Building Humbler

Humbler (Al-Mudhill)

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

As I began focusing on the 99 Most Beautiful Names of God, I reached out to scholars and clergy who write and teach about the Names.

One of my fears regarding this project is that Muslims will be offended that a Christian is trying to learn about their faith and express what he learns through art.  I thought that my motivation would be misunderstood, that somehow it would be perceived I was trying to “Christianize” their treasured beliefs or, worse yet, come as an unlettered scholar and announce I knew Islam better than Muslims.  However, I found very quickly that my sincerity and honest desire were accepted at face value and those I approached went out of their way to help me on my path of appreciation and understanding.  One Imam was grateful when he saw I was also trying to find ways to apply the principles of 99 Names traditions in my own life, and find parallels with my Christian beliefs.  Imams, Mawlanas, and Sheiks of many different paths of Islam responded.  One teacher in Egypt had written a book on the 99 Names – he found one of his congregants who knew English, and had him translate and email the book to me.  A Sheik in Azerbaijan, who also didn’t know English, had one of his congregants translate the blessing he gave to me to guide me in the work.  There have been, and continue to be, other stories of people opening their hearts as they realized I was sincere.

One friend, Besim Bruncaj (who works with World Interfaith Harmony Week), connected me with the internet arm of WISE University in Jordan, Qibla (known as SunniPath at the time).  I was told they were just considering a class focusing on the 99 Most Beautiful Names when they learned about my project and they took it as a sign – they gave me a scholarship to study Islam theology and the 99 Names for a semester, which deepened my appreciation immensely.  The teachers and students were incredibly supportive of my work and I actually did a pretty decent job in the class.

With this learning, a few principles in Islam really struck chords with me.  One is the concept that as infinite as the universe is, it was all created for us.  Another is although we can only see a small portion of reality at a time, we are all part of something much greater and we all have a necessary role to play – it is our purpose of life to discover what our role is, and to play it well.  These principles rolled nicely into meditations on Humbler.

This Name has two faces, as it were.  One is the role God has to help remind us that He is the only One justified in His pride, and it is dangerous to our souls when we inflate our own worth at the expense of those around us.  The other face is the fact that we are constantly surrounded by the evidence of the Creator’s magnificence and love for us, and awareness of this helps us realize we are literally nothing without His grace.

The sculpture is a dodecahedron, the twelve-sided Platonic solid representing aether, or the medium within which all things exist.  In each face I used hermetic geometry techniques to find a ratio of circle to pentagon which felt and looked appropriate.  Sources were online directions for constructing pentagons (one of my favorite here) and one of my favorite books, A Beginner’s Guide to Constructing the Universe by Michael S. Schneider.   I used his book and the Little Wooden Books Sacred Geometry by Miranda Lundy, The Golden Section by Scott Olsen, and Ruler and Compass by Andrew Sutton to evenly space the two to thirteen tying holes around the larger center hole in each face.  The holes on the edges (to tie the structure together) were spaced far enough from the edge to provide maximum strength when tying.

Each side is painted indigo to remind us of the night sky and space, and each facet is tied with stars of differing numbers of points.  In the center is a small clay bead to represent the human element.  This serves as a reminder, as Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu said, God didn’t make us because He needed to, but solely because He wanted to.

Building Compeller

Compeller (Al-Jabbar)

Photography by Hawkinson Photography

In the Windows of Dzyan exhibit, I had made a few sculptures reflecting on what I was learning about Islam, but felt a more systematic approach was needed (for an introduction to the 99 Names Project please go here).  After weeks of studying different avenues which could provide a “spine” for the project, I realized I kept coming back to the 99 Most Beautiful Names of Allah.  That would make for a huge number of sculptures, but the intimate scale of each work made it seem more manageable.  I went online and looked at various sources for reference on the 99Names, being careful to find sites written by practicing Muslims and verifying what I was learning through conversations with Muslim friends and clergy.  Director Virginia Gray-Henry of Fons Vitae Publishing recommended one of her titles, The Name and the Named, as well as giving me advice on how to explore other faiths with respect and civility.

