"My show's opening night is on March first and it will feature several pieces focusing on the common triats between different spiritual paths. For example, one bronze piece shows Kwan Yin and the Virgin Mary coming out from a shared hood and each holding their spiritual tradition's rosary with their respective flowers, (The Lotus and The Rose), underneath.
"Another series is a set of Shamanic staffs. One done in the traditional Native American Style, depicting the union of the Divine Feminine and the Divine Masculine and the elements of earth, fire, water and air. Next to this will be staffs emulating the Shamanic style in the Christian, Taoist, and Judeo religions. (Christianity has Sophia - the Holy Spirit, and Yahweh, and angels represent the elementals. Taoism has the Yin and Yang and the
I Ching, and the Judeo religion has Ashera and Yahweh or in the Kabbalistic beliefs, Binah and Hokhma. I am considering researching the spiritual beliefs of the Aborigines as well for this. The idea is that when presented as a set, people can "read" the symbolism in the staffs and thereby be led to visually recognize what the commonalities are between their beliefs and others.
"The angel doors have at the bottom, words for angels in spiritual traons from around the world.....such as the African tirbes' Orishas and the Buddhists' Boddhivistas(Sp?).
"I will create a piece representing the "Noosphere" of Teilhard de Chardin, a monk in the 1500's. Due to the mystical aspects of Pythagorean geometry, Emanuel Kant theorized that this cosmic consciousness not only existed, but was divided into triangular patterns. So, it see natural that the sculpting style I created based on Buckminster Fuller's architectural formula for the dome should be used to explain this idea. I think that the idea of a cosmic consciousness is something that the New Age spiritual paths has helped to educate people on. So it would be interesting to bring to the public's knowledge that the idea of a cosmic consciousness exists in Christianity as well as in Tribal, New Age, and Wiccan beliefs.
"So much emphasis is stressed on politcizing spiritual paths...who is "right" has become as much an unspoken political party as the spoken ones. Terms like "The Religious Right" are heard as much as the Democratic or the Republican Party. We cannot discover our internal spiritual compass in a state such as this. I believe that every spiritual path has a piece of the puzzle..they each offer us great wisdom, but stress diferent aspects of the human soul and psyche.
"For example, Buddhism teaches compassion. Christianity preaches love. Native American traditions and Druidic beliefs hold man's connection with the earth as one to be respected at the deepest level. I could go on and on...each holds wisdom so valuable, wisdom that needs to be heard and shared. But man will only reach that understanding after he/she allows for all people to peacefuly chose their own spiritual beliefs.
"In my children's book, "Why Does Billy Call God a Different Name?", a father asks his kids to tell him how they would like to reach the top of a mountain. He says that he would prefer to hike and take his time so that he wouldn't miss anything. One of the kids says that they would like to ride on an eagle so that they could get there faster. His wife says that she would rather ride a hot air balloon so that she can slowly take in everything from the bigger picture. Another kid says that they would like to ride a horse so that they could experience both the thrill of speed and still get to take in the details of the journey. The father then explains that in life, an understanding of The divine is the top of the mountain and that the soul's personal choice of vehical is really our choice of spiritual paths. That they are all the same God and that they are equally valid paths tailored to the uniqueness of our souls.
"In another part of the book, Kristine, the little girl who asks her father why her friend, Billy, calls God a different name, is referred to as "Sandy" by a friend because she likes to build sandcastles. And yet another friend calls her "Snow" because she likes to make snow angels in the winter. Her father calls her "My little builder" because she likes to build with blocks. But she is still the same person. Her father later explains that although she calls him "Daddy", and his father calls him "Son", and his wife calls him "Brian", they are all him. But different names serve to recognize different aspects of who he is, much the same way different spiritual paths the world over recognize and name the different aspects of The Divine that they relate to.
I feel that the children's book will serve to deliver the message of religious tolerance to younger generations, and that my fine art will hopefully do the same for adults.
I hope that this has helped to explain my work. In essence, I believe that the act of creation, the act of bringing art from inspiration into tangible reality, is like the Shamanic practices of magic...you bring what previously only existed in vision into fruition. (See diagram that explains how this occurs via the chakra's link to the noosphere...it is a visual depiction of the act of inspiration>vision>intuition>creation=spritual "synergetics".)
Thereby art serves as a spiritual practice, just as following a spiritual practice is an art in its highest form.
The title for my first gallery debut,"From Angels to Angles" was created by my agent, Robert Best, in order to verbally play off the theme of uniting the spiritual with the intellectual. I feel that this union is represented via my two very different styles (see above).
I would love for you to join us March 1st on the opening night, as we will be trying to do more than just hang up art, we are trying to create a unique enviroment throughout the gallery with crystals and fountains. The composer, Katherine Gilliam, will also be debuting her works via a live string quartet that evening. Katherine's musical style permeates both the soul and the intelllect. Hence why the evening wouldn't be complete without her! She is an integral, central, part of the evening, and I believe that we compliment each other's creative endeavors, especially from the result of growing up together for the past 20 years!
