Simply Art

I recently decided to change the format and name of the Facebook page on which I sell my art. What follows is my shot at an explanation as to why.

My art page (formerly, “ACTS of ART” now, "Art by Tracy Lou") was previously categorized as a “cause,” and I advertised that I would send 25% of proceeds to World Vision to help tackle the root causes of poverty around the world.

I don't think there is anything inherently wrong about sending a portion of my earnings to a justice organization that I respect, or with telling customers up front where their money will go. What I begin to wonder about are my deepest motives for attaching that idea to my art sales, and the relationship between social media and my art.

Ultimately, I decided that I wish to avoid using the cause of justice as an incentive for consumerism.

Now, I do not like to refer to my paintings as “products” (Which is why I don't sell them on pillows or shower curtains on Society6). But ultimately, through these websites, I am exchanging my paintings for money. So for the sake of this outline I may use that term, or others like it, lightly.

I first categorized my art sale as a cause in part because I feared that selling it under my name alone would be self-centered. The fact still stands that I avoid making my signature appear too visible on my work; it is about the art, not about me. But, perhaps the title is only as selfish as the person to whom it's attributed; perhaps it's only selfish if I am selfish. And if I am advertising that I'll send 25% of proceeds to World Vision (regardless of my level of respect for World Vision), maybe that is still selfish, because I am looking for a way to hide behind another name and add worth to paintings that can stand on their own as works of value.

If people have any doubts about how I may use their money, they need only to look at my life, how I am striving to live, to see how their money will go to use.

If my art has value in itself, and I believe it does, then I do not need to bolster it in any way or mix it in with other things I care about. Let it stand alone; it is valid.

I must acknowledge that entering into social media at all is to wrestle with selfish motives. We are invited to present ourselves in the most favorable way possible. When I post photos of my artwork, I want people to like, comment, and share them. What I'm looking for on my most ego-concerning level, more than money (if I'm honestly looking for that at all) is positive attention and recognition. On a fundamental level, my hope is to share the joy of art with others. My fear is that this hope is riddled by self-interest once marketing comes into play.

I'm not crazy about social media. I wrestle with how technology can be used as a beneficial tool in our culture; to what extent it helps me to relate to others or gradually superficializes my relationships. How can I ensure that I am not using social media as a means to my own end, that I am not using people as a means to an end?

I want to make my art available. I'd like to sell it without “selling” it. I don't want to pull on any heartstrings, consciously or subconsciously, to make a profit. I want my art to speak for itself, and to make its way safely into the hands of a human being who connects with it.

Jesus said to love your neighbor. Our culture tells us to go out and shop. When we mix these two together (Love your neighbor by shopping), I think the line quickly blurs as to what it means to really love my neighbor.

So friends, please purchase art from me. (Even better: meet me in person and barter it from me.) And please find your own creative ways of loving your neighbor. I'm sorry for mixing motives and messages. Still trying to figure out how to live life as an artist in today's culture. This is one of my steps toward simplicity.

I've been thinking about these words...

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front
by Wendell Berry

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready-made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.

And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.

When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won't compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.

Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.

Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.

Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.

Listen to carrion -- put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.

Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?

Go with your love to the fields.
Lie down in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.

As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn't go.

Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

"Now there is time and Time is young..."

(quote by May Sarton, Now I Become Myself)

At Koinonia I have experienced an awakening of sorts, the growth of a seed which was planted in my heart in Houston when we planted the literal seeds of our community garden, when we ate sunburst tomatoes warm off the branch, and handed out bags of yellow zucchini to our friends and neighbors. Similarly at Koinonia I have discovered that there is nothing quite like picking ripe figs off our trees, eating potatoes grown in our rich red soil, blending up such an earthy green concoction of pesto, that first juicy bite into muscadine, the look on my English students' faces when I hand them a bag of fresh pears...Beautiful, organic produce yielding abundantly out my window. I left home to seek out solidarity with the poor, but this is luxury beyond compare. Day after day I walk out to find even more yellow pear tomatoes, more basil, more figs, more peppers...I stopped purchasing personal grocery items because homemade yogurt and pecans, fresh eggs, herbal tea, and toast spread with blueberry jam is a breakfast to be grateful for.

