Down, but Far from Out
Perspectives from The Artist's Road
Being laid up the way I (John) am, currently has the benefit of lots of time just to think about art and puzzle over the brokenness in the world. Rather than retreat in despair to the solitudes of my studio as a reaction to the darkness outside, I’m choosing to agree with the late Toni Morrison’s take on times like these. In 2004, she said,
“This is precisely the time when artists go to work. There is no time for despair, no place for self-pity, no need for silence, no room for fear. We speak, we write, we do language.That is how civilizations heal. I know the world is bruised and bleeding, and though it is important not to ignore its pain, it is also critical to refuse to succumb to its malevolence. Like failure, chaos contains information that can lead to knowledge - even wisdom. Like art.”
Wise words indeed for all of us Sensitives who can easily fall into feeling alone, hurt and abandoned by the world, isolated as many of us are who primarily work alone all day, alone with our thoughts, alone with our grief. But that is the way we lose. Morrison’s words are the way to see our art as empowering and as necessary to the world as it is to us. It can be the remedy for all those despairing feelings. Take heart and power up your creative energies to shine your light out for others to see! They need what art can provide—hope, inspiration, imagination—an open door to a larger vision of this mysterious existence, and, perhaps greatest of all, a spiritual uplift that can be revisited whenever the need. Right now, the need is great.
I was reminded of this last week when a businesswoman, whom we did not know, suddenly bought several paintings of ours for her new offices from a good friend who was showing them for us. Just at the moment when we needed a sale, she so needed what art can provide she did not hesitate. That lifted us up in a vulnerable moment. But I believe that her decision was motivated by far more than decorating a space with pretty pictures.
There is a hunger in the world for what artists can do. I think that a new cultural Renaissance is coming soon, and we artists need to be fully engaged when it happens. We need to be up and running, with our heads high and our eyes wide open. We have a responsibility to rise to the opportunities of the moment and embrace the coming new dawn. Andiamo!
In The Artist’s Road Store
In this follow-up to his international bestsellers Anam Cara and Eternal Echoes, John O’Donohue turns his attention to the subject of beauty—the divine beauty that calls the imagination and awakens all that is noble in the human heart.
Beauty is a gentle but urgent call to awaken. O’Donohue opens our eyes, hearts, and minds to the wonder of our own relationship with beauty by exposing the infinity and mystery of its breadth. His words return us to the dignity of silence, profundity of stillness, power of thought and perception, and the eternal grace and generosity of beauty’s presence.
In this masterful and revelatory work, O’Donohue encourages our greater intimacy with beauty and celebrates it for what it really is: a homecoming of the human spirit. As he focuses on the classical, medieval, and Celtic traditions of art, music, literature, nature, and language, O’Donohue reveals how beauty’s invisible embrace invites us toward new heights of passion and creativity even in these uncertain times of global conflict and crisis.