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!

COURAGING: SPEAKING HEART

Hallelujah for COURAGE! After completing just 2 weeks of teaching creative writing to my international class at the Language Institute at Georgia Tech, I am resurrecting the respect I have for the BRAVERY that it takes to SPEAK one’s HEART (see an early blog titled, I Speak Heart).

A loose theme for my course is “Identity and Sense of Place.” WHO ARE YOU?, I ask my students? Are you the same person in American culture and using English as you are in your culture and using your native language? Does the place where you live change who you are? Do you think differently when expressing your ideas in another language?

Right now, to develop my own ideas about “who I am”, I’m reading Brene Brown’s book, The Gifts of Imperfection: Let Go of Who You Think You’re Supposed to Be and Embrace Who You Are.  Brown proposes that COURAGE (see her blog), compassion, and connection are three basic components of “embracing who you are.”  She defines the word COURAGE, first by looking at its Latin roots: COR=HEART! COURAGE, she explains, initially meant “speaking one’s mind by telling all of one’s HEART.” Less about being heroic!

Most of my class has demonstrated this COURAGE! They have pleased me with their willingness to EXPLORE their HEARTS using English. They have started their “public" blogs with imaginative names discovered while doing free writing exercises (Natalie Goldberg-style) in their “private” journals. Take a look at the glorious beginnings of some of these blogs: THE FOOTPRINT OF WATER, BUTTERFLYING TO INFINITY, BLUEBERRY CELLOPHANE, and THE WEALTHY GUARDIAN.

“You learn COURAGE, by COURAGING,” Brene Brown quotes theologian Mary Daly. How simple, and yet, how daunting! As an ESL teacher for 20 years, I have urged my students to learn to SPEAK English, by SPEAKING it, and subsequently observed their lack of COURAGE to do so! It is much easier to become grammar experts doing rote exercises and writing repetitive academic papers then to SAY SOMETHING MEANINGFUL in this “other” language!

In my creative writing class, I am asking my students to connect their heads—and HEARTS—to English by using it COURAGEOUSLY and imaginatively. To gain COURAGE, by COURAGING!

As a visual artist, I move forward in drawing and painting, by accessing my COURAGE. Yet, I have simplified the process. I start with the familiar. I open my hand to the ordinary in my life and psyche. I become ACTION in MOTION. I draw by drawing and paint by painting. Not good. Not bad. Just is.

The painting I am posting on my blog today borrows images primarily from two previous images (see 2011: Say Yes and 1^st Anniversary of Coffee with Hallelujah). What shall I call it? Let me try on some possibilities:

Saying Yes to the Great Mystery

Welcoming Myself

Active Beautiful Mind

Hallelujah Couraging Everyday

Celebrating Companionship

Speaking Heart Today

PILGRIMS! We have endless opportunities to create! Each moment offers the sparkling and amazing chance to think a new thought, to speak in a different way, to draw something unique, to move your body in a refreshing way…! SOUL BLOG with Hallelujah what you are COURAGING today. SPEAK HEART across the INTERNET! 

SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM INTERVIEW #1: CECELIA KANE--Conceptual Visual Artist—Searching for Meaning in the Face of Death



 

Hallelujah for the JOURNEY and for the PILGRIMS we meet along the way! Each month in 2011, I will be HONORING a different SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM, one who has shared her HEART and SOUL with me through the miraculous medium of ART! I invite you to join me in my EXPLORATIONS of the OTHER, for it is through investigations of how we are similar and different from ANOTHER that we truly come to know ourselves! Hallelujah!

The first SOUL in my “Spiritual Art Pilgrim Interviews,” is my Decatur, Georgia, neighbor Cecelia Kane. CeCe, as friends are apt to call her, is an artist of note. (See her website to discover the broad expanse of her creative endeavors.)

 

In the HALLELUJAH INTERVIEWS, however, the goal is to dramatize specifically the relationship between ART and SPIRITUALITY. An artist like CeCe (I prefer to think of her as SEE SEE) is challenging to write about since most of her immense body of work is spiritually based! Let’s get started and see what can be “currently” illuminated about her SPIRTUAL ART SOJOURN!

