Art in Community among the Poor

2008-12-16T06:20:00.000-08:00

“Alas those verses one writes in youth aren’t much. One should wait to gather sweetness and light all his life, a long one if possible, and then maybe at the end he might write ten good lines. For poetry isn’t, as people imagine, merely feelings (these come soon enough) it is experience. To write one line, a man ought to see many cities, people, and things; he must learn to know animals and the way of birds in the air, and how little flowers open in the morning. One must be able to think back the way to unknown places…and to paintings long forseen, to days of childhood…and to parents…to days on the sea…to nights of travel…and one must have the memories of many nights of love, not two alike…and the screams of women in childbirth…one must have sat by the dying, one must have sat by the dead in a room with open windows…but it is not enough to have memories. One must be able to forget them and have vast patience until they come again…and when they become blood within us, and glances and gestures…then first it can happen that in a rare hour the first word of a verse may arise and come forth” Rilke quoted in the introduction to Rilke Selected Poems, intro by CF MacIntyre p4, Malte pp25-27 from,

This qoute reminded me of a drawing teacher I had who said I was allowed to complain about painting a bad portrait after I had painted 500. Another prof in college said he can't think of any great art that didn't take a long time to make.

2008-10-01T08:53:00.000-07:00

The kids at the Word Made Flesh Romania 'Valley Center' worked hard this year painting pictures to create a set of Christmas cards to sell to raise money for all the different activities that happen here. This little painting of a tree was done by one of my favorite kids. He sat down and did a group of paintings mixing color and brushing the paper like it was the most natural thing he could do. If you spent some time with this young man you would never guess the war he faces each evening when he goes home. His smile and handshake are all it takes to remind me that he is a hero of peace in our world and a sign that miracles happen in our broken work.

Click here for details on purchasing our 2008 Christmas Cards.

2008-09-19T12:39:00.000-07:00

"Just now, even more than before the war, I feel the need to be in the cities among my fellow men. This is where our place is. We must take part in the whole misery that is to come. We must surrender our heart and nerves to the dreadfull screems or pain of the poor dissillusioned people...our superflous, self-filled existance can now be motivated only by giving our fellow men a picture of their fate and this can be done only if you love them." --Max Beckmann p32

from the book Max Beckmann by De Peter Howard Selz, Max Beckmann, Harold Joachim, Perry Townsend Rathbone

2008-09-13T11:34:00.000-07:00

J. Micheal Walker began searching for the connections between the saints whose names became the streets names of Los Angeles and what is happening on those streets today. He found the street named for the patron saint of wanderers,San Julian Street, had a large homeless population. Through presence on the 100 some streets of Los Angeles, J. Micheal Walker, meeting those inhabiting the physical spaces and researching the Saints Walker pulls together a rich set of contemplative pieces.

He has some sample stories on his site.

Here is a video of his reading a section of his book which describes his process.

J. Michael Walker, All the saints of the city of the angels LA-IP 2008 from LA-IP on Vimeo.

2008-07-22T11:40:00.000-07:00

I have never met Tuna but he is a friend of many Word Made Flesh staff who live in or have visited Calcutta. He loves to draw friends on napkins as they eat together. Here are some of the drawings he had done of Chris Heuertz over the years. As we look at more and more photographs I appreciate the vitality and the magic of drawing. In a few lines with a ball point pen on a napkin a human person appears. It is a record of an intimate dinner conversation. The pen is the sensitive instrument able to carry a pulse and the tender humanity of the person holding it.

2008-07-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

Trumpeting Frog

Nina Sinca is back at our drop in center for the summer. She has one more year of art school left. This piece is trying to get at the power and nature of information.

'Nina in her studio'

2008-07-05T10:48:00.000-07:00

Capcana Luminii 'Light Trap' Photography show 2008

Robin Fowler inspired me with her photos last year and gave me the idea that more people need to see her work. We found public space at the Cultural Centers Gallery and we invited our friend Dan Burlacu a local high school art teacher to present photos with us.

Take a look at Robins Work in our show we titled 'Light Trap'

Here are my (Joel's) contribution to 'Light Trap'.

The show opened with a short introduction by the new Art Guild director who is speaking in the picture. Then an art critic from the Modern Art Museum of Galati presented at length the exhibit as a whole and then took each artist in turn and discussed each.

The museum director spoke of a delight that the photos represented to him a return to nature and sensitive use and limitation of color and composition. I was proud to present Robin to the small crew gathered as a first time appearance in an official way in the art world in Galati. I am glad she was able to hear from the museum critic that her work is great.

2008-06-03T05:18:00.000-07:00

Here is the 'prayer rug' we have made while praying for the other Word Made Flesh fields who all sent clothes which have intersected with their communities among the poor in some way. It has taken two years to finish. All the individual pieces of cloth are held together by a single unbroken string made for tying fishing nets. It remains in the middle of the chapel as a reminder to us of the presence of Christ and of His presence in the poor among us around the world. We are only a small part of all that Christ is pulling together.

2008-05-24T12:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a sketchbook page I did while watching the kids making art. Below is a blog entry of Chris Heuertz the Word Made Flesh International director... he has a new book out called, Simple Spirituality: Learning to See God in a Broken World

Rabia of Basra

Last month Liz was carrying around this pretty red book. At some point, her and Phileena popped that thing open and the next thing I knew, I was the proud co-owner of a copy of Love Poems From God: Twelve Voices from the East and the West.

Since then Phileena had been savoring the pages and referencing the poems. On more than one occasion Phileena has shared verses from Rabia of Basra or Rabi’a al-Adawiyya al-Qaysiyy.

Rabia’s tale is one of the most heart-breaking and compelling stories I’ve heard in a long, long time.

Rabia lived during the 8^th century in ancient Iraq. She was the youngest of 4 daughters in a very poor, but respectable family. As a young girl her father died, and eventually Rabia was not only separated from her parents but her sisters as well.

She was left wandering and vulnerable.

Known to possess captivating beauty, some biographers tell that Rabia was captured and sold at a considerably high price as a slave to one of the most famous brothels of her day. There she was imprisoned until she was nearly 50 years old.

Reflecting on the torment of her sexual slavery she wrote,

“What a place for trials and transformation did my Lover put me, but never once did He look upon me as if I were impure. Dear sisters, all we do in this world, whatever happens, is bringing us closer to God.”

Her poems are simple, her prayers moving, her life recognized as a saint in the Sufi tradition. Rabia spent her life suffering as a contemplative mystic, faithful to her faith through the exploitation of her sexuality.In the introduction to her section of poems in the book, the translator Daniel Ladinsky concludes with this quote from her writings,

“Show me where it hurts, God said, and every cell in my body burst into tears before His tender eyes. He has repaid me though for all my suffering in a way I never wanted: The sun is now in homage to my face, because it knows I have seen God. But that was not His payment. The soul cannot describe His gift. I just spoke about the sun like that because I like beautiful words, and because it’s true: Creation is in homage to use.”

2008-05-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

'three forest sprouts'

Beauty is Useless

Beauty is as useless as

flowers on the kitchen table

as kindness and weeding a garden

wine after dinner, hugs and dressing up for church

Beauty is as useless as

the intricately carved porches in the Romanian countryside

as making a home, giving a child a toy, and singing four part harmony

a sunset, silence, old people, and monks

Beauty is as useless as

wonder and standing in awe of spring

as mourning a miscarried child and thinking on history

and looking into the eyes of one sentenced to death

Beauty is as useless as

quiet country life, as being at home, or writing poetry

as flowers for the dead, hermits, and desert wanderers

gratitude, sharing, contentment, and making peace with your spouse

Beauty is as worthless as

a bird songs, crickets in the evening, and croaking frogs

as laughter, the wind off the ocean, or saying 'I love you'

and putting your bare feet in the creek

Beauty is as useless as

the washing of Jesus' feet with costly perfume

salt, sugar in your tea, as grieving or dancing

giving time to a street kid or cleaning a child's head of lice

Beauty is as useless as

wild flowers which wither immediately after picking them

as making your bed, visiting prisoners, time waiting for the bus

caring for the severely handicapped

Beauty is as useless as

giving gifts which cannot be reciprocated or remembering the dead

caring for an aging parent, as celebration

thanksgiving, birthday parties or your favorite old shirt

Beauty is as useless as

life at the bottom of the ocean and invisible molecular movement

as astronomy, theoretical mathematics, or dressing up for a date

as a fruit tree with forbidden fruit, contemplation, or fasting

Beauty is as useless as

a necklace handed down from grandmother to granddaughter

as purity of heart, humility, taking a shower, putting on deodorant

holding hands while walking or the moments before you fall asleep

Beauty is as worthless

as a life which is only a breath

"He has made everything beautiful in its time" Ecclesiastes 3:11

Beauty is as useless

as the beloved is overcome

with the opened gift in her hands

(This watercolor and the meditation below were done during our communities recent retreat in the mountains in Romania. )

2008-04-23T05:04:00.000-07:00

'Brokenness: Maphibosheth at King David's Table'

by joel klepac

This is one of 9 paintings based on the lifestyle celebrations and input from the community in Romania over the past year. We hope to have them up on the chapel walls in the next few weeks. I am still thinking about how they might be presented online.

2008-03-25T12:35:00.000-07:00

(this photo was taken by by George D. who writes on Din si Despre Galati of a man living on the streets)

(the photo reminded me of this old poem I wrote after seeing a man like this rocking himself in the train station waiting for something)

He rocks and sways
Sucks and blows white milky smoke
Cradled in a crux of concrete
Comforted by a flame in his fingers

We rock and sway
At each blow we stretch by yellow fields
Cradled in steel grooves
And fight sleep with black potions

He closes his eyes
For his mother to arise
Or a friend or a phantom
To make good the promise

Open they wrinkle and curl
They worry and flood in the night
Broken eyes see golden fields under blue
But open to wipe away the promise

So he rocks and sways
Sucks and blows white milky smoke
Religiously making the sign of the promise
Of yellow, blue, of cradling and being cradled

2008-02-27T01:04:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship, Art for Advocacy, part 6

I would like to talk about Advocacy as prophecy, 'as giving voice to the true under workings of the empire' as Walter Bruggemann might describe it. The story of David and Nathan the prophet show us how ‘story’/art can reframe life and give us an opportunity for personal insight and repentance. In a recent story I read a spiritual director was speaking with an eager young monk. The young monk was ready to receive his spiritual work assignment to help catapult him towards intimacy and union with God. his Spiritual director oddly asked the young monk to read Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. When the young monk complained of such a worldly assignment the spiritual director said that this young monk needed to learn empathy for normal people in normal life before he could journey into the depths of God.

Much of art is there to help us develop a basic empathy for our fellow human beings. When we sit in the others shoes for 200 pages we see the world different. I believe this is the heart of advocacy. No tricks, manipulation, no arm twisting, just getting to know people we usually are separated from through the mediums of art.

Meet Max Beckman. His painting exposed the Nazi oppression and got him exiled from Germany.

Max Beckman

Guiernica, Picasso

Picasso put the city of Guiernica on the map with this devastatingly real depiction of the bombing of that city.

This is a photograph by Seth Allgire.

These are drawings done by survivors of Hiroshima. This is a great example of letting the victims tell their own story.

“…behind that frightened practice is a symbol gap in which we do not have symbols that are deep or strong enough to match the terror of the reality. What takes place when symbols are inadequate and things may not be brought to public expression is that the experience will not be experienced…’ p48 from The Prophetic Imagination

In the The National Story Project, we see a similar kind of amplifying of voices. This project gives air time to voices that would not ordinarily be heard. I am such there are many similar projects which could be designed to amplify voices of those we work among.

Kathe Kollwitz is another example of illuminating the jewish plight under the Nazi’s. She was a German lady who used wood block printing to print massive amount of pictures showing what was happening to the Jews. Her work is simple and stunningly human.

