NO NEED TO APOLOGIZE

December 6, 2014October 14, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 9 Comments

Whenever I come across a blog that begins as an apology for not posting lately or even being on hiatus for a few months, several thoughts spring to mind.

The first is simply that there’s no need to apologize. We’re not short of reading material here in the WordPress network, for sure. Nobody’s holding you to those deadlines, and we’d certainly rather have you back with something good to report than to have you mindlessly keyboarding.

The second thought, though, has me reflecting on my own approach to blogging. Rather than constantly being fed by current activity, the Red Barn and its sisters draw on my deep files of writing and, more recently, photography. That’s allowed me to plan ahead and schedule their release in a timely manner, sometimes even spiraling pieces from decades ago and now.

But now that has me wondering. Is that cheating?

Or is it just another example of the maxim, “Age and cunning will beat youth and ability every time”?

ENGAGING THE POWERS AND PRINCIPALITIES

November 23, 2014November 17, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 8 Comments

Like it or not, practicing an art means wrestling with power, including, in St. Paul’s phrase, the “powers and principalities.” Powers of destruction, on one hand, and sustenance, on the other. Destruction that can, as we’ve seen too many times, include the artist. Hence, the fascination with Faust. With madness. Alcoholism. And on. Self-absorption and inflated self-importance rather than humble service.

We hazard much, often without the slightest awareness of the risks afoot. For the Christian, these involve Satan’s dominion over “the world,” which includes the realm of the arts; in Asian teachings, we can turn to the traps of Maya, that spider web of worldly attraction and deadly illusion. Either way, cause to be wary. Need for disciplined faith. Yes, let’s introduce something we’ll call Satan, just to thicken the drama.

Which raises an ancient point of conflict for a Christian artist: I’m not at all sure art is a proper activity for a Quaker. Through much of Friends’ history, most of the arts were considered superfluous and dishonest engagements taking our attention away from true worship. “We Quakers only read true things” is the way one expressed it while returning an unread novel to a neighbor.

Yes, “we Quakers read only true things,” or used to. The exclusion of not just fiction but theater and paintings and sports as distractions from worship. Traps of the flesh?

And yet: discipline is essential in spiritual growth. Self-discipline, route to true freedom. And where is the mind without imagination? I continue to read and write fiction and poetry. I love symphonies, string quartets, and opera. I’m a baritone or occasional tenor in four-part a cappella singing. When I practice my art, I am fed by this love/compulsion/infusion.

So we’re back to the ways and spirit in which we engage the powers and principalities, and the ways we order our lives.

TIFFANY?

November 20, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 1 Comment

From the pews in the sanctuary, the five stained-glass windows over the altar appear curiously bland in contrast to the two vast arrays to the left or the rear. Only if you cross into the chancel and catch a glint of sunlight might you sense something quite different is at hand before you.

That’s how I first noticed that unlike traditional stained glass, none of this set had been enhanced by paint. All of the color was in the glass itself, yet there were no muddy patches where colors overlapped, as might be expected while mixing pigments. Some of these resembled Impressionist painting or bookmaker marbling. Moreover, when direct sunlight hit some of the pieces, the color blazed with gold or copper or fine jewels.

Could it be? I’d heard that one reason Louis Comfort Tiffany obtained such incredible effects in his work was that he used such materials in his glass. For starters, the only way to get a gold color is to use gold.

As I started to seek documentation, some fascinating connections appear.

As it turns out, the Tiffany Glass Company and its successor, Tiffany Glass and Decorating Company, created thousands of ecclesiastical church windows. Many of these were designed and executed by his studio, rather than Tiffany himself, but they would nonetheless bear his stamp and influence.

Tiffany’s 1890 Hay Memorial at Emmanuel Episcopal in Pittsburgh presents some striking similarity to the set at the 1895 St. John’s Methodist in Watertown, Massachusetts.

Such a range of colors, shifting with the light.

Both are narrow arched windows with greenish bottom panels ringed in copper tones. The central cross resembles the crosses at Watertown. And the mention of Tiffany’s love of exotic Oriental painting and his travels in northern Africa might explain the two Watertown windows dominated by palm trees.

