Art and Spirituality

My spiritual life has a great impact on my creative life, and vice versa. Recently I’ve been revolving around a couple of aspects of this relationship between the spiritual and the artistic. As a child growing up in a conservative Christian denomination, I was never discouraged from drawing or painting. Still, the church environment itself was always very sterile. No fancy windows, no pictures on the walls, sometimes not even a cross at the front.

As an adult artist still participating in the church, there are strange dichotomies within the Protestant church that still affect me. On one hand, my beliefs provide inspiration. Biblical literature is full of the struggle and the sublime. The stories often have miraculous components and use descriptive words that paint vivid pictures for our imaginations to run with. The Jewish tabernacle, for instance, is described in great detail. Every kind of precious metal, rare stone and fine wood and textile was used. This was a place built to remind people of God’s glory and authority. Every last detail was important.

On the other hand, the history of the Protestant church and where it has led us today, especially in the United States, causes me to struggle. Image has become idol. The influence of Puritanism is still strong even today. Church walls are blank. Buildings are utilitarian. Why are we not responding creatively in our spiritual lives if we think we were made in the image of the Creator? This absence of creativity has crossed over into other areas as well. King David wrote most of the book of Psalms, a collection of poems and songs 150 chapters long. Where are our poems? What kinds of songs are we writing?

I want to push against both sides of this, to chase the sublime, supernatural beauty while also critiquing this attitude of fear. There is a paradox here of the beautiful and the ridiculous and I keep going back and forth, pulling things out and putting them under my microscope.

(Featured image is “Sublime” by E.J. Cobb.)

Finding Art After ArtPrize

During ArtPrize in Grand Rapids, Art is everywhere. It’s in the public parks and community space and in shop windows. It’s almost harder to avoid Art.

But now ArtPrize is over and the Art is gone. So where do we go when we have that craving for a little culture?

Coffee Shops and Restaurants

Grand Rapids food and beverage establishments have a great habit of showing Art all year round. Be sure to take a look around the next time you go to get a cup of coffee.

Galleries

Because of ArtPrize, we’ve got a growing number of Art galleries in the area. Galleries are free of charge and don’t require a purchase to look around. A lot of them have special openings. You can check out things like Avenue for the Arts too. They organize First Friday gallery hops and other events during the year centered around Art.

Museums

If you’re looking in Grand Rapids, we’ve got the Urban Institute of Contemporary Art, the Grand Rapids Art Museum and the Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park. The UICA always has a great selection of independent films on tap. The GRAM is free every Tuesday and the Meijer Gardens not only has expansive grounds filled with interesting wildlife and plant life, they also have a world class collection of sculptural Art and fantastic exhibits.

If you want to head outside of Grand Rapids, many of the surrounding cities have small museums and Arts organizations. If you want big, world class Art museums, the Detroit Institute of Art has a huge collection, as does the Art Institute of Chicago. Both are just a few hours drive from Grand Rapids and the entry fee is well worth it if you’ve got the whole day and a comfortable pair of shoes.

(Pictured is “I, You, She or He…” by Jaume Plensa which is part of the collection at Frederik Meijer Gardens and Sculpture Park)

If I Were A Juror

The votes are in and the public vote top 20 are up. I can’t say I’m surprised by most of them. Once again, the focus has fallen mostly on items with high degrees of technical difficulty or a certain kind of… gimmick. Still, there are a few shining stars in the bunch and one can only hope that one of those takes the top spot.

As far as the top picks for the juried prizes, I’m fairly pleased. Still, I’d like to take a crack at this. Some of the pieces they chose I haven’t had the chance to see yet. I mean seeing 1,500 pieces of Art in three weeks is pretty impossible, nevermind seeing them in the first week and a half! So, here are my winners if I were a juror and had to pick right now.

2-Dimensional: City As Muse by Rick Beerhorst at the UICA.

