OUR CREATIVE MUSE, VISUAL ARTIST, LINDA HANKIN
Arts Place Gallery, Port Colborne, February 1, 2014
This winter has been especially hard on me for several reasons. Before I get into why it was hard, I will tell you why it was a good thing. I live alone in a drafty farmhouse built in 1875, and long ago I decided to install a wood stove to heat the two largest rooms on the first floor. I also noticed that I had to sleep with my three cats and dog in the living room with the wood stove. I was the keeper of warmth for all four of us. It was a big responsibility. Many times the fire went out during the night, it was either get up from under the covers and go to the shed where I stored the wood or freeze and worry about it in the morning. Once the decision was made, of course the fire didn’t start right away after putting in the logs because the last of the embers were not hot enough to catch the newly installed cold, damp wood. The cats had taken refuge with the dog, keeping warm with his body heat. The black cat did not get along with the dog, so she kept vigil at the mouse hole in the kitchen. Yentl, I noticed, was the only working animal in the house. Sure, all this is well and good, nostalgic stories to tell the grandchildren, but there are none. However, subliminaly, these stories filtered down into my work somehow. For example, I will show you some images I did during the winter. I was attracted to the little knic nacs I purchased in Canada, the U.K. and Newfoundland. I still think of Newfoundland as a separate unique Island not associated at all with Canada. I probably reached for these objects because of the child-like quality they projected; for example I did paintings of a dressed up owl, wolf, cat, squirrel, tea pot, angels, horses, hazel nut shells, windmills, an elf, an image of a cross I borrowed from a pair of earrings I bought in New Orleans and more. These were readily available on my table in the living room by the wood stove. These paintings were the beginnings of something else. I also noticed that these objects were painted on very small surfaces, a very intimate space, with delft brushstrokes. I was pleased with my focus – uncanny, curious and satisfying all at the same time.
Now everyone, this was my first draft below.
Hello Everyone, again, if you were at my last visit. I am Linda Hankin, a visual artist, painter of things around me. My latest interest is little objects that are in front of me and easy to set up. For example, I’ve been attracted to three dimensional objects, such as angels, clowns, horses, knic-knacs, etc. However, I also paint small paintings of landscapes, florals, portraits and the ocean. I’ve painted in Newfoundland on eight occasions and in Wales. Because of my travels and limited space in my knap sack, I had to carry small pieces to paint on. I enjoyed the intimate space I had to work on, it helped me to stay focused. In June, again I decided to travel to Newfoundland, and again I brought my small surfaces. This time I drove my car and that was a fine experience. As you know there is more to this story than what I had just reported.
Always alone, where ever and what ever I am doing, I have been attracted to ideas of phenomenonon, the fourth dimension, spiritual, mystical painting and ideas. I love the idea of a dream door, I love what authors say about pictures inviting the eye not to rush along, but to rest a while and dwell. Joseph Campbell.
“Let the picture rule, like reading a book, turning pages and stopping anywhere you would like”.
A door is opened to an inward world unknown to waking consciousness. I do not sleep well, I wish I did, however I noticed during any part of the day or night, I will get very sleepy due to my lack of sleep. I fought the urge to sleep, but then I fall into a very deep sleep, waking up periodically. During these half conscious moments, I noticed shadows around me in the form of a person or the other day for three seconds I saw an ornament of an angel dangling above my head. I wasn’t afraid, but curious. There was some high mystery going on. “Our unconscious is ageless, sexless, experiences of birth and death, millions of years at your command, immortal, and eternal”. Jung
I love reading many books, not completely, but I look for words, passages, chapters that describe what I am painting at the time. “I am yesterday, today and tomorrow and I have the power to be born a second time” book of the dead That conjures up a lot of discussion. SHOW PAINTING
I am also interested in the winter solstice and summer solstice. I am interested in how the earth is attracted to the sun. I am curious about the moon and the ocean tides. See the book by David Abrams about the whirls on our finger tips and toe tips. I am curious about pre historic cultures, history. Show painting of elf with Mithra’s persian hat. Where did that attraction come from? The little ornament was found on the ground by my mother.
Ideas of above and below, upper and lower. The above comes downward and the below mounts aloft. I see this in my work, such as the wind, clouds. David Abram wrote about the wind carrying messages from afar. Good and bad messages are carried by the wind. I love the idea of looking up to something unexplainable like Barnet Newman’s Zipper paintings. Or the Ziggurat (lofty) pyramids. These are symbols of heavenly energies to elevate the mind and heart, of contemplation and to allow a scale of decent for the Gods to come down to earth. Campbell See my high horizon line paintings, they are very high.
