Wherein I visit an artist who marches to a different dromenon.
Dromenon, an old word that might change the way we make art.
Dromenon: art done right.
Art done so right that it not only provokes the gods but leaves them with no choice but to show up at your launch.
Meet artist Ramon Kubicek.
Ramon Kubicek believes in all this dromenon business. Or so I discover when I bust into his studio as he’s buzzing around in preparation for an upcoming exhibition.
I’m met with bees.
“Bees of the Invisible,” says Kubicek. “It’s my theme, borrowed from the poet Rainer Maria Rilke.”
Sure enough, bees are depicted in many of the images. Bees and humanoids and cityscapes and maps and collage and black holes and deep seas and all of a colour palette that’s deceptively happy.
“Bees make us think of the sweetness of life,” says Kubicek, “so I’m hoping we’ll ask ourselves what we’re doing with our own lives. What is our contribution? What do we produce?”
One honey-coloured canvas Kubicek calls “Melissae,” who in Greek mythology were bee-priestesses, nymphs that nursed the infant Zeus not on milk but honey. Melissa means Queen Bee.
Kubicek explains that Rilke saw artists as bees gathering experience from the material world and then returning with it to “the great golden hive of the Invisible.”
Feelings, imagination, and spirit—that’s the hive—the inner life of the artist.
The invisible inner life of the artist
“Working with materiality until it becomes a part of our inner lives, and then offering it up to the world as “honey” or “art,” is not about making money or a big social splash. It is about receiving, and then giving to others, to the gods, a gift.”
Since our creativity is a gift, we artists are obliged to gift our works back to the gods.
Art returned to the source—that’s art done right.
That’s dromenon.
The best art is transformative
The ancient Greeks believed that dromenon compelled the gods to come down from the mountain and mingle with the hoi polloi. Think about it—wherever people gather to appreciate good art—at exhibitions, live performances, book launches—the sacred is present.
“What a wonderful basis for the making of art!” says Kubicek.
Kubicek is sincere. I have long known him as a writer and artist who believes in the transformative power of art.
“People went to the Greek drama festivals to see their favorite plays,” Kubicek says. “And in the process they might experience catharsis and healing.”
And why not? Rubbing shoulders with the gods, something might actually rub off. A little godliness, perhaps. Whatever godliness means to you.
What does godliness mean to you?
To me it means taking myself less seriously. Not taking things personally. And seeing the big picture. All in aid of transcending human pettiness. Or as I like to say, to unselve myself.
I show up at the opening reception at the Gibsons Public Art Gallery to see if Kubicek has provoked the gods with his art.
I ask a white-haired gentleman if he’s a god. “Farthest thing from it,” he says. So I hang out near my favourite canvases hoping for a god-spotting.
I like “Ship of Fools.”
I see people in boats, things floating on water—or is it air?
“It speaks of a voyage,” Kubicek explains. “We sense a journey, physical or spiritual.”
Kubicek points out people left behind. “The most beautiful moments are about loss,” he says. “The best moments are fleeting, such as a child growing up, or a sun setting.”
Meaning what?—that loss and transience are blessings?
“Bees of the Invisible” features an ominous vortex.
“It’s the dark centre of something where we might vanish and be transformed,” says Kubicek.
I see strange letters in the composition. “The Aramaic alphabet,” he says, “the language of Jesus.”
All very mysterious, leaving me scratching my head, as if life itself had a secret centre we are not meant to easily comprehend.
This is Kubicek’s “honey”—a vivid and mysterious yet playful take on our transient existence.
Says Kubicek:
“I like Rilke’s articulation—art and honey. It might be easy to see each as non-essential, until one imagines [bees] gone from the world. Today, we live in a time of ecological stress and our heedless treatment and killing of bees threatens both the natural world and our own survival. This mistreatment exists in parallel with our loss of inner life and our confusion about the role of art.
”
I’m still looking for any sign of the gods.
Am I missing something?
Let me know if you see one.
And whoever this creature is — does anyone have her phone number?
But I leave the art gallery buzzing with a certain sweet contentment.
Gods or no gods, Kubicek has done something right.
Today's Poetry Friday post is courtesy of my agent, Tina Wexler. Not only does she do all the Super Agent stuff, like sell my books, read my drivel and suggest ways to make it not drivel, make me laugh, and ask after my family, she also has an MFA in Poetry. It's one of the reasons I chose her to represent me. Not to sell my poetry, but to have someone with a poetry-loving ear close by.
Yesterday, she sent me a notice from Shelf Awareness about a new North Point Press book of Rilke poems, a bilingual collection titled simply The Poetry of Rilke. This was the accompanying poem, from the book:
Autumn Day
by Rainer Maria Rilke,
translated by Edward Snow
Lord: it is time. Your summer was superb.
Lay your shadows on the sundials,
and in the meadows let the winds go free.
Command the last fruits to be full;
give them only two more southern days,
urge them on to completion and chase
the last sweetness into the heavy wine.
Whoever has no house will never build one now.
Whoever is alone now will long remain so,
will stay awake, read books, write long letters
and wander restless back and forth
along the tree-lined streets, as the leaves drift down.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by Anastasia Suen at Picture Book of the Day.
I didn't find this poem; it found me, wandering about, searching far and wide for something to post. "What are you doing, way out here and alone?" it scolded me. So I came back and sat inside it for awhile.
