you, the one, he said, but the older I got, the more dislocated my emotional (in)competencies became, and the one was the least of my problems, but I looked a little closer at this one, unsure why in diners they never bother to introduce themselves, so short order. She poured more coffee, brought a steak knife with the strawberries, told me to be happy, that was the best I was getting today, and I looked again at Andrew, maybe the best looking guy I know, glad that he felt comfortable enough around me to eat a plate of food that a man with a Ph.D. should know better than to ingest, and he’s going to clean it, just like I, a vegetarian by declaration, don’t flinch at the dun sausage gravy. We are Pisces, and like our secrets, that’s the point of it. It equals the apophatic enrapture (or entrapment) inherent to holding yourself in reserve, to living out of sight, to being unknowable, impenetrable, more vapor than soul. A monk tried to convince me once that the supreme value was, what he called, integrity—defined as being as you appear, an exterior with matching interior— simple to use the clinical term, though he had no idea I read Climacus and so knew that a simple monk is like a dumb but rational and obedient animal, that what it denotes is one without evil thoughts or idle curiosity, a test I would certainly fail, me, an enneagram 3 with a 4 wing (?), much too engaged in the maintenance of my engramatic dissociation; Luther Sloan from Deep Space Nine describes the theory: when a person’s mind is sufficiently disciplined, he’[s]…capable of compartmentalizing contradictory information, believing one thing while doing another. We are of course, by nature, hypocrites, simpletons even, full of inconsistency while deploring contradictions— bats nesting in broad daylight, spiders forsaking the web, bears loose on the prairie. The trend these days is to speak, as if without shame, as if real, authentic, people, as if nude pictures of ourselves on our phones made us more human. And maybe they do; humility after all is beauty. Sure I’d prefer the government not intercept or store them, but I condone that sort of intimacy, the voluntary violation of one’s own privacy, better than jealousy; forgiveness and mercy better than rage. The only law is grace, with the only question being whether freedom comes from fusion or distinction. We are just people here, whatever orgiastic cult you follow, imprisoned by our cells (does the body hold or is it held?) although it’s hard to say who’s more stuck, the living or the dead, the being born or dying. Who are these people, who must be as acquainted as I am with nature, with the fastness of our position, bonded even inside the cycles we pass through, transmutations the givens within the constants, like a runner in love with what the body can do, like a heroine enmeshed in an endless quest chain, who insist we error on the side of their ideas about angels, chaste perfections who pass through walls. So when my student’s mother blackmails her adult poet son in an effort to get what she wishes, namely (and solely) that he not date the woman he loves, why is it not so plainly obvious to everyone as it is to me what an abomination of heaven this is, to speak figuratively? When St. Paul, from prison, pleads for the life of Onesimus, maybe an escaped slave, maybe an estranged brother (we need Origen’s lost fragment to settle that dispute) he says to this prick Philemon: “I am sending him, that is, my own heart, back to you.” And by heart he means his σπλάγχνον (splagchnon), his guts, his inward parts and inwardness, the seat of his compassion. The KJV renders it: thou therefore receive him, that is, mine own bowels. Paul doesn’t, by this synecdoche (συνεκδοχή) demand his manumission but you know that’s the strong arm he’s subtly applying. Maybe it’s counterproductive to say I think that manipulative mothers are going to hell (to speak literally), although I do, which people will be surprised some day to discover is populated only by terrorists, slavers, abusers, and terrible parents, the only ones God at the apokatastasis will refuse to absolve. I’m sorry to break it to you, saith the prophet, but even St. Paul, himself prone to minor tyrannies and tantrums, refuses to compel by force; he insists on individual sovereignty, itself an aporetic knot, a throw of lots, like the human being itself, that pure (or purely) symbolic thing, so he takes his chance that Philemon might scourge the shit (or worse) out of his repatriated property—in order that your goodness be of your own free will—which seems like, I don’t know, a sketchy bet, at best (even though American slaveowners cited the book as God-given proof that runaways must be returned—let’s add fundamentalists to that list). He even makes a joke or two at the kid’s expense, punning on his name, Onesimus, which means useful in Greek, who will one day be canonized as a Blesséd Onesimus, who in his current suspended condition of vacated-subjectivity is, like poetry, useless until put to use. Paul here invents the Western inwit, the notion that conscience conveys reliable information but the apostle, popularizer if not originator of the annoying trope in Christ , invokes a good excuse to do or say about anything— the figure of prosopopoeia, etymologically