This reflection originally appeared on Julie Ann Stevens’s website. We encourage you to visit Julie’s site to read more about art and contemplation, and how art could play a role in your spiritual journey.
Participation in community sustains us, feeds us, and gives us a sense that we count. Yet the dominant culture of individualism, in which we live and breathe, promotes separateness and standing apart.
This community canvas—created over multiple sessions during my 8-week residency at EHoP this summer—was an opportunity to release the illusion of separateness, in order to receive the reality of community.
This was the invitation: Pick up a brush, choose or mix a color, and paint on the canvas.
It sounds simple, doesn’t it? Yet to say “yes,” participants had to agree to do so not on their own terms — to forgo a sense of direction, a final say, or any special status or protection for their contributions. In other words, to give up control. Not easy.
I made this invitation in five different sessions, each time lugging the 42-inch square canvas, brushes and paint out to the picnic table. People came and went alone and in small groups; in silence and in gentle, playful companionship. The reality of the present moment was layered again and again, merging with, and sometimes covering up, what was already there. On one occasion, there was even a spontaneous baptism by the sprinkler system.
Naturally, there were instances of doubt, clinging, and disappointment in the process: Where is this leading? Could someone really paint over my part? Isn’t it finished? Why don’t you give the next group a fresh canvas?
As the earthly architect of the experience, I remained curious and filled with delight. I stood back and entered in, taking in the twists and turns with amusement, awe, and gratitude.
Between sessions four and five, I removed the masking tape I’d earlier placed on the blank canvas. The EHoP logo, with rays like a sunburst coming from it, was revealed. Then I had my own session, intending to contribute some sweeping strokes and fields of color to unify the piece.
But the next week a new group arrived, and once more I invited them to have their way with the canvas. After a couple of hours, a sun shower interrupted the group. The session abruptly suspended, I was asked, “Is it complete?”
“For now,” I answered.
The next day my residency was over and I packed my belongings for the trip home, leaving the canvas behind.
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