A more recent example of this kind of global advocacy is Francisco Botero's Abu Ghraib Paintings exposing the horrors of torture in US prison camps. He is giving voice to people who literacy have no advocate...no lawyer.

Kids with Cameras and our Sierra Leone fields, Beauty and Brokenness project in Sierra Leonne again put the cameras into the hands of the kids, letting us see through there eyes.

Georges Rouault, from the Miserere Series

By allowing people to see the poor through a humanizing lens, a different angle, stories, songs, pictures, images which give names, face, personality, connect their humanity to ours and evokes a response to their dignity. We certainly do not need to be a Picasso or a Kollwitz to be used in such a way. If the process only helps the artist herself to w in empathy for her brother or sister it is worth all the time and attention given.

True Notebooks, by Mark Salzman gives an inside look at an Orange County Juvenile Detention Center. He combines his own writing describing his experience of teaching writting there as well as he writing of the kids. This is a nice combination of letting the kids speak for themselves and the writer giving voice to the subtleties of their lives.

This was the collaborative animation done with the kids at the Valley center. The hope was to show their beauty and personality. Let them read themselves some of their ideas and dreams.

We can think of advocacy terms of gathering the voices and songs of the poor, of all people. Here is its connection to worship. We gather them from the margins and as Christ does, we place the poor in the center with Him.

If our art starts and finishes in Advocacy, I am afraid it will be shallow and not do justice to the beauty of the world. I believe advocacy needs to be the last and almost unconscious byproduct of art for play and awe, of contemplative art, of art building and expressing the lives of our communities, and art for therapy which is helping us plumb the depths of our inner worlds. Advocacy needs to come out of a deep and long look at the world in all its horrors and beauties. And hopefully our advocacy in the end will be a celebration of isolated people coming together and seeing each other for the first time as fully human, beautiful, and created in the image of God.

'Beauty and Worship' Concluding thoughts…

Here are a couple considerations for worship music.

worship music = music+poetry+theology

If our worship is a sacrifice...we should consider studying the greatest music, the best theology we are aware of, and reading and understanding poetry. Most people complain about mediocre worship music. I don't see many considering higher level theological training, musical training, and poetry studies. It might help?

If worship is about the gathering of creation (into microcosm ourselves and community) and offering it back to God, liturgy ie the work of the people

Then the more we gather the more attentively we gather the scattered parts, voices, tonalities, rythmes, theological prayer experiences, etc, the more rich and beautiful will be our offering.

Let us expose ourselves to great art and great suffering and great theology and integrate it through reflection in art activities

Ideas for collaborative work.

Short international films (each using birds eye lense, moving left to right)
Books/ story telling (on chosen themes try to generate poetry and prose around an idea like distance separation, dark, light) get a range of kids parents, audio video reflections?
Blogging our work (formatts
Music (worship, narrative, or experimental)
“Collections” –Sarah said she likes to collect strange things throughout Calcutta. What if we all tried to collect photograph and reflect on the collections?
A WMF Art exhibit, installations sounds, impressions, voices, images, videos.
Inventions and ‘merge si asa’ documentation, ingenious ways people solve basic life problems. (ie. Drill gun for grinding eggplant)
there are certainly many other ideas to be discovered.

2008-02-25T00:53:00.000-08:00

This was created over a few months of learning about facial features, drawing and painting them together. Finally we put it all together and then made the sound track with the help of Ferenkeh Tarawally who has been visiting from from Sierra Leonne. He gave me a few Djimbe lessons while he was with us. The text was adapted from a piece written by David Chronic on working with children with varying degrees of attachment disorder.

(text read in animation)

The Face

baby puts everything in her mouth

ingesting her external environment

making it a part of herself.

a drawn face is moved

up and down in front of her

she smiles back.

the Face is the primal prototype

of religious experience

at around six months

the child becomes aware

that the face is not

constantly present.

the Face in whose Presence

each person was created

is that which constantly seeks us (Luke 19:10).

In His incarnation,

the Son has shown us

the Face of God.

"And all of us with unveiled faces,

seeing the glory of the Lord

as though reflected in a mirror,

are being transformed into the same image

from one degree of glory

to another; For it is God who said,

‘Let light shine out of darkness,’

who has shone in our hearts

to give the light of the knowledge

of the glory of God in the face of Christ.(2 Corinthians 3:17-18)

the Face that finds us and liberates us

will never leave or abandon us (Hebrews 13:5).

We no longer find identity

in opposition to others,

now identity is in relationship to the Son,

By responding, the Triune God becomes our primary attachment.

constant loneliness is dissolved in His Face

to whom we belong and correspond. (pause)

As community we come together as a sign

that our cosmic loneliness has found the constant presence of the Face.

As community, we invite people into the Spirit of God

to hear the affirmation of the Father,

and we together incarnate a “face” of consistency,

fidelity, love, and limits, finding together the Face of God.

2008-02-14T12:18:00.001-08:00

Lara Lahr works in inner city Philadelphia with mission year and have been part of The Simple Way in Philadelphia. This is a good example of photography which draws you in and invokes a story. With great economy, much is said. Thanks Lara. Please keep looking through the view finder.

Here was her reflection on the photo...

"On my previous blog, I talked about how contentment has been a recurrent theme lately in my life. In many areas of my life, I can truly say that I am closer than ever to finding this contentment. I have grown not only content, but thrilled to be a mom of 3 girls. I have become content living in a city like Philadelphia which is quite different from Wilmore Kentucky (where we lived before). I am content with the low salary (in American standards) that we live on which keeps us from buying too much stuff. I have become content with a messy house (at times). I am content with the cars that God has blessed us with. I can't tell you how many comments I get, even from friends that are like minded to me, that I should get a new car. I have become content with our lack of closet space, drafty house, unfinished projects, and toilet that you have to turn the water off to every time you finish using it...read the rest of the article"

2008-02-11T11:41:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship: Art for Community, part 5

When art is based in Community, the artist vocalizes the community experience. The artist is able to give expression to more than just her own personal experience.

Thomas Hart Benton went from the Paris art scene, the cutting edge at the time, and from there developed a desire to connect and articulate common themes coming from common people in the southern United States.

As Thomas Hart Benton and others such as Harlan Hubbard described by Wendel Berry did, artists in local rooted communities have the opportunity of articulating directly our common themes, vision, identity, and experience. The gift they offer back to their communities is a sense of vision and purpose, a sense of their place in history and the importance of the ordinary loving work taking place in the community.

Collaboration

The Give and take, the dance of the Holy Trinity is our model and mandate to be collaborating partners in any work we do. We are made to work together. By making art together we make visible our common work together that is orchestrated by the Holy Spirit.

By doing collaborative work we are able to do a series of reflections, learn to give and take, and learn to risk. For people who have been trained in individualistic, competitive culture where each person must prove he is better that all the rest, this kind of collaboration can be healing. For children at risk who feel powerless and voiceless this kind of dignifying collaboration can be revitalizing and hope giving.

Kids animation Project

This project involved most of the kids at the center for at risk youth, The Valley Center. In it their own voices and personalities are heard, their mark is made. The process in itself of photographing, coloring, and drawing, and all the way until we watched the final product together was fun and life giving.

Flower garden Painting

For this collaboration I gave the kids squares with blind contours drawn on them and they were able to paint them how they wished. The funnest moment was seeing their faces light up when they saw the final collection of all the squares. They ran around finding the other staff telling them that they had made this piece together.

In the chapel carpet we have another example of collaboration. The other Word Made Flesh communities sent us articles of used clothing which intersected with their communities and we cut them into strips and have woven them into a rug to be used in the center of the chapel. We have used the process as a way to pray for the other fields, and now after a couple years of weaving in prayers, the rug is almost finished, and will be a reminder of the other communities present with us in our times of prayer.

Wendell Berry’s Short stories are a great example of using writing to find voice for the community experience. They are simple beautiful and dignifying to the loving, patient work of good people. More of this kind of reflective fiction could be cultivated among us. There are many amazing characters who we we meet on a daily basis whose lives deserve to be described and celebrated in reflective writing. Some of our stories which appear in prayer letters are great starts to reflective contemplative writing which gives voice to our common experience as communities.

This is a piece of hand made paper which came together during a talk I gave called "Finding Joy in the Midst of Suffering" to the Beggars Society in Omaha. Again, the beauty of the piece is in the diversity of contributions, prayers, and the lives and suffering represented by each of the people who placed their crosses into the wet paper pulp.

In 'Art for Community' we find our voice, the community participates in collaborative projects which articulate common vision and purpose. We collaborate in a material way, making visible signs of our collaborative and redemptive work among the poor. When we work together, in mutual submission and love we become living icons of the Holy Trinity.

Find more examples of 'Art for Community'

2008-01-29T10:31:00.000-08:00

Movements into Silence

I finally finished these music tracks I am calling, Movements into Silence, Contemplative Music on my 30 dollar Classical guitar, recorded on the voice recorder Will John gave me last year. Below is the description.

Movements into Silence

(download CD free HERE)

Movements into Silence

Movement 1
Movement 2
Movement 3
Movement 4
Twenty Minute Silence

Continuous Prayer and Silent Prayer
Growing up going to all night prayer meetings with my dad while I was in high school nurtured in me a life of prayer. Years later I found myself in an all night prayer service at a Romanian Orthodox monastery on the other side of the ocean. The fellowship hall of my dad's prayer meetings couldn't have been more different from the icon filled and gold leafed ancient chapel, but despite the differences I felt strangely at home.

Known as Hesychism in the Orthodox east and now popularized in liturgical churches in the west as the Centering Prayer movement, the heritage of continuous prayer is the wealth of our Christian faith. Many believers are rediscovering the rich traditions of prayer practices in works like ‘The Way of the Pilgrim’ which describes a Russian peasants journey from destitution into the life of continuous prayer. He learns to pray the Jesus Prayer, 'Lord Jesus Christ have mercy' continuously and we watch it turn from ritual habit into intimacy with God. As we walk, we pray; as we breathe, we pray; as our heart beats, we pray; as we encounter the poor, we pray; as we do justice to the image of God now seen in the poor, we pray; as we sleep, we pray. Centering prayer is a habit of prayer which refocuses our attention, centering us on Christ twice a day so that we can live continuously in Him.

'In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength', Isaiah 30:15

Silent prayer is a purifying fire. This sanctifying movement of the Spirit within us calls us to bring our histories, and everything within our spheres of life into submission to Christ. This recording was born out of desire to be faithful to the spirit of contemplative prayer. It is my prayer that we may return continually to Christ, to meet Him in silence, and allow Him to unmask our false selves and offer us back into the world as a whole persons capable of encouraging wholeness in the Body of Christ, that we may be a fragrant offering for the life of the world.

In centering prayer we are encouraged to make a habit of 20 minutes of complete silence in the morning and 20 minutes before the evening meal. Without distraction, relaxed, and concentrated on a word or phrase such as, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy”. The word or phrase helps to refocus us as we are distracted by a myriad of thoughts. Track 1-4 are10 minute instrumental pieces and Track 5 is 20 minutes of silence begin and end with chimes. Below are two prayers I find helpful for beginning and ending times of prayer.

If you found this helpful, I would recommend, far more than my own music, recordings of the music written by of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179). Also, consider Arvo Part's 'Alina', and a collection of choral and violin pieces by Bach called 'Bach: Morimur' for facilitating times of silence and contemplation. For more reading on continuous prayer see The Pilgrim and the Pilgrim continues on his Way, anonymous, works by Thomas Keating on centering prayer, and one of my favorite books on prayer and contemplation Clowning in Rome, by Henri Nouwen .

The artwork for the CD comes from a series of meditative wash drawings based on slow blind contours.

All this music is free to download, share and you are free to delete it when it is no longer useful to you, any comments are welcome, please e-mail them to jamklepac@gmail.com.

Movements into Silence CD

(download for free HERE)

Trisagion Prayers.

+Glory to Thee, our God, Glory to Thee.

