Update #2, the XO

Ok, ready?

Here's installment #2 of the places I've been on this tour:

1) Swanky styley hotel in Houston Texas. Felt like I was in a design magazine. There was an enormous thunderstorm raging outside. The sky was so black.

2) Stayed with Jan and Dave in Austin. Mostly hung out in the pool and jacuzzi, playing fetch with their incredibly obedient Golden Doodle. I loved the smell of the woods around their house.

3)Back to Florida and stayed with Shirley in Orlando. We had lovely conversations about all things. I saw an armadillo for the first time ever while I was out for a late night run around her neighborhood. It was in the flowers in the front yard next door. No, it didn't jump straight up when it saw me, but it was very surprised.

During this time Shirley and I went to The Morse Museum which is home to an enormous collection of the work of Louis Comfort Tiffany. I was deeply moved by the stained glass chapel he made for the 1893 World's Fair. A holy place.

4)Tampa with Frank and Joan. More fantastic conversations, a very sweaty run in the muggy Tampa night, and a trip to a beautiful beach - oh, hello Gulf of Mexico! (another first for me!)

5) Then off to Ocala with Tim and Joyce. This was perhaps the most interesting home I have ever stayed in. It's hard to really explain, but there was a lot of turquoise, orange, and silver, sequins, sea shells, an enormous painting of 3 white cockatiels, and an impressive collection of old looking French courtly figurines. Wow.

Went for a long run and met some long horn steer. We stared at one another for a long time. After a while they began to back up nervously. Tim took me canoeing on the clearest most beautiful river ever. The water was so clear you could see all the way to the bottom of the river - not to mention these long (3-4 feet!) fish with long bottle-noses, and also turtles, sweet little yellow birds, soooooo many beautiful water lilies, and 3 real live alligators. One of those guys we got so close to - like 6 feet away. He was just sitting right there. Yipe!

While in Ocala I did a performance at a prison which was wonderful. So much garbage is stripped away and the ideas, and the love can just flow. I would love to do it more.

6) Then to Savannah where I did my first year of college. Had lunch with my friend Chad who I hadn't see in in 18 years! He answers the phone the same way he did back then though. It was nice to be back there with all my 18 year old memories. :) Stayed in Savanna with Malissa and Gary. We went out to dinner at a seafood place right on a river, and I rounded out my alligator experience by having the alligator appetizer. Kinda like chicken. Did a lovely lecture event with Christian Science lecturer Chet Manchester.

7)On up to Charleston for another event with Chet. Then I headed back down to St Helena Island to chill with Nina for a couple of days. There I received the gift of a lifetime - Nina and I attended a prayer service at this old time praise house (about the size of 2 tool sheds) which felt like it was a hundred years ago. The singing was amazing - so full of joy and feeling. Everyone was having a ball. And so informal! They asked me to read from the scripture and say what I thought about it. So I read some and expounded a little bit. Hoo-ah! That was fun. This was a gift from deep down and made me wonder what I did to deserve it. Thanks Nina!

8) Then back up to Charleston to work on a mural at the CS church there. Just finished it today. I will have pics up on FB very soon!

Also, all this time I have been reading a great book - "Shogun" by James Clavell. I bought it at a thrift store forever ago, mostly because it is so so long, and I thought, if it turns out to be good, then it will occupy me for a long time. And that is just what it has done. Have you ever read it? Or seen the mini-series from the 70's? This book is just so interesting - a historical novel based on the story of the first Englishman ever to reach Japan. Set in the 17th century, the most interesting part to me is about how the different cultures interact and how they get so frustrated with one another because they are making such enormously different assumptions about everything. If you are ever looking for a really wonderful 1200 page book to read, I recommend this one.

So, that's all for now. Off to Greenville, SC tomorrow!

Love ya!

The Almighty Update

Hi all. I'm in Florida where it is so hot.

And actually, tomorrow I'm flying to Houston which I don't expect to be icy cool.

One of my favorite things about tours (mine anyway - I don't bet U2's tours are like this) is that dates get picked up along the way. I love to see that the journey itself is alive and that it makes itself up as I go along.