Think of the long decent from high to the earth. I love ideas associated with the moon, “lord of the tides of life”. Same for the stars and sun – the ultimate governing powers of the cosmos. I have been painting stars in my paintings for quite a few years. Looking up high to the mountain elevated from earthly to transcendtal (beyond the limits)concerns. These always look heavenward, churches, temples, cathedrals. I am curious about the earth as having 13 heavens arranged in layers and 9 underworlds also arranged in layers, over each of which presided its own special god. This reminds me about my dreams, waking up in one of those planes or layers and seeing those shadows.
Do you know the hidden laws of nature? Every form, no matter how crude contains the image of its creator concealed within it. Lawren Harris believed in this. God is in nature, nature is in God.
I am also interested in the five elements. Space, air, fire, water and earth. It is written that each one of these were assigned one of the five senses, hearing, touch, sight, taste and smell. Like the Chinese five elements are wood, fire, earth, metal and water. I use these elements when I study my work or the work of other artists, The work speaks for itself.
I have been reading Dr. Richard Maurice Bucke’s book on Cosmic Consciousness. I can see that Dr. Bucke’s book was researched by Ann Davis in her book, “The Logic of Ecstasy”. Ann Davis wrote about the five Canadian painters who used mystical form rather than aesthetic form in their paintings. The painters were Lawren Harris, Emily Carr, Fred Varley, Bertram Brooker and Jock Macdonald. Dr. Bucke wrote about Cosmic Consciousness, a higher form of consciousness. In his book he writes instances of cosmic consciousness and lists the names of Buddha, Jesus the Christ, Paul, Plottinus, Mohammed, Dante, Bartolome Las Casas, Yepes, Bacon, Behmen, Blake, Balzac, Walt Whitman, Carpenter. Anyway….It was Walt Whitman that the five Canadian painters loved. They stated, “here is a man who receives images of spiritual and material things from without and transmits them again without the least thought of what will the world say of this idea and how will the world like this form of expression, or into what form did such a great poet cast his thought”. Bucke wrote a wonderful biography of Walt Whitman describing what Whitman looked like, how tall he was, the colour of his skin, the smell of his clean clothes, it is a wonderful read. Bucke wrote about the traits of a person who had cosmic consciousness. Walt Whitman was the epitome of this sense of immortality, distinct individuality, illumination, moral, intellectual, etc. I have the book with me today.
The world of imagination is the world of eternity.
Again, I refer to Ann Davis’ brilliant book, The Logic of Ecstasy. Walt Whitman is quoted in one full chapter. Here I took several sentences for you to understand how artists and poets connect or another’s need. “The individual soul can be and go anywhere. The poet, the creative person, is the joiner, the link between one individual and unity”. But, that one person’s poem could not completely fulfill another’s needs because each must come to see for himself or herself in order to achieve genuine divine unity. Not to extend this talk for very long, I am an admirer of these five artists that Ann Davis has gathered together. Carr was struggling with her painting The Mountain. Her animals were sick and some had to be put down, Carr was distressed and thus plunged into her work, Carr writes, “Oh, these mountains, great bundles of contradiction, hard, cold austere, disdainful, remote yet gentle, spiritual, appealing! Oh, you mountains, I am at your feet – humble, pleading! Speak to me in your wordless words! I claim my brotherhood to you. We are of the same substance for there is only one substance. God is all there is. There is one life, God Life, that flows through all. He that formed me formed you. Oh, Father of all, raise my consciousness to that sense of oneness with the universal. Help me to express Thee. Do Thou use me as a channel, help me to keep myself clear, open, receptive to Thy will.
Anyway, Carr did not find her mountain painting progressed smoothly. She felt overwhelmed, like a tiny rowboat trying to tow the mountain into port through rough seas. But after reading Whitman to America she thought she had a grasp on her needed combination….Carr stated “It began to move, it was near to speaking…but it eluded her again…Finally, she captured the movement, the presence, its bulk, its immobility. Carr felt in her bones something throbbing, a tremendous power behind things. She learned this from Walt Whitman, “Song of the Rolling Earth” Were you thinking that those were words, those upright lines? Those curves, angles, dots? No, those are not the words, the substantial words are in the ground and sea, they are in the air, they are in you”.
Bucke stated that he has heard him speak of hearing the grass grow and the trees coming out in leaf. p. 216
Lets look at some paintings! Did anyone bring in artwork for me to talk about?
