Here’s another cryptic photograph for your rorschaching pleasure. What do you think was really in front of the camera? What might the sort of person who sees saints on a taco see? If you were in a therapists office and this was a polychrome inkblot, what would it bring to mind?
If you want to analyze carefully, based on evidence and knowledge, go for it! If you prefer to extrapolate wildly, hey that’s cool too. If you just want to make outrageous shit up, well it’s not like there isn’t a precedent. Just do it as an art form.
I have a pair of hip waders. Nothing fancy. Not your hootsie tootsie high-end Orvis sort of hip waders. I’d taken an aquatic entomology class (Say Didymops three times fast!) and the smallest size of wader available for use was two sizes too big for me. I did what I could by wearing extra socks to make my feet fit somewhat more securely in the boots, but it didn’t help much. I had to walk into streams and rivers to do kick samples and the rocks were slippery. If the current was running fast, it was tricky. I did not like sliding around inside the boots, thank you very much. So I went out and bought myself a cheap pair of waders.
A lot of atheists like to keep their heads down. Historically, it’s been that or lose ‘em. Recently that has changed and to some it must seem like every atheist in the world is screaming from the rooftops.
Not hardly. Not no how. For every out atheist I know personally, I know a dozen cryptic ones. These are people who don’t want to make ripples, people who don’t want the attention. Their atheism isn’t necessarily a big secret. They simply aren’t given to PDA, public displays of atheism.
Artists have a reputation for being extroverts, but that is not always the case. In fact, I’m not even sure that extroverts are in the majority in arts communities. Yet even shy artists want their work to be seen.
I suspect that the majority of artists would rather just go about making art and don’t much care for the business of promoting their work. Never you mind me, I’ll be in the studio. But they suck it up and go out to get their art in the public eye.
Do you see what I’m getting at here? I’m looking for those of you who live in the overlap of art and atheism.
We’d like to know about your art.
If you are an artist, and you are an atheist, I’d like to learn about the art you are doing. I’d like to know to what extent your atheism influences your art and your life. And I’d like to share your art here on Biodork at Freethought Blogs. My gmail address is Atheists.Artists@ and I’m waiting to hear from you.
Light up some incense, if that helps. Crank up some new age music. Break out the wind chimes. Lay out some crystals. Surely you must have a geological souvenir from the gift shop of a children’s museum? No? Well, hell, how about rock candy? Table sugar is a crystal. Sprinkle some of that around. Just set the mood, will ya?
Comfy? Got your mind wide open with the breeze blowing over all those meaty lobes? Good.
This is a post by guest blogger Ellen Bulger, written during the cold and long winter of December 2010.
Winsor Locks, CT
In a rarely-seen or photographed event, thousands of hapless jellyfish on their way to spawn were stranded and frozen along the shores of the Connecticut River last week. The gelatinous creatures are not uncommon, but usually go unnoticed because they are a cold water species. But the necessities of reproduction bring them together in great numbers this time of year, as they return to their traditional spawning grounds. A freakish combination of weather conditions allowed lucky and observant onlookers to enjoy this serendipitous spectacle.
“As a rule, we don’t even notice them.” explained Caleb Shoeworthy, whose family have fished these waters for shad for five generations. “The thing is, you just can’t see them in the river. They have no color. You could have half a dozen of them in that bucket and you’d swear there was nothing but water. Even the big ones are pretty much invisible.”
One of the interesting things about being an aging human is how our flavor preferences can change. Senses are dull a bit, which is a bummer. But no dark cloud is without some silver lining. With muted taste buds some previously overwhelming foods become, as Ms. Goldilocks would put it, just right.
I’ve always craved bitter greens. Cooked or raw, you can’t feed me too much arugula. But until recently I’ve never been fond of bitter and sweet combinations in confections unless there was also an acid component.
Then I started drinking Sanbittèr, a non-alcoholic Campari made by Pellegrino. It came in tiny bottles, a serving size that even Michael Bloomberg would endorse. What’s more, the vivid red color of the stuff was like a stop sign in a glass. It provided such heavy sensory input that you didn’t require much at all. Drinking it was a crazy little contradictory ride. I loved it.