Here is a list of the places I have stayed so far:

1) A huge mansion in Germantown, Philadelphia, PA, with Zach and Corrie and a bunch of other nice people. They served a gorgeous dinner of angel hair pasta with cod right when we arrived. Got to see Zach and Corrie perform too. They are awesome.

2) With Ashley in her apartment in DC. It was in flux and had things piled up to the ceiling. Played a wee little concert in DC and then sang a falsetto solo at a church in DC the following day. Went to the glorious national botanic gardens. Behold the orchids the Lord hath made!

3)With Jodi and Greg and their sons Ian and Jareth in Oakton, VA. We watched Dr. Who and made some enormous soap bubbles. Also played one of the most fun house concerts of my whole life. You know when the audience is just like a sports car and we can turn on a dime and go right where we need to?

4) With Nina in Spanish Moss laden St. Helena Island, SC. There's too much to say about this place. palm trees, pine trees, dogs, horseshoe crabs, flip flops, history, evening's gentle breath, fresh food, lovely conversation, the internet while i look out on the ocean. Coming back here in May. :)

5) In my own guest apartment with Laurie and Mike in Merritt Island, FL. Played a dynamite show at a youth event on Saturday, and again at a church in Cocoa, FL on Sunday. I just love to perform, and afterwards, just love all the people. Whew! Thank God we all love to be together. Did a mural of 3 Bible stories in the Sunday School of the church in Cocoa (can you believe it's called "Cocoa"? There's also a river nearby called the Banana River. come on.) The Bible stories (so fun to think about how to depict them) were Daniel in the lions den (Dan. 6:22) The Good Samaritan (Luke 10:33) and Jesus walking on the water (Matt. 14:25). I will have pictures soon.

Went swimming in the glorious rough ocean after the first long day of painting. Today saw an alligator in a pond behind Walmart. Also a couple of manatees in the marina.

This weekend concerts in Houston and Austin, then back to Florida for a few more before heading north again.

Ok! Keep in touch! I love you!

Alex

The Power of Being Watched

"Nearly everybody is looking for something brave to do. I don't know why people shouldn't write poetry. That's brave." -Robert Frost.

I have loved this quote from Robert Frost for many years. I know that feeling of looking for something brave to do, something I can do that will be good, even, glorious. I always felt that the point of Frost's comment was not so much about poetry as it is about having faith that our small, inner acts of goodness actually matter. We don’t all write poetry, but we do all have the power to influence the world for the better through our smallest actions and decisions.

We are almost always surrounded by people. Folks are always watching us. No one actually knows what to do and how to do it all the time. Everyone is wondering how to live, how to live better, how to be happier. And we all are watching the people around us for clues.

The idea that people are watching can be scary if we feel we are going to be judged, our weaknesses seen and noticed. In fact, maybe that's what most people would think of first when thinking of being watched. But, I've come to feel that being seen and watched gives us great power. If we think of being seen as an opportunity to communicate with others by our actions, we can do a lot of good. It's also a great way to get over fears about being seen!

One of the things people most long for is a way to be useful. Sometimes we search and search, feeling unfulfilled in the quest for how to actually be useful. But God has given us a way to be useful constantly. It is to be aware that every day, as we live our lives we have an audience. We have an audience of interested listeners, hearts who are looking for insight into the mystery of life.

The thing to do is to find the courage to really live our best ideas. In fact, at any given moment, what you have to offer the world is the best ideas you have encountered – your loves, your enthusiasm, your passions. When we do this, we are useful. As we live our loves, putting our best efforts into solving our own problems with virtue, courage, and faith, we are a model for others. As we solve our own problems, as we fight our own battles, striving to be good, we are serving those around us by being an example. And, as we do this, it becomes clear that the good things our lives are bringing out are not from us personally, but from God.

There is no time when this kind of service is not possible. I work as a chaplain in a jail in Boston. Sometimes I speak with men who are struggling with how to be feel useful while they are incarcerated. It is especially pressing when one of them is looking at an extended sentence. A question that each heart asks is, "How can I be worth anything if I am locked up?"