O Heavenly King, Comforter, the Spirit of Truth,

Who art everywhere present and fillest all things,

the Treasury of good things and Giver of life:

Come, and abide in us, and cleanse us from every stain,

and save our souls, O Good One.

+Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal: have mercy on us. (3 times)

+Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

All-Holy Trinity, have mercy on us.

Lord, cleanse us from our sins.

Master, pardon our iniquities.

Holy God, visit and heal our infirmities for Thy name's sake.

Lord, have mercy. (3 times)

+Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,

both now and ever, and unto the ages of ages.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be Thy name.

Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses

as we forgive those who trespass against us;

and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.

For Thine is the Kingdom, and the power, and the glory,

of the +Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,

now and ever and unto ages of ages. Amen.

First Prayer of St. Basil the Great

Almighty Lord, God of the Powers and of all flesh,

Who livest in the highest and carest for the humble,

Who searchest our hearts and affections,

and clearly foreknowest the secrets of men;

eternal and everliving Light, in Whom is no change nor shadow of variation;

O Immortal King, receive our prayers which at the present time

we offer to Thee from unclean lips, trusting in the multitude of Thy mercies.

Forgive all sins committed by us in thought, word or deed,

consciously or unconsciously, and cleanse us from all defilement of flesh and spirit.

Grant us to pass the night of the whole present life with wakeful heart and sober thought,

ever expecting the coming of the radiant day of the appearing of Thy only-begotten Son,

our Lord and God and Saviour, Jesus Christ, when the Judge of all will come with glory

to render to each according to their deeds. May we not be found fallen and idle,

but awake and alert for action, ready to accompany Him into the joy and divine palace of His glory,

where there is the ceaseless sound of those keeping festival and the unspeakable delight

of those who behold the ineffable beauty of Thy Face.

For Thou art the true Light that enlightens and sanctifies all,

and all creation sings to Thee throughout the ages. Amen.

Movements into Silence CD

(download for free HERE)

Joel and Monica Klepac
www.wordmadeflesh.com
www.wmfromania.com
www.joelklepac.blogspot.com
www.artincommunityamongthepoor.blogspot.com

(all music was recorded, written an played by Joel Klepac at Jonah and the Whale Productions, all album art is done by Joel Klepac)

2008-01-24T00:48:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship: Art for Therapy, part 4

Sarah Lanse charcoal drawing

Paradigm of bringing things from darkness to light

Sarah’s drawing is an image of the contemplative process of illuminated darkness, re written pages, and of excavating roots. All themes that have come up as we have discussed 'The Human Condition' by Thomas Keating

'Gathering' is bringing together the parts missing in darkness. In 'art for play' or 'awe' it is bringing together the materials that are left unnoticed, in 'art for contemplation the truths, the beauty, making connections, and now in art for therapy, it is gathering our lost and forgotten roots, our inner emotional basements, re framing, rewriting them into the rest of who we are so that we are not split and fragmented people. If we perpetuate a false self, a fragmented person, we only add to the fragmentation of or world.

This dis integration can happen easily in otherwise healthy people when exposed to the harsh suffering of the worlds poor wherever in the world. Counselors working with child abuse victims are often required to receive 4 hours a week of counseling do deal with their own secondary trauma caused by listening to the stories of abused children. When working among the poor the stories we are hearing on a regular basis are no less traumatic. The injustices suffered by the children we are serving among will over a short time plunge us into compassion fatigue. No one is immune. In order to survive for the long term one needs to take definitive steps to reflect and process this secondary trauma, that of hearing of the traumas of others.

Self-assessment for compassion fatigue

Answering "yes" or "no" to the following nine statements will help you assess your risk for compassion fatigue:

Personal concerns commonly intrude on my professional role.	Yes	No
My colleagues seem to lack understanding.	Yes	No
I find even small changes enormously draining.	Yes	No
I can't seem to recover quickly after association with trauma.	Yes	No
Association with trauma affects me very deeply.	Yes	No
My patients' stress affects me deeply.	Yes	No
I have lost my sense of hopefulness.	Yes	No
I feel vulnerable all the time.	Yes	No
I feel overwhelmed by unfinished personal business.	Yes	No

Answering "yes" to four or more questions may indicate that you're suffering from compassion

fatigue. [This instrument, developed by the authors, has not been validated, but the results should serve as a quick check of your state of mind.] If you're interested in determining your risk for burnout, try taking the Maslach Burnout Inventory. It may be obtained through the Consulting Psychologists Press at 800-624-1765 or through their Web site at www.cpp-db.com.

Much of our coping and integrating of traumatic situations and stories comes from learning to be attentive and attuned to our inner world. It allows us to get to the point where we ask ourselves, ‘how is ‘x’ situation affecting me?

It is getting this nagging abstract feeling out somehow. Naming the feeling steals its power over us.

Lung process, heart process, and digestion give us paradigms of gathering in, processing, and letting go/ releasing. We can only process so much at a time. Increased traumatic/ difficult experience necessitates increased time to process, and integrate the experiences into our selves.

Here are some ideas of how Art as therapy can help us move towards habits of processing our experiences in service among the poor.

This is an example of my own sketched memories from an evening on the streets with the boys. This non verbal processing method is direct and immediately externalizes an experience that can eat away at you without you realizing it. Journaling after such street meetings or anything else that is potentially traumatic is an intentional way to precess and externalize the experience of another's suffering. It does not solve the injustice by takes steps towards integrating it into you understanding of God and the world.

still from the movie 'Everything is illuminated'

Holocaust films help reintegrate, finding some meaning in the insanity, and learning to live on with the loss or horror. The image of boxes of the remaining possessions of each victim is a metaphor for our built up unnamed traumas. They have a certain silent power over us if they are unopened and un integrated, and often we are oblivious to them all the way until we burn out and leave our place of service.

Our art teacher at the Valley Center Nina did a project with the boys living on hte streets with collected pieces of wood and interesting branches. The boys spent most of their time cutting cleaning and carving out of the branches they selected from the pile. When they were finished they were asked to give a name to their sculpture. In the process of naming this abstract form many came up with revealing ideas. One sculpture was a cut off small tree with the large roots exposed. It was cleaned and put upside down and gashed were cut about an inch apart up the length of the tree. In the end he named the piece, 'the sad tree'. The tree perfectly mirrored the boys arms which have the gashes form self mutilation. He was able to name the sadness in himself in a non threatening way. Darkness turns to light, unnamed feelings are named and
rendered less powerful.

Often journaling about counseling with kids or about a traumatic story told to us can get us steps closer to understanding how we are being affected.

In comparison to the suffering of the person we care about it is easy to discount this secondary suffering we feel. It is true that we cannot compare the first hand trauma and the second hand trauma, but the affects on our continued functioning are the same over time though less extreme. For this reason we have to be willing to deal with how ministry is affecting us as workers, it is important because our ability to love the least among us depends on it.

Within a few years of coming to Romania a little boy named Mihaita was hit by a car and killed. This painting was part of my own processing the trauma I had of being asked to photograph the funeral proceedings from stat to finish. It was like having my nose pushed into this injustice. The pain I felt seemed so trivial next to the memory of the boys mother screaming. I have not forgotten this boys face but I am no longer debilitated by the unnamed emotional pain. It is re written into my story my history and my faith.

In 'Art for Therapy' we are talking about gathering the boxes of our dark closets, ‘basements’, ‘excavating roots’, ‘allowing old pages to be re-written’ so we can be fully present as a whole integrated persons.

See more examples of 'Art for Therapy'

2008-01-10T12:05:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship: Art for Contemplation, part 3

In 'Art for Contemplation' I am thinking of active reflection using a medium (words, colors, shapes, film, clay, etc) giving a high level of attention while releasing control of the outcome of the reflection. In the paradigm of Friere's, Pedagogy of the Oppressed, this would be a way of reflecting on our action or 'Praxis'.

Rouault landscape.

Some of Rouaults works like his King David painting were said to have been worked on over a period of 50 years. The textures and colors, scrapes and pulls of the paint are the material of his contemplation of life as he experienced it. One just needs to stand in front of His paintings to see layer after layer built up until some portions of the painting will rise above the surface of the canvas an inch or so.

Francis Bacon 'Crucifixion'

Here is a Francis Bacon trip tic I saw in England. It is a horrific painting. One only needs to remember that he was contemplating the state of humanity post World War 2. Maybe it is horrific but accurate as well and therefore helpful.

This is a shot from the Andrei Tarkovsky film 'The Sacrifice'

Andrei Tarkovsky the Russian film maker used slow choreographed takes so that he could cut the film as rarely as possible. In doing this he reflects the time of human experience. There is a sense of space and breath. Watching his films is like crawling into the skin of a monk for a couple hours and seeing the world through the eyes of a contemplative. Tarkovsky teaches us contemplation as he offers us his sense of time and composition in the film.

Hans Hoffman

Hans Hoffman paintings demonstrate an incredible beauty, specifically diversity in unity. In any image abstract or narrative which brings together any diversity into unity is a symbol of the Holy Trinity. It gives you a visual 'proof' of the real possibility of unity in diversity. Anything beautiful in this sense is an icon of the Holy Trinity. More than many other abstract expressionist painters Hoffman has a sense of the spiritual transcendent radiating from his work.

In this pieta the visual curving form of the body becomes a theological aesthetic way to deal with grace. Visual grace participates in the truth of redemptive theological experiential grace. The form of the art is created to contemplate and aid in the contemplation of the spiritual realities depicted.

charcoal drawings by Sarah Lanse

Similarly Sarah has used here the process of charcoal drawing to contemplate her experiences of the suffering of the women she is working with. There is a real black and white, death and life severity to the drawings. Calcutta is far from a black and white place visually but certainly life and death are most present to the senses than in many other more insulated places in the world.

Micheal Nye is a great contemporary photographer who incorporates audio stories of persons being photographed. He has a show on living with mental illness with beautiful insightful photos of people he collaborated with and their accounts of how they experience life. It is startlingly personal and intimate. His process of photographing and audio interviewing is a great way of being attentive to another person, humanizing then, and discovering their unique story. When we spend time contemplating the individual lives of the poor in dignifying ways we find empathy and common humanity with the poor.

Art for contemplation is also a means of gaining insight, understanding and building empathy.

Here are some ideas to consider...

Journaling- high attention to what happened (or what is happening) without controlling the outcome of the reflection.
Drawing- simply sitting down and drawing from life can be a great way to hear God speaking through the tree, river, or the person drawn.
Open ended Drawing, painting, writing. (ex. Creating a set of characters with personalities etc, and then letting their personalities decides the outcome of the story)
writing poetry- Josh Fowler some public, some private reflection.
Video editing- bringing together themes in audio and video material. Reflecting on the content of the pieces and finding the connections between the parts. The stuggle with video or other digital media seems to be that the process can be so quick there is no space for contemplation. It takes discipline and patience to give the though and attention to create pieces which are going to also draw others into contemplation.

Click here for more examples of 'Art for Contemplation'

Contemplation should start in awe and play so that the good seeds of contemplation may be nurtured and grow in order to offer us their life giving songs. Without this deep saturation in contemplative experience of creation our art has little chance of transcending personal opinion and wishful thinking.

In 'Art for Contemplation' we are ‘gathering’ together the theological truths as they express themselves in creation, in all its processes, shapes, and colors. Contemplation is a focused way that faith and experience are integrated.

2007-12-13T11:58:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship: Art for Play, part 2

Art for Play, Awe, and Wonder

We are talking about discovering, enjoying, uncovering, celebrating God’s creation, the beauty of the world.

'land of milk and honey'

“Now as Erich Fromm wrote in his meaningful book "The Art of Loving", the earth is always symbolized as a woman (mother earth) and according to the Old Testament, the Promised Land is the land of "Milk and Honey". Here Fromm says that any mother can feed her child with milk, a liquid that gives life and symbolizes the acceptance of life and growth but rarely, truly rarely can one find a mother who feeds her child with honey too, a substance so sweet that bequeaths love for life. What Fromm meant was that a true mother would give her child the ability to accept and then above all to love life.