The financially poor are often at the mercy of what is available and cheap in local stores, which means Walmart gets a lot of business. It was Clarence Jordan's vision to see the poor of Americus have access to good food from their own backyards. But I suppose people have to want it first. When Farmer Fred asked my Houston neighbor, 9-year-old Angel, “What will you eat if the vegetables don't grow?” He answered matter-of-factly, “My Lunchable.”

Prophets of our time, Wendell Berry and Joel Salitan, recognize the layers of problems and struggles facing this generation. But they also recognize, in the words of Berry: “The roots of the problem are private or personal, and the roots of the solutions will be private or personal too” (The Gift of Good Land).

I cannot make others adopt this wonderful way of life, but I can live it out faithfully on a personal level, and hope in the manner of Van Gogh:

“Do our inner thoughts ever show outwardly? There may be a great fire in our soul, yet no one ever comes to warm himself at it, and the passers-by see only a wisp of smoke coming from the chimney, and go along their way. Look here, now, what must be done? Must one tend that inner fire, have salt in oneself, wait patiently yet with how much impatience for the hour when somebody will come and sit down near it – maybe to stay? Let him who believes in God wait for the hour that will come sooner or later.” (Letter 133)

I don't mean to come across presumptuous. My life is not perfect. But I have found several immeasurable gifts in this little pocket of the country. And I would welcome you to hold me accountable to continuing to practice those gifts in my life post-Koinonia. Gifts of growing my own food in good, healthy soil. Finding joy in the simple tasks of fermentation and creative preservation. Sustainable consumption. Sharing the abundance...

There is much I have learned in one year, and I look forward to what richness one more year on this good land holds. My self-confidence has grown in bounds. I've cultivated a spirit that finds joy in the harvest, creative cooking and use of natural resources. I've met a plethora of remarkable people who have touched my life. I've been introduced to authors and speakers and thinkers who shake the way I view the world and interact with Jesus.

Soaking up the sunshine of southern Georgia

I have learned new ways of measuring time

Candles and kittens

Paintings and potlucks

Pecans and prayer bells

Paper cranes and pressed flowers

Mosquito bites and worn-out jeans

Jars of pickles and homemade ginger ale

Exchanging letters with friends new and old

Dark chocolate and cups of coffee beneath the mulberry tree

Visitors and stories shared

Hymns and laughter echoing into the night

Postage stamps and boxes shipped

Peaches, blackberries, blueberries, figs, pears, tomatoes and grapes...

I measure seasons according to where the sun rises and sets, and where I find Orion in the night sky.

As Rilke says, there is no measuring with time itself, but being an artist (or perhaps a human being) means patiently ripening like a tree. I think I'm getting a better idea of what that means.

Peace and hope be yours in abundance

Behold a Tree

SEE FULL ALBUM HERE

“Behold a tree. Does it not speak to us thusly: 'Don't you see that God is not working himself into a frenzy in me? I am calmly, quietly, silently pouring forth my life and bringing forth fruit. Do thou likewise.'” Clarence Jordan


I love trees. I love painting trees. God speaks to me through trees.

It is difficult to explain how the idea for this project came about. Madeleine L'Engle describes a work of art as something that “comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.' And the artist either says, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord,' and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one...'” (Walking on Water) The seed was planted in my mind one day early in my internship, watered by talking about it, and before I knew it all the pieces were falling into place. I did not even purchase one tube of paint or paintbrush. This typical occurrence in my life is to me God's way of saying, “You go paint, I'll take care of the rest.”

Thus I began work on the biggest canvas I have yet tackled. The limitations of the process, though frustrating at times, allowed me to listen to the work better. Had I been able to go at it more quickly, I may have missed out on the “dialogue,” so to speak. The texture of the ceiling (our coffee house is one of Habitat's early experiments with chicken wire and cement), the domed curve of the canvas, and the tricks of moving ladders, drop cloths, and scaffolding around slowed me down quite a bit. More than once the thought came to mind, “If only I could fly!”

