Seeking

Jonathan Green

Description

The best art has the uncanny ability not only to give pleasure to those who view it but also to led to a desire to respond. The best artists are a force for all art, and renowned Gullah artist Jonathan Green's work has inspired a wide range of responses from artists around the world. In Seeking we see how Green's art prompts works of poetry, prose, and memoir. Seeking's evocative power lies in the intimacy of this dialogue, which speaks to the shared sense of landscape and culture that Green stirs in these writers, ranging from close friends and fellow artists from his home state of South Carolina to nationally established authors who regard Green's work as an important cultural institution. The contributors have allowed themselves to be challenged by Green's brilliance, his honesty, his intense spirituality, and his deep love of people. Inspired by a personal quest toward induction into a spiritual community, Green's painting Seeking is rich with history, myth, and truth. The writers in this collection have found fertile ground for their own responses to Green's work, and the result is an engaging and enlivening chorus of celebratory voices.

Edited by Kwame Dawes and Marjory Wentworth, this collection features eleven color paintings by Green in addition to a preface on the history of the project, information on the painting Seeking, and an artist's statement.

Sujets

• Arts visuels
• Peinture
• Techniques
• América
• Painting
• Mary Alice Monroe
• Francis Kline
• Carolina Academy
• My Child
• Tony Hoagland
• Seán
• Kwame Dawes
• A Small Place
• Stonehill College
• Warren Wilson College
• Coriander
• Fasting
• General officer
• The Tie That Binds (novel)
• Allegory
• Poetry
• The Southern Review
• General
• Sean
• American
• Gullah
• Anagram
• Harper Lee
• Sake
• Technique
• ART
• Oratorio

Informations

• Publié par: University of South Carolina Press
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781611171860
• Langue: English