'Art for play' or 'Art for awe/wonder' are ways of trying to talk about those forms of art making which are primarily about enjoying life and experiencing it more deeply. About getting in the mud and playing with the good materials of the world. The lost art of Alchemy was something like this, engaging in direct and joyful observation of how beautiful the colors, textures, and interactions of elements are. (See James Elkins book, 'What painting is' for a great discussion of the similarities of painting an alchemy.)

The mode of play and experimentation with the materials of creation give us the intimate knowledge necessary for all the other forms of art.

This was an old window frame set up like a table. I places sand in it and let the kids from the valley center draw in the sand while took continuous still images. The images were turned into this video. These 'Sand trap drawings' are an example of art for play. They are low risk and fun giving the kids a means of discovery, and feeling successful. The finished product is not the point as much as the simple pleasure of playing in the sand.

Picasso had a famous long exposure shot where you see him drawing (from when the flash went off) and you see a bull drawn with a light (created during the long exposure in the dark). These are not original but a way of playing with light.

This one was done with the boys on the streets.

This is an image produced by 'KIDS with CAMERAS' Our Sierra Leone Beauty and Brokenness photos were another great example of giving the kids a chance to play and discover what happens when you take pictures. The results may turn into advocacy naturally but there is important reflection that is happening in the process of playing with a camera.

Here are more examples of 'Art for Play' that have appeared on this blog already. Another great example was Caleb Coppock and one of the boys from the boys home playing with the reflections of sunlight in CD’s. I found Ron playing with bubbles with the kids at the center. The question of when does play turn into art is a good question, but maybe we should just start with acknowledging that great art always starts in a celebration of materials, of discovery of textures and colors. Jackson Pollock is a straightforward example. Here are some other art for play examples...

I find the simple structure of the Hiku a liberating low key way to experiment with words and ideas.

Retreat Haiku May 2005

Leaflets jump for joy

When through the umbrella comes

Spattering wet joy

Grace curving through limb

Raising leaves high to the sun

Gentle bow his hymn

Frogs green jokers laugh,

Mountains water gathering

And wind make my bath

Straight backed noble grass

Tips its hat in river wind

Roaring green applause

Also, reflective journaling, brainstorming, writing about events of the day are great ways to dig into the raw materials of your life. Other ways to playing in the mud might be working in clay, paint, charcoal, carving, making noises, sounds. All the baby talk of infants is their way of finding their voice, figuring out what combinations of air flow and air stopping makes what kinds of sound. Without this experimentation it is difficult to learn to speak.

In Art for play we are gathering raw materials, learning to enjoy them, use them, delight in them. we play in the sand, clay, and mud learning their inner properties. It is necessary for any artist to 'baby talk', to play in the mud, to be an alchemist wondering at the beauty of the stuff of the world before she can find her voice and articulate a beautiful idea for the love of God and community.

2007-12-11T05:21:00.000-08:00

Beauty and Worship: Introduction, part 1

I have debated about how post some of the materials from a talk I gave the the Word Made Flesh staff in the summer of 2007. The workshop included staff from the many different Word Made Flesh Fields, a few have formal art training but most just seemed curious about finding and sharing ways that art may be a part of our lives seeking Christ among the worlds poor. I will try to cover the basic material in a series of blog posts. So here is the "Introduction to Beauty and Worship"...

Introduction to "Beauty and Worship Workshop"

1.Working Definitions for "Beauty" and of "Worship"

I am not a theologian primarily but an artist. I do believe in relying on the wisdom of great theologians, so I hope that my best guesses are informed ones.

Beauty = Diversity in Unity

Maximum Beauty = Maximum diversity in Unity

Worship = Gathering and offering back to God a transfigured creation

These are obviously short and over simplified definitions, so lets look into Chutnification to clear up some other issues before we start...

2. Chutnification and Aesthetic experience

“What is required for chutnification? Raw materials, obviously—fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices. Daily visits from Koli women with their saris hitched up between their legs. Cucumbers aubergines mint. But also: eyes, blue as ice, which are undeceived by the superficial blandishments of fruit-- which can see corruption beneath citris-skin; fingers which, with feathriest touch, can probe the secret inconstant hearts of green tomatoes; and above all a nose capable of discerning the hidden languages of what-must-be-pickled, its humors and messages and emotions. . . at Bragzana Pickles, I supervise the production of Mary's legendary recipes; but there are also my special blends, in which thanks to the powers of my drained nasal passages, I am able to include memories, dreams, ideas, so that once they enter mass-production all who consume them will know what pepperpots achieved in Pakistan, or how it felt to be in the Sundarbans. . . believe don't believe but its true. Thirty jars stand upon a shelf, waiting to be unleashed upon the amnesiac nation”. –Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children p530

What we find here in the genius of Salmon Rushdie's novel is a great example of the role of the work of art in social life, of gathering and offering back something transformed, and possibly even of worship itself as I conceive of it.

Gathering Raw Materials(fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices)

+ Focused attention (eyes/nose)

= empathy/insight/compassion( ‘how it felt to be’)

& a sense identity/vision (‘amnesiac nation’, collective memory)

3.The unexperienced experience...

It is often not until we journal that we realize the significance of the events. We are gathering the 'raw materials' of our day and adding focused attention. It is often not until we talk with some one about an experience that we realize its full significance. Again, the dialogue happening with another person is the result of collecting experiences within ourselves, sorting them, reframing them into a new form and making coherent conversation with them. We only then become aware often of the significance of the experience.

We only really experience our experience by processing it. We need a pickle processing plant! To process all the ingredients of our life and to integrate them into a meaningful whole. By ‘pickling it’ the experience changes into a form that transcends time, and can nourish us whenever we have need.

People spend 2-3 seconds per painting at an art museum. By never processing a painting with great concentrated attention, and by not suspending judgment in order to understand the work on its own terms, we manage to pass by hundreds of works of art without ever really experiencing a single one!

In a figure drawing session during college my Prof played Arvo Part’s Te Deum. At the end of the thirty minute piece he and one of the student were crying? I was unaffected at the time. How did I not have the same experience of the piece as they did? I was jealous of whatever it was they heard. There are ways we can prepare ourselves to be able to experience more fully art as well as life itself.

This is what happens on a broader scale when we never take time to reflect, contemplate, pause, to be present in the moment or to reflect on the days experience. We pass through life really experiencing very little. This is possibly scandalous for those claiming to possess passionate love for the Creator of the planet and all the life it possesses.

4.How aesthetic experience works...

It is also important to recognize how aesthetic experience works. This is generalized and applies to approaching a work of literature, a painting, or the beauty of a person. The elements are the same.

letting go (of control of the experience)

+ concentrated attention

=Aesthetic Experience (contemplative experience)

The process of experiencing a work of art and the process of creating a meaningful work of art use the same processes. To create a great jar of pickled chutney and to be able to enjoy it both involve this same gathering and focused surrendered attention.

5.Missing pieces...

It seems clear that much of the world has the absence of consciousness of the plight of the poor. We live as if poverty does not exist, ‘the experience of suffering destitute poor’ is not experienced.

I want to give a wide range of ideas or ways we can engage life, ‘suck the marrow out of life’ as Henry David Thoreau said, really experience life among the poor, survive it, and find the Kingdom of God among the poor.

6.Conclusion

We need to learn the process of chutnification, of taking the raw materials of our life, our experience among the poor, and of the beauty of the world and offering them back, food for our amnesic selves and our amnesic world.

we need to see that...

Beauty is gathering together many parts into a meaningful whole.

and that...

Worship is the uniquely Christian act of gathering in symbolic ways all of creation into a meaningful whole and offering it back to God.

In the future posts I will build on this foundation into...

Art for Play (or Awe)
Art for Contemplation
Art for Therapy
Art for Community
Art for Advocacy

2007-12-11T05:12:00.000-08:00

Bach and At Risk Youth

A few days ago we had a little show for the children at risk at the drop in center. From kids trying to survive school on top of life itself to street youth who have recently seen another friend get killed, this time being hit by a car, we had a diverse group. The high light was John Koon playing for us a couple Bach pieces on his cello. The main sound on this clip is him playing Bach's 3rd Suite for Cello in C Major, Movement #6, "Gigue" and of course our group screaming at the end.

I heard an essay titled, Music as Healer, Music as Teacher, written by William Harvey a freshman Julliard violin student who played at a 9-11 Armory shelter in New York city just after the tragedy. He describes how there is something important about music which expresses the inexpressible experiences we all share together.

Though there is horror and even death, beauty gives us the taste of the new heavens and new earth where God overcomes the mess.

2007-11-30T04:55:00.001-08:00

Our Valley House kids have been starting on parts of the face. Here was the results of our eye project. This one looked as if it could have been taken off of a thousand year old urn in the archeological museum in Greece. Giving the kids vibrant acrylic colors turned a boring drawing session into an exciting alchemical experience. These are fun to look at large where you can see the brush strokes more easily.

2007-11-23T10:08:00.000-08:00

This is another photo taken by Robin Fowler on their trip into Moldova. Below is a poem written by April Folkertsma on the ride.

I Can't Do Anything with this Dark

It's a quarter to 4 a.m.
And I can't do anything with this dark,
sleep, read, pray.
I can see only as far as the bus headlights illuminate,
along a bumpy Moldovan road,
On my way to Chisinau for clarification
or further vision.

My fellow travelers sleep
and I am asleep-awake in the twilight
world of jetlag.
This road leads past the lives of the living poor
whose barren vineyards are eery shadows-
appartitions who trail us, me, mile after mile
in this dark,
and I can't do anything

A fog settles in and not even headlights
are enought to cut through what I cannot see,
along a bumpy Moldovan road
on my way to Chisinau.
The fog breaks
The bumps increase,
We turn a corner
and I find I still can't do anything with this dark.

We pass a man walking in the night
and I wonder where he is going all alone,
so late, so early, without a light.
Perhaps he knows what to do with the dark,
and that is nothing more than go straight.
"Go straight," I hear him say as we speed by,
Our lights catching his eyes reflection,
illuminating. "Go straight," he whispers.
I catch a gleam of his life, and
breathe deeply the beauty of this,
a night when I could do nothing.

2007-11-16T22:49:00.001-08:00

A project at our day center with children at risk took photos of jumping taken by Caleb Coppock, traced them cut them out pasted and painted them and this is what was left. The audio is John Coon playing scales and me being his latin metronome.

2007-11-14T01:12:00.001-08:00

Reading through some of Wendel Berry's short Novels and his non fiction work called the Unsettling of America, has stirred up lots of childhood memories. Berry's novels just have a goodness about them. They honor hard work, the nurturing of people, for land, and animals alike. The old idea of husbandry, the care for the life of the farm in order to preserve it as a legacy for future generations, comes through as a counter paradigm to our popular anti culture culture of quick profits at the expense of the poor and of our children. He see's the true beauty of an America which lives for the next generation, loves life, and God, and has a great respect for all of creation.

When I was a little boy we rented a farm house and fed the horses to pay a little less rent each month. This painting stirred up by reading Berry's novels was from memory, really of hearing the story of dad destroying the television in the garden. It reminded me of my own struggles with how to live in balance with technology and mass media culture. These stories have stirred a renewed respect for my parents and the deep sense of love and commitment to family they have always nurtured.

2007-10-13T13:04:00.000-07:00

I got the kids drawing dragons, picked my favorite, simplified it, xeroxed it and gave it back to the kids to color in. Then I picked the background drawing I liked the best, scanned the dragons back into photoshop cut them out arranged them in image ready and made a movie clip with movie maker out of the slides. I am still not sure what the story should be. I wonder if any of you could provide a text for this coffee pot inspired 2 cent animation?

2007-09-28T11:25:00.001-07:00

"The children from "The Valley" House painted, cut and arranged these mosaic Christmas cards. You can now order them! The cost per card is just 50 cents plus shipping, with discounts for large orders. Orders can be placed through email at info@cuvantulintrupat.com or by telephone at 0236 411 695."