to make a face (prosopon+poein), wearing the face, i.e., or putting on the mask of the dead god, summonsing (or conjuring) his presence and performing an alchemcial coniunctio (not unlike, oh, I don’t know, a platinum filament catalyzing the combustion of oxygen and sulphur dioxide), a virtual re-enacted resurrection and assumption of an absentee’s power to effect, in effect, the epiphanic Voila! of a third thing, a new self, a slave no longer enslaved, a master no longer a heartless bastard, love manufactured from the mercury of lead. Who believes this magic twaddlerot? And recall that Paul never once mentions a miracle, or a parable, or exhorts the theotokos, his ever-virgin mother, the first heart, because maybe those tales weren’t even written much less extant; his Jesus, the Christ who lives, is straightedge, a boring guy with a crazy plan that just might work. Who doesn’t believe or want to at least in the possibility of getting better? And so when we say the rest is history we mean not only keep the moon, your hands, and your hydrangeas out of poems but that the whole of it, what we kill each other over, is a pepper’s ghost because if anything’s real it’s what’s off center somewhere on the other side of the mirror, which is no less difficult a phantom to fathom than the possibility of a new being. Maybe I will leave this room and be the first to breach the silence, be like a telemarketer trained to refuse to listen, to hear one word as another, trained to press on and not to wait, because it’s not true that the one to speak first loses, that there must be a loser, or losses, that any of it zeroes out. It’s not like a model for monogamy exists, like marriage is the only thing improved by fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Maybe I’m really a 5 with a 6 and a 3 wing. Maybe I’ve failed the one test I most sought to pass: don’t disappoint the trace of Thoreau which finds no value in outward conformity consoled- slash-tempered by the delusion of inward independence. He would hate me for spending $200 on an 1865 first edition of his letters, edited by Emerson, at an antiquarian bookshop in Sonoma. He would hate Sonoma and curse me for liking to get drunk, and no not on the liquor of esoteric doctrines. He would not appreciate the rigorous contradiction at the heart of my economy, an insufficient wildness compounded by a failed domestication. He would have an even greater disdain for the digital scan now freely available of this collection, or the fact that a market exists where it fetches a thousand dollars. Let what’s gone stay gone, HDT would say, so long as those present stay perfect. In a letter dated 1842 to Lucy Brown—the woman who introduced him to RWE (her brother-in-law), a passionate attachment biographers call it (a cathexis later transferred to Mrs. Emerson)—he says about his tetanic late brother: I do not wish to see John again—I mean him who is dead—but that other, whom only he would have wished to see, or to be, or whom he was the imperfect representative. For we are not what we are, nor do we treat or esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being. But when I say that I’m capable of anything I usually mean that which would land me in the clink or sink me. But as it is I cosplay each day as a respectable person, not letting on that I’d rather be looking at naked people on the Internet, lost in a trance-like tryst with a beautiful stranger with no concern for discerning between realms of the real and imagined. But such dispassion, trenchant metaphysics notwithstanding, is a luxury, a species of dissolution, unaffordable to or by my rioting brothers and sisters who rise in protest, who burn their own neighborhoods, who go to jail, who live and die in ways as beyond me as the essence of God is beyond us all. What kind of creator sky deity admires much less preaches poverty? One who’s never lived in squalor or want or gone to a shitty school or hasn’t grown up under an omnipresent threat of violence. One whose genealogy is not generations of the oppressed and ghettoed who was not the subhuman other on whose backs the new money that became the old money was made. If Jesus returns, and that’s a pretty big if, the rapture will not disappear the virtuous but open up the prisons— it says right here: the Lord looseth the prisoners— for what else did a Christ say the gist of his project was but wholesale reversal: to bring what’s dead to life, to sight the blind, to release the captives, so by Latin raptus (to carry off or snatch away) he must mean to return them. We must confront the possibility that things haven’t turned out as intended; there is no end at which all things will be unfolded, no arc or entelechy toward which the human history, despite what nature implies by analogy, moves. Truly, I say unto you, only the addict can know self denial and earthquakes happen because plate tectonics; the crust floats atop the lithosphere asthenosphere boundary, a six-mile thick slurry of sludgy rock, and when the plates shift we see what we’re worth—no birds get harmed—and under the rubble of temples we can’t protect we understand how limited the dithyramb of justice will prove. On the day my father was born Jung gave a seminar on Zarathustra in Zurich, where he examined and explicated the