SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM INTERVIEW #2 of 2011: ROBEY TAPP--SEARCHING FOR MEANING

Hallelujah for THE CREATIVE JOURNEY! Hallelujah for SPIRIT, ART and FELLOW SOJOURNERS! For my second SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM (See the first interview with Cecelia Kane.) interview of 2011, I am honoring ROBEY TAPP, collage and text artist, Decatur neighbor, art colleague, friend, spiritual art pilgrim group member, co-volunteer, and docent at the Carlos Museum at Emory University.

On the last weekend in February 2011, Robey and I sat in her sun-drenched art studio on the second floor of her bungalow nestled near the Emory University campus. Threaded and unthreaded, textured and stamped colored papers, painted in dazzling arrays of magenta, cerulean, gold, and green surrounded us. The sheer randomness of order gave the feel of being in an exquisite bowerbird’s nest!

HALLELUJAH: Give me your personal definition of ART.

ROBEY: I’d say two things:

One—creativity and action.

Two—creativity is expressed in whatever form it takes.

HALLELUJAH: Talk to me about CREATIVITY and action.

ROBEY: We are all creative. Everybody has the potential to be creative. Over a course of a lifetime, I don’t think we all use our creativity concretely. This may be because we are too busy, don’t know where to start, or think we are not artists. But once you pick up the paintbrush, the pen, the scissors, and do anything—dig a hole in your garden—you are acting.

HALLELUJAH: What is SPIRITUALITY to you?

ROBEY: Spirituality is connecting what is deepest in you to what you perceive as deepest in the universe. It is what makes your life meaningful. Not that it answers those deep existential questions.

ROBEY: I am intrigued by the triptych form and the space that it gives me to play with combinations of image, text, and texture.  Triptychs have such spiritual resonance.

HALLELUJAH: What is the connection between the ART you make and your SPIRITUALITY?

ROBEY: I think the art I make expresses my spirituality because it attempts to express what I find meaningful inside and outside.

HALLELUJAH: Can you give me an example from your work?

ROBEY: Well, maybe I’m thinking about one of the first books I altered. It was a book of my father’s called “Art and Nature Appreciation.” While I was working on that book, I was having a conversation with my father. I thought of all the things that he imparted to me.

ROBEY: I love stitches. Stitches are a kind of mark making. Here the stitches were unintentional, but I find them intriguing.

The process of altering the book also allowed me to express what I think about art and nature, which are two areas of real meaning to me. So, I look upon that book as a spiritual expression.

  

ROBEY: I like viewers to interact with the book in some way. I like secret doors and windows. I like people to play with my work.

HALLELUJAH: In what way does your ART enhance your SPIRITUALITY?

ROBEY: I think by expressing my ideas through art, I gain greater access to them. Making art allows me to wonder and to play and to feel in a deeper way. To explore areas that I didn’t realize needed exploring.

HALLELUJAH: Can you give me an example?

ROBEY: I don’t always start with what I am going to explore. I just start playing with color and texture and see where it leads me. Sometimes I’m surprised. That’s the fun of it.

    

HALLELUJAH: Has SPIRITUALITY always been a source of your ARTMAKING?

ROBEY: Yes, but I think the older I get, the more conscious I become of it, and the more grateful I become of art as my medium of exploration.

HALLELUJAH: Can you speak about your use of color and texture?

ROBEY: I think I really respond to color and texture, and when I don’t know where to begin to start a piece of art, I look through all my thousands of pieces of paper, and I find something that I know I want to use. I may not know why or what resonance there is yet. But I know that it speaks to me at that moment.

HALLELUJAH:  Who do you consider influential in the way you think, act, and make ART?

ROBEY: Well, I certainly think you (Hallelujah Truth) and Cecelia Kane (SeeSee's website) have invited me to talk about artmaking. I think our group (Spiritual Art Pilgrims) has created a space in which we can talk about the art we make and own it.

Harriette, my close friend, has always been a huge appreciator of artists and has always encouraged me to take my art seriously. Gary, my husband, is a poet. Part of what we have always had in common is a tremendous respect for creative expression—our own and other people’s.

