Dear Ornament
Reader,
Working is transformative. Learning is transformative. Creating is
transformative—such is the strong message we take from this
current issue of Ornament. Art historian Glen Brown in his
article on Nick Cave reveals the artist in a moment of intense reflection.
“When I started on this work years ago, it was just a personal
endeavor. It was about trying to come to terms with who I am and what
my purpose is in being in the world. I was getting a great deal of
attention for the work and then basically I just pulled out. I had
to accept myself as a potential artist, but I really was not at that
point. I never honored it.” Brown notes that in recent years
Cave began to explore with much more seriousness the potentiality
that had always been present in his Soundsuits. “I knew from
the first experience that it could be revolutionary. I had the opportunity
to serve a greater purpose and to bring us together as a nation through
celebrating identity and differences and honoring diversity. The potential
was so much bigger. When I surrendered to that my entire life made
a ninety-degree shift. Now, here I am at this time in my life that
is extraordinary to me because I honored my potential to be effective
in the world. Today I don’t really think about my work that
much. I think about my role as a humanitarian and about using my work
as a vehicle for change. I think I’m just a messenger to deliver
this work.”
In Forging A Future, author Diana Pardue, Heard Museum Curator of
Collections, discusses eight young Native artists, from the Santa
Fe-Taos area who explore materials and techniques which are distinctively
contemporary but still reflect the influences of their separate Native
traditions. Their jewelry, showing at the Heard Museum in Phoenix,
Arizona, through September 7, 2008, is a fresh take on their ancient
cultural and creative lineage. Pardue writes: “Like the generation
before them, they are exploring materials and techniques new to American
Indian jewelrymaking. Many of these young artists have unique experiences,
including formal training in art or design at competitive universities
and select art schools. Others have been influenced by global travels
and hands-on opportunities with jewelers from other countries.”
It is heartening to read about Dylan Poblano, Jared Chavez, Elizabeth
Wallace, Wayne Nez Gaussoin, Cody Sanderson, Keri Ataumbi, Maria Samora,
and David Gaussoin, a new generation of artists—each unique,
with personal histories that are leading them along a path of increasing
growth and fulfillment.
Author and poet Carl Little writes of the transformative experiences
that occur at the renowned Haystack Mountain School of Crafts on Deer
Isle, Maine. “The school’s long-time director Stuart Kestenbaum
likens the place to a hothouse. ‘Often students arrive at a
certain time in their lives when they’re ready to be here,’
he says, ‘and it leads to other things.’ People may learn
a new technique or even shift mediums. Kestenbaum describes a possible
scenario: ‘A student comes to take a basketmaking workshop and
every time she walks to the dining room, she passes the clay studio,
which finally draws her in.’ He calls this occurrence ‘the
surprise element’ and he credits the location itself for these
transformations. ‘Haystack is very active, but also quiet. It’s
away from the world; you get into it and stop buzzing so much so that
things can surface. You move,’ he says, ‘from one loop
into another.’ ”
Gandhi ministered that “you must be the change you want to see
in the world.” This is a beautifully simple and self-evident
vision and truth. Our individual actions must be transformative ones
that honor the best in our humanity and promote peace and well-being
on planet Earth.
