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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.