I also want to acknowledge Lesly Fredman, for her creativity counseling and inspiration. And Ann VanSlyke and Ellen McFee for giving me my first show at Mingei World Arts.

HALLELUJAH: I know you are an avid reader and that there is a steady stream of voices coming through your life.

ROBEY: I’m always inspired by what people make of this world and this life and one of the reasons I read so much is to keep finding out. That inspires me every day. I think of art as a conversation. So I gather from other people and then I find myself responding.

HALLELUJAH: What is your purpose for making ART?

ROBEY: Exploring that connection between the inner soul—whatever you want to call it—and what’s out there that is bigger than me. And meaningful.

 HALLELUJAH: Right now, both of us are working on ART for an exhibit opening in September at Atlanta’s Fernbank Museum of Natural History on the topic of Charles Darwin. Can you say something about the process you are going through in making ART for that?

ROBEY: I have spent the last few months reading about Darwin. Thinking about Darwin. Thinking about the world and time in which he lived and the impact of his thinking. Then I discovered this woman, Mary Anning! I consider her a paleontologist. She found a lot of the fossils that support Darwin’s theories but got very little credit at the time because she was a poor “uneducated” woman, and the “establishment” in England at that time was rich Anglican men.

The pieces I’m doing are honoring her contributions to science. I’m using textured colored paper and text with her as the subject and inspiration.

HALLELUJAH: Let’s connect this ART project with SPIRITUALITY….

ROBEY: As an explorer of fossils, Mary Anning was a breaker of molds. She was examining very huge questions: How did we get here? Who are we? Are all the things that we thought in the past true or not? These were the burning issues of her day. I’m inspired by her courage and her determination not to let people silence her voice.

ROBEY: I’m always inspired by what people make of this world and this life and one of the reasons I read so much is to keep finding out. That inspires me every day. I think of art as a conversation. So I gather from other people and then I find myself responding.

HALLELUJAH: When you look at the large body of your own work, how do you perceive and understand the results of your reflections?

ROBEY: I think when I look at the books—each book, is a record of what idea has intrigued me or what issue I have been grappling with when I worked on it. If I look back at one, I can say, “Oh! This is when I was thinking of these things or struggling with this.” It’s not to say the book is an answer, but it is what I got from the experience.

Robey with long time family member, Baylor.

HALLELUJAH: Where do you see your SPIRITUAL ART taking you?

ROBEY: I don’t know. It’s kind of a ride. I guess I would like it to take me wherever I need to go. I don’t know where life will take me so I don’t know where it will take me.

HALLELUJAH: I am so glad that we are FELLOW SOJOURNERS. I love working with you around the issues of SPIRITUALITY and ART. Thank you so much for this interview!

ROBEY: Reading is not only linear. This book sculpture for me expresses the way we read and think and go off in tangents....It kind of reflects the folds we have in our brains and in our consciousness.

ROBEY: Leonard Cohen says it all for me. I think about this saying constantly. It's my mantra.
HALLELUJAH: It's the way the light gets in! 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thank you ROBEY TAPP for spending lovely afternoons looking at your work, playing with the SPIRIT of LIFE, and for your UNIQUE way of SEEING. I treasure our time together and will invite you back to COFFEE WITH HALLELUJAH.

TOTEMS FROM MY LIFE: HALLELUJAH FOR COLOR AND SYMBOL!

Hallelujah for COLORS! Hallelujah Pilgrims for RED, ORANGE, YELLOW, BLUE, BLACK AND GREEN! On the last day of my creative writing class for spring session one at the Georgia Tech Language Institute, my students decided they wanted to write one more blog entry using a "group-selected" topic (See the previousgroup  blog they selected the topics for.) Since no one had a "working" idea, I suggested a "color-themed" one, and they happily chose the following colors with the exception of the color GREEN, which I added because they chose to post on St. Patrick's Day, 3/17 at 3:17 pm  (The use of the simultaneous numbers came from the writer of the blog, Pitch Your Guts.)