image of the serpent and eagle, and asked what does it mean for chthonic snake to encircle the neck of inspirited accipiter, the animal under the sun and the cleverest animal under the sun—out on reconnaissance as Nietzsche says? Something to do with inverting the age-old clash between Geist -slash- Grund : If we forget that we also consist of a living body, and try to live in an entirely spiritual medium, the body is going to suffer; and inasmuch as the body suffers the mind is affected too. It’s a terrible strain on our minds when we are not right with our bodies. So though he hopes that his beasts will guide him, it is very questionable they will. My father, a man’s man who lived to mow his lawn and keep his trees trimmed, who if born to a decadent age, like his sons, would have manscaped— such a lover, so wanting to please—like he landscaped, with delight and care. He wore a bronze belt buckle with a flying eagle icon in low relief, probably swag from some manager’s seminar years before he failed to learn to keyboard or realized he didn’t give a shit to master much less muddle through with modern business; mail and bills to pay he kept in a hollowed out tortoise shell, and a taxidermied deer head hung above his desk. What did it mean to find a book of bondage porn he owned? What does it mean to be uncursed with knowledge of him drunk or naked? He never went to church but read the Bible every day; I have no idea what, besides Republican orthodoxy, he believed in, no clue what—beyond Kentucky, maybe, his Southern sense of honor & duty, or between history and family—mattered to him most. Why was it tough to understand, when I asked him if he even loved me, what it meant for him to say because you’re mine? I wonder what hamartias bequeathed to me—let’s give a metaphor the benefit of doubt— what inbred inadequacies, I’ve fated my sons to bear without even trying: incarceration fears? feeble lungs? the stronghold of lusts and arcane dispositions masked by convention? a thralldom to pain and the body and blessed rot? Whatever, we perform it (invent your antecedent) again and again. Noah’s curse of Canaan, what church fathers called the creation of servitude, followed Ham’s discovery of his uncovered father, drunk on the dirt of his tent—that plagued soil—and laughed about it with his brothers. What does any of this explain, this pericope that Byzantine as well as antebellum bastards said sanctioned enslavement and segregation of the races? Jesus said, according to Thomas: Woe to the flesh which depends on the soul; woe to the soul which depends on the flesh. One man’s theologoumena is another man’s dogma (G. dogma ), which means opinion anyway. We have failed to advance Paul’s Haustafel , the household code that reset the relations of all things in accordance with the cosmic org chart. Today we believe in extraterrestrials, that love consists in honoring what already exists. Why was you father so angry, you ask, at anyone not like him? Racism seemed the most natural thing imaginable. You remember the scene—of course you don’t—at least it seems as if because the story was told so many times—he’s in the kitchen of a morning, standing at the window, drinking his weak Folgers, plus milk with 3 sugars, and looks out onto the neighbor’s basketball court where a bunch of n-word kids were playing, and he knew right then he had to get us out of there. You are rendered so unsure of yourself, want so much to speak right, to teach your children to navigate relating with blind ease, you are trying to describe the little girl who expressed sadness that your son had missed school, you hesitate to even call the girl black; is she maybe just the one with pig tails? In Claudia Rankine’s Citizen : For so long you thought the ambition of racist language was to denigrate and erase you as a person. |But| Our very being exposes us to the address of another; we suffer from the condition of being addressable. You begin to understand yourself as rendered hyper- visible in the fact of such language acts. Language that feels hurtful is intended to exploit all the ways that you are present. Maximal Presence: submit wholly to the pledge you made to submit wholly. He who gives himself entirely to his fellow-men, Thoreau says, appears to them useless and selfish; this falsehood one must simply learn to live with. You have of course learned the limit of how far you’ll go, that virtue in part is a kind of devouring. Simone Weil’s lays this bare in her Terrible Prayer. Father, in the name of Christ, grant me this. That I might be beyond any condition to make any movement of my body, obey any of my wishes, like a total paralytic. That I might be unable to receive any sensation. That I might be beyond any condition to put two thoughts together. That I might be insensible to any kind of pain and joy, and incapable of any love for any being and for any thing. Here is a book its author would prefer not exist, [I, Afterlife] , an attempt to account for the grief of a father’s suicide, a failure, of course, which commits the insult of being beautiful, which breaks down along the fault line of language, which made me feel, as I read it in the tub on a Sunday morning, what a fuck-up I’d create in the wake of helping myself to the other side, as I often wish to, even