Tag: artist

Musings on an Artful Life: Art as Inquiry

Barbara Wentzell JaquithLeave a comment

I have long believed that the power of art lies in its ability to raise important questions. Art that raises questions aids introspection, both personal and social, and can move us forward in our critical thinking. And critical thinking has never been more important in our society than right now!

I recently reread a good book on my shelf that has gathered dust for some time. In Warren Berger’s book, The Book of Beautiful Questions the “questionologist” asserts that good questions can be catalysts and create forward movement.  They can be transforming and life changing.  Questions can surprise, disturb, excite, inspire, and nudge us.  They can act as a lighthouse that illuminates where we need to go next.

When I stand in front of a blank white canvas ready to start a new piece, it is always time to wrestle with important questions. “Who will this piece say that I am?  Does it surprise, disturb, excite, inspire or nudge?  How will this piece help me relate to others? Who will this piece speak to? Will it speak to the already joyful, stable and healthy?  Or will it speak to those who may be  broken, fearful, doubting, oppressed, marginalized?”  

As artists, our creative call is to pay attention, to notice, to listen for the questions at work within us, among us, around us in the dailiness of our lives. For me personally, my creative call is to produce art that inquires. And the inquiry starts as soon as a new piece is conceived. When a new blank white canvas confronts me, daring me to make that first mark, I pause and inquire:

How will this piece add to the collective worldview that I envision?  

What questions will this piece ask? What invitation does it issue to seekers?

What is drawing or attracting me?  What is grabbing my soul?

What am I resisting and why?

The world feels a bit fragile today, full of collective searching. This state of yearning makes asking the right questions important. It is also important to craft our artistic inquiry with the right questions. Perhaps we need less focus on what is wrong with our world. Perhaps we need less focus on how we can fix it and , instead, begin with a different question:

What does the world we want to live in look like?

If we can imagine that world that we would want to live in, we can then dare to live out that question with fresh creative ideas, with tenderness and compassion for others. If we can imagine that world, we can paint it, sing it, dance it, express it! We can bring it to life for others through art.

 May we continue to contemplate important questions, alone in front of the introspection of an easel and out loud in healthy community debate.  And may we pursue artistic inquiry as a sacred invitation to learn and grow together in unity for our world.

As Above, So Below, 2023

This is a detail of an oil on canvas and micron pen sculptural collage. The inspiration is a school of jellyfish drifting off the Dry Tortugas, between Key West and Cuba that I saw while scuba diving. They’re mesmerizing to watch, as they gracefully drift and gently pulse through the water, with tentacles wafting behind. Although they are fragile, they are also strong, efficient swimmers with effective defense mechanisms. This piece asks how we can embrace both the soft and the powerful aspects of ourselves to live gracefully. This piece is three-dimensional and sculptural, wrapping around three sides of the canvas.

Available at https://BarbaraWentzellJaquith.com

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Alone in the Dark with Strangers

Barbara Wentzell JaquithLeave a comment

Barbara Wentzell Jaquith, Lovering Studio

As someone who does not fall asleep with the deep exhaustion of middle age anymore, I’m grateful to be living in the age of podcasts. I’m grateful for their late-night companionship coming to me through headphones in bed before drifting off. These podcasters raise questions and offer perspectives I’ve never even considered. Some offer interresting food for thought and seeds for personal growth and they take me to places I cannot travel. Most shift me from my active engagement in daytime studio life to a slower place of percolating ideas where the next piece of artwork will surely be born.

Under the warm down comforter, I settle in to welcome these strangers and their perspectives speaking to me in the dark. There is something intimate about being the only person listening to a speaker through headphones. It is a very personal experience (if you can put aside the fact that thousands of others have also listened to the same message). But right now, in this muted room it is just us. I am a rapt audience of one, alone in the dark with strangers.

I try to use discretion regarding which strangers I let into my head. I am curious about lots of things, but unless it has some thread of simple kindness or uplifting beauty, even in suffering, I opt out. After all, time is limited and there is still so much to learn!

Last night I had some alone time with Author James Patterson. He was the stranger in my head as I listened to him being interviewed on a podcast. He was asked what motivates him. He said that early on in his career, he heard a quote that reminded him that his time was limited, and because of that, he should ask himself, “So what can I do most beautifully?” For Patterson, that clarified what became his life’s calling: telling stories.

The question Patterson asks himself highlights the importance of bringing beauty into our lives whenever and wherever we are able. Intentionally seeking beauty is soul work that can lead to our creative transformation over time. If we are inspired and energized by the beauty around us, we are then best able to create more and share it.

This is what any storytelling does. By telling stories through music, culinary arts, painting, dance and such, artists find the right questions. The artist poses the question, but the observer must be able to look for it. I would suggest that the true beauty may not be immediately apparent to our senses in a finished piece, but rather, it lies in the question that is being posed by the artist.

That’s why I delight in the company of others who have a love affair with words, a need for whimsy, the arts, storytelling, music, compassion, activism, and of course, for small kindnesses. When one human being asks another: “Do you find this beautiful?”  an invitation to engage in sacred questioning and critical thinking is issued.

Art invites a closer look into the strangers we are taking into our lives and the questions they ask. If our entire day consists of a twenty-four-hour news cycle that blares stories of humankind’s inhumanity to others through war, conflict, racism, and cruelty run the risk of becoming numb to the suffering of others.

But beauty can be a vaccine against violence. To ask beautiful questions, we need to inoculate ourselves with a dose of curiosity and wonder. We need to invite in the strangers and the questions they raise that make us more alive and hopeful. We need to counteract the strangers who make us apathetic and divided, choosing instead to attend to what makes us more whole.

The Vermillion Cliffs, 2023

Watercolor on Archival Paper, 10 x 7

Available at https://BarbaraWentzellJaquith.com