Where I Was [1968 T0 2008]
“But whatever Socrates may say, it remains the case, as one can see, that people who stick to philosophy become strange monsters, not to say utter rogues; even the best of them are made useless by philosophy. Socrates admits that this is true in the world as it is, but maintains that it is the people who are to blame, not the philosophers, in a wise community the philosophers would not seem foolish; it is only among fools that the wise are judged to be destitute of wisdom.””
Ink Drawing on Paper 24”x18” 1969
From the beginning I struggled with being a good, moral, honest, Christian person. In 1968 I entered college to major in Art and support myself as a rock-and-roll musician. While attending my first college courses I was challenged by the pastor of my fundamental congregation to “get out of the world” and “lived up to my dedication to serve only the true God.” I am in the middle of the drawing above with hand raised to ask for God’s help, since I could not make this change myself. My whole life story as reflected in my Art and Ideas present this personal narrative of struggle between a Spiritual or Demonic reality – Godly wisdom or worldly wisdom. I had no idea of a Spiritual Depth Dimension. Early in my artwork, I sought to capture this existential tension. In this artwork, famous musicians like Frank Zappa and John Lennon are puppeteers for evil and the dance is a dance permeated with dance, sex, violence, and sensual images. All the dances are blind without pupils to see the reality of their sinful condition. They were being fooled by the evils of the world and I just could not seem to escape.
“Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight, and the earth was filled with violence. And God saw that the earth was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted it ways on earth. And God said to Noah, ‘I have determined to make an end to all flesh, for the earth is filled with violence because of them; not I am going to destroy them along with the earth.’”
While making my transition from an art career to become an ordained Christian minister, I used my art to communicate the violence and hatred in the world. I made many sketches, drawings, and paintings of “man’s inhumanity to man.” The next painting won a prize at a local art competition.
“Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child, and children will rise against their parents and have them put to death; and you will be hated by all because of my name. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
In this painting I was using my interpretation of Picasso’s painting of violence, war, and the death of innocents in his painting Guernica. In my painting, a Christian father and mother hold their small child and are fleeing from the soldiers and bomb strikes through a pile of dying and dead bodies. I believed that art images were more powerful than words and an insightful method of visual confrontation to force others to remove their blinders and see both the good and evil in the world – in 1973.
However, I left my religion and my faith due to doctrines that I could not accept as coming from a benevolent and caring Spirit. Art now became my religion, my faith, my tools for making sense of myself, others, and the violence and hatred in the world. The was major change in my life and I used art to help be survive. I gradually transformed my beliefs towards Idealism and self-realization. 3 In the 1980s, I initiated creativity projects across aesthetic domains – music, dance, poetry, and literature. One of major influences in my life was the composer Tobias Picker. I will have much more to say about this influence but will focus on one painting to capture the collaborative relationship.
Acrylic on Canvas 36”x48” 1987
“I was thrilled when the Santa Fe Chamber Music Festival invited me to compose a piece in memory of Georgia O’Keefe on her centennial and the fifteenth anniversary season of the festival. Since the festival’s inception in 1973, O’Keefe — who lived in nearby Abiquiu and attended its concerts regularly — gave permission every year for one of her paintings to be reproduced for the now-famous festival posters. I had long been an admirer of O’Keefe’s strong, independent pictures and immediately embarked on a study of her life and work. The festival kindly arranged for me to visit her home in Abiquiu and at Ghost Ranch. Being in her beloved desert-world, listening to her friend’s recollections of her, and standing in her studio all made me feel close to O’Keefe. While I composed, her attitudes on life and art penetrated my thoughts and I sensed her presence, uncompromising, undying.
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Tobias’s mother and brother were both artists so he appreciated the strong relationships of Art as visual expression and Art as music. We spent many hours discussing the similarities and differences and Tobias also used poetic images in collaboration with Richard Howard 4 and other poets. Tobias created the Houston’s Composers Alliance which gave me opportunity to collaborate with several Houston composers during this time. There is a long story to be told – e.g., the Towers.
