Awakening Through Creating

awakening

To this point in my life, few authors have influenced my thinking to the degree that Wendell Berry’s work has over the past two years. I don’t mean to sound morbid, but for a long time I’ve lived with a sense that mankind is unwittingly driving toward a cliff, unaware or uninterested in stepping on the brake. I’m not thinking necessarily about arms proliferation, terrorism or nuclear war (although those things are scary enough); but about even more fundamental things like caring for the planet, where our food comes from and having an ecomony that values charity as much as greed and profit. So much attention is given to War & Peace between nations that the war our lifestyle and economy is waging on our very planet has gone largely unnoticed, and when it’s noticed, it’s mostly disregarded.

Wendell Berry’s essays (and my friends who read them) have been helpful in a number of ways: they have articulated what I’ve felt without knowing how to say it; they have made me aware of important things about which I have been clueless; and they have given me reason to believe and hope that the small decisions I make everyday will affect the future of our world.

“Sex, Economy, Freedom and Community” was the beginning (thanks for the recommendation, Shaun) but his essay “Renewing Husbandry” will be a big dot on the timeline of my life when I reflect on how I became who I am becoming.

I’ve been working on some new paintings based on the essays of Wendell Berry. The first one is called “The Tractor’s Arrival” and you can read “Renewing Husbandry” to learn why the story being told in the painting is worth telling. The second is called “The Failure of War” and it is inspired by an essay of the same name.

Brian Rhea, The Tractor's Arrival, 2006 Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 24 x 18 inches

Brian Rhea, The Failure of War, 2006 Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 24 x 18 inches

Finally, this portrait titled “Wendell Berry” is interspersed with text from “Compromise, Hell.”

Brian Rhea, Wendell Berry, 2006 Oil, acrylic and charcoal on canvas 48 x 36 inches

technorati tags: ART, WENDELL BERRY