Extrait

Seeking
Poetry and Prose Inspired by the Art of
Jonathan Green
Edited by Kwame Dawes and Marjory Wentworth
THE UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA PRESS
© 2013 University of South Carolina All art reproductions © 2013 Jonathan Green
Published by the University of South Carolina Press Columbia, South Carolina 29208
www.sc.edu/uscpress
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Seeking : poetry and prose inspired by the art of Jonathan Green / edited by Kwame Dawes and Marjory Wentworth. p. cm. (Palmetto poetry series) ISBN 978-1-61117-091-7 (hardbound : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61117-092-4 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-61117-186-0 (epub) 1. American literature South Carolina. 2. Gullahs Influence. 3. Art and literature. 4. Influence (Literary, artistic, etc.) 5. Gullahs Poetry. 6. African diaspora. I. Dawes, Kwame Senu Neville, 1962– II. Wentworth, Marjory, 1958– III. Green, Jonathan, 1955– PS266.S6 S44013 810.9'9757 dc23 2012033259
I don't feel weary and noways tired
O glory hallelujah
Just let me in the kingdom while the world is all on fire
O glory hallelujah
“I Don't Feel Weary,” from Slave Songs of the United States , 1867
CONTENTS List of Illustrations Preface Marjory Wentworth About the Painting From the Artist PAUL ALLEN What Is Required CAROL ANN DAVIS On Viewing Roudnice Triptych, c. 1410–1420(?), and Viewing Jonathan Green's Seeking at Mepkin RICHARD GARCIA Into the Forest BRYAN PENBERTHY October in Eden SUSAN LAUGHTER MEYERS Singing at the Edge of Need SUSAN LAUGHTER MEYERS Anagram of Seeking DENNY STILES Seeking LINDA ANNAS FERGUSON Awakening to Myself MARCUS AMAKER Giving Birth ED MADDEN Furnace NIKKY FINNEY CAUL • CALL (after) Jonathan Green CHARLENE SPEAREN No Longer Seeking Allegories RAY DOMINGUEZ Seeking RAY MCMANUS Last Stand ELLEN E. HYATT Lost and Found MARJORY WENTWORTH Seeking BARBARA G. S. HAGERTY Packing a Suitcase KATHERINE WILLIAMS Crossing MARY HUTCHINS HARRIS The Seeking Child ELLIE MAAS DAVIS One Year STEPHEN WHITE A Different Year SYIEVE LOCKLAIR Becoming Me ALVIN J. GREEN Brother 2 Brother ANDREW CALHOUN Seeking CAROL MAXZINE PEELS You's a Stewart KWAME DAWES Open Spaces DAMON L. FORDHAM Seeking A Performance DELORES B. NEVILS Seek and Ye Shall Find WES DEMOTT Seeking TRISH DUNAWAY Never Forget the Bridge Contributors
ILLUSTRATIONS
Seeking
Chinaberry Lane
Breath of Earth
The Gnostic
Marsh Grass
Praise House
Solitude
Tulips
Endless Marsh
Deep Roots
A Simple Prayer
Contemplation
Marsh Breeze
Corn Field
Fishing Line
My Daughter
PREFACE
Once you encounter Jonathan Green, you enter into a world that is magical, inclusive, celebratory, and incredibly generous. He has an ability to move mountains no matter what the odds. Even more than his accomplishments, it is his compassion that defines him. Despite his fame and fortune, Jonathan is literally and metaphorically grounded by the place he comes from. He is a role model to young people throughout the region, and he takes that role very seriously.
I first met Jonathan through a collaborative exhibit at the Gibbes Museum of Art that included my poetry and his paintings. I fell in love with his work at once and was thrilled when he agreed to let me use his painting Marsh Grass on the cover of my first book of poems. Proving that the world is indeed a small place, the collection included a eulogy of a close mutual friend. Since then we have worked together on a number of projects that focus largely on arts education. Mostly, Jonathan is a warm-hearted friend. I am blessed to know him.
Everything about the Seeking Project embodies Jonathan Green's deep community spirit from his initial meeting with Father Francis Kline at Mepkin Abbey, who dreamed of having a painting that would honor the African American slave culture, which is part of the monastery's rich history to the collaborative poetry and jazz performances, created in response to the Seeking painting five years later.
The project started in 2003, when Jonathan Green visited Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina, to meet with Father Francis Kline, the abbey's revered abbott. Once a rice plantation, the abbey was home to African Americans who were held as slaves. When the two men visited the overgrown, unmarked slave cemetery on the edge of the abbey grounds, Jonathan, who was deeply moved, discovered a deep personal connection to the sacred space. He began to sketch out his ideas for the painting on the spot. What ultimately became the painting Seeking was inspired by Jonathan's childhood in the Gullah community of Gardens Corner, South Carolina, where young people were sent into the woods alone for two weeks to “seek” the word of God as a rite of passage into the church. Upon their return, the teenagers were questioned by church elders about their insights and feelings. Their answers determined whether of not they were admitted to the church.
In 2006, just a few days after the death of Father Kline, the painting was unveiled before an audience at Mepkin Abbey. The slave cemetery had been cleared, and master blacksmith Philip Simmons had created a gate to surround the little cemetery. In the spring of 2008, Seeking was moved to the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston, where thousands of people could view the painting.
Mayor Joseph Riley proclaimed the first week of March that year “Jonathan Green Week.” The celebration included a symposium on southern art, educational events for children, a world premier performance of a newly commissioned piece by composer Trevor Weston, and three evenings of poetry and jazz at public libraries featuring many of the state's finest poets and jazz musicians.
The participating poets wrote original work in response to the Seeking painting. Many of the poets visited Mepkin Abbey and saw the painting when it was still on display there. They walked around the grounds and spent time at the slave cemetery. Jonathan Green's friend Barbara Burgess did a presentation on the fascinating history of the project and the unique relationship between artist Jonathan Green and Father Francis Kline. Jonathan met with some of the poets to talk in detail about the painting and his own seeking experience. The resulting poems are collected in this book. Along the way we have gathered stories, poems, and songs from a variety of sources. Some of Jonathan's family members have made contributions, as well as friends and associates from all over the country.
The story of the creation of this book demonstrates the inherent power of one painting to communicate universal feelings and experiences that unite us all. Jonathan's infectious excitement for the arts and his passion for collaboration are embodied by this project. Seeking deeply touches everyone who sees it and the stories, poems, and music created in response to this powerful painting articulate much of this shared experience, thereby expressing Jonathan's conviction in the healing capacity of the arts. By bringing people together in celebration, once again Jonathan Green reminds us that we are not alone on our spiritual journey.
Marjory Wentworth
ABOUT THE PAINTING
In spring and summer 2008, Charleston was the scene of a multi-arts celebration of lowcountry art and culture. The focus was a landmark painting of Jonathan Green entitled Seeking , which now hangs in the Gibbes Museum of Art. The celebration included a major symposium on southern art, appreciations of the life and art of Jonathan Green, a substantial educational experience for schoolchildren at a museum and in classrooms, and a musical event built around the world premiere of a newly commissioned work by Trevor Weston.
The painting Seeking was created in response to a request to Jonathan Green by Father Francis Kline, abbott of Mepkin Abbey in Moncks Corner, South Carolina. The monks of the abbey some years ago had erected a tower on the abbey grounds commemorating the “seven spirits” individuals and groups who had formative roles in creating the extensive grounds that now constitute the abbey. Prominent in this list were African Americans, who, as slaves on what was then the Laurens plantation, had created the rice fields and taught the agricultural technology that was the economic basis for this wealthy plantation.
It had been a long-time ambition of Father Kline's to place in the abbey the work of a major contemporary African American artist as a way to recognize and commemorate the work of the earlier African Americans. When he and Green met in 2003, it was instantly clear to each of them that they had found the right partner for Kline, someone to create his wished-for work of art, and, for Green, an opportunity to interpret one of the formative experiences of his early life.
What sparked this epiphany for that is what it was for each man was a visit to an overgrown grove on the abbey grounds that the brothers had previously concluded was the site of an old, unmarked slave cemetery. Green was immediately moved by what he saw and felt at the site as well as by Kline's determination to honor those buried there; on the spot he sketched out an idea for capturing the moment and the meaning. Three years later only a few days after the untimely death of Fr. Kline the painting, now called Seeking , was unveiled.