It did not occur to me until part-way through that one of my prayers coming in to Koinonia was, “Lord, slow me down.” I moved hastily at the start, thrilled to begin and anxious to finish. As it became clear to me that I would not make the mark I had originally hoped for at one month, I was able to relax more and give in to the process. One of my college professors used to talk about “letting the process inform the work,” and that is a phrase that has stuck with me in art and in life.

And so I meditated upon patience during the process. If I could have reasonably fit a different quote around the border, it would be one by Rilke that speaks to me very much lately:

“There is here no measuring with time, no year matters, and ten years are nothing. Being an artist means, not reckoning and counting, but ripening like a tree which does not force its sap and stands confident in the storms of spring without the fear that after them may come no summer. It does come. But it only comes to the patient, who are there as though eternity lay before them, so unconcernedly still and wide. I learn it daily, learn it with pain to which I am grateful: patience is everything!” (Letters to a Young Poet)

I don't doubt that my creative itch will soon enough have me back up on the ladder to continue playing with this piece. But in the mean time I am learning that God calms the frenzy in my heart and invites me to patiently anticipate the harvest.

Follow-Up: A Look at Modern Israel and Palestine

It would be impossible to cover this entire topic in one post. I hesitate to write about it at all because it is such a convoluted issue and I don’t intend for this space to be a soapbox. And yet I believe the heart of the matter is simple and relevant. I write in the hope that the perspective I share will at least spark a conversation or challenge someone. Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Israeli priest, explains it better than anyone I know, with a rich understanding of the history and first-hand accounts. I must first direct you to his books if this topic captures your attention: Blood Brothers and We Belong to the Land.

I'm writing about this because before our study I was intimidated by the history and complexity of what has been happening in the Middle East. There are many layers to the present conflict. I don't claim to know how the land ought to be allocated today, but there are some obvious injustices taking place in which our own country has a hand, particularly against Palestinians. I believe the media uses propaganda to turn us against our own brothers and sisters with labels such as “terrorist” when in fact those so-called “terrorists” are themselves being terrorized.

I'm also writing because someone I've met this year, a Palestinian Christian, has suffered the loss of 1,500 fruit trees last month, bulldozed by the Israeli military. I'm not convinced that the members of the Israeli military truly want to hurt people like this, but, as has happened too often in history, they are “just following orders.” And the world looks the other way because they feel embarrassed about looking the other way when the Jews were oppressed. The cycle continues...

Just like the wall that went up at Berlin, like the wall at the Mexican border, we witness a concrete wall (“separation barrier”) going up to separate families, separate people from clean water, and separate farmers from their olive groves, which for generations has been their families' sole livelihood. In October 2003, a UN resolution declared the wall illegal where it cuts into the Palestinian territory and should be torn down in these places. The U.S. vetoed this resolution.

Between 1967 and mid-2010, Israel established 121 settlements, over 100 “outposts” (settlements built without official authorization but with support and assistance of Israeli government), and 12 neighborhoods – all in areas internationally recognized as Palestinian territory. Many settlers believe they have rights to all of the surrounding territory – well beyond Palestine – through God's covenant with their ancestor Abraham. They are known to be violent, sabotaging wells, killing livestock, and uprooting trees.

Israel controls more than 83% of the water within Palestine. Access to water is severely restricted for Palestinians, and where they do have access, they pay almost double what an Israeli does. They are forced to decide between watering their gardens or having water to drink, while Israeli settlers enjoy swimming pools less than a mile away.

Today there are an estimated 8-10 million Palestinian refugees around the world. An estimated 5 million live in the West Bank alone, half a million living in Gaza's eight refugee camps. Over 82,000 live in less than one square kilometer. These and other refugees in surrounding Arab countries cannot get good jobs or travel freely because they have no passports or citizenship papers.

Since 2000, more than 1,084 Israelis and 6,430 Palestinians have been killed. The U.S. is Israel's #1 supporter, giving $3 billion in military aid each year. What I see happening is an ethnic cleansing based on religious and cultural principles eerily similar to the oppression of the Jews themselves under Hitler, and Americans blindly allow their tax dollars to support the military efforts because they are misinformed.