To be added to talk:
Transfiguration, illumination, esp. Seen on the face, The colour of Mose’s face shone.
Gertrude Stein: I have served hard duty during the war.
Me: What feels like a war. p. 241 Gertrude Stein
What is a genius? They are extraordinary individuals, who are exentric, breaks the rules minor or major. They are poets, artists, musicians. They use metaphors, dissimilar things, almost schizophrenic, they have a mental instability, not immediately obvious.
I am interested in storytelling in art, especially from the unconscious mind. unconscious expression is hard to suppress or control. The artist is an extension of God’s mind and hand.
Another author I have mentioned before either to those present or in a lecture is David Abrams. David is a magician, and environmental philosopher. I was enamoured when I read his first published book entitled, The Spell of the Sensuous. In one of the chapters about Wind and Spirit on the Great Plains spoke to me visually and clearly about the invisible nature of the air. Indigenous beliefs and teachings regarding this elemental mystery are among the most sacred and secret oral traditions. p. 228
Wind existed first, as a person, and when the Earth began its existence Wind
took care of it. Whorls here at the tips of our fingers and toes, the wind exists on us here where soft spots are, where there are spirals. There are spirals on our heads. The spirals on our toes hold us to the earth, the spirals on our finger tips holds us to the sky. We do not fall when we move about. It is the wind that enables us to speak. We speak only by means of the breath, the collective breath, the power of language. It is only by wind that we talk. It exists at the tip of our tongues. Winds exist all around and within the individual, entering and departing through respiratory organs and whorls on the body’s surface. That which is within and that which surrounds one is all the same and it is HOLY.
It is an invisible medium that we are immersed in that provides us with conscious thoughts….p. 234
…..Such little winds from the four directions dwell not only in human ears, but in the ears or earlike aspects of all living things,….It is thus that other animals, for instance, know what we humans are thinking about them: “When we are thinking well of them – horses, cattle, goats, and everything that we live by-they know about it by means of wind. They know our thinking.
Read p. 235
Awareness of the Air: p. 237 The Navajo’s intuition that the psyche is not an immaterial power that resides inside us, but is rather the invisible yet thoroughly palpable medium in which we along with the trees, the squirrel, and the clouds are immersed. BREATH or a gust of wind
I love meanings of words. Emily Carr and Gertrude Stein were wordsmiths.
I have a lot of books. I love all my books, they surround me while I sit in the living room on my 9 foot orange couch that is shared with my poodle and three cats. The winter has been brutally cold, with blowing snow, heard whipping against the house. The woodstove could scarcely keep us warm with the freezing temperatures, blankets over all the animals, and myself with hat, gloves and scarf on while reading through my books. I read, and reread passages of interest, writing down what I needed for events like today, to share with you.
I wish to thank Joyce Honsberger for inviting me to this fine event and to all who came today. I will be here again on Saturday, February 15th at 1 p.m.
Cosmic Consciousness: A higher form of consciousness. Of life and order of the universe, intellectual enlightenment, illumination, moral exaltation, elation, joyousness, sense of immortality, a consciousness of eternal life, not that he/she has it
Mysticism: An intenser life, sharper consciousness, passionate communion with deeper levels of life than those with which we usually deal. Contemplative consciousness. Highly developed intuition, absolute sensation, a pure feeling state, pure receptivity, aware of emotion and intuition.
Theosophy and the Fourth Dimension: Ancient wisdom, unity between science and religion. The notion of time is an incomplete sensation….those who have a higher spatial sense than ours are those who have “higher intuition” and have joined that intuition with higher emotions and higher intellect”. Matter, therefore, is an illusion. Like time and motion, it is a product of our limited vision. Giving up matter, time, and motion, the ability to discern the four-dimensional world requires great sensitivity, higher emotions, the soul of the artist can understand and feel the reflection of the hidden side of life. The artist must be a clairvoyant, he must see which others do not see, he must be a magician: must possess the power to make others see that which they do not themselves see, but which he does see.
Higher consciousness, cosmic consciousness,…
Bibliography (rough)
Charmed Circle by James R. Mellow, a book about Gertrude Stein & Company
The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abrams, a book about the environment, ecology, philosophy.
The Golden Bough, by J. G. Frazer, a book about The Classic Study in Magic and Religion.
Cosmic Consciousness, by Richard Maurice Bucke, a book about a higher
form of consciousness
The Logic of Ecstasy, by Ann Davis, a book about Canadian Mystical Painting 1920-1940
I can recommend additional books from my library.
[…] OUR CREATIVE MUSE, February 1, 2014 […]