Ordinary Aura

This stuff, in particular the Spirit Message and the Tree, are very inspiring, and I'd like to see more of it. I too would like to see something like this tree done large in the space. It also gives me some practical idea of how better to structure my own text project, which is giving me some organizational problems, as well as giving a framework within which to think about it. In fact I may now have ideas for more than one dynamic text project. I'll post more about that as soon as I've got something vaguely coherent to share.

I do think that this Shaker work is relevant especially to what Barbara was saying in the previous discussion, about naif work versus professional work by MFA's. These images can't possibly have any more direct relationship to the maker's religion and life, without being about the maker herself at all. Thus it bypasses the professional ego, the education in art tropes, the audience second-guessing that comes from professionally-made art. How do we balance that directness of expression and of affect with the fact that it's too late for us not to be professionals? Clearly, as Chris and Barbara both said earlier, faking it trapper-keeper-style is not the answer. Repurposing the banal, though, is a possible key. Looking at these images, they're composed of relatively simple or banal elements through which is channeled a purpose.

For myself, though, I have to say that I don't have the kind of purpose that these artists did; I don't have visions, and I don't even have the faith. I look at the Shaker art and realize that the only way I can participate in it is by looking at it, not by making something similar. What I want, and I realize that what I want in terms of this show, isn't to express that purpose but to find it, or to find some trace of it. As various religious authors have said, I want to find traces of the invisible in the visible; but I'm not really sure that the invisible is there. So in the work, I want to set up circumstances so that the invisible might appear, and then sit back and wait. I think this is how I understand talking about a network, and about the mundane; the relationships between objects is where that invisible might show itself.

Very interesting. And I agree, there must be a degree of remove here... if one of the main subjects of our show (THE subject, perhaps) is to bring people to a point of awareness about their "seeking" ... their looking, their active engagement in the present then I think we the authors must step back somehow. Leave our egos at the door... perhaps relinquish control to the ideas at hand. (You know, this control and direction could be prayed about.)

I know what you mean, Seth about only participating in that work by looking at it... it seems very far removed from what I feel capable of and to crib its style would not succeed in getting me any closer to that state of channeling that these Shaker women exhibit. What you say about the mundane symbols and ingredients is important here I think..,. what are the things that WE have? What do we deal with that could be our ingredients. I mentioned found drawings, shopping lists, the remnants of drawings and paintings recorded on a studio wall a la Sprecher. These are traces and,. importantly, they are made unconsciously. Or as close to unconsciously as I think is possible.

AS this page fills out, I see a very fascinating linkage of thought both written and visual. Mad libs, the game of Telephone, passing notes, whispering and retreating to our own thoughts and studios...

Those Shaker images are compelling, as are the Ethiopian healing scrolls as their intent or purpose has a reality QUITE separate from the image itself...in fact the aspiration for healing, or the receiving of divine visionary experience is an entity/experience which seemingly dicated the resulting image entirely--not PARTIALLY with some aesthetic wrangling thrown in for good measure or design finesse. Of course this is why Chris brings up the idea of making drawing which seeks to tap into the unconscious. Faith to me so often seems linked to this frustrating realization that if I could just get out of my own damn way, then I might fully believe. (Whoever loses his life shall gain it.) The shaker women somehow got out of their own way. Belief so often feels like a full-out sprint toward God, coupled with a simultaneous and equally intense running away in the absolute opposite direction.

How can visionary imagery be made by ordinary lay people without the use of hallucinatory drugs, etc?
without receiving divine imagery?
without being received in mystical experience/divine union?
It seems to me these questions are critical to Ordinary Aura.

I agree, and it seems to me that what we're talking about is making art that makes possible visionary experience, rather than being an expression thereof. The idea of collaboration, and of examining the process for clues, is I think an attempt to get past the intimate knowledge of process that one artist has of their own work; the attempt to be surprised by own work. Surprised by joy, as C.S. Lewis says.