Here are the Christmas cards I made with our kids. I had them paint large pieces of thin paper with different colors, Eric Carl style. Then we cut them into squares and glue the mosaics together until we had glue everywhere. The actual mosaics are about 2x3 feet. Usually we had 4-6 people around one at a time. Then came painting in black lines around the paper pieces. I am so happy to see these done and ready to sell. Here is a link to the Christmas Cards if you are interested in sending some. There are four models. Merry Christmas!

2007-09-27T12:18:00.000-07:00

Straight line is a box

A period confining a tiger

In a pen too small

It is a dividing point

Like a fence in the ocean

Or a sword through a woman

In a magic show

The hard straight line

Is an attempt at power over life

To contain and quantify the sublime

The holy, the beautiful

The line may be drawn

But only tolerated in our

Sense of mystery is

Obliterated and we are content

With caricatures of life

The straight line is an idol

Blocking journey into God

I recently found this watercolor and poem in a stack on a shelf in my studio. It is made with slow blind contours of grape vines and blind water color splotches over it making the pen bleed all over. The bleeding pen irritated me but now it is a nice reminder of the experience of that day.

2007-09-19T12:17:00.001-07:00

These insightful photos were taken by Robin Fowler now on staff in Romania. Usually photography is a wreck of unwanted colors, lines, and other distracting visual information. These are great examples of economy of information for the sake of an image that makes a whole and then draws you into the space it has created for you. Looking at most photos is like climbing into a dumpster, Robin has created sanctuaries for rest and reflection. Thanks Robin!

2007-09-07T15:43:00.000-07:00

like daphne, i was really challenged by Joel's talk at the retreat. so i'm diving in and posting something that has been hatching in my mind & heart for a while.

i have been fascinated by the idea of the way redemption plays itself out in the material world. specifically in the way that things normally thrown away can be made into something beautiful. with this in mind i started collecting the bus tickets that are usually strewn all over the streets. indvidually they are nothing really, but when they are all together its a neat splash of color and a great reminder to me. many friends & community members have begun to collect for me so we'll see what else comes of it. the canvas i posted is one of the first few i have put together.

2007-08-30T11:50:00.001-07:00

This long exposure shot of our camp fire at summer camp with the kids revealed these strange little sparks whirling around the tube of sparks. I think it was a 10 second exposure and someone had just adjusted the wood on the fire.

2007-08-13T11:39:00.001-07:00

Creating a New Planet

I asked the four groups at camp to create a planet and then to describe its inhabitants and name them...

2007-07-29T08:08:00.000-07:00

I was really inspired by Joel's workshop at the staff retreat and have been writing some haiku as he recommended. it's been a really fun way to relax and practice writing for the pure no-pressure enjoyment of it:

ouch
sprain iced with veggies
pebbly potatoes dig in
wish for peas instead

street cleaner
municipal brush
roves, picks up roadkill, rocks, butts;
stop following me

from where i sit
expired light strings
cobra-choke iron railing;
dead footrest cools skin

this morning, i wrote a pageful of any word that came to mind, then tried to use as many of the words as i could in a poem:

Ramshakle rickshaws sit,
Scarecrowed outside Anousha’s bistro
A table of tourists—patsies—bow their shorn, bulbed craniums,
ponder a succulent crumb underfoot
and count the seconds until it is pummeled by
her squatty, asterisk broom.

--and--

Blistered stitches of rug
attempt to dry in the storm
Shorn edges coagulate,
Bulbed with strems of rain

the rug poem made 'sense' to me because i am drying rugs on my balcony and it rained last night. i've found that because i usually journal/read/write on my fire escape, much writing content takes place in that setting. the first poem would have never come out without my from-within word prompts, providing a change of scenery that i wouldn't have imagined otherwise.

incidentally, quite a few of the words that came out on my brainstorm page were nonsensical or combinations of other words: bulbed, prantalot, strem, rixal, agrizement. could be fun to incorporate made up words into poetry, huh?

2007-07-25T12:18:00.000-07:00

Here is an article written about the exhibit putting cameras in the hand of some of the kids Word Made Flesh is working with in Sierra Leonne...

Beauty and brokenness

A photo exhibit shows the way young people in Seal Beach and Sierra Leone view their worlds.

By SCOTT MARTINDALE

The Orange County Register

For the 12 teenagers in war-ravaged Sierra Leone who were asked to capture their daily lives with a disposable camera, the exercise was about finding beauty in their broken, hurting world.

read the rest of the article and see more photos...

article on Broken and Beautiful Photo Exhibit

2007-05-25T06:06:00.000-07:00

Homeless

"This is a collaborative project with a class of underprivileged teen aged girls. We developed the story and animation together around an eaten apple and the seeds that remained.

In the story the apple is eaten, the two seeds run from the scene and one cries about loosing its home while the other is comforting. They are thrown in the trash where they find a new home, a rotten apple. Then they feel an earthquake and are tossed through the air onto the soil."

By the end of our months in a row of Tuesday classes spent on the parts of the animation the girls finally said, 'enough let's finish it already!'

art for therapy

2007-05-03T01:36:00.000-07:00

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I sat down in an empty parking lot. Three little boys, two were 4 and the other 8, approached me as I wrote in my journal and asked what I was writing. I evaded the question, handed them colored pencils and a 4x8 inch piece of paper to draw on together. I happened to had a good recording device with me and I hit record as it sat in my open bag away from their view. I later recorded the guitar track to go with the original voices of the boys. The video slowly fades into the drawing and back out to white. I saw the red haired four year old again yesterday playing on the streets around the fence of a condemned coliseum.

There are the trained marks of a fine artist on paper or canvas which can be beautiful and attuned to the subject and insightful. These authentic marks of little children have the simple beauty of the human person, our vitality, life, gentleness, and hope.

2007-04-19T21:15:00.000-07:00

i am what you would call a struggling artist...because it struggle to actually create the space to put the images that come to my heart on paper. sometimes space happens and i get a few things out. here a few sketches from series of painting that i want to do: three parts...slavery, exodus, freedom. not sure where exactly these will fit in but i hope by posting them it will push me to keep going...i have maybe 5 images all together and i want to have 4 for each word.

2007-04-04T12:19:00.000-07:00

We had a psychotherapist sharing with the community this week. In part he dealt with clinical attachment styles. One of which is Anxious Ambivalent Attachment. This is the case when the child distances herself as a way of coping with the insecurity of the environment. The mother may well be loving and well intentioned but just isn't able to or doesn't know how to give the child a base of love and consistency. Often there is an alcoholic in the mix creating instability. It reminded me of this strange painting I did a while ago and gave as collateral to the local gallery for showing in their space. At the time it reminded me of Dostoevsky's salad bowl mix of persons disorders working off each other. Now I just think it rings true to the deprivation many of us live in and live as if there were no other reality.

art for therapy

2007-03-27T06:09:00.000-07:00

Rodica and Rosalinda were born into the world a few days ago around a table of kids pushing pulling and rolling 'plastalina' into eyes mouths and whatever else they thought to do. These had a little extra personality as do their creators. Rodica's creator is quiet, and thoughtful but rarely lets her thoughts known unless she can't help her curiosity. Her homemaker with a plate of food and apron on shows some of the mothering she has experienced with or without electricity. Rosalinda is more of a fairy tale name, high heels, and short skirt, this girl is not just going to survive but will survive with dignity and have some fun along the way, so with her 10 year old creator.

2007-03-18T12:07:00.000-07:00

A Reading Of Ezekiel

I tried to leave my place but again I found myself
caught in the chill of the night behind my desk, reading,
taking a trip through the Lebanese trees—making my way
through the midnight fog and cooled sand of Ezekiel's poems,
through the forgotten language of laments and prophets,
shepherds and ancient cities. This somehow made my mind
burst into flame for hours until I had to shut off the lamp
and walk to bed. Yet even while I took off my clothes and slid in
under the sheets, I inhaled the thought of a life to come
that would not only be observed but smelled and heard,
becoming more than it ever has been,
bones becoming flesh.

recent poem by Josh Fowler now living in Romania

2007-03-15T02:36:00.000-07:00

The Deposition

“The police are giving us an apartment!" Are you coming or not?" Each of us hop into the police van and see the grinning cops joking with us. They usually swear at us and look at us like we are rats, but never are they happy to see us.

The city spins outside the van a few times and we pull up. "5th floor", we traipse up the stairs one after another. 'Who can bust in the door?" We all jump up and start pounding in the door. There are no sounds inside, just echoes of beating on the door. John falls in on his side on top of the mangled door and there she is.

In the kitchen lies an old woman. She must have been dead for a while now. The kitchen is moldy and smells like the bottom of a garbage can. The woman’s face is an old spotted bleached house shirt.

“The granddaughter was sent to the orphanage there is no one left to carry her out boys', Here is a bag, lets get her down to the van, we'll talk about the apartment later.

It is one of those houses, where there are no corners, only worn edges and solidified gum in every corner filling in until the home rounds till it looks like the underground tunnels we sleep in for now.

Dark, damp collections of clothes, shag strip on the bathroom floor, split toilet seat, scraps of wood, broken furniture, hear the echoes in the walls, neighbors gargling through the bathroom wall.

We all find places around the body and carry her over the broken door spiraling down together like the 'Lord’s Cow' bug with each of us as a leg.

We carry the black bag down the five flights of stairs and each of us knows what to do with death. Laugh in its face. (Except when we carried Mike out of the sewer last year after he got beat up and drank himself till he choked on his own vomit in the sewer, nobody looked at anybody, we all hated him anyway and you don’t want him haunting you just because you laughed). So we tell jokes the whole time, we joke that the body would ride nicely on the top of the van and we could aim and drop it down quite easily. The police are quiet for once, those two hate us and love us at the same time. We all know it.

We scuffle out the back of the van stopped at the morgue entrance at the back of the hospital. Placing her body on the hospital stretcher for a minute I remember my grandmother. Her smell, the way she always touched my ear and couldn't get me to eat enough. The way her bare feet looked in those jelly slippers in the summer. Blackened toe nails, And I thought of my mother, and hell, the last time I saw my dad, my brother fishing, and my mother. I feel that nameless black blob coming up my chest and say, 'so do we get to use the apartment or not?'

“We'll see what the mayors office works out and we'll let you know. I am not sure it will do any good, you'll still be back at the corner smearing your dirty rags on car windows pestering good people for change”

(a short story based an experience of the kids we meet with regularly on the streets)

art for therapy

2007-03-07T11:04:00.000-08:00

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I pulled out a couple bricks of terra cota clay and I got, 'I am not doing anything today!' from one of the girls. The others were sceptical and silent. I showed them some examples of claymations and explained the process a little. One girl decided to do something when she heard that she could sing for the clay figure. She is the amazing pop voice in the video. I think we learned together and have some more ideas of what we might do next together. There is something magic about pulling out a brick of dark terra cotta clay, it makes us all kids again.

2007-03-03T03:35:00.000-08:00

As part of a project with the kids I had them cutting out people from magazines. Later as I went through the cuttings I found this on the back of a cut out of a little boy. It is now pinned to my studio wall reminding me of how meaningful 'accidents' can be. "Reality can have metaphorical content; that does not make it less real" --Salman Rushdie, from Midnight's Children

2007-02-21T05:01:00.000-08:00

Here is our line up of buses. Tonight we will meet under the street light that lights the parking lot and have some food together. Last week during our art time on the streets we drew the busses that park in the huge parking lot next to where we meet. There is a soccer stadium to one side, Mc Doodles, and the hospital on another, and an abandoned sports arena. Buses park to wait to take workers back to their villages in the late afternoon. Some street kids traveled the whole country before they were 15, some barely leave their corner. We'll stay here with them while the buses, cars and trams come and go. We'll keep praying for an empty parking lot and miracle stories of by gone days.