Despite the most adorable packaging in the world, Sanbittèr wasn’t popular in the states. It was less popular, even, than Marmite (another of my middle-aged flavor kicks). I had to go to Italian-import specialty stores to find Sanbittèr. Then not long ago, it vanished off the shelves. I couldn’t get my fun little treat any more.
At the same time, the parent company extended their successful Limonata line with grapefruit and blood orange sodas. Most domestic soda is all high-fructose corn syrup and artificial flavoring. But get this, those crazy Italians use sugar and actual fruit!
But the swap of Sanbittèr for Aranciata Rossa echoes marketing trends where only best sellers are marketed. Harry Potter and Batman and pasty pouty vampires are available at every chain pharmacy and big box outlet. And you know there are a lot of people who don’t care fuck all about wizards or comic book crime fighters or teeny-bopper bloodsuckers. But because their interests are diverse, they become invisible to the marketers as there’s no one big homogenized target to hit. I want to take a stand at the grocery store and rip out the invasive Oreo-branded products that are expanding down the cookie aisle like the baked goods version of Phragmites grass. Screw it. I’ll bake my own cookies.
In brick and mortar retail, try to find a copy of “Schizopolis” or, oh, anything by Fellini. And yes, we can find just about anything via internet. But you can’t Google something if you can’t even imagine it exists. It is a struggle to maintain the public memory of the possibilities of offbeat, bittersweet alternatives. No, no, no say I! I won’t drink the cultural Kool-aid. If you don’t have what I want, I’ll find it elsewhere, I’ll make it myself. And I might just team up with other people who crave Persian mint yogurt soda or homemade sumac syrup with seltzer. If I sit and sip shandy with these people, I’ll get insights about soda pop that Coke drinkers would never imagine.
So too with Atheism Plus. Diversity can be challenging and stressful. But those who resist it don’t realize how much they stand to gain by embracing it. It’s interesting. It’s exciting. It’s delicious.
When the lines of engagement are drawn, most everyone counts science on the side of atheism. But many theists claim art as theirs and theirs alone. Atheists, we are told, are cold, bitter, empty souls. “Look,” we are admonished, “look at all the great art that was created in the name of religion.” Endlessly we hear how artists come down on the side of god.
I hear the magnificent musical masses and songs of praise. I can’t take my eyes off the soaring cathedrals with their stained glass and altar triptychs. But you think those things are proof that creativity springs from a god? Then you are so not an artist.
Artists need to eat. Artists need to buy materials. Artists need a place to live and work. Artists need their work to be seen because it is, after all, COMMUNICATION.
Artists need to be safe from persecution. Not for nothing, if you do sculpture or painting in a totalitarian state, you seriously increase your chances for sponsorship by perfecting a style of portraiture that reflects back at the PTB like Snow White’s Stepmother’s mirror. You might even extend your life expectancy. During much of Europe’s history, you towed the line of whatever Christian sect was dominant at the given time, or you risked your life, never mind getting a big fat generous patron. The only grants available during the dark ages were from the church. It is no coincidence that the fundies want to shut down the NEA.
But having been through the art school route, I can tell you that there is damn little discussion of god. Or rather, god gets no more attention than science or politics and considerably less attention than light, form, color, composition and, oh yes, sex and death. As far as I can tell, contemporary artists explore god mostly as a concept. Artists are less interested about god than they are in man’s relationship to god, in much the same way as they are interested in man’s relationship to everything else. Doubtless there are exceptions. And if artists want to question god and religion, they aren’t necessarily vocal about it. What they do is, put those questions into their work and then display it and let the public do the interpreting. Artists might rub your nose in issues public and private, but they won’t necessarily spell it out for you. You are required to participate.
The artists I know who are atheists are quiet atheists. And there are artists who are quietly religious. But the public discussion between artists is not one of “Let us strive to express the glory of god!” as some would have you believe.
The pandering politicians who bristle at contemporary art yearn for the good old days. Yet their very reactionary reactiveness has elevated Serrano’s Piss Christ into an iconic work of historical significance. Do they realize that? Mustn’t it just, you should pardon the expression, grill their cheese?
Many conservatives would like all art to be propagandist patriotic or comforting mirrors to the collective narcissism. It’s queasy making. Really, atheists should get together and commission a spectacularly tacky 30-ft bronze of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. It would be a droll and delightful project. And we should install it in the lobby of a National Museum of Atheism. I’m envisioning a modest-yet-imposing marble structure of Greek revival-style architecture. We should raise money and acquire an existing building or build one right in D.C.. Then wait and pray for Banksy to come along and tag the motherfuckin’ shit out of the exterior. EVEN IF HE IS CRITICIZING US. Wear it proudly, like the best ink EVER.