Below is my response to this blog entry prompt. But first, you may want to take a look at a few of my students' responses (Footprint of Water, Blueberry Cellophane, and Butterflying to Infinity) . The totems you see below dwell in the household I share with my darling Chiboogamoo.

RED DEVIL OF GLUTTONY

RED DEVIL OF GLUTTONY reminds me in a humorous way of the primal energy in all of us that hungers endlessly for the THINGS of this EARTH.



 


 

ORANGE MAGICAL JAGUAR

ORANGE JAGUAR is powerfully magic. This totem reminds me of all that is unknown to me. Present in my life as a mask, I continue to feel invited to "try" a new way of being on.



YELLOW ANGEL OF TRUTH

 YELLOW ANGEL OF TRUTH, watches me as I sleep. As a teenager studying at a Catholic high school in Columbus, Georgia, one of my teachers, a priest, advised me to always "search for the truth." He struck his breast right below his white collar with his hand on his heart. Since then, I have grown into RUTHTRUTH and HALLELUJAH TRUTH on my pilgrim's sojourn.

BLUE EVIL EYE

Oh BLUE EVIL EYE! How I love YOU watching ME! Hallelujah thanks the Turkish student who brought you into my life! You remind me that LIFE's FORTUNES can be perceived from different perspectives. I feel protected!

BLACK PETITIONING ANGEL

Save Us All! Thank you Georgia Folk Artist who made you BLACK PETITIONING ANGEL! As I write this blog, the Japanese suffering from both natural and manmade disasters are in my thoughts. I am also thinking of the Libyan rebels dying for their freedom. LORD SAVE US ALL.

GREEN DANCING ALLIGATOR WOMAN

Happy Saint Patrick's Day! GREEN DANCING ALLIGATOR WOMAN brings me joy every day as I look at the exuberance in her BEINGNESS! Some might say she is physically ugly, but who could ignore her inner beauty!

Acknowledgments: Hallelujah for ART, ARTISTS, COLOR, and SYMBOL. Hallelujah for MEANING and the ability to engage in a discussion of that meaning with all my FELLOW SOJOURNERS!  Thank you to the artists who made these totems. Thank you to my sincere and energetic creative writing students who wanted to keep on connecting through their blogs. Thank you to my Chiboogamoo, who is infinitely patient as he helps me with our camera, photoshop, and new computer!

CREATIVITY EXERCISE at the GT LANGUAGE INSTITUTE: SCENES FROM A DAY

Hallelujah for CREATIVITY and the celebration of diversity! As one of the final blog entries in my creative writing class at the GT Language Institute for Spring Session One, my class chose eight topics for photos to be taken by everyone over the weekend. The goal was to loosely capture the same “Scenes from a Day” in their individual lives in order to tell a story about themselves. We hoped this project would help us glimpse how different and unique each one is—being that the 15 students hail from Saudi Arabia, Colombia, Korea, China, Libya, Taiwan, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, Venezuela, and Spain.

We agreed to post our photos--one of the bedroom, a view from our window, shoes we wear every day, the fridge, an activity from the day, an object in the hand, our computer desktop, and writing or drawing on paper--on the same day at the same time in class, so that everyone would have the freedom to create independently. My desire was for my students to experience the quality of their own creative voices and imagery while at the same time collaborating with their classmates to make “one” class project—something like individual singers contributing to a chorus.

I asked them if they wanted me to participate and they said yes. Below are my photos and captions for “Scenes from a Day (February 26-28). First, however, I invite you to sample some of my students' imaginative responses: Blueberry Cellophane, Pitch Your Guts,  Butterflying to Infinity, The Footprint of Water, and Happy Stapler.

1. BEDROOM: COMPOSING AND REPOSING—WHEREVER!

Creativity dwells in my home, in my husband, and in my heart. We both write, make art, and teach. Our bedroom has two creativity stations. Here you witness my Chiboogamoo happily composing underneath a painting we brought back from the top end of Australia.

