WHAT ON EARTH IS ENERGISM?

Artwork by Alex Grey

As a university student at the faculty of comparative religion (or the science of religion, as it is called in Finland), I was studying the New Age movement as a phenomenon. I remember being warned by my mentor that the way spiritual people talk about energy is not scientific, and so one could postulate that they simply don't know what they are talking about. Of course, I believe in a kind of energy that isn't measurable with the tools we have today, and it's not just about energy that comes about through a metabolic or other physical process of transformation. To be honest, I don't really care what physicists think, because energy in the esoteric sense is perfectly real to me. I can sense it in many different ways. Some artists, however, feel that they can express various levels of energies in their art. This makes me a bit curious.

A year ago I wrote a blog post about spiritual art and how so much of it is really bad art. I was checking out some visionary art the other day and was wondering why on earth I find so much of it quite annoying. Some of it follows the school of "energism" which attempts to visualise the energies we can't see. Many would probably agree that Vincent van Gogh did just that in his paintings - and look how popular he is! In his art, the energy is however very much part of the scenery, not a byproduct but actually it. It's not quite what I see in contemporary art that depicts energies, where the energy is often there on top of the physical being or object (check out these paintings for instance).

Vincent van Gogh: "Starry Night" 1889

Alex Grey is a contemporary artist much revered by my favourite integral thinker Ken Wilber who speaks of gross, subtle and causal levels of existence. I watched a lecture Alex Grey had given and it helped me see what he's trying to do. I do find it all a bit dogmatic and not terribly original though. I would love to visit "Cosm", an area in the USA created by him and his friends. "The mission of CoSM is to build an enduring sanctuary of visionary art to inspire and evolve the creative spirit" - it certainly looks like a very intriguing place. Somehow it's almost as if this kind of art lends itself better in and on buildings than as conventional paintings, and it's probably easier to overlook a certain kitschiness when you're overwhelmed by awe in front of the scale and a sense of sheer majesty. It reminds me of Art Deco, which was quite a commercial style but in some cases quite wonderfully glamorous, majestic and whimsical. (I would say Portmeirion was at least in parts deliberately created to be a bit kitsch, which is possibly a different matter).

The term "energism" seems to have been invented by artist Julia Watkins. She (I think it's her anyway) says

"...Energism or Energy Art depicts the flow of spiritual energy that forms the fabric of our universe. Through colorful swirls it portrays beautiful scenes where beings exist in perfect harmony with the flow. It demonstrates how all life is interconnected.

But the art goes much further than simply creating a representation. It exerts a hypnotic effect on the viewer, allowing him to actually experience the energy on an emotional and instinctual level.

For many it is a powerful transformational experience, allowing them to connect to a part of themselves and a world they never knew existed.

For this reason, it is often called "meditative" or sacred art."

Actually, I think it's all quite wonderful. I think that if someone really is able to pick up such vibrations and somehow visualise them onto canvas or paper, then that's a good thing. There is a place for that in the world, most definitely. The problem is, that there seem to be so many people out there who just doodle and then say it's depicting energies. It's because it looks cool, I suppose. Others copy each other. The other problem is the lack of originality in terms of subject matter and ideas. There's the tree... there's the human in lotus position... there's the Buddha head... there's the hand reaching down from the sky to bless the human... there's the all seeing Eye... phew, need I go on? It's all so predictable! And this is why this kind of art very seldom is truly good art. It's often a sickly sweet or over-idealised portrayal of humankind and what is seen as the human potential. There are also frequent references to mythology and previous cultures - and I'm not entirely sure why?

I think most visionary art (that I've seen) is incredibly intricate in terms of technique, but a lot of it strikes me as mannerist and escapist. That in turn seems a bit decadent. I would like to think that our reality is just as much spiritual as "the other" reality. After all, enlightenement is said to be the realisation that this is it! I also look for more personality... after all, our indivduality should be celebrated, not downplayed! Energism isn't my thing, because I'm here to investigate the kind of world most people see and experience. That seems relevant to me - I just wrote about the importance of embracing imperfection in a world where everything strives towards glossiness and sanitation in my previous blog post. Of course there's no right or wrong... but sickly sweet, cute or extreme perfection is all very boring to me. Most of all, I'm put off by a lack of personality and originality. I look forward to the emergence of some more convincing spiritual art of the future!

Read my article on symbolism here.

CAN WISDOM BE DERIVED FROM SUFFERING AND DISABILITY?

Vivi-Mari Carpelan: "I'm Not Ready Just Yet",
Handmade collage with photographs, copyright 2012

Here is the latest in my attempts to visualize the helplessness that is often experienced because of a chronic condition. Very often it's a situation that causes the subject to wish they were dead, yet on the other hand there is usually a will to live at the back of this person's mind that is in deep conflict with the suffering they are going through.