2007-02-19T11:50:00.001-08:00

This was an encore in Galati, Romania at the Teatru Muzical, of a performance given by a Romanian violinist. The piece is the 3rd movement, Andante, of the 2nd Sonata for Violin Solo by Johann Sebastian Bach. The streets are on the way to the corner store and near our neighborhood church. The rug is a good representation of the throw rugs in all the main traffic areas of our neighborhood church. It is a typical Romanian hand made rag rug.

2007-02-15T23:44:00.000-08:00

Our family is beginning the process of building a house with our good friends. I am going to have studio space in the attic. Monica has laughed at me a few times saying that I am really building a studio with a house under it to support it, and that it is nice of me to building living space as well. Here is Lau the guy I am building with cutting the metal bars we are using to support our wood fence.

2007-02-15T23:27:00.000-08:00

Here is an oil painting on the theme of triangles. The solid triangle seemed too dominant so I started sanding back into the canvas.

2007-02-07T04:10:00.000-08:00

This painting was done when Monica was in her last month with Simeon. Below is an article she just had published in 'In Communion' titled "Peace with my Body".

"On April 20, 2006, just a few minutes past seven in the morning, I held my new- born son, Abram. As I gazed into his beautiful face, deep gratefulness welled up within for the wonderful pregnancy and childbirth I had experienced. And at that moment, I made peace with my body. I had always been healthy and had a pretty uneventful medical history until 2001 when my husband and I were expecting our first child. At about four months into the pregnancy, just when I thought I was out of the danger zone, I miscarried. It was the most emotionally devastating event either of us had gone through. For months we cried and wrestled with God about the injustice of our loss. A weight descended on us as we saw the world as a place where bad things happen, even to good people, with little or no explanation. I began to see myself and my body as defective, unable to carry a child as it was created to. I had no health problems related to the miscarriage, yet I felt scarred and broken..." Read the rest of the article 'Peace with my Body" written by Monica.

2007-01-24T22:30:00.000-08:00

Six months ago I had the honor of spending time with a beautiful soul named Jean. Jean had spent her life caring for many with her tough love and kind words. As Jean lay in a clinic near the end of a long battle with the cancer that was deteriorating her organs she taught me many things. Here are a few.

- Appreciate the rain. Take a drive or stroll and watch how it fills the low places.

-Celebrate your birthday. If you don't, few will.

-Live each day to its fullest. Not a single one is promised.

-Respect yourself. Others will do likewise.

-Remember. The memories can be difficult, but they are so worth it.

-Listen. It is a Holy act that can usher us into the Divine.

My friend Stuart and I interviewed Jean 5 times before her death. The audio has been edited down into a 6 minute narrative for her family about her life and the wisdom she held. As I listen to her voice still fresh in my head, I am reminded that simply living life intentionally is an act of beauty.

2007-01-24T03:56:00.000-08:00

One night a few weeks ago I dreamed a triangle. I have been avoiding straight lines, hard geometry, or anything that seems mechanical in the least. We are human, why not have an art that reflects our flesh and blood, pulsing, shaking, breathing existance. So for me a triangle is something new. It started out as a posative black shape with a biomorphic form inside, then I realized the triangle is too strong to be posative,ie black, so I made it a negative shape. I cut out a triangle and did a wash on the handmade paper to start. Then gold biomorphic form inside and black outside. It seemed to work as a poetic representation of the universe.

I couple of these are now showing at our local art gallery in the 'under 35's' show. For a review of the show and a photo of the couple of us that dared show up look here at our local newspaper . Sorry, it is only in Romanian. I also had a 1.5ft x6ft oil painting on board I posted earlier of a sunflower. The line about my work was quoting our local city art critic Mrs. Cocos, "mă bucur că expune din nou Joel Klepac, care are un potenţial divers şi o sensibilitate deosebită", Which very generously says, "I am glad that Joel Klepac is showing work again, he has diverse potential and an unusual sensativity". The art critic has liked my work in the past especially the Sarcina series and I think was a little bit disapointed that the work I showed now was abstract and tightly tied to nature.

2007-01-17T11:27:00.000-08:00

How to make paper...find some girls who think you know what you are doing...tear up used paper and place it in a blender with water...

Then take out the blender with the burned out motor and use a drill to jimmy spin the blades using a bench to hold the contents still...

Listen to the descriptions of this beautiful goop you have just made...'it is just like the wash water before you throw it down the drain...

get some kind of frame, cheese cloth, and a bunch of hands to hold things...

Dump two buckets full of paper pulp mixture into the box quickly...and...

Ooops, well, maybe it didn't work out so great the first time. We pulled the pulp back together, mixed the pulp back in with new water, held the cheese cloth tighter to the bow, and added another sac under the cheese cloth to get the pulp to flow slower...

It did work better. We ironed for a good 20 minutes and got a nice hunk of unique paper.

2007-01-05T00:09:00.000-08:00

This drawing was done at camp on the back of a sheet of paper when the child finished the planned project. The past years Romania has had horrible flooding, leaving many people with a roof on the ground. Many of the kids also live in an area which has historically been flooded when the Danube swells. I would say that for many of our children life must seem like a flood. You climb on the roof and hope for a miraculous escape from the forces swirling around you.

2006-12-28T23:18:00.000-08:00

This was found on the back of one of the kids projects. It is a typical kid drawing of a tree. To western eyes it looks strange but it is really after a certain tree in Romania which is cut back each year to the trunk for fire wood. The result is a thick trunk with a little forest of 1-2 year growth on top like a Chia Pet. I enjoy the beauty, simplicity and economy of expression kids can achieve without realizing it. This kid took a marker and a pen and made a beautiful tree in a couple swooping strokes like an old Japanese painter.

2006-12-19T12:40:00.000-08:00

I was carrying my little sketchbook and was asked by a few kids if they could draw. I told them to draw me and this is what I got. The middle one was one of our educators. More kids drawings to come.

2006-12-13T05:33:00.000-08:00

The Role of the Artist:
Physical Play/Contemplation, Theological Insight, and Integration

The roles of the artist must deal with attentive observation. Apprehension of reality through time and work on physical objects in the physical world. It’s modes range from play and quiet contemplation. Play, the joyful discovery and interaction with the wonders of a miraculous creation, is one end of the same attentive observation, and quiet contemplation is the other. In its quiet contemplative mode it shares at its core, a joyful pilgrimage in the vast wonders of the physical universe. Joy is inherent as one is surprised by the beauty in every corner of the physical universe, one must only look long enough. This is true even in the most God forsaken places on earth. Without play and contemplation and art is always shallow, cliché, or an ugly slave and object of some totalitarian alien domain.

The next role is to be a participant in a similar playful and joyful journey into the universe through living theology, the present experience of the church as it is rooted in the historical and living Church. Written theology often opens doors to more fully experiencing God in the church, but theology in this sense is at its core a continuous journey, which is always renouncing false images of God and of the universe, grasping for the true God who reveals himself, but is always bigger than our comprehension.

The third role of the artist is the integration of the first two ever deepening discoveries (joyful explorations of material world through the senses and the joyful exploration of God through intuition and experience of living theology of the church. As these parts remain separate then the artist has contributed little to his communities, local and world. His power, responsibility to himself, to God, and to the world is to offer a synthesized, integrated image of the universe which seamlessly and organically (experiences the whole) ‘images’ a universe without separations, spiritual and physical, body and soul, idea and concrete reality, word and flesh. In the end the artist has done us a service when he has offered back to us the vision of the new heaven and earth where there is no division, separation, or warring parts. All is unified in the apocalyptic Christ Triumphant.

Without playful discovery of the material world the artists’ universe remains disconnected parts offering little hope of their ultimate reconciliation.

Without joyful pilgrimage into living theology, prayer and experience of God in the church, ones art remains abstract and offers little hope that it can ever touch the physical degradation of the world, the poor, or the earth.

Without integration, our play and contemplation remain undeveloped seedlings unable to provide shade or greater nourishment for the world. Though all artistic play, contemplation, and theological study have worth in itself it is their integration that needs to be developed if our work is to outlive us.

2006-12-01T09:58:00.000-08:00

Here are two of four very similar panels. They are somewhere around six feet tall on unstreatched canvas. I am wondering if I shouldn't try working this way on handmade paper.

2006-11-22T10:38:00.000-08:00

Sticking paintbrushes in the hands of 15 kids full of energy and too much desk time was the best idea I have had for a while. I took this large card stock page 70x100cm and filled it with blind contours of garden, flowers, plants,etc. Then I chopped it up in 10x10cm pieces, gave each of the kids paints and told them to paint them as they liked. When it was put back together all the kids stuck out their chests and pat ed each other on the back with pride in their colorful garden. It hangs now in the class room where they do their hours of homework a day. Many of them first generation readers, they are my heroes.

2006-11-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

the sunflower has grown
old leaves warped
bloated, head cast down
cloves that held up wide

yellow masses now thorns
towards the ground
crowning the massive head
what pride what arrogance

high, bright, bigger than all
flowers plants wide veins
pumping water to the
shower head spraying yellow

your seeds are bird eaten
your petals ground under
with the grand show over
you bow deep with closed eyes

you turned the sun to seed
who shall find you guilty now
of ego pride and greed
you poured out all you could gather

your power not wasted in you
but carries life through winter
into the next year, the next life
another day for extending us into the sun”

-5 September 2006-

2006-11-15T04:01:00.000-08:00

Through the summer and into the fall I have been doing blind contours with pen on handmade paper of the sunflower outside the studio window. This one includes a couple birds that were picking away at leftover seeds.

2006-11-10T04:14:00.000-08:00

Detail from 'The Storyteller'

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe is a wonderful example of the genius in African Storytelling. As I relished the culturally rich language such as, "... the market was so crowded, that if you threw a grain of sand it would never hit the ground" A few days after finishing the book I listened to a discussion led by a new Word Made Flesh board member, a Ugandan Catholic priest, and presently teaching at Duke. He discribed briefly how we live in and out of stories. Often these stories are unconscous yet they inform our descision, our sense of who we are, and become a basis for building our lives.

2006-10-21T23:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a sketch I worked on for a larger oil painting in progress. Almost every major composer in music history has done tributes to Roma (incorrectly called Gypsy) music. Here is a clip of Roma music by violinist Sandra Layman who studied, 'muzica lautareasca', with Roma in Bucuresti some years ago. Roma have often become used in literature and common language as a symbol of wander lust, rootless peoples, and adventure seeking. In reality this was historically the lot of a people running from slavery. In Romania there are more Roma than anywhere else, mainly because they were enslaved for a couple centuries. For more good information on Romani people check out the Roma scholar Ian Hancock's book, 'We are the Romani People' Rather than being a symbol of wandering adventurers, Roma are becoming for me an example of cultural identity and rootedness in the midst of an uprooted world and its prevailing mono culture. Also, see more recently posted on the Word Made Flesh site my 'Reflections on Rootlessness'

2006-10-16T10:35:00.000-07:00

This was part of a series of paintings I did a few years ago. We were doing drawing sessions with a few artists in our community at the time and this yeang man had been off the streets and off of drugs for a few months. He was an imortant voice in our community. I liked how the bookshelves in the back became unnamed compartments, like the un discifered letters, pointing to the mystery of who we are. I appreciate the moments when I have been able to directly draw or paint people who never saw themselves as worthy subjects.

2006-10-06T23:46:00.000-07:00

In the armpit of a building I set the camera to shoot long exposures and gave a couple of the guys living on the streets the flashlight. There is some startling truth in the shadowy, hazy, presence with this streak of light. There is a beauty which remains in these tortured faces though they hardly exist for the society, and sometimes for their own families. They seem to spend much of their time trying to not feel their own existence. They huff shoe glue till they get sores on their mouths depriving their brain from oxygen and numbing their emotional pain. They are the physical sign in the world of our own rootlessness, few have any sense of connection to our past generations or the future ones. We live for today and for ourselves.