The Watertown congregation originated in 1836 in the Whitney family home, and they remained active supporters at the time the 1895 stone building was erected. Their David Whitney Jr. relocated to Detroit as a young man, quickly became that city’s wealthiest resident, and built an 1894 mansion that still features its elaborate Tiffany windows.

Finally, I run into the pastor as he’s leaving his office. I pose the question, “Tiffany?”

“Technically, no.”

“His studio, then?”

“Yes.”

Regardless of the creator’s name, these five windows are marvelous, especially when struck by sunlight. Unfortunately, their placement on the west side of the building means the Sunday morning worshipers would not get to view them at their best.

Vespers, anyone?

Three of the five windows around the chancel in late-afternoon sunlight.

CHURCH WINDOWS

November 19, 2014November 19, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 5 Comments

I’ve long joked that our Quaker meetinghouse has the prettiest stained-glass windows in town. That’s because they’re clear, looking out to the hardwood trees surrounding the grounds and all of the seasonal changes. The colors are those of snow and ice, spring greening, fog, mist, rainfall, autumn foliage. Admittedly, the new synagogue, with its view over a hillside to forest beyond, and the Methodists, at the edge of a millpond, can make rival cases. I’ll plead to being partial.

Crucially, though, transparent windows remind us of the world beyond the house where we sit in worship, a reflection of our awareness that our faith is a constant part of our various daily life activities. They remind us as well of the powerful rhythms of nature and God’s creation.

On the other hand, most congregations – including the Evangelical United Brethren of my childhood – gather within rooms of filtered light cast by stained-glass designs. I was puzzled by it then, and remain so today. Yes, I know the colored windows of the great medieval cathedrals were illustrated storybooks for the illiterate populace, but what I encountered always felt second-rate and often mildewed. Few individuals, I suspect, could say much of anything about the event being depicted or express any understanding of the decorative filling. Pointedly, the translucent windows cut off any view beyond the room. Perhaps the intention is to create a holy space – one set apart from normal life; perhaps, too, this hints at eternity as a departure from the landscape we know. But a shady or even creepy quality always seemed to lurk in the shadows. This is, I will note, quite different from the icon-based frescoes of Eastern Orthodox custom.

Apart from a few December afternoons at the National Cathedral in Washington, when I finally experienced the dazzling sunlight through the windows and recognized how Rose windows earned their esteem, my encounters with stained glass were few and fleeting. That is, until late one afternoon last year when I arrived early for our weekly chorus session and stepped from the room where we rehearse, crossing into the sanctuary on the other side of the sliding shutters. The square vaulted room is dominated by two imposing displays in traditional style – painting, essentially on pieces of colored glass that are then leaded together. Something about these, though, suggests quality sustained by wealthy donors. The impressive room has demanded closer investigation.

If the late 19^th century brought about a flowering of stained glass in America, it was also a time before the spread of public art museums. Windows like these, then, would have been art made available to all for their wonderment.

The south wall of the sanctuary is dominated by this traditional design, which includes a row of named angels along the bottom.

A detail of one of the angels. — A detail of one of the south windows.

Traditional stained-glass style using cut pieces painted with enamel.

A decorative window in a social hall where our chorus rehearses.

ART GLASS PIECES

November 18, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

When it comes to art museums, I head straight for the paintings. The other displays, including art glass, come later.

Actually, glassworks as art rather than craft came to my attention largely through the glass-blowing compatriots of my now ex-wife (we’d save clear bottles for her circle to melt down and reform as fine-art creations) and her grandmother, a knowledgeable antiques dealer who specialized in glass collecting, which was quite appropriate considering our location in a former glassmaking mecca that included Toledo, Tiffin, and Fostoria, Ohio. (At the end of the 19^th century, an oil boom meant plenty of cheap natural gas, allowing affordable conversion of sand into glass.)

These days the Henry Melville Fuller Paperweight Collection at the Currier Art Museum in Manchester has expanding my regard for glass artifacts, even if I do head first to the paintings.

My favorite paperweight has a cobalt-colored core enveloped by clear glass. How they ever produced the swirls of bubbles remains mystifying.

A blown-glass vase created by an art student. We saved clear beer bottles for the cause.