In each of a set of four sketchbooks, I wrote 25 Names referencing the list from Sufism.org.  One of the first things I learned is that there are a number of different traditions of 99 Names which overlap greatly, with subtle differences.  I also learned very quickly that the Names are not names like we would think to use in calling to each other, but are eternal, timeless Attributes.  There is also the appreciation that God is and infinite Being, and the 99 Names are only an “index” of the Divine Attributes.  For each “Name”, there is an understanding that God is the Beginning, End, Ideal, and Perfect Example of each Attribute, along with an awareness that in each Name we are only glimpsing a tiny portion of its fullness.

I drew sketches for each Name, read in the Qur’an and other books regarding what Muslims thought about the Names, and found corresponding ideas in Christian scripture and from Christian luminaries.  The point was not to “prove” to Muslims that I “got it”, but rather to find what resonated within me and give that particular frequency a form.  The first sculpture that really started to coalesce was Compeller (Al-Jabbar).

Each of us, I believe, have a specific purpose or point to our creation.  Our “job” is to discover what that purpose is.  This idea echoed around inside my head, alongside other English translations of Al-Jabbar – Restorer, Repairer, Irresistible.  If each of us have a point to our being here the Creator will find a way to lead us to it, unless we are completely unwilling.  And the journey for some of us, it seems, is much longer than for others.

It dawned on me that a perfect example of the mixture of these concepts was the life of the Prophet Jonah.  He was given a mission, to preach to the people of Nineveh:

Now the word of the LORD came unto Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it; for their wickedness is come up before me.

–Jonah 1:1,2

This was his purpose; but he ran away.  He got into the first boat he could find and took off, trying to go as far as he could.  After realizing his selfishness was jeopardizing the safety of the vessel’s crew, he had them toss him into the sea and he took a trip back to land in a whale’s stomach.  Finally he got to Nineveh, did his duty as he saw it, and waited for the city to be destroyed; through a series of teaching moments, Jonah finally learned his path, accepted it, and the city was saved.  All sorts of things happened to Jonah to help him discover his purpose, and in the end the things that drove him restored his commitment to his faith and made him a complete person.

The sculpture is a reflection on the story of Jonah.  The shape is an Icosahedron, the Platonic solid that symbolizes the element of water – because Jonah’s first thought was to flee across the sea, water in my mind became symbolic of his journey to and that God’s awareness of us is entirely undiminished over time or distance of any sort.  In the center of the shape is an orange and yellow gourd, which reminds me that in the midst of our journeys or attempts to “escape” Divine Will remains the comfort of Divine Love.  Surrounding the gourd are seven antique fish, representing the traditional Seven Seas.

The glass used is GNA or German New Antique, a beautifully pure glass with a slight variation in surface texture reminiscent of the brush strokes which come from a glass worker brushing a freshly blown cylinder of glass flat.  A friend who is a rare book conservator shared with me traditional knots and materials common to medieval bookbinding, so the 20 panels of glass are sewn together using hemp and traditional knots – a reference to the importance of the Qur’an to Muslims.  Each of the holes in the glass panels are drilled with a rotary tool and lined with a scrapbooking eyelet, and the sculpture is built to the height of 11 1/4″.  This height is for three reasons, which remain consistent through the whole project.  First, the process of contextualizing and learning another’s path of faith must by its nature be personal and intimate, and I wanted viewers to participate in my personal journey.  Second, the sculpture height is five eighths of my cubit – the cubit or distance between tip of the longest finger and elbow was the traditional measurement of sacred building in many scriptures, and the five and eight refer to the Five Pillars of Islam and the eight points of the Compassionate Breath star, or the eight angels which will carry God’s throne at the final Judgment (Qur’an 69:17).   And finally, the height is symbolic of the first Qur’an I received and began to read with an understanding heart.

I did a number of color tests to come up with several shades of blue, and I drew several different patterns based on Islamic organic floral patterns from around the world and several time periods; Islam is a universal religion applying to all, and I started generating designs to reflect this cross-cultural and timeless nature of the faith using cosmology of design and mixing cultural indicators rather than copying any specific patterns.  I beveled the triangles on a flat-bed grinding wheel, holding the pieces and praying the angles were right so the structure would hold together and support itself when tied.  Drilling the holes really sucked.  When I started, I was able to get the glass to avoid breaking seven out of eight times; with 24 holes in each of the 20 panels, I ended up making over 35 panels in order to get twenty to survive!  The paint is a mixture of mason stain and finely powdered glass, an entirely unconventional mix for glass workers (because mason stain won’t fuse directly to the glass) which reticulates beautifully and gives a certain water color affect reminiscent of manuscript illuminations.