The painting above was my effort to test the hypothesis that we shared some similarities in aesthetic expression. While Tobias was spending his time in O’Keeffe’s home and studio he mentioned that she may have been part of a cult that practiced crucifixion in a yearly ritual. This seemed strange to him, I dug deeply into the religious cult and used her unique spiritual worldview as the theme of my painting.
I portrayed her life and death as a celebration, with the chamber group playing in the background, and a festive New Mexico landscape. As I recall, he mentioned that my painting was not aligning with his movements – though I recall that the celebration interpretation was a theme he had not considered.
In the 1990s I began further exploration of collaboration with composes, musicians, dancers, and poets. My first event was a live painting performance a Rice University with “new music” musicians. After this initial event, I painted live with jazz groups every year or so, usually with my friend Paul English – a musician and composer. It was in 1998 that I painted my “breakthrough” painting over several weekends at Ovations Nightclub.
Acrylic on Canvas 68”x92” 1998
“…the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.”
It was through this experience that I first came directly in contact with The Spirit of Art. There was a group jazz Spirit that influenced and moved me in different directions, and the poetry, and the singers all influenced every brushstroke. I painted this large painting on a “catwalk” above the group for several weekend performances. It was impossible for me to walk away and make decision about the painting. I painted completely intuitively in harmony with the Spirit of the aesthetic experience. It was during this connection that I felt the Spirit - I learned to communicate with my intuition in my Art.
Of course, I only spent a few days each year painting live on stage with musicians. However, this new trust in intuitive expression began to influence most of my work. I continued to follow my interest in the creation of humans and particular Biblical scriptures that challenged my Christian belief system. Over time my ideas were transformed to embrace a Christian existential approach with the particular influence of Paul Tillich and Irvin Yalom. In addition, I became completely evangelized by the cognitive sciences. My dissertation explored the unconscious processes engaged in cognitive processes 6.
I painted many works over the 1990s exploring both my passion for Biblical and non-biblical creation stories and my new passion for the cognitive sciences. The integration of theology, psychology, cognitive sciences, and neuro-science provided a new frontier to think about Art, Ideas, and morality.
I created many drawings and paintings dealing with the forbidden. I have never tired of doing art about the biblical characters and in particular – Adam and Eve. The painting below was another important transformative idea for my art and my technique. Here we have the human moral conscious on display.
Acrylic on Canvas 47”x38” 1996
“The man said, ‘The woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree and I ate it.’ ”
“Something crucial is missing in this widely held conception (moral insight combined with strength of will) of morality. What is missing is any recognition of the fundamental role of imagination in or moral reasoning. We humans beings are imaginative creatures, from our most mundane, automatic acts of perception all the way up to our most abstract conceptualization and reasoning.”
My one man show in the fall of 2008 was an opportunity to gain closure on the multi-domain learning and knowledge acquisition over years of education in the cognitive sciences, theology, and art and applications to art exploration, and the beginning of a professional life as a cultural psychologist.
As another example of my artwork during this time period I remain fascinated with the question of how does human life and consciousness come about. What is the relationship between Nature and Human consciousness? I had been reintroduced to Natural Theology through my studies in moral development in psychology and theology. I realized during me theological and art projects that Natural theology is fertile area to investigate the areas of me ideas and learn more about American culture.
Hidden creatures of all sorts had been and continued to emerge from my intuitively driven artwork. I learned to develop some creatures and ignore others. There was a circle of writers in the fields of cognitive science, evolutionary psychology, neuro-science, theology, and cultural psychologist who had reached an agreement that humans are also “creatures” also and so share many attributes with animals. The alignment was around the idea that aesthetics were what separated human capabilities.
Acrylic on Canvas 48”X 36” 1996
“It is my view that unshakable imperative of homeostasis has been the pervasive governor of life in all its guises…….Given the foregoing, we can advance a working hypothesis on the relation between feelings and culture. Feelings, as deputies of homeostasis are the catalysts for the responses that began human cultures.”
After my one man show in 2008, I changed my focus to culture in all its complexities. I began to focus on my new one string banjo – CULTURE – as the crowning achievement in the human narrative.