This is a cross post from my spiritual blog but I felt that it would be appropriate to post here in the context of disability arts. The reason I'm working on Project X is that I want to talk openly about suffering and its implications.

I claim that it's not a very spiritual thing to say that suffering is pointless and that we should all just shape up. It's easy to condemn suffering. It's easy to say that nothing can be gained from suffering. It's easy to say that seeing anything useful in suffering is dwelling on negativity. However to me these are catch phrases that people throw about when they think they are soon going to be enlightened. i.e. in my view it's not necessarily an informed point of view. It's a view point that is assuming that if you do everything right, i.e. by the book, then you'll be illuminated and wisdom will follow. I'm not saying it's untrue, but it's wishful thinking and many of us have a lot to deal with in the real world before we can consider any such satorical state of being. I also feel a bit disgruntled when I hear this kind of view since it excludes the richness of human experience in favour of some hypothetical spiritual bliss that may or may not arrive at some point in the future. Of course I'm only guessing here as I have heard this kind of talk before, and it's usually been connected to the self-developmental stages that come in the very beginning of the spiritual quest. 

I do need to think clearly about what I want to say through "Project X" which is my art project about invisible illness and its place in society. The point is not to dwell on negativity and suffering, but to show it clearly so that people can recognize it and accept that it exists. I also want to offer optimistic points of view, but am not quite sure exactly how I'm going to go about it just yet. The point is, a healing of a whole host of social demeanours related to disabled people can only happen after a collective acceptance of disabled people has taken place. Healthy people have no idea what these people are going through. It's so very easy to dismiss them as negative, when in fact many of them are incredibly courageous and fine human beings. It's a whole other world that needs to be integrated into society. At the moment it isn't. And things have only gotten worse since the right winged (tories) have been in power. As Ken Wilber pointed out, their point of view is that these individuals have only themselves to blame and it's up to them to fix their own problems. One tory just said "stop moaning and work harder" in public - this is supposed to be helpful in such dire times of financial crisis. It's horrid and simplistic. Many disabled people are being forced to work when they really don't have the ability to go out to do a job on specific hours every day, and others who are healthy are not finding any jobs. My husband and I are trying to be creative but there is only so much we can do. We also try not to focus too much on lack, but it's difficult not to when it stares you in your face on a daily basis. It takes super human powers just to stay reasonably balanced in a world that's as volatile as this one - for a disabled person it's so much more work. 

To tell a disabled person that their suffering is not of any use could be disastrous. I'm sure many of them don't think of their suffering as being meaningful. They are often the ones with the greatest depression. Of course disability doesn't necessarily have to imply suffering, but I think it's rare and often a case of either mild disability or a truly enlightened state of being. We all need some feeling of meaning, purpose and hope. It doesn't matter that much how we gain it. I think that any way is a good way if it helps a particular individual to get through the day with a sense of achievement and self-esteem. Sometimes life is really mostly about physical and emotional survival. Even I have trouble to take the spiritual point of view into account on a regular basis. It used to be much easier, during the "honey moon phase". I was single, I was a student at University... life was not so complicated back then in spite of having to do a lot of inner work. More than anything, there was time, as well as constant reminders due to the nature of my studies at Uni (comparative religion). I also had plenty of friends who were spiritual seekers. The situation has changed radically. 

So why is my situation changed? Perhaps it's for a reason. I'm learning new things. There's a whole other emotional dimension added due to the fact that I'm now married. There is also the Arts, and the Disability Arts community. This is my work now. I believe that wisdom can be had from suffering - it may not be ultimate wisdom but it's an understanding about the human condition which may well be why many of us are here in the first place. It's understanding the nature of suffering and what it means to other people as well. How does one accept limitations in oneself as well as in others? One can't have the latter without the former. Suffering can germinate greater compassion and humility. I say these are noble reasons for going through a lot of difficult challenges. I don't even want life to be too easy, as it would be boring and pointless. I admit that I would prefer life to be getting a bit easier as I'm getting older, I'm middle aged and my health is never going to be fantastic. I would appreciate some happier times. But I know I can't have that until I have learnt some fundamental lessons about caring for other people. Sure one could opt not to go through any suffering, and one may even be a good human being. But how likely is that? I am not interested in being a selfish bastard even if I was an enlightened one!