2. VIEW FROM YOUR WINDOW: UNHARNESSED IMAGINATION

SEES BEYOND BARRIERS

My imagination seeks companionship through my art and by SOUL BLOGGING. I greet ALL GUESTS—real and imagined—with “HELLO” and “GOOD.” In my physical world, my Chiboogamoo and I live in a condo in Decatur and can walk to the library and numerous pubs and shops in 10 to 15 minutes.

3. SHOES YOU ALWAYS WEAR: DEPENDABLE WORTHY STEEDS

I am a PILGRIM. I am on a SPIRITUAL ART JOURNEY. I depend on my sturdy shoes to take me to places of DISCOVERY away from the sole preoccupation of self to the UNIVERSALITY we all share!

4. FRIDGE: SAY YES

I say YES to nurturing the BODY and the SOUL! YES! Feed me lovingly one and all. I believe in the joy of mutuality and reciprocity. I believe in a steady diet of YESes and CREATIVITY.

5. AN ACTIVITYFROM YOUR DAY: CONNECTING WITH THE WORLD

At moments, TIME stops. Suns set. We breathe our individual happy breaths, but then we are compelled to connect with OTHERS…and the WORLD. The New York Times serves me indigestible facts--citizens are being killed in Libya by their own government. (See my blog entry about interaction with Libyan students.) It is warm for February. The early evening air whispers softly of approaching spring.

6. AN OBJECT IN YOUR HAND: THE WORLD

I’ve got the whole world in my hands! I feel so fortunate to commune with the people of the world here at the Language Institute at Georgia Tech! You broaden my experience of the self; you deepen me. You make me a better person, artist, and teacher. (Listen to Veronica Frosgren sing the song, “I’ve Got the Whole World in My Hands” in Dublin.)

7. YOUR DESKTOP COMPUTER SCREEN: CELEBRATION OF COLOR

Green excites and ignites me. My green “Celebration of Summer” mermaid greets me every day on my “virtual” desktop.  I absolutely adore COLOR. As an artist, my “real” desktop is an explosive song of COLOR and IMAGE. I am a primitive sophisticate!

8. WRITE OR DRAW SOMETHING ON A WHITE SHEET OF PAPER: YES

YES! YES, I say to myself. Not good. Not bad. Just is. Say YES! Lean into YES and see where it takes you! Say YES! (To see more on this topic of YES, check out Alice Teeter’s poem with the same name in a past blog entry of mine.)

Hallelujah for the JOURNEY! That concludes COFFEE WITH HALLELUJAH for today. SOUL BLOG with me and tell me about your JOURNEY today! 

LIBYAN VIGIL at the GT LANGUAGE INSTITUTE: PLEASE LET PEACEFUL CHANGE OCCUR

LIBYA. I sit next to women from your cities who have come to study English at Georgia Tech. They are keeping daily vigils in our Language Institute hallways with their laptop computers flashing live news of your protests. Their computers are emitting steady streams of shouting and gunfire.

Today, I sit next to two LIBYAN women. One LIBYAN student, who I have only gotten to know in the last week because of LIBYA’s civilian uprising and her persistent vigil, looks at me. “My whole body is sore,” she says. “It hurts if you touch it.” She takes one hand and touches her arm. She shakes her body trying to free it from the horrors of the killing going on in her country. She generously accepts my concern and scoops me into the experience of her pain. There seems to be strength in unanimously acknowledging the inhumanity of Gadhafi’s response to the LIBYAN people’s protests.

I am familiar with the other student sitting next to her. She is taking my intermediate writing class. She nestles close to the woman with the computer, saying nothing only leaning into the face of the computer. “Right now, Gadhafi’s army is attacking her city,” explains the other woman. “Mine was attacked three days ago.” We pause. The noise and confusion continue to blare from the computer. And we just sit there with nothing to say. My writing student, an obstetrician with four children, peers into the computer. Her silky brown hijab and long black coat seem to engulf her. There is too much suffering. Too much worry. Too much unknown. Too much shooting. We cannot make eye contact. Then it is time for all of us to go to class. We disperse.