PIPE ORGANS

November 17, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

For a classical music enthusiast like me, one of the great things about living in New England is the plethora of fine pipe organs. They’re found not just in many of the historic steeplehouses, but also in places like the city hall in Portland, Maine, or the music hall in Methuen, Massachusetts, built especially for the massive Wurlitzer, and, of course, Symphony Hall in Boston.

(They’re not, however, found in our Quaker meetinghouses, except for the occasional harmonium or a modest electronic organ in a corner. I could even point to my quibbles about the expense of building and maintaining great instruments in a house of worship, but let me add how much I appreciate listening when they’re played in good hands.)

Their very variety can be remarkable. Locally, we have an 1876 Hutchings instrument that two Eagle Scouts rescued in unplayable condition from the old Methodist chapel, carefully dismantling, numbering and cataloguing the pipes, storing them in a barn, and eventually seeing their restoration in the congregation’s new building. (Hutchings, by the way, created the original part of the organ at Boston’s Symphony Hall in 1900.) Hook and Hastings, meanwhile, is credited with an 1850 one-manual instrument at First Baptist, a 1908 two-manual at St. Charles Roman Catholic, and a 1911 two-manual at St. Thomas Episcopal. First Parish (U.C.C.) has an impressive 1995 Faucher hybrid that incorporates the building’s earlier Goodrich and Hutchings instruments. Expanding the circle a bit adds a wonderful 1975 two-manual baroque-style instrument at Durham Community Church and the oldest playable organ in America, the circa 1665 Brattle, now at St. John Episcopal in Portsmouth. (Manuals, for the uninitiated, are the number of keyboards, one atop another. And don’t overlook the incredible bass notes played by the pedals under the feet!)

Maybe I shouldn’t have been surprised, then, when I stumbled upon a four-manual keyboard in Watertown, Massachusetts. “Is it still playable,” I asked. “Oh, yes. I sit down to it from time to time,” I was told. “It has a lovely, soft sound. It was built by Aeolian-Skinner but never made leaner,” meaning the E. Power Biggs’ influence in the ‘60s, especially through his performances and recordings on the Flentrop organ at Harvard’s Busch-Reisenger Museum and his advice – or misguided advice, depending – to organ owners in that era.

I love the soft, late afternoon light in the chancel.

A NOTE ON PATRON SAINTS

November 15, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

My girlfriend in college dreamed of creating a private language all our own. In those days, I thought creativity came down like lightning bolts with something absolutely original.

What I’ve come to see instead is the fact that true creativity happens at the frontier of what’s come before. It builds within and upon a tradition and a culture. For that matter, I’ve recognized how difficult dealing with our own marvelous language can be – and how vast its resources.

The practice also reminds me how easy it is to go slack. When I’m working, I like to keep the work of another at hand, as a sharpening stone. Sometimes it’s another poet, sometimes a painter or photographer. As guiding lights. As reminders. Companions on the trail.

Of course, it’s fair to ask. Where do you turn for inspiration and models? Any places or names in particular? How do we keep going deeper or higher, or keep our instruments sharp and shiny?

THE NOVELIST STRIKES ANOTHER POSE

November 10, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

Dear Reader: Are you aware that this is a social protest novel? Have you delineated the symbolism running through construction? Can you guess the antecedent novels that most influenced the Author in his quest of the Muse? What form will his next opus assume? Will he learn from his mistakes? Does he even perceive them? Will he renounce writing? Who will turn this into his next movie? What music will be selected to amplify it?

Please clip and mail to the Author. Your comments are always appreciated.

Thank you.

The Author.

~*~

To learn more about my novels, go to my page at Smashwords.com.

BEYOND DRESSING FOR SUCCESS

November 1, 2014September 18, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ 2 Comments

Waiting in an airport lounge for their flight to arrive and begin boarding, a wife was describing to her husband the computer she had ordered (not just any computer, mind you) and then detailing the renovations required for the room they were upgrading, or perhaps it was a wing they were adding. He nodded in thoughtful agreement throughout. They appeared to be comfortably retired, and she was resolved that this was what she needed to sit down and begin writing her first novel.

Somehow, it all felt wrong.