2006-10-05T22:50:00.000-07:00

This is a trial run of a project with marginalized kids doodling in sand. There images appear and dissapear. I hope to make a longer smoother version as I work with these young kids more. I just took another 1000+ frames to work with. Where we live kids are told they have no talent early on. This is a very non threatening way for them to play with lines and shapes. Any ideas on a story line that could go along with these images? I am thinking of having the kids develope some ideas.

2006-09-28T12:17:00.000-07:00

Caleb Coppock an art student at Minnesota College of Art and Design (MCAD), came to Romania last summer to do an art intership, and make art among the poor and reflect on his expereinces. Of the many projects he worked on, he left this mural in the bathroom in the home for youth coming off the streets. The mural is based on drawings of marginalized kids doing homework, and from a series of 'jump photos' he did of kid in the air.

2006-09-23T23:07:00.000-07:00

A study for 'the dive' painting which hangs at the Valley House center.

I just listened to a great ‘This American Life Show’ entitled ‘Unconditional Love’. You can listen to it at…This American Life . It has a segment on attachment disorder through the story of a kid adopted from Romania who was in an orphanage till 7 years old, He didn’t know what parents were. Many of these kids who grew up in these same orphanages are now over 18 and on the streets coping with glue bags. I appreciated that the show started with a segment on the psychological and pediatric trends in the US, which were saying that too much affection would harm children, give them infections and other problems, this meant kissing your child more than once a year was harmful! Lets not accuse Romanians or other peoples of being backwards and inhuman too quickly...they may be just applying our own theories. God help us.

2006-09-20T08:46:00.000-07:00

This painting was done by Silas West who works among the poor in Katmandu Nepal. Here are his reflections...

"This is the first oil painting i ever did. I am kind of fond of it. With all the art i have done in my life, this is my first work with oil as a medium. It is not as easy as i thought it would be.

Although i still am not choosing what i get to work on, i really do enjoy the process of painting in the art campus studio. i find myself reflecting on the lives of those the instructor hires to come in and model for us and praying for them as i paint. They are simple people, very poor. They get paid next to nothing and the other students, usually from affluent backgrounds, don't treat them with any respect--often speaking down to them and making fun of them to other students.
this man is a porter. He gets hired by shops to carry goods people buy to their homes or places of business. its common to see an old man like this carrying a sofa or a refrigerator on his back across town. what i loved about him was his quiet dignity. the way he held his head up and kept his gaze confidently in front of him.

I hope to share more of my work along with thoughts and reflections in the future."

2006-09-15T12:26:00.000-07:00

detail of Nina's art room painting

Oil on Canvas

3.5ft X 8ft

This little slice of Nina's painting in the art room at the day center shows ones of our good friends whio has been on the streets for over ten years. She had each person model as she painted them in different poses.

Nina graduated from the art high school in town a few years ago and put of university to work among the poor. She has done art and art therapy with street kids and marginalized kids in our school program for 6+ years. She is now entering at the top of her class into a BA fine arts program in ceramics this semester. We are all proud of her and can't wait to see what she does in the future.

Circles

2006-09-09T09:56:00.000-07:00

series of still shots animated, thematic circles, spinning, and dials.

Moise left today. He had been living with us for a year and a half, the longest of any of the street boys. Around five in the morning he snuck out of the house with his toothbrush and toothpaste, epilepsy medicine, folic acid, Vitamin B12, and a little framed painting of an empty cafe painted by Kari Segal-Allgire that I had given to him a week ago.

This video has always seemed apocalyptic to me. Moise was big on the end of the work, the destruction of all the wicked, the last judgment, and fear of his parents and grandparents ending up in hell. I think this was part of his motivation for jetting.

Please pray for us. We have been in shock. Moise has been to some extent the center of our community, offering life, hospitality, and hope. Please pray we can see beyond the cycles of suffering, of uprooting, and alienation, to the now creation beyond the end of the world. God have mercy on Moise, on his family, and on us all

2006-09-08T03:23:00.000-07:00

I am always reading visual images. For a time Coke was using the naked back and butt of a woman next to a huge coke bottle to sell more in Romania. It is greatly contrasted by the images of the Theotokos (Mother of God) found on the inside and outside of many of the Romanian Orthodox churches. The Theotokos is the model of not only womanhood, but of the pinnacle of human spirituality, theosis, and refers to the great dignity of people in general and to all women specifically, to be God bearers.

2006-09-06T10:18:00.000-07:00

These trees root in the Danube just below. While my wife was pregnant with our first son, she would run along the river and I would sit and draw in the mornings. Without a studio a lot more of my energy went into these little sketches.

2006-09-03T03:11:00.000-07:00

"Mihaiita"

An eight year old boy was run over by a mini van taxi while being watched by his cousin who lives on the streets. I was asked to take photos of the funeral. This painting and poem were part of my grieving process. I was constantly asked to get closer and take pictures of the little boys bloated corpse. Usually I avoid death and suffering. Somehow I was pushed to face it in its creullty in the face of Mihaiita. We lived for a time in a one room apartment with a balcony with a view of a slice of the Danube.

"from the balcony window
I exhaled a funeral
over the Danube

willow trees bow to the river below
the water moves but never changes
a boat with three men and two oars
are a water spider flying slow
across the massive water

a strip of pines frame the distant shore
where the now dead boy played soccer
with a deflated leather ball

above the pines float yellow fields
marked with horizontal and diagonal
farm roads growing in those golden rows
the mountains fade into the foggy
evening blue gray

the water seems to be made
of the same stuff as the sky
with moon caught in current

the scene is dark and rich
the breeze off the water flows
around my face, God’s mercy
for me a sinner
being afloat in Beauty

when she touches you,
in the wind
and water

in the night sky
in the shiny river
or the face of a little boy
you feel her breath
being an icon kissed

2006-09-02T11:17:00.000-07:00

This is a drawing made by a survivor of Hiroshima. The Hiroshima Virtual Museum has a small gallery of drawings done by other survivors. The drawings take us beyond politics and philosophy. God have mercy on us.

"The most terrible of crimes is to collaborate in the uprooting of others in an already alienated world; but the greatest of virtues is to uproot oneself for the sake of one's neighbor and of God, 'it is necessary to uproot oneself. Cut down the tree and make a cross and carry it forever after" pX from Waiting for God by Simone Weil

2006-08-31T08:38:00.000-07:00

Kari Segal-Allgire painted this a few years ago. It is a huge painting which sets the tone in the dining room at our community center for children at risk in Romania. She had some of the kids model and the buildings in the background refer to very typical communist style housing still dominating the city scape. Kari and I exhibited paintings together in some local galleries and at that time she was using drawings of kids and interpreting them with intuitively derived radiant colors. She has more recent work up at her site, K. Segal's Blog. Her present work, while it has developed still carries the weight of the poverty she struggled with among the poor in her time in Romania.

2006-08-29T11:28:00.000-07:00

these photos are from a show in Lexington, Kentucky at the 'Firebird Gallery' downtown and the other in Galati, Romania at 'Nicolae Mantu Gallery', the local gallery of the Romanian National Ascociation of Plastic Artists.

The bulk of my work for the last two years, Sarcina Series Paintings is showing now at Georgetown College, Georgetown KY from July 6 - September 14 . Then they go to Asbury College from September 18th -October 8th, in Wilmore KY.

I think these paintings capture a lot of my wrestling with art and faith among hte poor in the last few years. At the Sarcina Series Paintings blog you can find a decription of the process.

2006-08-27T04:20:00.000-07:00

"Armenian cemetery Chapel"

The Armenian chapel stands near the back of the main cemetery in our city. The majority of people here are Romanian Orthodox, so the Catholics and Armenian were given space in the back.

I try to get away to a quiet place with my watercolors set, some pens and pencils and a chunks of time. I usually start with finding a quiet place to sit. Then by journaling and drawing, soak up what the moment has to offer, not controlling the outcome, but rather trying to surrender to the experience of the present moment. It is something like getting down the obvious details of the experience, and gradually over the course of an hour of journaling and drawing themes begin to emerge, a deeper perception of the beauty is present, which I had not perceived before sitting down. Subtleties become conscious, and I am wooed and sometimes overcome by the experience. The above watercolors is a record of one of those experiences. I wrote in my journal and then some on the actual painting some lines which seemed key to the experience. Below are the rest of my working exegesis of the moment I noted in my journal.

Aesthetic experience is said to boil down to concentrated attention and a submission/ non control of the experience. This method especially using lots of blind contour drawing, is a door into aesthetic experience, because its nature is attentive looking and submission to the experience, rather than being heavy on controlling the outcome.

"wood doors, tin plated
bullet nails trailing up
and down the arch
cross tipped steel hinges
embrace massive wood
and rock them open and closed

a tiny piece of metal rod
holds the door open
cemented in windows
overgrown weeds clothe
its cracking structure
red brick still holding
up the chapel without
the dignity of the mortar coat
rounded arched doors
and painted arch coves
go up to the rocked off
steeple, a leaning vented
rusted tin top hat

in the back of the catholic
cemetery she waits in silence
listens to the letter sculptor
hammer out new names
sons and grandsons clearing the weeds
and trash from the graves
swooshing around her gray
shell with armfulls of branches

she is opened probably
by vandals or homeless
or dogs or just the wind
for the lost storm

there must have been
yellow and blue, orange
stained glass illuminating
the floor for last
goodbyes, funeral speeches
and 'Lord have mercy
on our soul's

she has stood probably
over a century saluting
the sun every morning
inviting rays through
her eastern window
above the open door"

2006-08-25T23:22:00.000-07:00

“…for the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hopes of the poor be in vain” Psalm 9

A bolivian man waits on the busy street for something. He appears in the Moon Flute Video. This shot was taken in El Alto from the Word Made Flesh drop in center for women who prostitute in the fall of 2005.

2006-08-22T04:53:00.000-07:00

Chapel Carpet Project

Scraps have been collected from some of the other Word Made Flesh fields, of old clothing from staff and the poor among whom we work. As we weave this rug in the chapel we are praying for mercy on the worlds poor. When we are done it will lie in the center of the chapel as a reminder of the centrality of Christ, and the poor who He weaves into His life in the center with Him. The many colored strips of fabric are all held together by a single un-cut string.

2006-08-20T12:41:00.000-07:00

sketch of a woman begging

(often those begging hold an icon of the Theotokos or Christ)

The other night I took Simeon to meet some of the guys in the street. As we got off the Tram across from Mc Donalds I noticed a guy without legs on the ground behind his wheel chair counting his income for the day, and a couple guys around him helping out. He seemed a little agitated when I heard him say, "am fost sârman dejeaba astazi", which means something like, "I was a poor begger all for nothing today". God have mercy on us.

2006-08-17T02:57:00.000-07:00

drawing from the Athens Archeological Museum 2001

The Eucharist and the Dying Poor

"...“Thinking” about union with God, or about bread and wine is never enough, we must “eat” (see John 6:33). In the context of the liturgy this means Eucharist, and in the “liturgy after the liturgy” it means transfiguring everything we touch, to comprehend in faith, to love our neighbor as the priest handles the Eucharistic gifts. Then we have spirit and life, then the kingdom has come.
Eucharist is the experience of transfigured matter, the Body of Christ and the word of Christ. Though the Eucharist is never watered down or generalized it is the seed of the transfigured creation, of Life which is wholly spiritualized while never losing its weight. The bodies of the poor must be seen through Eucharist. The Eucharist restores our vision. This gift is the restoration, the access into the sacred river which flows just below the surface of all matter and pools in the wounds of the dying poor. Eucharist restores our sight and lets us and breathe the air of the New Creation.
“For my flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed, he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him.” (John 6:55-56)

From an article published in In Communion Journal, the full text can be read at, Eucharist and the Dying Poor full article

2006-08-15T23:02:00.000-07:00

Violin

In the fall of 2000 I was with some friends in Iasi, a university town in northern Romania, the historic ‘Rome’ of the Romanian Orthodox church. As we wondered around the city the first evening we noticed some old theater buildings in the center of the city. As we got closer, the huge cracks in the structure looked worse, broken windows, and little life except a sun worn sign. To our delight there was to be a concert that evening. We wandered back to the building later that evening to find doors open and a ticket lady through the tiny little metal hinged window she gave tickets through.