“How was your day,” my Chiboogamoo greets me in the evening. I cannot shake away the hallway vigils of my LIBYAN students. I cannot forget their sense of helplessness. “I feel lost,” I tell my patient husband, “What are we supposed to do in the face of evil?”  Earlier in the day, the LIBYAN woman had quietly said to me, “In my religion, we are told that we can only do our small part. We cannot change the large picture.”

After failing to get CNN’s attention here in Atlanta, some of our Language Institute LIBYAN students left for Washington, DC. I haven’t heard or seen if these LIBYANS succeeded in capturing US media attention.

 

Hallelujah asks for what is right and true to triumph. LIBYA listen to your citizens. My country, the UNITED STATES of AMERICA listen to LIBYA’s cry for help. WORLD assist the LIBYANS who are asking for change. Let change occur peacefully without mothers sacrificing themselves as explained to me: “Mothers are going out with their sons,” one LIBYAN student told me. “ ’If you are going to die, we are going to die with you,’ these mothers tell their sons.” 

THIS I BELIEVE: CREATIVITY TRANSFORMS

The Great Mystery!

I am Hallelujah Truth, member of the ALCHEMIST TRIBE, affectionate lover and gasper of the GREAT MYSTERY, and I believe in the power of CREATIVITY to TRANSFORM! Imagination enlivens, lifting us from the “status quo” which our daily lives insistently press upon us. Even more importantly, CREATIVITY transports us to the selves we are meant to BE!

My Conpanion

Last night, my Chiboogamoo and I danced in the parking lot under the full moon, our 16-year-old cat held between us. The moon, a white paper globed lantern, hung overhead, illuminating our laughter as we spun in a circle one way and then the other. I had returned from an ARTIST CONFERENCE MEETING, and my love was upstairs editing his forthcoming book, “LIFE TRACES OF THE GEORGIA COAST.” We were both tired after long days of teaching. The Georgia winter weather has been spectacularly spring like the past few days, healing and nurturing everyone’s soul—and then PILGRIMS—the February full moon! Why not invite my husband outside from the downward focus of his editing gaze and lift him and our feline to the GREAT MYSTERY above? As our bodies spun, our spirits soared beyond the bare oak-branched alcove. We were no longer touching the parking lot pavement--our feet zoomed skyward. 

Burka Blue...My Mother Wears a Burka

Earlier that morning, long before dancing in my condo parking lot, I had also experienced the power of CREATIVITY to TRANSFORM. Riding MARTA, Atlanta’s rapid public transit, is some times challenging (ho ho ha ha ha). Frequent delays often result in full trains accepting more and more passengers cramming in until the aisles are filled, bodies pressing against one another, knees to hip, elbows to ear, and armpit to breast. And we sit.  On that morning, those of us who had gotten on a 7:30 am train found ourselves sitting at the Five Points Station. Sitting.

Creativity Transforms

Two women in front of me started laughing—an alchemical creative act in the face of our deflating situation. We were indeed sows’ ears being turned into silk purses! Anything one of them said, the other laughed. Pretty soon, the passengers forming the perimeter around the laughing women were mesmerized. When one took her turn to laugh, someone else in the perimeter started laughing, including me. At intervals during the train delay, there were waves of laughter. Ten minutes passed. Then the MARTA train proceeded to Peachtree Station. We were on our way! Then it STOPPED--another delay at Civic Center station. The two women started their laughter again. Even though the tension was building as people glanced at their watches, more people joined in laughing. Everything seemed funny. After five minutes, the train proceeded to North Avenue, my departure point! Everyone surrounding the laughing women cheered the passengers as we left. The man in front of me, thanked the two laughing women for lifting his spirits. This is an example of CREATIVITY to TRANSFORM. (Watch this video by Christine Rabette to see a remarkable video of someone laughing on a train. For an entirely new way of viewing laughter see the Laughter Yoga Website.)