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

SEE SEE: First, to answer this question, I had to look up “spirituality.” The dictionary was no help. The definition of SPIRIT is more like it--the GROUND SOURCE of BEING, the ESSENCE of BEING and EXISTENCE. Then we can define "spirituality" as the search for this ESSENCE.

HALLELUJAH: And ART?

SEE SEE: ART is a tool. ART is a language. Kind of like the way math is a language for physicists. Math helps concretize something that we can’t wrap our heads around. We can’t understand dark matter without the language of math.

BEING and EXISTENCE is a massive and ephemeral topic. Although a lot of people don’t understand the language of ART, ART is a pathway into another way of seeing.

HALLELUJAH: Tell me about how your project “89 Days, How Am I Feeling Today?” uses the LANGUAGE of ART to explore BEING and EXISTENCE.

SEE SEE: “89 Days” is a study of identity. Am I my thoughts, feelings, body, face, Catholic heritage? Am I my mother’s child? She lived for 89 years. I asked these questions, taking photographs of myself for 89 consecutive days trying to concretize my feeling of the moment. Then I reproduced these 89 photographs again, this time on hankies in a distorted way.

HALLELUJAH: And you also video taped yourself wearing a replica of your Catholic school uniform each day with a different hankie in your your pocket and asking about how you were feeling for another 89 days….

SEE SEE: Yes, but I stopped filming myself after 68 days because I had my answer. I knew I am simply not my thoughts and feelings. I’m wasting my time. Thoughts and feelings are as ephemeral as the body. We are simply dreams….

HALLELUJAH: And ART?

SEE SEE:  What is real? In “89 Days,” I tried to hang a structure using ART so that I could define reality. Making this structure was like hanging reality on a clothesline daily, step by step. In Catholicism, we pray in small increments of counting like the rosary or saying a novena. (See more about 89 Days.) 

 

(These photos were taken at the opening of Cecelia's show, "89 Days.")

HALLELUJAH: Where did the completion of this project “89 Days” leave you?

SEE SEE: Still asking two other questions—What is the nature of CONSCIOUSNESS? What is the nature of DEATH?

HALLELUJAH: I know that you have a large body of ARTwork, past and present, exploring these topics of CONSCIOUSNESS and DEATH. Could you tell me about the prominent and persistent symbols occurring in this ART?

SEE SEE: The “eye” is used to represent awareness and consciousness.

The “heart” stands for the life of the body—the thumping, concrete rhythm of life.

The “brain” represents the life of the mind—thoughts and feeling, logic and emotion.

HALLELUJAH: Let’s look at some of the ART you are currently working on. You have three examples.

SEE SEE: (EXAMPLE 1—WINGS) I began by drawing mechanical wings for my mother Hazel because of her fear of dying (Go to SEE SEE’s website to learn more about this image.).  

HALLELUJAH: Then you painted wings for yourself, using the symbols of the EYE, HEART, and BRAIN.

SEE SEE: I painted life-sized wings with realistic aspects, painting straps for my shoulders and hand holds.

HALLELUJAH: I remember these wings. They were quite large—about a ten-foot wingspan. (See an earlier blog entry of Coffee With Hallelujah to see photos of these wings at an early stage.)

SEE SEE: I cut them down to make them more manageable, maneuverable. I gave these wings to Sally Wylde when she was in hospice. She had asked for photos of the wings, but I sent her THE wings.

HALLEUJAH: That was very powerful and meaningful since several of us, including Sally, had “experimented” with these wings a couple of times in our Spiritual Art Pilgrim group. The life-sized aspect of the wings were so inviting to me—even if we were doing imaginary “test flights” into life after death.

(Cecelia taking a journey with her first set of wings, which were started at Hambidge in December 2009.)

SEE SEE: Now, I’m making new wings for myself.

HALLELUJAH: You started these wings around the time of Sally’s death in August. You collected small pieces of sticks on your daily walks with your dog, Etta. They reminded you of bones and provided the structure for this new painting of wings. They have certainly evolved in the last four months. Let’s look at the prominent symbols of EYES, HEARTS, and BRAINS occurring in them.

