contemplative art

slow down, feed soul

| miriam louisa simons

Father Bill Moore - A Gathering of Gentle Forces

 

When I began to paint and create my art, I did not know where I was headed as an artist. Yet what remained important to me was that I was beginning my calling as a painter. After I began painting and working as a priest, the idea came to me to create works that could benefit the members of my community.

It always seemed to me that the public was constantly being asked to support either museums, or other cultural institutions. So I decided to take that theory and turn it on its head and use my art to support my community. I do not receive payments for my art, all the monies go directly to my congregation to help others in need.

– Father Bill Moore

I so appreciate Bill Moore – the Bill bloke, without the Fr., or the Dr., or even the Mr. He knew his calling, even though it was a double-header.  He was able to acknowledge that his purpose lay in two directions: he was both a painter, an artist, and he was a priest, a mouthpiece that could inspire and point his congregation towards a sensitive, refined experience of life.  

Which came first or was more significant?  Why would it matter?  What mattered was that he honoured his two-headed calling.

But there was more.  He surrendered his calling to his flock.  He uses his art “to support” his community. This is an uncommon altruism.  My heart thrills to this.

Then there are the paintings with their invitation to touch, to gaze and graze. These are works that I find soul-satisfying on so many levels.

 

Father Bill Moore - Staying in The Present series, 1-4

 

I always want to have a peaceful resolution, even if the painting is full of energy, life and movement, I always want to evoke peace, tranquility and calm. I always want to organize this energy.

 

Father Bill Moore - The Reality of Spirit and Matter

 

“Father Bill imbues his art with a deep spirituality based on who he is,” says Mary Felton, who represents Moore’s work at Galerie Züger in Santa Fe, New Mexico. “His process is to walk up to a blank canvas and see what [the] Spirit wants him to paint on that canvas.”

 

Father Bill Moore - Contemplation

 

I think in many ways, people are hungry for poetry and music and art.  I think we have a deficiency in our spiritual diet.

My art has made me a better priest, and my faith has made me a better artist. We live in hurried times and are inundated with countless images. We have the capacity to immediately access a staggering wealth of information.

Through my art, I’m asking myself and those that would explore it to slow down. To look, touch and consider the essential colors, shapes and textures that can feed our souls.

 

Father Bill Moore - Assisi

 

I hope my paintings serve as an invitation to enter into the mystery of being fully human, and to face our fears and the challenges of life with dignity and grace.
– Father Bill Moore

 

Sources:

frbillmoore.com

westernartandarchitecture.com

avranart.com

Image titles from top:

A Gathering of Gentle Forces
Staying in The Present series, 1-4
The Reality of Spirit and Matter
Contemplation
Assisi

Sizes vary; all are acrylic paint and mixed media on canvas.

 

my brush is my suijo

| miriam louisa simons

 

I’d never attempted a self-portrait

until the day

I drew my breath

 
In John Daido Loori‘s must-have book for artists of all persuasions, The Zen of Creativity, he writes about the way shakuhachi maestro Watazumi Doso Roshi regarded his flute as a tool to monitor his authentic integration with, and expression of, the Life Force.

[The] ability to be free in his music was the result of Doso’s life-long, unrelenting commitment to the discipline of the breath. He actually wasn’t very interested in the shakuhachi as a musical instrument.  He called his flute suijo, which loosely translates as “concentrated breathing tool.”  Doso saw himself not so much as a musician or entertainer, but as one who is totally devoted to developing his life force – chi – by utilizing and strengthening his breath.  The bamboo flute was simply a tool for that practice.  He said once, “Since I must have some way of knowing how my breath is doing, I blow into a piece of bamboo and hear how it sounds.”

– The Zen of Creativity: Cultivating Your Artistic Life by John Daido Loori  (1931 – 2009)

This intrigued me. For many years now, part of my own art practice has been to use a single, horizontal brushstroke to express the exhalation of my breath.  It’s a contemplative practice I’ve written about before on this blog (see the links below), and one that continues – whatever the vagaries of my life.  It’s clear to me that my breathscribe paintings are my suijo, my “concentrated breathing tool”.  They show me how my breath is doing. Which in turn reveals what my mind is doing. And that tells me everything about how my Life is doing.
 
 

Wonderingmind Studio: Miriam Louisa Simons, Breathscribe Series, Desert Breath

 

More helpful advice, this time from Watazumi Doso Roshi himself. It applies equally well to artist and musician, singer and dancer, indeed, to all of us as we embrace genuine authenticity:

So in that sound you have to put in your guts, your strength and your own specialness.  And what you are putting in then is your own Life and your own Life Force.  When you hear some music or hear some sound, if for some reason you like it very well; the reason is that sound is in balance or in harmony with your pulse.  And so making a sound, you try to make various different sounds that imitate various different sounds of the universe, but what you are finally making is your own sound, the sound of yourself.

– Watazumido Doso Roshi (1910 – 1992)

 

My outer life has vanished,

but love’s breath still breathes for me.

– Hafiz

 

how many ways can you draw quiet?
California breathing
breathscribe series

I paint with my back to the world

| miriam louisa simons

 
Yesterday I moved home and studio. Body and mind need R&R. What could be better than a cup of tea and some wry wise reminders from painter Agnes Martin about what matters? I love what she shares about staying in bed until she knows exactly what she wants to paint. Ahhh.

 

Agnes Martin - Gratitude 2011

Agnes Martin – Gratitude – 2011

 

I don’t have any ideas of my own
and I don’t believe anybody else’s,
so that leaves me a clear mind …
– Agnes Martin

 

 

textures shapes and color

| miriam louisa simons

 

Being an artist is like breathing.
It’s this incredible urge to create, that you can’t question.
Like breathing you just have to do it, or else you will die.
– Marina Abramović

How could you not love a blog with a quote like this displayed in prime screen-space? But even without it, I’d still love Leslie Avon Miller’s collages and creations – and the way she writes about her creative process. Her need for “solitude, contemplation and stillness” resonates here, as well as her profound appreciation of Life as rich and miraculous.

 
Artwork by Leslie Avon Miller

 

On her profile page we read:

Leslie Avon Miller experiences her work as a means to observe and honor the world around her. This requires solitude, contemplation and stillness as the work evolves.  Once the finished pieces are shared with others they become a conversation between the artist and the viewer. Each collage is as an entry into a journal, keeping in mind, as Heraclitus said; we can’t step into the same river twice. The compulsion for creating collage comes from experiencing life as beautifully wild, poignant, and fleeting. The process of creating collage clears space and light for experiencing the moments.

And in a recent post she writes:

Pausing to deeply enjoy the stars and moon before bed and hearing the bird song in the early morning brings me enjoyment and satisfaction at the beginning and end of the day.  It is enough. Life is rich.  Life is a miracle.

 

Texture Shapes Color: Leslie Avon Miller

Click on the screenshot to visit Leslie’s superb blog.

29.09.12

| miriam louisa simons

 

daily details 29.09.12

 

acrylics on textured canvas, stitching
[breathscribe-in-progress]

Breathe out, pour yourself into existence.
This is the method of compassion:
Drink in all the suffering and pour out all the blessings.
And you will be surprised if you do it.
The moment you take all the sufferings of the world inside you,
they are no longer sufferings.
The heart immediately transforms the energy.
The heart is a transforming force:
Drink in misery, and it is transformed into blissfulness … then pour it out.
Once you have learned that your heart can do this magic, this miracle,
you would like to do it again and again.

– Osho