There are of course not just two sides to this issue. I am not “for” the Palestinians and “against” the Israelis. I am for them both, and there are people from all “sides” coming together to work for peace.

So what am I doing for peace? Similar things to what I do to seek justice for those who are trafficked and enslaved: Spread the word, contact my Congressmen, and get to know the people behind the labels.

I'll leave it at that and close with a few selected words from Elias Chacour:

“If you become a true man of God – you will know how to reconcile enemies – how to turn hatred into peace. Only a true servant of God can do that.” (Blood Brothers)

“Come, let us be brothers and sisters together in this beautiful land in which all of us have history and roots. There is room enough for all of us. Aren't we the co-persecuted brothers and sisters?” (We Belong to the Land)

“I turn to you, my brothers and sisters in the West – in particular, those of you who might judge us – and I ask: How can you take on yourself the right to decide who is the terrorist? Was it a bad thing that Europe organized to liberate itself from savage occupation before and during WWII? Were the Boston Tea Party and the American Revolution 'acts of terrorism'? Who is the terrorist? Who is the fighter for liberty? How to you find it your right to judge?” (Blood Brothers)

“Jesus Christ teaches us today...that we are not to love people out of charity or for Jesus' sake, as if others were an instrument, a tool, or a tunnel to pass through to reach the goal. Rather, the other...is to be loved because that person is lovable as he or she is. We are to love as God loves. God's love is unconditional and sacrificed. God is love. All this I have understood from my father, who taught me to love myself and the other. Loving others, breaking the cycle of hatred and violence, does not mean passivity or inaction. On the contrary, this love is creative, resourceful, energetic, dynamic. This love looks for ways to restore and preserve people's worth, dignity, and joy.” (We Belong to the Land)

www.endtheoccupation.org; www.tolef.org; www.bdsmovement.net; www.arij.org; www.codepink.org

Three Things I Care About

LOVING THE ENSLAVED

June 10 is Lobby Day, where advocates from across the nation head to Capitol Hill as part of the annual IJM Advocacy Summit and meet with their Senators and Representatives in person in an effort to end modern-day slavery. Commit to call your Senator (especially my friends in NY) tomorrow: http://www.ijm.org/advocacy-summit/call-in-registration
Congress just set aside $5 million to fight slavery through the Child Protection Compact Act. On June 10, we’ll ask them to invest in two countries that are willing to stand up against slavery, but need additional support: The Philippines and Ghana. Read more here: https://www.ijm.org/be-force-freedom

Download a sample chapter of Gary Haugen's The Locust Effect here: http://www.thelocusteffect.com/ and sign the petition to urge the UN to protect the poor from violence.

LOVING THE OPPRESSED

Daoud Nasser and his family (friends of Koinonia whom we helped host a Tree of Life conference this past October in Americus) was recently featured at the Sojourners blog because early on May 19, military bulldozers destroyed 1,500 of the family's fruit trees nearly ready for harvest in the valley below the Nasser dwellings. In an upcoming post I'll write more about what my fellow interns and I have been researching about the conflict in Palestine/Israel, and ongoing peace efforts.  In the meantime, if you would like to join me in supporting the Nasser family, there are resources available here: http://maryknollogc.org/alerts/tent-nations-trees-terraces-destroyed-israeli-military

LOVING THE DETAINED

Learn more about America's $2 billion immigrant detention industry. A little-known federal law enacted in 2006 ensures that a minimum of 34,000 undocumented immigrants must be held on every single day. Private companies run most of the centers, among them Stewart Detention Center in Lumpkin, GA.

Learn more here: http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26843600

and what people are doing here: http://elrefugiostewart.com/

"Injustice anywhere a threat to justice everywhere." -MLK

A Step Along the Way

A prayer by Oscar Romero that's been on my mind lately...

It helps, now and then, to step back and take a long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is even beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God's work.
Nothing we do is complete, which is a way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.
No statement says all that could be said.No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church's mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

This is what we are about.
We plant the seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted,
knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces far beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of liberation
in realizing that. This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well. It may be incomplete,
but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for the Lord's grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference
between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders; ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own.