Mother is Watching

I am now in the sixth week of teaching international students creative writing in English at Georgia Tech, and I have seen my class TRANSFORMED by the power of their own CREATIVITY. One student in figuring out a name for his blog went through the following mental processes: “LOST in the BLUR,” to  “PAST PRESENT and MISSING,” to the one he decided to use, “KEEPER of THE BURIED THOUGHTS.” Words matter. The words we choose to represent our current state of being need to speak our truth. This particular student got the importance of  “creating” a specific phrase to describe “who” or “where” he was emotionally and intellectually. The creative act “changed” him in a dramatically meaningful way. Instead of being “lost” or “missing”, he became the possessor of what was unknown or buried within him. That is magic. That is alchemical. That is CREATIVITY!

Another creative writing student who named his blog, PITCH MY GUTS is also in the process of “owning” what is deep within him. I experience sheer joy when I hear this student from Korea say he has been “surprising” himself by what he is writing for his blog.

Hallelujah Truth

For all my creative writing students, as their blog guide, I feel privileged to witness their awakening to themselves! I am so excited about the way creativity is serving my Turkish student who is getting married in the upcoming months. She is experiencing chaotic emotions as she plans a wedding, studies English, and finds an MBA program. How does creativity serve her? Well! We JUMPED right in to the CHAOS!

My Mother Wears a Burka

“Begin with where you are,” I told her, trusting the creative process. “That is good enough!” She has excelled at taking my advice. Calling her blog, “I DON’T KNOW WHAT I WANT,” she has gained a voice, speaking about her place of confusion. She is defining it, feeling it, and honoring it by writing litanies, cinquains, and three-lined poems. Writing creatively in this second language, English, is transformative, a departure into the known from the unknown!

My Sister Wears a Burka

As my students write creatively, I see them gaining heft. Volume. They are becoming anchored in themselves and in English through their imaginations. Perhaps they are getting to know themselves in a new way that their language or culture did not or could not provide. I hope they will take this newfound skill with them when they leave my course  and the Language Institute because I believe in the power of CREATIVITY to TRANSFORM.

PILGRIMS, that is Coffee with Hallelujah! Thank you for joining me. SOUL BLOG with me about your belief and experiences in the power of creativity to transform.

I Wear a Burka Too

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I thank Georgia Tech for inviting its students and employees to participate in submitting their essays to “This I Believe.”  It has been fun engaging my students in the challenge to find and write about their core beliefs. I will continue to write and paint about my beliefs. I thank Lesly Fredman, my creativity coach, who has centered me in my own creative process. I acknowledge my supportive and loving husband, Chiboogamoo, who is brilliant and creative in the life we share together.

After watching a Youtube video of  Burka Blue, 3 Afghan women making music in their Burkas in Kabul, I had to paint them in order to explore my fascination with them. You can see me (Hallelujah Truth)in this painting at their feet. Wandjina is powerfully overhead.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY: FINDING YOUR MUSE and FALLING in LOVE!

Hallelujah for LOVE. Hallelujah for TRYING new things on, STRETCHING CREATIVELY, and BEING inspired by other ARTISTS! I have fallen in LOVE with KATHERINE DUNN—red-pigtailed woman, dancing, drawing, painting, loving animals. KATHERINE DUNN, caretaker of aging donkeys, friend of sheep, keeper of cats. KATHERINE DUNN, dweller of Apifera Farms!

I instantly fell in love with KATHERINE DUNN of Apifera Farms when I opened the cover of her 2010 book, Creative Illustration Workshop and saw the crudely drawn map she had made of her home in Yamhill, Oregon, on the inside cover.  In a few brief sienna strokes, ARTIST DUNN had rendered her hen house, the bird and rodent cemetery, the field of bees and lavender, goat escape route and more.  How wondrous to see her BEINGNESS contained by and connected to a SENSE of PLACE!

Like the gravitational pull of the EARTH to the SUN, I turned page after page of Creative Illustration Workshop, studying each painting of her colorful birds, cats, plants, and people. In doing so, I came to SEE MYSELF and MY ART more clearly. While she and I both LOVE and paint the natural world intensely and viscerally, her work SPEAKS in a dramatic simplicity I adore.