if I ushered in some art. I asked a group of high school girls the other day what was more important, that people are happy or that art gets made, and they to a one chose the person over the work, but had no idea that it’s the work of elegy to constitute and maintain an image of the person. It posits: the elegiac tradition as it evolves is perhaps no longer concerned with articulating the unspeakable :::::::::::::::::::::::: / :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: but rather with… / rather… / That sentence cannot be completed. / At least not how it began. / To start again. /// Our eyes are not the only way we see things. Is this what / I’m trying to say Then I remembered the vision that kicked off this congregation of concerns, A poem begging to be named “Grand Theft Auto Examination of Conscience” that someone should write, for of course those games are godless hellish anything-goes crime-pays landscapes—depraved (i.e. warped, subverted, perverted, debauched, debased, degraded, defiled, sullied, polluted) and wicked, deprived and wicked as if by capillary action of values we (we good people) consider redeemed or redeeming or redeemable, able (i.e.) to be bought back, returned, like a redemptioner, an indentured, to an ordered status of legitimate, permissible, admissible, approved, paid up, free and all clear. The point then as now as always is the pleasure of roaming an open world, even a throwback car-jacktastic world we’d never live in, a less linear life of diminished consequences and restraint, where every action’s reaction—cop shoot-outs, wrecked cars, dead pedestrians, gangstaland drug-runs, gangsterland hits, and motorcycle tricks— metes out its effects by heart power and cash haul, lung capacity and ammo clips, with the ultimate consolation, if a mission goes south, of new hope in the respawn, the re-up, the glory of the unlimited life cheat code. As with anything else, it’s impossible to know what must be known without putting in the time. So much education just to turn up money without bloodshed or jail time, finding hidden packages or picking up hookers (to get your ride rocked you need a sports car and some cash, good for a road-side plus-twenty-five hit points). But what does it even mean, to call a thing, or a place, or person godless? If one believes in a god at all, could a space, virtual or real, exist or be opened where that god could flee from and not only into? And there’s the question of what is meant by the whole heart—with all your kardia , all your psyche and ischus and your dianoia , too—this specious business of Kierkegaard’s that purity of heart is to will one thing when a man can easily enough be double-, triple-, or four-hearted like the hag fish, which feeds on the dead (i.e. tradition) like necromancers and poets. And of course, of course, this place must exist beyond good and evil, as he says: Whether it be hedonism, pessimism, utilitarianism, or eudaemonism, all those modes of thinking which measure the worth of things according to PLEASURE and PAIN are naivetes, which every one conscious of CREATIVE powers and an artist’s conscience will look down upon with scorn, though not without sympathy. No truth’s stopped anyone from trying to be true, and why should it in the absence of ironclad thou-shalt-nots, in the absence of dire repercussions? Where any thing and any one is a possible center of profit? In the terms of St. Paul, any uncircumcision can be made to appear equal to or better than every other uncircumcision. And maybe it is. In GTA the negated deity may be that stuff-strutting, ditty-humming Huggy Bear-type, a bedizened nobodaddy bedeviled by nothing but equally vulnerable to side-swipes. But everywhere else, where the venerable laws of physics apply, it’s one more word of unknown origin, a contested dereliction, striving alongside the rest of us drudges to split the differences, into which the whole of it must be thrown. Gertrude Stein learned this, the whole Room section of Tender Buttons says this. Why is the name changed The name is changed because in the little space there is a tree, in some space there are no trees, in every space there is a hint of more, all this causes the decision. We live with the notional understanding that our every act is translated into data. I live inside somebody’s metrical calculation within tolerance, within spec, within the emerging delta of marriage. Why is it so hard for people to see that what they believe in changes nothing that is? In terms of what they call owning the stack, we do not own our own stacks. Out of the foaming foment of finitude, spirit rise up fragrantly, Hegel prayed. I would have said flagrantly. The violence is inevitable, the clash of even what appears like tenderness, when our duty is to another’s body, the negotiation of bodies, and we realize at once and for all that we belong to much more than belongs to us. For nobody knows himself, Novalis says, if he is only himself and not also another at the same time. There are times we are tyrannized by another’s thought, Henry Miller goes on, hapless victims, a possession that occurs in periods of depersonalization, when the warring selves come unglued. To ask the purpose of this game [of writing], how it is related to life, is idle. The artist’s game is