I have seen that question be answered beautifully as men in this position have taken to heart the fact that even in jail, they are surrounded by others watching, learning, hoping. One of the most inspiring sights I have seen was a young man of about 21 years, who had just received a 20 year sentence – After having spent a year or so deeply studying the Bible, and giving his life over to God, he intimated to me that he knew that his purpose was to teach and live the Word of God, right there in prison. He would not allow his God-given power to contribute be taken from him.

We all have this power, today. The world is in need of models. Models of courage, persistence, patience, and the whole spectrum of virtues. In fact, what is the world more desperately in need of than these? And yet, they are right there, in our hearts, ready for us to use them. Just like everything worth doing, it's not easy – but the payoff is enormous!

One may say, "I am not courageous! I don't feel persistent! I don't have patience!" But, the thing is, everyone else has that voice working in them too. Everyone else is suffering under the influence of those same fears, and doubts. Think of how much the rest of the world needs proof that courage exists. Think of how powerful it is to see someone actually be courageous. We have the power to give that gift to someone else. Maybe even a lot of people.

We all have the work of life ahead of us. That work is to do good, to be better and better, to love others and to love God. I have found it a great help to realized that as I fight my battles honestly, and with the whole array of virtues, to the very best of my ability, I am not only helping myself, I am helping others as well. The world needs each of us to write the courageous poem of our lives, for the sake of those around us.

Asking

The Bible give us unequivocal promises that God will give us what we ask for - if we ask! "Ask and you will receive. Seek and you will find. Knock, and the door will be opened to you." (Matt. 7:7 NIV) "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God… and it will be given to him." (James 1:5)

If that's all true then I really want to know - What is "asking"?! We have all had the experience of asking God for something and not receiving it.

Over and over again the Bible counsels us to not simply communicate with God with words, but with our whole hearts. Asking, it turns out, has very little to do with words – a request that we may present to God – and everything to do with our lives – what we all to grow in our hearts.

An interesting experiment is to ask ourselves, "If I could only communicate my desires to God with my life – no words, what would my life right now be asking for?" The answer to this question will give us a good sense of what we are currently asking God for. This is real "asking". A way to put it is that the language in which God hears is not so much words, as our lives. Our days, weeks and months, are the sentences we are speaking to God. What are they asking for? Are we asking God, Divine Love for things that She is likely to think are best for us?

In her chapter on prayer in Science and Health, Mary Baker Eddy speaks at length about desire. Desire implies a longing for something we don't have. And, bringing God into the picture, desire also implies a petition to God to fulfill that desire. "Your Father knows what you need before you ask him." (Matt 6:8 NIV) There is no way to demonstrate our completeness without feeling a great longing to do so! Deep desire is absolutely necessary for healing, progress and the practice of Christianity. Eddy says, "In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God's allness…Such prayer is answered, in so far as we put our desires into practice." (S+H pg 15)

What are these longings? Where do they come from? The deep desires, the longing we feel in our hearts – we did not make up ourselves. Those desires are inklings toward God. When we pray we discover those desires in our hearts like gifts under the Christmas tree.

So in essence, there must be no disconnect between our "earnest longings" and our actions! A life lived this way, keeping our outward actions in harmony with our innermost longings, is constantly reaching out to God with the heart, wordlessly asking for the heart's desire. And the Bible promises us that these petitions of the heart and life, are supplied.

It is a great, challenging adventure to strive to have the outward life reflect the deep inner longings. Why? First of all because we must learn to be silent and humble in order to hear and truly feel how God is guiding us with our desires; secondly, as we listen more and more closely, we find that our inner longings are spiritual and very often bid us to leave well trodden, familiar paths. Instead, they call us to explore new territories and ideas, and to serve. Following the desires God has put in our hearts forces us to grow, learn, expand. It put us in situations where we must overcome fear, pride, and other vices. But there is no replacing the joy and satisfaction that comes from living a life that is guided by our deep, individual, God-given desires.