As readers of my blog, Coffee with Hallelujah, know, I use multiple layers of watercolor pencil and micron pens when birthing images expressing my PILGRIMAGE and connection to the GREAT MYSTERY. As an illuminator of a sacred text might work, I hunch over my work for hours creating my images in exacting detail. ARTIST DUNN’s art, unlike mine, is loose and bold. Black lines bleed and smear. Cut pieces of patterned paper are affixed to sky to indicate stars or a random border. Her work is spontaneous yet practiced. I am in LOVE.

One evening during the winter holidays, my Chiboogamoo (Happy Valentine’s Day dear love of my romantic and household heart!) and I had gone to our MEME STUDIO at Sycamore Gallery Place to work on our collaborative Darwin related pieces, and all I could think about was KATHERINE DUNN of Apifera Farms.  So! I opened a page of her book, like one might open to a random page of the BIBLE, centered my HEART and turning my VISION inward, I stared with my physical eyes at one of her images of a woman (page 35 if you have a copy of Creative Illustration Workshop). I asked myself, “How can I use my worldview and perception to create in “her language” free-er and looser lines?”

Oh PILGRIMS! I had so much fun! I went for the “jugular” (Natalie Goldberg’s instructive words in Writing Down the Bones regarding free writing practice). I used a black watercolor pencil making big heavy black lines to depict facial features. Then I scrawled blocks of red, orange, and yellow! I employed fat watercolor crayons. Finally, it was time for water! Intensity!—intense color bubbled up from the paper! I liked the way the black smeared into the red, and I pulled it in on the nose, cheeks and under the eyes for shading.

How JOYOUS and FUN to loosen up into another artists’ universe while maintaining my own INNER VISION! The images posted on today’s Valentine blog resulted from three consecutive days of using this “heavy handed” technique! How odd to SEE MYSELF in these images…and to see something NEW! Thank you MUSE KATHERINE DUNN.

This third image here was a source of generative LAUGHTER for me! Why the “circular orb” in the middle of my chest, I queried. Then slowly remembering the movie I had watched the previous night with my Chiboogamoo, I beginning laughing deeply: Ha Ha Ho Ho Ho! We had watched the second movie about the superhero, Iron Man. In this sequel, the main character, Stark (played by Robert Downey Jr.), is dying because the “circular orb” located in the center of his chest that makes him “Iron Man,” is poisoning him to death. He must find a substitute to the element palladium contained in the orb to empower himself or die. Then the AMAZING part of the movie occurs! 

Suddenly, after much suffering and ready to bear farewell to the world, Iron Man has an epiphany! He discovers that he has the RESOURCES WITHIN HIMSELF to create a new element that will replace the old poisoning one! Hallelujah!

Hallelujah! In addition to painting in a looser free-er style of KATHERINE DUNN, I reaffirmed something all of us know! That WE HAVE ALL WE NEED, RIGHT NOW. “The power” is within oneself! I had embedded this powerful message to myself in my third KATHERINE DUNN inspired drawing! Pilgrims! We have the answers within ourselves (like Iron Man)—and without (when we listen to our MUSES like KATHERINE DUNN).

Be sure to “take in” what you want to become. Be sure to delight in the integration of the inner and outer self! That’s it with Hallelujah! SOUL BLOG with me how you are integrating your inner and outer worlds! Who is your MUSE? Who do you LOVE? What INNER RESOURCE are you calling upon?

I NEVER THOUGHT THE BURKA WOULD SEDUCE ME: UNDERSTANDING AND CREATING METAPHOR

Hallelujah for abstract thought and ways to make those thoughts concrete through the use of imagery. Hallelujah for my international students speaking my language, English, and for bringing me, their teacher, new ways of thinking about this glorious world! Especially when it comes to writing metaphors in a creative writing class! Hallelujah!