SEE SEE: The EYES and HEARTS are on the right side, representing BODY and CONSCIOUSNESS. This is the transition period. Life is rising so to speak. There is still green growth. This part of the wing is still attached to the earth. I don’t understand why, but there are green roots. 

(Cecelia's second set of wings, which were started in August 2010.)

The left side of the wings has lost color. There are skulls, which really represent DEATH. The skulls are rising and fading into bright whiteness—to the essence of DEATH. The self is somehow in some other environment. It is so bright we can’t see.

HALLELUJAH: And how is the BRAIN symbolized here? (SEE SEE gestures to the center of the wings that suggests something like a spinal cord.)

SEE SEE: This would be the brain showing the split, the bifurcation.

(Cecelia in her Decatur, Georgia, studio, trying the wings on.)


HALLELUJAH: Let’s look at another example of the way you use the symbols of the BRAIN, HEART, and EYES. You have a series of garments you have made that you call “Safety Wear.” Tell me about your “Consciousness Cape.”

SEE SEE: (EXAMPLE 2—CONSCIOUSNESS CAPE) It has a mink collar and on the tapestry, I’ve embroidered brains and synapses and sewn on hand made clay hearts. This “outside” part of the cape is the glorious, exuberant physical aspect of ourselves that we show to others. Inside the cape is a silk lining with sad suffering eyes, connected by a network of vines and thorns. This “inside” is “essential awareness,” which is hidden. This inner awareness of self is not physical.

Cecelia puts on the Consciousness Cape showing the white embroidered brains and clay hearts. This photo was taken in her cabin at Hambidge in December 2009.



Cecelia is showing the cape reversed, revealing the silk lining with the sad, suffering eyes.



HALLELUJAH: Right now, you are using similar imagery on a painting.

SEE SEE: (EXAMPLE 3: Large Painting Still in Process). This painting, covered in eyes connected by flowers and sprouting leaves has at least four layers: my fleshy pink background, a network of interconnected blue eyes, a layer of flower blueprints, and now the invasion of dark matter with roses in suspension (the dark matter and roses were added after the first interview).



Cecelia in her studio kneeling next to her painting covered in eyes.



HALLELUJAH: What are you saying about the SPIRIT here?

SEE SEE: At the deepest level, God and his retinue of colorful flowers emerge as a sad awareness. Why is that? It is my inability to define God’s and my existence—because I don’t know who I am.

HALLELUJAH: Has SPIRIT always been a part of your ART? Why?

SEE SEE: Yes. It’s like my hands got bigger and extended out when I started doing art. My drawing hand became the tool for the extension of self.

HALLELUJAH: Who do you consider influential in the way you think and make art?

SEE SEE: Well, for one, Natalie Goldberg, who gives writers permission to be writers. When I read her book, Writing Down the Bones, I just plugged in the word artist every time she wrote writer. She uses basic Buddhist ideas, which really resonated with me. 

Then there is Bruce Nauman, an early video artist who did two strong pieces about death. There’s one video of him repeatedly playing four notes on the violin: d  e   a   d. His underground piece involved digging an empty space under a gallery and putting a box like a coffin in it. His video camera projected this underground image on the gallery wall. Death…he was defining death as nothing. That’s scary. It arrested me.

Haruki Murakami’s novel, Wind up Bird Chronicle, uses magical realism. It takes place in a Tokyo suburb, and there is an empty well next to an abandoned house. It is through this well that the character is transported to other realities.

This image relates to a new body of work I want to do--digging a hole underground, creating a “well” and putting a simple chair in it. I want to sit in that chair and ask my mother what it is like to be dead.

HALLELUJAH: Do you think it is harmful to ask about DEATH? Do you think it is morose?

SEE SEE: ART is my way of looking at the feeling of sadness and moroseness surrounding death—and releasing it.

At the end of the interview, Cecelia took a moment to pose with her canine companion, Etta.

HALLELUJAH: SEE SEE, how gracious you were to invite me to your studio and to talk to me about YOUR SPIRIT in ART. I look forward to seeing your work as it evolves. THANK YOU!