to move over into reality. It has been so and will be so until man ceases to regard himself as the mere seat of conflict. Until he takes up the task of becoming the I of his I. Never will I want to write a poem about the 14 million bees that spilled, spectacularly, onto a Washington highway, when their grove-bound semi overturned, what with its built-in thematic peril, its inescapable, overbrimming symbolism. Beekeepers convened to recover them, but most were lost; everyone was stung; bee colonies are difficult to save, once ruptured, because the entire hive must stay intact, with its single queen, the worker bees and attendant bees. But what good is so much theoria when there’s so much dog shit to clear each day? No good will come, today, from so much stress over the objet petit a, over formulas to unlock the promised paradoxes. The care with which the rain is wrong and the green is wrong and the white is wrong, the care with which there is a chair and plenty of breathing. I close the book and go to her. Close Loading Video . . . Today I 'm trying to conceive a world without the word insatiable- what would become of that happy current, that urgent emptiness Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . Composer Jonathon Roberts and the Spark+Echo Band bring to life Genesis 2 with this love song between Adam and Eve. Genesis 2:4-25 Flesh By The Spark & Echo Band Credits: Musicians: Jonathon Roberts, voice/piano; Emily Clare Zempel, voice/ukulele; Mike Block, cello Mixing by Alexander Foote Mastering by Matt Shane at Masterdisk, NYC Artist Location: New York City Curated by: Jonathon Roberts 2011 Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link Check out Genesis 2 again, even if you know the story. Some new things occurred to us on this last pass. We love the way the streams came up from the ground as Adam received the breath of life. What was Eve feeling as she explored her home for the first time? We imagine their love growing very strong in the garden, and even helping them to cope through their banishment. Their expulsion didn't lead to the first divorce. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection The Spark & Echo Band is a family outfit of songwriting-storytellers led by husband and wife duo Jonathon Roberts and Emily Clare Zempel. Their music brings forgotten poetry and wild stories from the Bible to life: visions of sparkling wheels in the sky, hunger and thirst, and legends of love as strong as death weave with memorable melodies and captivating rhythms. Drawing from a classical background, influenced by the pianism of Rufus Wainwright and Ben Folds, and emulating Paul Simon’s narratival techniques, Spark & Echo sings epic tales of love and adventure. The duo has collaborated on three full lengths albums (Spark&Echo, Inheritance, Cities Project), one video album (In the Clocktower), in addition to many theatrical collaborations, this very nonprofit, and two children. They live in beautiful Beacon, New York, with all of the above. Website The Spark & Echo Band About the Artist White Robe What a Day Deep Calls to Deep Yo Sé Do You Love Me? Where Can I Go? How to Be Free Lifeblood Artist in Residence 2015: Spark & Echo Band Take to Heart The Wheels Frogs Ruined Inheritance The Spark & Echo Band Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . The almost-human creature created by artist Blake Myers for his work, "Island," elicits a plea for unity amidst isolation in response to Proverbs 27:17. Proverbs 27:17 Island By Blake Myers Credits: Curated by: Evelyn Lewis 2016 70 x 22 x 12 inches Video, Plaster, Steel, Plastic, Extension cord Sculpture Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link Drawing influence from the Proverbs verse, "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another," I was thinking heavily about the idea of cooperation and empowerment, particularly in light of our current political climate. The being depicted is one that has been denied the love and admiration needed to build him stronger. He is a victim of the same isolationist sentiments that are currently prevailing in American politics. The moment that we are in calls for each of us to respond with compassion, to engage in difficult conversations, and to not let our individual differences become divisions. We must work to sharpen one another, just as "iron sharpens iron." Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Blake P Myers is a figurative sculptor/mixed media artist from New York City. At its most essential component his work responds to a prevailing sense of apathy that permits larger social and political issues to thrive. Using the body as a metaphor for otherness, his sculptures depict human/hybrid beings that are the result of neglect and abuse. These beautifully grotesque characters, while initially off-putting, ask the viewer to look past their outward appearances and empathize with their afflictions. Interweaving elements of mythology and science fiction into the work allows for the creation of a broader narrative. There is a duality present as each character simultaneously attempts to mask their insecurities/abnormalities yet searches for genuine acceptance. Ultimately, these mythic beings seek to foster an empathy that can extend to very real circumstances and very