Not the writing, but the matter of appearances, as though one begins the volume by posing for the back cover color photograph – tweed for the men, a tasteful blazer for the women. As though writing depends on the workspace itself. As though you just plump down in a picture-perfect setting and turn out a critically acclaimed bestseller. Or at least a hefty advance. It is echoed in the group photographs of famous authors one comes across in Vanity Fair, the half-dozen or more serious novelists arrayed in a two-story private library or a publisher’s corner suite overlooking Manhattan, the happily ever after with afternoon cocktails. Leather and brass.

I’ve long pondered the airport scene, attempting to nail down what has struck such a loud discordant note. Listen to published authors discuss their workspace and you often hear it comes down to a concrete block cell or a corner of an attic or even, thanks to laptops and wi-fi, a booth at McDonald’s – not an interior designer’s photo spread. We write wherever we can – sometimes, as I prefer, in solitude, or other times, as daily papers’ newsrooms, in a large office crowded with shared computers and telephones augmented by TV screens and police radio scanners. They write, I would hope, out of some urgency – some sense each one has something unique to explore and present to the world. It’s what Bukowksi called his daily “butt time.” It’s what you put in to be a writer, the dues you pay, the actual effort rather than any posturing.

This is not a matter of comfort. The best writing, I will argue, comes with discomfort. It’s hard, after all, doing good work. Finishing the first draft is just the beginning, leading into multiple revisions and a pile of correspondence (much of it unanswered, even when the obligatory SASEs are included) attempting to connect with an agent and publisher before embarking on the marketing of the finished work – one of the five hundred or so novels published that week.

Did the retired beginner actually complete a first draft? Or did she find excuses along the way? Did her health hold up? (Writing demands more physical strength than one imagines – especially in maintaining the mental concentration of developing the characters and plot turns.) Did she have a storehouse of memories and exotic experiences to draw upon or a long gestated outline to quickly fill in? Had she done her homework in devising a story fitting a tightly defined marketing niche – one that would easily sell? Had she filled suitcases with letters, notes, and snapshots to prompt specific details or sketched in a lifetime of personal journals? Did she possess crucial contacts who would come to bear on publication?

There’s more to writing than looking like an Author – whatever that is. Maybe in the ensuing years she succeeded. But at the airport gateway, she gave no awareness of the actual struggle ahead. I, for one, cannot wait for the perfect space to appear. Rather, I’ve settled in to work where I could and then plugged away, between sleeping and the commute to my paying job.

THE RELIGIOUS TWIST

October 27, 2014August 31, 2014 ~ Jnana Hodson ~ Leave a comment

While my personal struggle bobbled between practicality and art for its own sake, the yoga and Quaker teachings introduced new tensions. Consider:

Creativity? No, God creates. Man discovers. Man cultivates and brings culture and learning, nurtures, softens, establishes coherence. This is the difference between the artist who submits to a greater power and the one who tries to use it for his own ends. The first desires to serve God, by whatever name or description; the second, his or her own ego.

Which leads to: Problems of the ego. Gertie Stein: Every writer wants to be told how good he is, how good he is, how good he is. Insecurities!

Yet in yoga, all for God: the sacrifice, the labor gifted to generate good karma. (As if your boss is another deity, rather than bottom-line motivated and conscious. Here’s a letter of commendation plus your pink slip.)

Early church father Tertullian warned, in De Spectaculis, Latin circa 200 C.E. Essentially: “The Author of truth loves no falsehood: all that is feigned is adultery in His sight. The man who counterfeits voice, sex or age, who makes a show of false love, anger, sighs and tears He will not approve, for He condemns all hypocrisy. . . . Why should it be lawful to see what it is a crime to do?” (Translation by Kenneth Morse).

These are hard charges, along with the seduction of “preaching for sin,” as George Fox warned.

So to examine the multiplicity of personality / goals / desires. Just who am I? Who are you? Empathy. Anger. Bliss. All the rest.

Honesty. Our dark sides. Do we really express our weakest aspect in our art? (In vocal ministry, how often the message comes from that area of our current conflict!)

Versus becoming so rarified we lose all sense of joy and delight. The danger of Plainness or strictness, that it suffocates personality, makes us so humbled we cannot move forward in the Holy Spirit to perform bold action. Crushes or stifles the imagination.

So how do we make a living without violating our beliefs? (Military-industrial extensive penetration of all facets of American society: not even the universities immune.)

Or how do you practice your art to the fullest, without undue restraint, while still being faithful?