When I was about 10 years into my career as a muralist I began to feel that it was time for something new in my career. For all those years my heart at sung as I painted murals. To feel that it was no longer what I should be doing was surprising and a little disorienting. I began to pray. For a time I pondered entering the military to be work as a chaplain. But as months went on, I felt that was not the right idea. My great desire was to serve, to use my skills, my individuality and spiritual conviction. I longed to be engaged with others in a way I could feel deeply. This desire drove me to search and think and feel about my purpose for being alive.

Then, about a year after I began praying about it, I received an answer in prayer: "Dedicate the first 4 hours of every day to nothing but being creative." It was an interesting command, and one that was a little scary. I didn’t know where this would lead, or how it would progress things. Being a painter, I assumed God was moving me to make some new paintings. But, when I began this discipline of making time for creativity, being obedient, instead of paintings, what came out were songs.

In a few months I had created a whole new body of spiritual music, the likes of which I had never written before. In the following years, things opened up naturally. Very soon I was making my living full time as a musician, performing in churches, and making the most of countless opportunities to serve others in new ways and compelling ways. It was a great rebirth, all brought about by the natural asking of the heart's earnest longings. It was not a career change I sought out, but rather, one that I discovered, occurring in the heart.

During that time I saw that my days of work, listening, and exploring the way to make that transition were prayers. Just by living out my longing I was asking God for help. And it was being given step by step. For much of the time I didn’t know where it was going – only that this new work was compelling to me, and made my heart sing with gratitude and long to grow into it more fully.

In short, the "asking" that matters, is a function of the heart in which we humbly allow God to tell us what we most want, and then live in such a way as to see those desires be fulfilled. This kind of asking leaves no need for words.

Art and Spirituality Interview - #3 "Community Art"

E: It sounds like the mural became the interface with the community.

A: It is an interface, and the way that spoke to me back then, and still does today is that in an image you're presenting an idea, and the ideas that I immediately wanted to present were ideas of beauty, purity, imagination, and spirit. Those four qualities were the most powerful things I could give. When I put images out there, I'm speaking with thousands of people I don't know...

E: Whether you're physically there or not...

A: Exactly. I'm not there most of the time, the mural is still there, it's been there thirteen years.

E: What is the picture of?

A: It was a tree of life. There's an angel flying over top of it, there's a city at the bottom. It was a very simple and lovely metaphor to me. It's like regular human life is there (symbolized by the city) and this tree is just dwarfing the city. This immense tree is obviously not a biological tree, it's a spiritual tree, because it's obviously far bigger than any tree really is. So immediately because it's not literally a real situation that you can see with your eyes - we know we're talking about something that is mental and not physical.



So it's represented in a way that causes us to let go of our material understanding of the world and say “Okay, something else is happening here.” The tree of life is a pretty central image, a common image, and it feels to me to put an image like that, that is pure and healthy, life affirming and beautiful, in a place that is normally dominated by commercial images, which really brings it out in even greater relief than if it was in a book or a gallery. You know, the context makes it that much more powerful.

E: Kind of like, unexpected?

A: Yes, exactly. You put an image out in the world, and what you're counting on is that the people who see it have something in their interior life that resembles that image.

E: What do you mean by interior life?

A: I mean their thought life, their feeling life. I think a lot of us have things in our lives we don't know how to put into words, we don't know how to put into language, and that's one of the ways in which artists do a service as much as a plumber or a carpenter where the artist does something that fulfills a need. We all have these interior spiritual lives. I see my role as making images that help us see that even though we sometimes can't put those interior lives into language, other people are having them too and we're together as a group.

Here's this image and it's talking about something spiritual, something deeply felt and you might see it and say “I have that feeling too, but have never been able to put it into words.” When that happens we feel, “What I doubted, I doubt less. I believe more in what I have felt because I see that someone else felt it too.” I think all of us need help in bolstering that confidence. We feel something inside of us and if we are the only people in the world that felt that we would go, “Oh my gosh, maybe that's wrong, maybe I didn't really feel it, maybe it's not that important.” That's why things like church, families, and organizations are so important – to build up our sense of idealism and foster confidence in our inner lives.