Something I learned – when working with gourds, make certain they are completely dry before including them in any sort of long-term project.  If not, be warned that the smell is astounding.

The prophets, those amazing men and women of scripture, exemplify to me much of what this Name eludes to.  They were people just like anyone else, but were compelled by the natures of their callings to push beyond their comfort zones and frailties to become astounding figures, earth-bound angels called to perform as agents of the Divine Will for others.  If someone like Jonah can do the job he had, then others can, too, like Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Fethullah Gulen – and the rest of us.

Interesting note.  While doing research working on the 99 Names Project I learned something else about Divine Names.  When Jesus gave his last mortal prayer, he called God “Eloi” (Mark 15:34).  Speaking with several ancient scripture language experts, I discovered that “Allah” is the Arabic spelling of the Aramaic “Eloi”, the same word for God which Jesus used.  Learning the different Names of Allah have helped me discover different facets of Divinity which echo across all faith paths, and rather than diluting my belief enriches it.

And as a Christian, I figure if it’s good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me.

Jonah at Nineveh, Rembrandt (Detail)
Image from Wikimedia Commons

The ‘Stay-cation’ Tour of Vatican City

Vatican City
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Recently, a friend sent me links to some very cool VR tours of beautiful sites in Vatican City.  These are of four sites which contain some of the most amazing and beautiful work done by human hands, and are profoundly moving.  The first two links go right to a music-filled VR visit, and the second two allow you to pick which spot to visit – then the music kicks in:

Basilica of St. John Lateran

Sistine Chapel

Basilica of St. Peter

Basilica di San Paolo Fuori le Mura

The craftsmanship, the artistry, and the testimony infused by the artists in every piece utterly blows me away.  The music is really nice, too.

Tracing the Past. Building Anew - Reviving Crafts in al-Darb al-Ahmar

Reblogged from Ismailimail:

When a work lifts your spirits and inspires bold and noble thoughts in you, do not look for any other standard to judge by:  the work is good, the product of a master craftsman. --Jean de la Bruyere, quoted from brainyquote.com Craftsmanship isn't like water in an earthen pot, to be taken out by the dipperful until it's empty.  No, the more drawn out the more remains. --Lloyd Alexander, Taran Wanderer, quoted from goodreads.com

Expressing Faith: Islam Inspired Art at Duke University

Bismallah, Ar-Rahman, Ar-Rahim
Image from Wikimedia Commons

For the first 2 1/2 weeks in April this year, Lilly Library at Duke University is hosting the exhibit Expressing Faith:  Islam Inspired Art.  One of my favorite calligraphers, Dr. Huda Totonji, will be displaying her work, Dr. Carl Ernst of UNC Chapel Hill will be giving a presentation on the intersections of faith, art, and Islam, and my friends at the Duke MSA invited me to show sculptures from the 99 Names Project (and did all the heavy lifting).  As I wasn’t able to make it, Pres. Nabeel Hyder of the Duke MSA picked up the bubble-wrapped sculptures and he and his friends set the whole thing up.

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Dr. Totonji is an educator, consultant, entrepreneur, researcher, fine artist, and amazing calligrapher.  The several galleries on her website include her work in calligraphy and painting to her public art and installation.  Dr. Enst is a specialist in Islamic Studies, and his presentation will be insightful and engaging.  I’m grateful to Dr. Antepli for pointing Pres. Nabeel towards the Project, and I’m very happy and grateful the Duke MSA did all the work!

From Eden

Adam and Dog, a film by Minkyu Lee

Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

–Genesis 3:23

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Thomas Cole
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Expulsion from the Garden of Eden, Elisabeth Keyser
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Invite the Light, Gomm Stained Glass Studio

Building and Designing Stained Glass with the Gomms

David and Jeanne Gomm are stained glass artists, operating Gomm Studios.  They have been working with stained glass since 1983, including video rental stores, furniture design, yoga instruction, IT support, and numerous other interests–but all revolving in orbit around their attachment to stained glass.