Great art often makes people uncomfortable. Like science, art is an exploration. Art is also communication. Science asks, what do we know, what is real? Sometimes art just says LOOK, and leaves the rest up to you. Art often asks, what do we think, and why do we think it? The Mormon Tabernacle Choir makes music, not history. They don’t change the way people think about music and sound and the world. They don’t challenge us.
Creative expression is not magical, even if observer and artist alike are often unaware of the processes at work. The religious think that art is a gift from god. Scientists act like they suspect artists are idiot savants.
What both sides miss is that art is problem solving. Artists, like scientists, build on the work of those who came before them. But unlike scientists, they are free to ignore the old knowledge and head off in an entirely new direction. Instead of standing on shoulders, artists might choose to tie some giant shoelaces together to catch the Titans unaware.
Art can simultaneously be freewheeling and an intellectual exercise, though often a non-verbal one. Art is banging together concept rocks in your head to make sparks, make FIRE. To really dig it, you have to let go. You can’t just be comfortable with uncertainty, you have to seek it. You have to crave it. Or so it seems to me.
These are my thoughts. I’m just one artist, a very tiny sample size of me. I’d like to hear from other artists who are atheists and see what they have to say. I’d like to feature their art here.
As atheists, we believe that man created god, not the other way around. As artists? Hell, we just get down to work and create.
About the Quasi Cryptic photograph of last week – It is indeed a pair of submerged plastic watering cans. They were resting in a water barrel sitting in the middle of a squash field at a family farm in Bethel, Connecticut. The algal slop is charged with hopeful intentions, that or random bird poo. I’m gonna market it as nature’s own cure for woo. Instruct a homeopathist to soak his head in it. I don’t have data to prove this will help, but we can always hope.
Yucky stuff, that slime, but also a glorious color, so it shares more than one attribute with lime Jell-O. The green glows because light is flooding it from all sides. It was that electric color that caught my eye. I pulled my camera out of my pocket and stuck it in the bucket for a few shots. I saw white and faded red plastic submerged, but I didn’t realize what it was until I got home and uploaded the photos to my computer. I was thrilled! I love the shadows. I love the curves. I love the way the waterers float, nested against each other in a yin-yang embrace. I cackled. I drummed a happy little tattoo with my heels. And it slays me that I hadn’t realized what they were.
The floating shoes comment made me think about the Hansa Carrier. And so my thoughts do drift…
About the Quasi Cryptic photograph of last week – It is indeed a pair of submerged plastic watering cans. They were resting in a water barrel sitting in the middle of a squash field at a family farm in Bethel, Connecticut. The algal slop is charged with hopeful intentions, that or random bird poo. I’m gonna market it as nature’s own cure for woo. Instruct a homeopathist to soak his head in it. I don’t have data to prove this will help, but we can always hope.
Yucky stuff, that slime, but also a glorious color, so it shares more than one attribute with lime Jell-O. The green glows because light is flooding it from all sides. It was that electric color that caught my eye. I pulled my camera out of my pocket and stuck it in the bucket for a few shots. I saw white and faded red plastic submerged, but I didn’t realize what it was until I got home and uploaded the photos to my computer. I was thrilled! I love the shadows. I love the curves. I love the way the waterers float, nested against each other in a yin-yang embrace. I cackled. I drummed a happy little tattoo with my heels. And it slays me that I hadn’t realized what they were.
The floating shoes comment made me think about the Hansa Carrier. And so my thoughts do drift…
People see all kinds of things in the random patterns of clouds, wood grain, inkblots and even in the carbonization of food. The browning of buttery bread, tortillas or cheese releases delicious flavors, not messages from on high. It is one thing to see a bunny in a fluffy cloud. When you are seeing a deity in a mold stain on drywall, you really need to ask yourself some hard questions. Why would a deity want to be represented in mildew or even Velveeta? And should you cut back on your drinking?
While people often see things that do not exist, the flip side is we often don’t recognize things that are in full view. So I offer this photograph. Can you see what is really here? And if so, how long did it take you?