I’ve always been a fan of Rick Beerhorst’s ArtPrize entries and the folk art feel they’ve got, but this year, not only is it fantastic, it’s huge. This painting pays homage to Grand Rapids in the best way possible. It takes you over as soon as you walk into the room and it keeps its hold on you long after you leave.

3-Dimensional: The Delicacy of Place by Kate Gesel at the Calvin College 106 Gallery

A piece of Art doesn’t have to be big to make a big impact. It doesn’t have to be in a big exhibition center to deserve recognition. This thing is STUNNING. You need to go see it. Seriously, if it wasn’t 11 pm I’d tell you to go right now. The way she has printed these delicate scenes on tissue thin paper takes a huge amount of skill. The frames come out from the wall so when the slightest breeze blows through, the paper, which is not attached on the sides or bottom, floats out like a sheer curtain in front of an open window. It’s just plain lovely.

Installation: Intersections by Anila Quayyum Agha at the Grand Rapids Art Museum

There is a reason this piece was picked by both the jurors AND the public vote as a finalist. When you walk into this installation at the GRAM you are surrounded by light. The wooden box in the center is cut with an intricate pattern that fills the gallery. It’ll be hard to beat for sure.

Time Based: Urban Tumbleweed by Nathan Lareau at Cathedral Square

When I saw this video, I actually chuckled. The tumbleweed itself is pretty cool, and it makes some amazing sounds in the video. Not only that, it just looks cool rolling down sidewalks and through parking lots and the woods. It’s fun. Sometimes that’s all you need.

Venue: Western Michigan University

This is not one of the big exhibition centers. It’s not one of those eclectic nomadic venues like Site:LAB. Western Michigan has one floor of Art. It’s a big open space on their fifth floor and there is a huge variety of work in there. Every medium, every dimension, installation and time based pieces. They’ve got it all and it’s all pretty good.

Overall: Bower by Tim Lowly at the Grand Rapids Art Museum (pictured with this post)

This painting stuck with me. I had the hardest time deciding what to choose for this, but ultimately it had to be this one. It has this kind of sacred peaceful aura about it. It’s large but not over the top, muted and soft. It’s quiet. It’s the kind of painting that affects you even if you don’t understand why. And it’s exactly the kind of thing that should be winning awards at ArtPrize.

Art In the City

Last weekend I went to a printmaking conference in Detroit. As you may know, Detroit has had some difficulty in recent years. At one point, it even seemed like they would have to start selling off part of the collection at the Detroit Institute of Arts. Driving into the city, that was the version of Detroit we saw. It was the middle of the day in downtown Detroit and the streets were EMPTY. But then something happened. On Friday and Saturday night, there was an event happening. Not a sporting event (which sometimes seems like the only reason people go to Detroit) but an Art event called Dlectricity. All along the Woodward corridor, galleries were open and public spaces were transformed using light and video installations. And there were people. Lots and lots of people, all over Detroit.

In the same way, the ArtPrize competition has revitalized Grand Rapids. This city has gone from stagnant to spectacular. Grand Rapids has actually become one of the only cities in the Midwest to show economic growth in the midst of whatever recession thing we’ve got going on at the moment. And this is because of Art!

I think Art is this great connector. We all have this ability to share a sense of awe and wonder. When you see a video projected on the front of a museum, with music blaring and people in the streets, watching and dancing and exploring, how can you not feel excited?! When an entire city becomes an Art gallery for 3 weeks, and not only do people come look at it, but they participate in it and talk about it, how can you argue that Art has become irrelevant? Even the police station has Art in the windows!

Here in Grand Rapids, as we start deciding winners, let’s go to venues out of our way. Let’s have conversations with strangers about what we like and where to find it. Let’s walk laps around this place and vote for our favorite pieces. Let’s appreciate the way this brings us together and allows our cities to grow.

(Pictured is Intersections by Anila Quayyum Agha, currently on display for ArtPrize at the Grand Rapids Art Museum.)