What are your backgrounds?

Jeanne is deeply involved with yoga and environmental therapy, and David was a volunteer minister in Colorado after his flirtation with being a rebellious teenager.  Both of us have always worked (the ministerial work was during every free moment between hours at his full-time job), and have always devoted our energies to improving the value we bring to the table as employees and stained glass professionals.

Why stained glass?

Ages ago, we lived in a home in Denver which had a space over the front door demanding stained glass.  David bought the materials he assumed he needed at a local craft store and built the most hideous window in the history of the art form.  Shortly after, we moved to Missouri and on a whim took a stained glass class.  With proper instruction, we were hooked–Tolstoy said art is like an infection seeking to afflict others with beauty, and we were well and truly infected.

In the early eighties we began building windows for clients; we realized we had to provide additional income for our “habit” and opened what became a video rental chain, so our family wouldn’t be hit by changing whims in the glass market.  Both of us work with clients and design windows, David has a degree in industrial design and does CAD and IT work for schools, and Jeanne is a professional yoga instructor.

How is your work affected by your faith?

We are non-traditional Christians–both of us regularly do volunteer ministerial work in our community, and we are active in our faith.  We include some kind of personal and faith-building symbolism in everything we do; of course, we try never to be overt or offensive to the faith of the client, this is an expression of sincerity and devotion.  We always ask ourselves how the symbolism reflects and supports the patron, and they appreciate the extra “oomph” to their design.  Jeanne has put some of this energy into her first book of designs, Stained Glass Mandalas for Meditation.

In our art, the work ethic is vital.  We enjoy the creative process and building, watching ideas crystallize into reality as the work develops, and we enjoy teaching as part of the process.  But underneath it all is an awareness of principles like, are we giving fair value?  are we keeping our commitments and being honest with the client?  are we building windows which are structurally sound, meet building codes, and will last far longer than the client is expecting?  We do this because we believe it reflects James’ assertion that faith without works is dead (James 2:14-22).  This is our business, in and amongst all our supporting activities, because we also feel that creativity has to be connected with earning a living.

How does your work affect your faith?

At one point we had gone a couple months without a paying commission.  We were beginning to feel panicked and desperate.  A client bought one of our “Women of Faith” series panels, and we brought three more panels in the series with us when we went to install it.  We installed the first piece and there just happened to be spots for the others; we showed the client what they could look like, holding them in place near the first panel.  The client bought them all without caring about the price, and literally saved us and our business until things picked up again.

A flood of gratitude washed over us, and still comes when we think about the experience.  Doubt enters about what you do if you can’t make a living, and this client still has no idea the great blessing they were in our life, at just exactly the right moment.  After that experience, we realize that we receive blessings through our clients; we keep an attitude of mindfulness and gratitude throughout our work, and thank God for the blessings of every commission.

More information about the Gomm’s and their glass work is here.  They have a regularly updated blog and many other features on their site.  They also have videos on Youtube.com and instructional videos are available through Amazon.com.

Invite the Light
Image by Gomm Studios

Calligraffiti of eL Seed

Most of us have an immediate aversion to graffiti.  Although it lends color and energy to the environment, graffiti punctuates the dystopian landscape with hopelessness–tags to mark turf and power of rival gangs, or vandalism by the hands of pathless youth.  The ability to communicate, write, and leave something behind is a Divine gift, and graffiti feels like the dark face to this uplifting ability.

However, few things could be farther from the reality with the work of my friend eL Seed.  Rather than “tagging” his work beautifies; he uses the standard tool kit of the street graffiti artist, with all his cans of spray paint and paint-smeared clothes, but he is also (and foremost) a serious student of classical calligraphy.  He finds dilapidated and lonely walls, misused alleys, or blank spots asking for energy, and his magical “calligraffiti” beautifies rather than degrades–giving colorful messages of hope rather than identifiers of dystopia.  His work has been commissioned at Harvard, the Sharjah Biennial, and elsewhere around the world, and the video above is of one of his most beautiful works to date, the adornment of Jara Mosque in Gabes, Tunisia.

eL Seed’s site

Translation of the words?  My favorite verse from the Qur’an:

O Men!  Behold, We have created you all out of a male and a female, and have made you into nations and tribes, so that you might come to know one another.