real people. Website Blake Myers About the Artist Blake Myers Other Works By Blake Myers, Island Blake Myers, Island Detail Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . Artist Russell Borne's compelling video piece is a response to the theme of "healing" and Romans 5:3-4. Romans 5:3-4 Untitled (Borne) By Russell Borne Credits: Artist Location: Portland, Oregon Curated by: Evelyn C. Lewis 2014 Video performance, mirrored glass Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link I am interested in the disparity between idealized versions of reality and everyday life. Mirrors are used to both scrutinized and admire, it is the object that either reflects or shatters our desired version of ourselves. It is the gaze being met by the other that informs identity. That struggle of self identity is met by daily success and failures, the true measure of your character. This video is an illustration of healing based on a passage from The Book of Romans “More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” – Rom. 5:3-4 Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection Russell Borne is a sculptor, conceptual artist, and designer living in Portland, Oregon. He received an MFA from Cranbrook Academy of Art and a BFA from Oregon State University. His work is influenced by Science Fiction novels of the 50’s, Relational art theory, Modern design, and philosophies of sex, identity and society. His sculptural and performance practices question the relationship between a true experience and a constructed one. His works inverts our relationship to an object and forces one to reconsider it and become in awe of it’s newness no matter how mundane its origin. Borne’s work has been seen at museums, galleries and film festivals such as the Art Institute of Portland, TinnyFilmFestival, Fairbanks Gallery, and the Cranbrook Art Museum. Website Russell Borne About the Artist Russell Borne Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work

Loading Video . . . We are pleased to present a collaborative work by jazz musician James Hall and poet Emily Ruth Hazel. James created a musical reaction to Emily's poem, "Of Blood and Water" which is based on the account of Jesus changing water into wine in John 2:1-11. John 2:1-11 Of Blood and Water By James Hall Credits: Text by Emily Ruth Hazel Music by James Hall Photo by Ilya Popenko Musicians: Jacob Teichroew, tenor sax; Evan Mazunik, keyboard; Adam Hopkins, bass; Ziv Ravitz, drums Curated by: Jonathon + Emily 2012 Primary Scripture Loading primary passage... Loading Passage Reference... Share This Art: Facebook X (Twitter) WhatsApp LinkedIn Pinterest Copy Link After hearing Hermeto Pascoal's "Tres Coisas," I was motivated to experiment with the musical qualities of human speech. Emily Ruth Hazel's poem "Of Blood and Water" had caught my eye, and her recitation, with its subtle glissandi and rhythm, seemed a natural fit for use as a melody. Emily's poem plays with a subtle transformation from blue to red, and from water to wine. The musical setting similarly toys with the transformation from stasis to motion, and with various shades of synchronization. At times it sounds like the band is reacting to Emily's speech. Other times, it sounds as though we're anticipating it. I did a 2-track room recording with my Zoom and mixed Emily's vocals in, synchronized with how it was being played in the room where we recorded. This gets the spirit of the thing: it dances on the fence between in-time and free, on-pitch and just spoken, while preserving Emily's original poem in her voice. Spark Notes The Artist's Reflection James Hall is a trombonist and composer from Nebraska based in New York City. A versatile musician, his projects have spanned jazz, classical, latin, and popular music in the US and Europe. As a composer and bandleader, James was named a finalist in the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Competition, won three ASCAPlus Awards for composition, and was a featured performer/composer at the 2012 Chelsea Music Festival . As trombonist in Williamsburg Salsa Orchestra , he has performed at B.B. Kings', S.O.B's, MassMOCA, The Kennedy Center, The Blue Note Jazz Festival, and has appeared in the pages of Rolling Stone Magazine. He has appeared on several recordings with Postmodern Jukebox , with whom he has toured Europe and the US. James' trombone playing earned third place, runner-up, and honorable mention in the Antti Rissanen , J.J. Johnson , and Carl Fontana International Jazz Trombone Competitions, respectively. James' first CD as a composer/bandleader was released in October 2013. Entitled " Soon We Will Not Be Here " by James Hall Thousand Rooms Quartet, the body of work sets contemporary poems by NYC-based poets to 3rd-stream chamber music. His sophomore release, "Lattice," is currently in post-production. James holds degrees from the Lawrence Conservatory of Music in Wisconsin and Aaron Copland School of Music in New York. His teachers have included Luis Bonilla, Hal Crook, Michael Dease, Nick Keelan, Ed Neumeister, and Fred Sturm. Photo by Bill Wadman. Website James Hall About the Artist The Serpent Speaks James Hall Other Works By Related Information View More Art Make More Art View Full Written Work Close Loading Video . . . Download Full Written Work