Art helps fill that role by taking images that speak about our untouched interior lives and make them relatable. It says, "Look, even though we all have our normal everyday jobs and lives, we're sharing deep experience - we all have this experience of really being alive. And art is talking about those things, that real feeling of real alive-ness. And maybe we don't know how to talk about it but look, there it is in a painting! And look, we're sharing it. That's at the heart of community.

Art and Spirituality Interview - #2 "How did you know you wanted to be an artist?"

E: How did you know you wanted to be an artist?

A: I had this trio of friends we went to high school together and we all ended up at the University of Massachusetts together and we all were artists. Beyond people who liked to draw, we all just had that feeling that art is important and it's real and it's stitched into our lives in a way that we're not going to get it out.

E: Like you couldn't separate your art life from the rest of your life.

A: Exactly, and that felt exactly right, you know? It felt comfortable to be identifying with that. I am a creator. I am someone who loves to make, someone who loves to observe, record, tell stories, things like that. And so the three of us really worked off each other. We all had our own things going in different directions, but I know we really took strength from having the other two around us whose presence said, “There are really other people in the world like this.” And at one point, Pasqualina (one of these friends) painted a mural. It just put something in my mind that that is something people can do. At the end of college I had to make a body of work to graduate. I had been thinking about what to do and it just sort of dawned on me, that the way to make work that you don't have to submit to this gallery culture, is to skip the gallery and put it in a place where everyone can see it. And I thought "Murals! It's brilliant!" As long as I can find someone who will allow me to paint on their wall, there is then nothing that can keep me from taking my best ideas and putting them in front of the whole world. That was incredible! That was an amazing new thought to have, and then when I did find a wall that was available to me, it was a beginning of an adventure that was the next twelve years of my life. That really felt like a new step because murals are very different in that they're public art. I didn't know this at the time but I began to learn very quickly that public art is very different than private art.

E: In what way?

A: Oh there's so much. Prior to my first mural, when I heard people talking about "community" events or "community" art, I had sort of a negative connotation with those words. I felt like “community” in that context meant it was going to be watered down, that it wasn't going to be as good as something that was made by someone working in their studio being real, making something wonderful. I had this notion that it meant it would be forced and a little superficial. That's the idea that I had. When I went to paint my mural, my first one, (It is in Northamption, MA) I went sort of imagining that I'm just in my studio, making another painting. I'm not thinking of the people around me or anything like that, I'm just making a good painting. But when that happened, when I first started, I became so terrified because I realized there were hundreds of people driving past me, watching me, every hour.

I thought, "What if I mess up?" Because I mess up in paintings all the time, you know, like I'm in my studio and I mess up on paintings constantly and you correct them and whatever. It's a completely different thing to make a 16 foot tall painting and your working in public. In a studio, you're working in private and you don't have to worry about anyone looking over your shoulder, correcting you, saying your idea is stupid, all these different things...whereas in public, you have no idea what people are going to say. Anyway, I was feeling really, really afraid about what people were going to say and I couldn't proceed. I was there at the wall and I could not physically proceed because I was too scared.

So I stood there at the wall and prayed. Inwardly I was like, "I know I'm supposed to be here and this feels exactly right but, how do I do it? The idea that came as I listened in my thought was, "This is your opportunity to give a gift." It was so simple, yet it floored me. That thought changed everything. Prior to that, I had thought this was about me expressing myself, but after that I realized this is not about "expressing myself" as such. Rather, this is about giving something that is going to make the community better. Someone who is walking home from work and they've had a rotten day will feel “Oh that's beautiful!” or the kids are walking by and they just have it in their head that there is a beautiful picture over there. This mural can silently influence people's lives just by being beautiful.

That was a complete change to the lens through which I was seeing this event. It stopped being about how I felt, and instead it was about sharing something good. Immediately I had a new feeling of, “Oh man I really want to give a good gift! I want so badly for this to work!”

I find that when I have power, when I have the ability to make a difference, I want so badly to use it well. Whereas when I don't feel like I have power to make a difference, I may be a whole lot less motivated. So, feeling the power to give a beautiful gift was very invigorating.

