Prophets, Channeling and Authenticity

Eric Tiner, a former student and fellow Artistic Spirit, peaked my interest with a recent question about the prophetic word. I've been puzzling over that phenomena in the art milieu.

I was brought up in a conservative Christian church, and though I've changed in many ways throughout the decades, I have always believed and embraced the power of the Word, spoken as well as written. I believe there are many "prophetic" voices in our milieu. I'm not carried away by politicians (in fact I'm cynical about them), but Obama has certainly held my attention for over a year now, and I am amazed at how his "message" resonates with me at least weekly. Something rings true and authentic in his message, to me personally. And in the arts, I'm always seeking that authentic Word.

But I think the Word is more than language spoken and written--in Hebrew it is an event, an act. And that kind of prophetic word nails me continually in the art enterprise. The "prophets" that shake me to the foundations include Robert Motherwell, Mark Rothko, Henri Matisse, Andrew Wyeth (and oh, how I grieved at his recent passing), Edward Hopper and Winslow Homer. Since I'm a practicing water colorist, I do indeed fell a close communion with those above-mentioned who poured their lives into making sublime watercolor pieces.

I don't consider my work sublime, but I certainly know beyond doubt that the Act of making art is infinitely sublime. When I engage in creating art, I feel that authentic Word, that Presence, and when "It" happens, I can hardly breathe, the excitement is so intense.

Above, I've posted "Malone, Texas," my last completed watercolor that has been put in the Burson Gallery that opened last Saturday night in Hillsboro, Texas. Malone is a small town south of Hillsboro. I was fly fishing on some private waters south of there last summer, and as I returned home, passing through Malone, I was arrested at the sight of the ghost sign Bright and Early Coffee and . . . splashed on the brick wall of some defunct dining establishment. I saw the sun-splashed ghost sign through the darkened tunnel of a derelict filling station awning just south of the building, and the contrasting light and shadows from the late-afternoon sun held my attention long enough to pull over the Jeep, take a digital photograph, and then . . . after a few months of "composting" the image, frame it up in a watercolor composition.

My company is called Recollections 54 (my birth year), and my subject matter is the remnant fossils of businesses and habitations that flourished throughout the fifties. These architectural ruins are fading from the American landscape, but will not fade from my memory. My artistic enterprise is to give them life and form once again. So that we may remember. So that we may still be seized by the elusive Prophetic Word, the Proustian memory.