 

As a way to jump in writing metaphors (a comparison between two seemingly unlike things), I asked my students to “pull” an abstract word like faith, hope, anger, or courage out of an envelope and to compose a 3-lined poem based on the following guidelines (taken from Imaginative Writing: The Elements of Craft, by Janet Burroway).

• The first line is an abstract word, plus a verb, plus a place.
• The second line clothes the abstraction.
• The third line summarizes the action in the poem.

At first, the oxygen left the room. No one knew what to do, where to go, what to write. After all, this kind of writing is a challenge even in one’s own native language! After a pause and some composing in pursuit of “active” verbs and leaving behind the verb “to be” (Language teachers will understand this quest!), there were some jubilant moments. My students were nailing down their abstract words with meaningful and active images! See some examples in the following blogs: Pitch Your Guts writes about sorrow; The Green Mountain about courage; and Blueberry Cellophane about faith.

In my earnestness to get students excited about metaphor, we watched excerpts from a 1991 Star Trek episode about their encounter with an “enigmatic” race called Tamarians (See the beginning of the episode.). As the episode progresses, the Star Trek crew figures out that the Tamarians are speaking in metaphors, ones that can be understood only if one knows the cultural and geographical references being made (See the excerpt where they figure this out.)!

Success! My brilliant class of diligent students “got it.” For homework, I asked them to bring in metaphors from their language and cultures. These were the results:

I’m sincerely saying it to you with my heart in my hand. (Spanish)

A leaking drop can penetrate a stone. (Chinese)

A pearl in the mud. (Korean)

I never knew that the burka would seduce me. (Arabic)

 

Yes! Hallelujah! We discussed what each one meant to us. If you are stymied at all by the last metaphor, you are not alone! First, we had to clarify for the entire class what exactly a “burka” is—much to the amusement of the Arabic speaking students in the class. Luckily, a female student from Spain was wearing a large scarf secured around her neck! Thus using her as a model, we were able to show the distinctions between a “hijab” –a scarf covering the hair, ears, and neck— and a “burka” –a scarf concealing everything but the eyes.

 

After class ended, because I wanted a better understanding of this burka metaphor than our class discussion had offered, I pursued the Arabic speaking student, who had translated this metaphor from a contemporary song (Listen to the mesmerizing music from the Middle East and its Arabic lyrics). Here is my student’s translation of the song into English:

I never thought the burkas would ever seduce me
Until I saw Al Nofood Mountains wearing them.
All mighty God when these eyes looked at me
Charming, sleepy, magical....
In their magic, Saad how they put me to my knees!
My time was wasted in loving those eyes.
If they hurt me and also heal me
I'm sure I'll die soon.
Saad tell those charming mountains
If they want me to live longer,

If they see me,

I am just thinking about their magic
Even when I am asleep

I am still thinking about the burkas…

Translated by Meshari Alabdulkrim (See his blog, Smoking Hookah.)

 

I am smiling right now because I am remembering the Star Trek episode with the Tamarians and their geographical and cultural references. To better understand this burka metaphor, we have to understand the Saudis’ feeling for Al Nofood Mountains and much, much more.

To be honest, I am far from completely understanding this metaphor, but I like struggling with the image, its meaning, and the complex culture it comes from! I believe this comparison of a burka to a mountain will “haunt” me for some time.

Already, I have spent time in the last week drawing and painting women in headscarves. One woman is wearing a flowered hijab and the other a green burka. I’m intrigued by this cultural difference of  “the headscarf” that my Muslim students bring to my classroom. One might say, “I never thought the burkas would ever seduce me,” but they have!

In my search to SEE and UNDERSTAND and to CREATE, I looked on the Web to find images of women in burkas and found an amazing “girl band” from Afghanistan, the Burka Blues! If you want to increase your experiences of seeing women wear burkas, watch this video! The rhythm of the drums, guitar and kitschy lyrics has been with me all day!

Hallelujah for LIFE and LEARNING and CREATING! SOUL BLOG with me! Let me know your feelings and understanding of the burka metaphor! Share a metaphor with me!