–Qur’an 49:13

Jara Mosque, Gabes, Tunisia
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Mandala Meditation

Video from Youtube.com, by New World Creations

Why are religious designs many times so complicated?

Are the artists showing off?

When building places of worship, artists would do their very best, not to show off but out of reverence and respect.  The well-made thing is both an object of beauty and a meditation.

Sagrada Familia Detail
Image from Wikimedia Commons

Why so intricate?

The designs and patterns are there to share the gifts the artist is given, through his/her experience, training, and skill, but there is a much more important motivation.

Intricacy and detail provide an avenue of reflection.

Carina Nebula
Image from Wikimedia Commons

More from European Southern Observatory

The Creator‘s works are infinite and boundless; the intricacy and detail help the viewer catch a glimpse of what this means.  We can easily lose ourselves in the viewing, “forget” for a moment our egos, and become receptive to this amazing, astounding, impossible reality.  And hopefully, for a brief moment, we can rise above the limits and ceiling of human understanding.

Ceramic Tile Tessellations in Marrakech
Image from Wikimedia Commons

The artists aren’t showing off–they’re showing us a door.

As Above So Below

Lagoon Nebula
Image from Wikimedia Commons

This and other images may be found at European Southern Observatory

And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years

Genesis 1:14

“As Above So Below,” this ancient phrase of multiple permutations is shared in its many forms by alchemists, mystics, gnostics, magis, and holy men and women of every faith and nation at least since people started leaving evidence of their existence; the idea that we reflect–or should reflect–the symmetry, balance, and glorious beauty found in the heavens.  Our modern language habits still reflect this idea, when we describe our positive aspirations as reaching for something “higher,” and we can see how this awareness affected prehistorical societies through their structures as evidenced in archeoastronomy (forensic geologist Dr. Scott Wolter uses the science to date and contextualize remnants of ancient civilizations here, and Santos Bonacci takes a more mystical approach here).

This alchemical idea is expressed in the conception of the human body and life on earth.  Not only is the order and balance of the heavens to be ideally expressed in the order and balance of the human form (planetary bodies have been traditionally ascribed as having resonating affects on different chakras or power centers of the human body, for example), but our own actions and built environment should also reflect the harmonious music of the celestial spheres.  Art is an ideal embodiment of this concept–it is best and most powerful as it explores the “celestial” realms of higher truth, regardless of media, and architecture transcends its role as a built environment when the architect and builders work with this concept in mind.  Marcus Vitruvius Pollio, in his Ten Books on Architecture, discusses the interconnections of the human form, the built environment, and the need of the architect to equally address strength, functionality, and beauty, and his works still impact architecture and design around the world two millenia later.

Should art be limited, then?  Absolutely not.  Art and art construction reflects the human capacity to “rise” above the mundane nature of the world.  Humans are builders, we constantly make things–we can’t help it.  Whether that creativity is exhibited through teaching, agriculture, communication, family life, entrepreneurial enterprise or the more plastic arts of textiles, sculpture, tattooing, painting, it really doesn’t matter.  Art is best when the beauty we strive for–not “pretty,” “safe,” or “wholesome,” but beauty, the observable quality of truth–is something beyond our own mortal, self-indulgent natures.  The idea that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or the concept that beauty is entirely relative to the nature of the observer, is comparatively recent and a child of the commodity aspect of the Industrial Revolution.  The language of beauty, like any other form of communication, is understood as our capacity and vocabulary increases; a lifelong fan of Picasso may not see the beauty in Rembrandt, for example, until his or her visual vocabulary expands to accommodate the work.

How does earthbound art mirror the heavens?  When it reflects balance, proportion, and harmony.  Whether or not we’re comfortable with the work is immaterial–discomfort may very well be a sign we have to grow a little–it is much more important that the work be honest and true, like our reaching towards the heavens or the heavens themselves.

Nara Daibutsu, Japan
Image from Wikimedia Commons