about art/spirit/art

an introduction by Dr. Randi Davenport, 
Associate Director, James M. Johnston Center for Undergraduate Excellence

art/spirit/art celebrates the physical manifestations of spirituality, which are born at the intersection of intellect and love. The works of art in this installation, and in its related programs, are premised on the recognition that mind and spirit, although situated by culture, history, politics, and power, are common human capacities. We celebrate the fact that these capacities, no matter how mediated, reside in all of us, and we take joy in the belief that these capacities arise everywhere.  

           
       
     
 
 
           
   
 
 
       
"Thinking, analyzing, inventing are not anomalous acts," said Jorge Luis Borges, "they are the normal respiration of intelligence."  This installation suggests, through earth, stone, wood, paper, and clay, that the invisible and occult connections between heart and wisdom can shimmer in our presence, that the "normal respiration of intelligence" includes the creative life. After all, whatever far-reaching effects this work may have in public life, in this show, in its related programs, all of the works of art before you began in secret and at a point of absolute tenderness: where air meets blood and bone, where breath animates spirit, where spirit turns back to breath.  

art/spirit/art
Spirit manifests in seven directions. Before you: foot, skull, upswept arm. 
Below you: earth, iron, fire, steel. Behind you: water, cloth, paper. 
Above you: horizons, voices, songs. 
To either side of you: clay, wood, film, words. 
Unspoken: the sacred made dense, like physical weight, 
and at the same time made light, shaped by silence and sound.

Welcome to art/spirit/art .  

We wish to thank the 
following for their support:  

The Orange County Arts Commission, the Department of Dramatic Arts, the Department of Art, the North Carolina Research Laboratories of Archaeology, the Ackland Art Museum, and the Carolina Indian Circle.