VIVI-MARI'S ART AT INTEGRALLIFE.COM

FROM DIALECTICS TO INTEGRATION

While images express perceived reality in a most delightfully nuanced way that leaves room for individual interpretation, symbols tell a story in a more accurate way. It's in the combination of these that I have found my most potent form of self-expression. As I started to see that life is truly paradoxical, the idea of dualism and the equality of the two sides of a story crept into my artwork. Chronic illness and various other personal issues that needed to be solved gave rise to the expression of loss and despair, but these are always teamed with hope and faith that Spirit knows the way forward. Struggle and tension is thus resolved in higher understanding and a letting go of pretensions. It's a dialectic process, a seemingly never-ending roller coaster with endlessly varied viewpoints on my own development and relationship with the rest of the universe. Pride and humility are ingredients that need to be tried and tested during the journey. Theoretical knowledge is a good thing to carry in one's rucksack, but ultimately life has to be lived and emotions must fully develop for the experience to be complete. Who said it would be easy? While surrender to joy and experiences of pure consciousness are wonderful, it's in the encounter of darkness and in the uncovering of the shadow that life is often at its most interesting. By expressing this dualistic process as I know it in a visual form, I hope to help support greater acceptance of all that is painful in this reality, for everybody. This I wish to do without losing sight of the 'other' reality, the one that we all know in the depths of our hearts. " (Vivi-Mari 2011)

I had the honour of being selected as one of the artists who represent Ken Wilber's integral philosophy at www.integrallife.com. My presentation is called " From Dialectics to Integration ". In the 1990s, I read everything Wilber wrote, and felt deep affinity with his spiritual views. He talks not only about the evolution of consciousness and the various stages the individual and the collective are going through, but also about the Jungian concept of the Shadow. In a nutshell, the Shadow what we have gathered in our subconscious. Read more in my essay " Do You Have To Suffer for Art ". My life has been chaotic and messy over the last ten years and have not managed to engage in Wilber's newest theories, but have noticed that he and his team have begun to focus on the arts as playing an important part in the human development. They are still debating what integral art is exactly, but generally speaking it is art infused with a sense of deeper meaning and a higher more spiritual perspective that encompasses a broad view of what life is all about.

Michael Schwartz wrote a mini essay on my art:

The Times of Memory

Collage—an art technique which blossomed during the twentieth-century—displays on a two dimensional surface images and texts from various sources, constructing these into a complex and dynamic whole, the component images retaining their own independence as recognizably distinct in style and origin.

Vivi-Mari Carpelan's contemporary collages are profoundly noteworthy. In their enactment of deep symbolic logics, they do nothing less than re-configure time.

Some of the source imagery comes from Hindu art, evoking an ancient and ongoing tradition. Other imagery originates in advertisements from past decades, evincing a nostalgia where loss can never quite be recovered or redeemed. Still other imagery comes from prints of Neo-Classical architecture, a building style that resurrects the antique past in producing stone monuments that defy the ravages of time. More haunting and playful are skeletal images of extinct species, tokens of the arising and perishing of all particular life forms within a vast and mysterious evolutionary unfolding. The esoteric and alchemical diagrams dispersed throughout key an anticipatory time proper to secreted promises yet to be revealed.

The space of these collages is thus the arena of a profound mode of Memory (an inflection of Consciousness itself)—a Memory that is prior to any given form or feel of time, and which accommodates all such forms, allowing them to reverberate with each other through the part/whole dynamic of the collage construction. This is an Art of Memory that is not simply retrospective and receptive, but powerfully and profoundly Creative: the interplay of the imagery sparking novel senses of time—transforming the Self-sense so tenderly and vulnerably at stake in these works.

Michael Schwartz,

April 2011

I had added this bit but it wasn't published, presumably due to restrictions of space:

“When I look out towards the world, the world comes to greet me. The moment I perceive myself in the vast mirror of reality, I come to being. I am able to see myself - my shape, my features, my thoughts, my feelings, and my soul. All this is being born in the interaction between me and my environment, because it is the experience of this constellation that helps me redefine myself. Books, pictures, objects, people... all these things help me see and understand myself. The encounter lends me the mirror. Without this mirror I am not able to grow, change and become whole.

Life is an encounter, a play of opposites, a breathtaking dance where we unite and pull away, in the whirlwind of life, inwards and outwards, in oneness and in separation.... Like the natural flow of breathing or the play of the waves, like the gushing power of creativity from a well of life that never dries up. Do I dare to encounter life? Do I dare to encounter you? With an open gaze and an open mind? Perhaps the answer to the riddle of life is in the open gaze in the mirror that I encounter? (1999)

Artwork: "Where There Is Hope -  There Is Life," copyright 2008 


Read more about integral theory: 

Finland  (in Finnish, with posts about my art), 
Ken Wilber's website  (English)