Sitting in the balcony we had a nice angle on the concert given by the Romanian orchestra along with a guest director, cellist, and violinist from Japan. Since I listen better with a pencil, I did some sketches through the evening. This particular sketch was during the violin solo of the Paganini piece.

Some six years later through a strange twist of circumstances I have started to play violin; mainly my wife and I decided to see if we could teach our son Suzuki violin, which required a parent to be learning. Starting into the second Suzuki book, at thirty one, I am now somewhere at the level of the average three or four year old Suzuki student. My thought as I got serious about starting violin was, ‘I want my kids to experience something beautiful’.

2006-08-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

The head of a sunflower is coming down from the top. Monica's garden has two sunflowers from the seeds which she hung last year to attract birds. I have been working on this six foot high shape for a few weeks till I can get more linnen and gysso to work on. I have been doing blind contours in in the garden onto the board, coming back in with oils and then working back into it with more blind contours over the l paint.

2006-08-13T01:27:00.000-07:00

The Role of an Artist in Community among the Poor

Will beauty save the world? This question percolates from the turmoil of Fyodor Dosoevsky’s novels (Richard Pevear, Introduction to The Idiot). But how could beauty and salvation be related in the least? Beauty tends to be a concept left to personal taste, not often a subject discussed in a theological context. But for Dostoevsky, salvation is incomprehensible without beauty. Dostoevsky seemed to understand salvation as beauty, or beauty as the manifestation of redemption.

A fifteen-year study on creativity by the University of Chicago showed that creativity is the bringing together of opposites into a meaningful whole (William Dyrness, Image Journal, Fall 1996). Beauty, in a similar vein, can be understood simply as diversity in unity. The fruit of true creativity is beauty. In monumental works of art, major themes are reconciled – love and hate, death and life, dark and light, hope and despair, black and white, or rich and poor – creating a moving beauty. This is applicable to every form of art, from painting to sculpture to performance art, Picasso’s Guernica, Melville’s Moby Dick or Michelangelo’s Pieta. In each case, the artist transformed disconnected parts into a meaningful whole, using colors, lines, spaces, times, cultures, politics or common human psychological experiences. The outcome is a deep beauty, which transcends both era and culture, ringing true to the person experiencing the work today.

Saint Paul says that Christ has “committed to us the word of reconciliation” (I Cor. 5:19). The final reconciliation of all things under, in and through Christ can now be seen as the highest form of beauty. All of creation is generated from the beauty of the Holy Trinity, the diversity of three persons in perfect unity. And all of creation is fulfilled in becoming a participating image of the unity of the Father, Son and Spirit (William Dyrness, The Earth is God’s). The history of salvation seen in this light begins and ends in beauty. Beauty is the manifestation of the image of the Trinity in the world. Beauty is reconciliation made material, and therefore beauty is also a vision of the final redemption of the world.

The book of Revelation says, “And they shall bring the glory and honor of the nations into [the Holy City]” (21:26). Here is an image of all of creation being gathered together and offered to Christ at the end of the age. Creation begins in the beauty of the Godhead and finds its final form in becoming a participating image in that same beauty, when all things are reconciled in Christ. At the end of the age, the diversity of nations, peoples and tongues are unified in adoration at the feet of Christ. The beauty of the communion of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is expanded out into the ends of creation and to the end of time. Coming from a utilitarian, what-works-is-best culture, beauty is often our last consideration. In our society, things are considered “good” if they get the job done, if they are efficient, and if they save us time and energy. However, if we consider beauty as the end, then we are challenged to re-think any strategy that does not reconcile scattered people and scattered parts of creation. If it is not done beautifully, little has been accomplished toward the reconciliation of all things in Christ, or the expansion of the beauty of God out into all creation.

For anyone of us interested in glorifying or revealing the Triune God in our actions, beauty must be our means. Our methods must necessarily participate in the end, reflect the end and announce its coming. In Van Gogh’s famous painting, Starry Night, a turbulent sky swarms around the stars and trees. The night air breathes a certain anxiety and force, yet there is an inner resolve to the overall painting. Yellows and blues form harsh contrasts but still leave the composition beautifully harmonized. In drinking deeply of Van Gogh’s turbulent sky, one experiences a peace, a reconciliation of blue and yellow, anxiety and peace, darkness and luminosity. Starry Night is beautifully made and so provides us with a taste of the beauty of the Triune God.

Our community often celebrates birthdays together with a meal, a speech and a symbolic gift. As we come together around the table, one can name the diversity – rich, poor, dark-skinned and pale, a myriad of histories and interests, artists, engineers, street kids, teachers, some with big ideals and some with just enough faith to smile. The celebration meal mysteriously tunes the diversity into a beautiful chord. In these moments, ends and means converge. Just as Van Gogh wrestled to tame his colors into a meaningful beautiful whole, so the Holy Spirit works among us to still our fears, sins and egos, to symphonize us in Him a rugged-yet-beautiful body. If our means are beautiful, the world is offered a little wedding cake before the wedding, and the bride’s entry music begins to be heard from the altar.

Beauty is, then, not only the end, but also the means. The Enlightenment has taught us to break everything down into parts that we can manipulate and control. Science measures, weighs, compiles data and sifts out all the parts of the world, which helps the human race become more and more powerful and productive. Science gives us bombs, but also a cure for polio. As Huston Smith explains in Beyond the Post Modern Mind, the scientific method is like a fishing net designed to catch fish with great efficiency, yet always remaining powerless to tell us anything about the ocean. To have beauty as our means is to go upstream from enlightenment thought and the religion made out of science, both of which are so dominant in western culture. A methodology of beauty implies that by intuitive imagination, we learn to see the underlying themes – the whole beneath the parts. The ocean is observed and considered, not forgotten in the rote exercise of counting the fish it gives. Being attentive to the working of the Spirit behind the scenes, we see not only the data about the human body, but we see the image of God imprinted on the soul of humankind. We trade our lust for power and control for a desire for life – the life of the Trinity, which models for us diversity of persons in mutual submission to one another. This mutual submission is seen in God as The Father giving His Son for the life of the world, the Son redeeming humanity for love of the Father, and the Spirit pouring Himself out into the world, gathering all things to the feet of the Son. Seeking power and control rather than giving, reconciling and pouring out one’s self for love of the other will only serve to disjoint and fragment humanity, creating chaos and disunity. The end never justifies the means because only beautiful means bear the seeds of a beautiful end. Mutual submission of persons, on the other hand, is itself an image of archetypal beauty – diversity in unity. If we choose beauty as a means of working in the world, our actions become brushstrokes of this mutually submissive self-giving love.

Art, by its very nature, is about developing the intuitive imagination, where one learns to see beneath the surface of diversity and chaos to the order and unity below. By faith, we know the Spirit of Christ is moving within creation to bring unity under submission to Christ in all of the scattered parts of creation. An artist in community among the poor, then, is one who encourages and stimulates this kind of intuitive vision. The artist inspires others to see Christ, the image of God, under our own skin. The artist teaches us by the beauty of his or her work to mutually submit to one another, to be gathered in unity; rich, poor, black, white, gypsy, woman, man, young, old, until we are raised up together, “to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ” (Eph. 4:13). An artist among the poor must learn to bring into unified works of art the suffering and desolation found among the poor with hope for an ultimate healing of humanity by the death of Christ. The artist, by accomplishing this in a work of art, teaches us all to do this integrating work within ourselves and in our cities.

2006-08-12T13:20:00.000-07:00

Here is one of our artists at work at our day center. A friend from the US was showing some of the boys on the streets his San Damiano cross tatoo on his leg and the boys asked if this guy had done it.

2006-08-10T12:26:00.000-07:00

Here is a self portrait done within a year of moving to Romania to work with Word Made Flesh. Many of the Apartment buildings are still on a common heating system which may get turned off before the cold weather is over.

This is when I began to work on reconciling an appreciation for fine art, faith in Christ, the need to do justice, and to not be a lone ranger.

I had no studio at the time and so I would go to the market with a sketchbook.

watermelon

2002

2006-08-09T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is an oil painting done on a canvas shirt. One morning I showed up at our community drop in center and their was a ball point pen drawing on the table on a big piece of paper. I was awestruck and started copying the drawing in my sketchbook and asked who had done it. I found out it was done the day before by a god friend of ours who lives on the streets. This part of the drawing was his 'house' complete with a pot with salomi and bread stuck in it. He had written in Romania, 'door' by the door and 'house' up by the shelves on the wall. Later that year I had a show of my oil paintings and a series of his drawings.

Here is the image from my sketch book. his design elements found in al the would be oopen spaces appeared in my paintings after this point.

2006-08-08T12:04:00.000-07:00

These are clips from a video animation project done in January 2006 with marginalized children at our day center in Romania. You hear their voices, see their eyes and ears and noses, but never see a whole face. My hope was that you would have an experience of their personality and character in a small way. The dancer in the video is one of the kids dancing, photographed with continuous shooting, turned into outlines, and then colored in by the kids. Another segment consists of drawings the kids did, starting with eyes and nostrils on a page. They completed the drawings as you see in the video... http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2772529845494804139

2006-08-08T11:51:00.000-07:00

"The Dive"

oil on canvas

This painting was done in the Word Made Flesh community and hags at the drop in center in one of the class rooms for children in the afterschool programs. This painting was done after a series of large portraits were drawn persons in of the community.

preliminary sketch for "The Dive"

I have found that most people are honored when asked to model for a painting. There is a basic respect and dignity offered in spending the time to draw someones portrait. It says, 'you are important, you exist, you are worth attention'. The process in making art in community among the poor is redemptive in itself.

2006-08-08T09:42:00.000-07:00

This article has been published in Incommunion journal (Orthodox Peace Fellowship journal) and The Cry magazine (Word Made Flesh's advocacy magazine). Rouault and especially Wiliam Dyrness' biography Rouault:A Vision of Suffering and Salvation have been influential in my thinking about art and its necessary connection to suffering for authenticity.

Hope-giving Images

Last summer I arranged to see one of George Rouault’s ‘Head of Christ’ paintings at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Being one of my greatest heroes, I hoped to see this painting only to find it was in storage. I constructed a great sob story and went up to the reception desk of the museum, ‘I live in Romania and only visit north east Ohio once a year and come especially to see Rouault’s work, and he is the biggest reason that I myself am an artist’. She looked at me as if she understood I must be a potential future Picasso and couldn’t imagine stunting my artistic growth. We arranged a time in a couple days when they would pull the three by four foot luminous ‘Head of Christ’ and then see the Rouault prints they could find stored in the print archives.

I became aware of Rouault’s work through a book called George Rouault, A Vision of Suffering and Salvation. As a theologian, the book was a real life study for William Dyrness on a Christian approach to art. As the title alludes, his basic thesis is that the Christian artist is one who brings together the suffering of the world with a vision of its redemption.

My jaw dropped when the entire Miserere et Guerre series done by Rouault was brought out for me to see a couple days later...see the rest of the text along with the Rouault painting at... http://incommunion.org/articles/previous-issues/issue-37/rouault%e2%80%99s-hope-giving-images

2006-08-08T06:42:00.000-07:00

Beggars Society Cross

collaborative community piece

baggers society at Word Made Flesh in Omaha

may 2006

This cross was made one evening with a group meeting to talk about faith, social justice, and our responses. The little crosses were made on scraps of paper brought by the participants and came to represent areas of poverty we were commited to confront, rather than just fix, ignore, or forget. Audio from the evening is at http://www.wordmadeflesh.com/learn/sermons/2006_05%20Beggars%20Society_JKlepac_Joy_in_Suffering.mp3