Stories
As the language of humanity, art tells stories of inspiration, hope, and healing even as it acknowledges the hurt and despair that afflicts us all.
Aline Smithson and Finding a Visual Voice: Something Universal, Something Healing
Aline Smithson was always drawing as a child growing up in Los Angeles. After a stint as a large format painter, Smithson went to New York for 10 years, working in fashion. She returned to LA, took a class in photography and realized she “could use the camera to make art.” She had found her “visual voice,” and now, as a teacher for more than 20 years, savors the moments she sees that voice arise in her students. Smithson is one of the most recognized names in photography, not only because of her work developing LENSCRATCH, an online resource for and community of photographers, but also because of her own significant body of work, which elevates the everyday world into something more. You will enjoy our conversation with her because of the individuality and universality, the humanity, she shares with us.
The Displaced and Disappeared: Adriana Corral and “Between Spaces”
Adriana Corral credits both sides of her family for her interest in art. Her father's side had several physicians who invited her to see their work of healing and who gave her a strong sense of the body. On her mother's side were an aunt and uncle who opened to her ideas of social justice. Like her place between her father’s and mother’s families, Corral sees between spaces as “where vital content exists.” She invites those who view her installations to do so “bodily.” Looking up, looking down, being aware of where they are in space. The spaces she creates are meditative or contemplative, dealing with heavy subjects that pull her viewers in (like gravity) while still giving them space to experience the work uniquely. Her conversation with us is no less weighty, drawing listeners to her thoughtful reflections on her life and work.
Hard Won Pilgrimages: Paul Elie discusses Literature, Bach’s Music, and his Journey as a Catholic
Paul Elie (from the Berkley Center at Georgetown University) talks about his two books, The Life You Save May be Your Own: An American Pilgrimage (2003) and Reinventing Bach (2012), especially the “hard won” pilgrimages of Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy. Elie goes on to speak of his own pilgrimage in and around the Catholic Church, his struggle to remain within its story while writing about some “awful things”—such as the sexual abuse crisis. He speaks of Bach’s unique place as religious artist and, finally, of his work on the American Pilgrimage Project, where he has discovered the healing power of a diversity of American religious experience beyond even his broadest expectations.
Fake News and Truth, Faith and Irony: Jay Tolson Discusses the Big Questions of our Culture
Jay Tolson is editor of the award-winning journal The Hedgehog Review, published out of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture at the University of Virginia. He’s also a journalist and scholar, who wrote Pilgrim in the Ruins, a biography of writer Walker Percy. Tolson discusses our current political climate, the war in Ukraine, and the deleterious impact of “PR politics.” Say something enough, true or not, and people will believe it. He also discusses the impact of Walker Percy on his thinking about art, and the way forward (the hope) Percy’s work opens, namely a connection with others through symbols.
Shakespeare and the Arts during the time of Plague and War
Austin Tichenor is an actor, comedian, writer and editor. Part of the world renowned “Reduced Shakespeare Company,” Tichenor discusses the “leveling quality” of humor, his insistence on not taking himself too seriously, and the ubiquity of storytelling. We all tell stories for work, love, and play. But as we “mature,” we somehow forget story’s (and art’s) enlivening power and push them aside. Rediscovering laughter in so-called “high-brow” endeavors, he maintains, can open new paths to healing.
Music, Connection, and Joy: Alicia Olatuja and the Presence of Voice
Alicia Olatuja is a vocal artist and life coach, who, the New York Times says, has a “luscious tone and amiably regal presence.” As the soloist at Barack Obama’s second inauguration, Olatuja discovered that she needed to align her head, heart, and voice to connect not only with her audience, but to discover a more authentic self. Now she not only performs, but also shares her experience from the stage with those seeking their own voice. Finding this voice, Olatuja contends, offers a way past the doubts and traumas we face in our troubled times.
The Mastery of Craft and the Healing Expression of Art
Mohammed (Momo) Al Shaibani is a comic artist from the United Arab Emirates. He earned an MFA in sequential art (comics) from Savannah College of Art and Design. Momo discusses the art scene in the UAE, the importance of craft, and the marriage of illustration and story-telling that comics demand. A sometimes marginalized medium, the comics, Momo finds, provides as much a salve to ills of contemporary life as music or song.
In Our Era of Loss, Imbalance, and Malaise, Bach's Music Recenters, Restores, and Heals
Sean Duggan, OSB, is a monk of Saint Joseph Abbey in Covington, Louisiana, and a Professor of Music at SUNY Fredonia. He’s also a world-class pianist with a passion for J.S. Bach. Duggan discusses his attraction to Bach, the balance Bach offers to our topsy-turvy world, and Bach’s insistence on continually pointing away from himself to “something higher.” In this self-abnegation, Bach offers a clue to overcoming our contemporary sense of loss and malaise.