From Rilke's Book of Hours
(as translated by Anita Barrows and Joanna Macy)
How surely gravity's law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of the smallest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing---
each stone, blossom, child---
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we each belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God's heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
Poetry Friday is hosted today by its founder, Kelly Herold, at her new blog,
Crossover. So glad you're back, Kelly!
Variation on a Theme by Rilke
by Denise Levertov
A certain day became a presence to me;
there it was, confronting me--a sky, air, light:
a being. And before it started to descend
from the height of noon, it leaned over
and struck my shoulder as if with
the flat of a sword, granting me
honor and a task. The day's blow
rang out, metallic--or it was I, a bell awakened,
and what I heard was my whole self
saying and singing what it knew: I can.
Rilke had two pens: one for writing letters and paying bills, and one for his "real work" of poetry and novels. Guess which one got used the most? (Hint: Rilke penned an estimated 11,000 letters, about 7,000 of which are in print, mostly in German and French.)*
Before he died, he did realize that his letters had become an essential part of his life's work and gave permission for them to be published. But it got me wondering.
Which of our words written with "the other pen" are more powerful than we ever guess?
I'm thinking of an appreciation letter I wrote to my son's first grade teacher, which she later told me stayed on her refrigerator all year.
I'm thinking of the notes my mother wrote in the margins of a paperback copy of A Circle of Quiet.
I'm thinking of the message someone handed my daughter at school on 9/11/2001, letting her know that her dad had survived the attack on the Pentagon.
Rilke filled his pens with ink. We charge our laptops.
He wrote letters. We write email and blog posts.
He wrote novels and poetry. Some of us do that, too.
Everyday we ink and tap and send out words.
After that, who knows?
For as Rilke wrote in one of his "other pen" letters, "...our life is vast, and can accommodate as much future as we are able to carry."
*From the introduction to "The Poet's Guide to Life: The Wisdom of Rilke" edited and translated by Ulrich Baer.
"A work of art is good
if it has grown out of necessity."
---Rainer Maria Rilke
I've been thinking about that statement since I read it yesterday morning. Does my writing grow out of necessity? Or I could also ask: is my writing
necessary?
- From Merriam-Webster's online dictionary:
- Main Entry:
- 1nec·es·sary
- Etymology:
- Middle English necessarie, from Latin necessarius, from necesse necessary, probably from ne- not + cedere to withdraw
- Date: 14th century
1 a: of an inevitable nature : inescapable b (1): logically unavoidable (2): that cannot be denied without contradiction c: determined or produced by the previous condition of things d: compulsory2: absolutely needed : required
I think the part of the definition I identify with the most is: "that cannot be denied without contradiction." My writing isn't required or inevitable; but if I avoid or deny it, I find that my life starts to become one big contradiction of everything I value.
"Not + withdraw" is pretty powerful, too. Writing is engagement with the world, even as it is done in solitude.
And you?
Library jobs booked all last week and next.
Demand is outstripping the time available.
M-u-s-t * s-a-y * N-o!
Homestead on the point of collapse due to disorganization and columns, heaps, piles, infills of clutter and debris.
I've been at junior high and high school this past week. I am dismayed by how much I have not read.
As usual, I learn more from the kids than anyone else.
*__________*
Student #1: "Really, Mrs. P, you NEED to read these
Warriors books."
*__________*
Me: I saw this (
I’d Tell You I Love You, But Then I’d Have to Kill You) was on the
Lone Star list, is it good?
Student #2: You haven't read this yet?
Oh it is SOOO...good. You have GOT to read this.
*__________*
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday: "Hi, you are back.
Have you read Twilight yet?"
Me: "Uh, no, not yet."
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday: "I told you to read it. I'm not talking to you until you read it."
an hour later
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday:"Are you reading Twilight?"
Me: "Uh, no, cataloging these books here.
Oh, thanks, I will read this copy that you just put on the desk in front of me."
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday: "I'm not talking to you until you read it."
a half hour later
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday: "Are you reading Twilight?"
Me: "I'm on page 15."
Junior high teacher who will probably have a kidlit blog someday: "I'm not talking to you until you read it."
*****
I will be back there on Monday. I have my assignment for the weekend.
.jpeg?picon=3348)
Wherein I visit an artist who marches to a different dromenon.
I like “Ship of Fools.”
“Bees of the Invisible” features an ominous vortex.
I’m still looking for any sign of the gods.
But I leave the art gallery buzzing with a certain sweet contentment.
.jpg?picon=848)
.jpg?picon=910)
Oh I like this a lot, especially,
"Lay your shadows on the sundials,"
An MFA in poetry? Wow, I'd say she's a good match for you. I just picked up my copy of Operation Yes and am looking forward to reading it this weekend.
Sara,
Send my thanks along to Tina for her excellent Poetry Friday selection. I love the first stanza!
"Lord: your summer was superb."
This seems to me the perfect prayer on a rainy, chilly, leaf-littered, acorn-falling autumn morning. The only thing I'd add to that would be. "Thanks."
OMG! I am so excited about a new bilingual edition of Rilke coming out! Thanks for sharing the news. Love this one, so perfect for autumn--although a little melancholy at the end--reminding me of places Rilke seemed to find himself in so often.
God, I love him. What a great opening line. And what a fabulous MFA for your agent to have.
Jules, 7-Imp