E: I see your hand pulling almost from your heart.

A: Yeah, it feels that way. Realizing it was a gift to the people of that neighborhood helped me feel more of the power that I have as an artist. I had the power to actually help peoples' hearts. That's when I began to feel a real love for that community, that neighborhood. The word “community” stopped being something that I was skeptical of and started being something that I believed in deeply. It was just about loving people.

E: It wasn't some ideal out in the clouds.

A: Right, and it didn’t mean (like I had thought it would mean) something watered down or insincere. But I knew that this mural isn't watered down at all. I was feeling, "I want this more than anything! I really believe that art can help people." Now, I have come to see that art can influence and even save lives and that's what my art is about. So that was the first step and then the next many years after that were about continuing to explore "How does this actually work? How do I actually influence lives with pictures and poetry and images?

Art and Spirituality Interview - #1 "Where does your art come from?"

Last year my friend Ellen Hammond interviewed me about my career, art, and spirituality. Over a series of 9 posts, I will be sharing the interview here. It contains a lot of ideas and explanations that are central to my approach to art, expression, and life in general.

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Ellen: Where does your art come from?

Alex: Where it all comes from is something that I have learned over the years. When I was beginning, maybe in my early twenties, my art and my music felt like they came from different places. I would generally make art about what seemed like fantasy and visionary sorts of themes, whereas music was about my feelings and emotions and relationships - they seemed very, very different. And then over the years as I explored them both pretty equally, as they both became more spiritualized, as I dug deeper and deeper because I loved them so much, they became closer, and closer, until it was clear that their source was not different. At some point, it dawned on me that all the ideas that I'm having and loving are coming from a source that is not me, because I'm not making up a thought. It's more like I'm receiving a thought. Even if I'm the first person ever in the world to think it, it's not that I made it up. Rather, I innocently received it. Things became much simpler when I realized that they weren't separated, the music, the art, the poetry, whatever - making jokes in a conversation – I began to see that it is all coming from the same good place. And it works best when I'm not afraid, when I'm not concerned about how I appear to others, when I'm just working, just listening. And that felt really profound to see that all my favorite ideas came from the same place. At that point I started to feel like making a song is effectively the same thing as making a painting except I'm using a different way to express an idea. Outwardly they're different but at the point I see that I'm just dealing with ideas, it's all sort of the same.

E: Can you pinpoint why you were initially drawn to making pictures?

A: Well I had never painted a mural until I was 23 years old and I was making stuff years before that. As a kid I was drawing. I started to feel like something really wonderful was happening around the age of 17. I remember walking around my little suburban hometown late at night. I started going on walks and it just seemed like the whole world was beautiful. You know, the street lights coming through the leaves in the summer. That's one of the first images in the world that I noticed was beautiful - electric street lights illuminating these green leaves in the summer night. And to my little 17 year old high school heart, I was like “Wow that was beautiful!” and so I started making drawings of it, and of myself walking underneath them. It was really an exploration of “Who am I?” I liked depicting my own life and thinking about my own life, and making a record of it in drawings and paintings, marker sketches and such. I had just started playing guitar a few years before that. The exciting thing was to explore what my life is about – "Who am I?" and "What are these feelings that I'm having?" And so that was sort of the beginning of the path. Art was very important to me long before I ever made a mural.

Then, years later, when I started making murals it was for no better reason than that I didn’t like the idea of pleading with a gallery to show my work.

E: Like for the process of being approved or rejected? Like trying to conform to what you think that gallery is looking for?

A: Exactly.

To me, this creation, this creativity is the purest thing I know of in my life. At that point, there is nothing I love more than that. I thought there's got to be a way for me to do this and have it remain completely pure and not immediately submit to this thing to commerce and what felt like impurity. I knew nothing - nothing about galleries or anything like that, but it certainly has a reputation of being not the most supportive community in the world. It's obviously a really broad community and there are good experiences and bad experiences. My thought at that time was, if you put your stuff in a gallery you may get a show, and you may get a smattering of people who come and see your work, but how many people actually go to a gallery on any given day? How many people actually go to a museum? It's not really that many!