Faceless Art

Young faceless woman in a black cape with 2 lion cubs in the moon lite  within the cape. An old letter to a friend many, many years ago (circa 1980). My teen years were a little angsty. 

 

A while back my buddy Adam sent this old letter back to me.It is interesting that there is no face and now I make faceless people. Does this mean anything?

My answer is who the heck knows but it has come in handy. I have some Muslin friends and acquaintances who follow the practice of not having art with faces. I still need to research this but have not yet. Anyway my faceless art has been convenient when showing my art to members of the Muslim community.

One young man told me this great story of his son finding a way to negotiate the faceless thing in elementary school. Mohamed shared how at a parent teacher conference the teacher asked why his son always drew the family in sunglasses. No one in the school understood Muslim culture and kept asking the children to draw people so this kid figured out how to tread the line by putting sunglasses on everyone. Yay creative kid, I thought this was an awesome story.

eid sisterhood - a feast with a Russian Jewish grandma carrying a plate of fish, a muslim mother with a bowl of fruit and a nun carrying a loaf of bread. In Spain an many places Christians, Jews and muslims lived together for centuries creating strong rich culturally diverse communities.

I just stumbled into making art that is accessible to my muslim friends and now I have an excuse for no faces. I actually was able to donate the above piece to the Muslim Educational Trust here in Portland because of the combination of no faces and my fascination with multiple religions with the practice of covered heads. I wanted to create a piece of art showing the commonalities of cultural practices and the women coming together in sisterhood since eid al fitr is about uniting in brotherhood.

I very much respect the work of the Muslim Educational Trust. I have learned so much through this great organization that cares very much about building collaborative relationships in the larger community.

A few last things to share. First is about capitalizing some muslims do not use capital letters so my lack of capitalizing is on purpose. The second thing is about brothers and sisters, I am getting use to using brother and sister as a title because I now understand it. If we all come from Adam and Eve then we are all brothers and sisters so if someone from the muslim faith refers to you or someone as "brother" or "sister" it totally makes sense. This is sometimes hard when I want to show respect and call someone "tio" or "tia" because to me uncles and aunts are the wise ones I offer respect to.

   

Is Art a Spiritual Journey?

Gifts from the Guardians -A slender bald pale woman in a yellow summer dress sitting cross legged in the middle of the barren rocky earth at piece holding a feather. above the woman floating in the blue sky are 3 (native man, Chinese woman and Caribbean woman angels showering her with feathers from their wings.

In this facebook artist group I am part of there has been this discussion of following ones path as an artist being a spiritual journey. Some of the talk is of finding self love and all the things artist must go through as they participate in a career that is regarded as a hobby. I want to focus on the moment my art shifted and and art became a calling.

I had been creating art for gifts out of financial necessity and it did become therapeutic in the year after my sister passed.  

Pam's Love - hot pink background with 2 light pink rose buds, 2 black humming birds and 2 black cat with their tales creating a heart - My sister's favorite things pink, pink roses, beds and black cats

I even started selling some work and getting a few fans at this time because the spirit was close but had not popped out yet.

Preguntas para mi Abuelita (Questions for my Grandmother) - 3 decorated skulls nestled in a bed of marigolds and poinsettias with 2 taper candles burning.

Maybe the spirit was there and I was not aware that it was guiding my hand in the Preguntas piece above. I did not know why I created 3 skulls but as I started layering the art I realized they were my sister (upper left with pinks and blues) my abuela/grandmother (lower center with pink and orange) and my abuelo/grandfather (upper right with orange and red). It is true I like to intersperse odd and even number sets of objects but this was more more than just liking 3 objects it was my loved ones. 


My sister always straddled the line between masculine and feminine energy so the choice to use pink, blue and purple made sense also that skull has the most detail because of the deep love and connection I will always have with my "seester". 

My crazy wonderful beloved sister Pam who always wanted me to succeed through my natural talents not by trying to fit in a box.

My abuela is a bridge with the femininity and fuego de la gente de la Tierra Amarilla (fire of the people of the Yellow Earth my mom's birth place in NM). Her skull is the least complete because this is where I feel the least connection yet she is integral to this story. My mother loved the memory of her mother and my sister favored Abuela in her own way which comes through in the shared pink. It all sounds planned out as I write but all this came as I way layering the flowers and skulls which made the art make total sense to me.

I saved for last the skull of my abuelo because he has been my spiritual guide from the land of my ancestors. Abuelo was the fire and passion of the yellow earth he died as a very young man so still had the machismo and passion which came out in red and orange with straight lines and sharp angels which I always consider to be very exuberant male energy. 

The art sometimes creates itself then tells what the story is which I believe is nothing less than a spiritual experience. Other times  it is clearly a spiritual experience from the beginning when the vision strikes clearly and must manifest as art. Which is what happened with Gifts from the Gaurdians which I thought was the start of my spiritual journey through art.

 

By writing this post I have discovered that the journey started before Gifts maybe with Preguntas or possibly even earlier.

The reason I thought the journey started with Guardians is because this was the first time a piece was directed from a vision. I was riding home on a bus trying to keep from crying because a new acquaintance was in the hospital for probably the last time as her battle with cancer was ending. I had lost my sister less than 2 years before this and I was so sad for my acquaintances' family. 

Many many years ago when I flew 80 feet through the air off the back of a motorcycle and knew I would die I came to the realization that death was just this thing that happens. I felt no regret, no I wish I had (fill in the blank), just peace and I relaxed but I knew the folks left behind were the ones  who would be in pain. 

Because of my experiences with losing Pam I was sure my acquaintance was being watched over and showered with love as she transitioned into the next place. This vision just came to me with angels from around the world hovering over my friend as she meditated and they were dropping feathers from their wings. I made an image of this piece into a card and hoped that it would bring comfort to my friend and her family. The guardians were watching over all of them though the process I am sure.

Now this piece is owned by a woman who lost her brother to cancer almost 20 years ago and just felt the message come through clearly.

Paying attention to this vision is when I opened the door to my spiritual journey. 

I am very curious for artist who recreate what is in front of them, what is their spiritual journey like? I can not help but believe that the spirit is part of  every artist journey and it manifest differently in each of us which just makes me curious.

 

Lavaun