Monthly Conversations

Interviews with Social Artists, Uncommon Heroes

June 22, 2013

From the Editor

Richard Whittaker

Rephrasing Joseph Campbell, and looking for a theme, we might settle on 'the artist's way.' Our last two pieces came out of an art exhibit this past April framed in the context of Campbell's reflections about art. Late in his life, Campbell gave a talk he called 'The Way of the Artist' in which he quoted his wife, Jean Erdman, 'The way of the mystic and way of the artist are much alike.' [more]

More Features

• Tom Nakashima/Rob Barnard
• Radek Skrivanek
• Forgotten Ancestors

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David Ulrich

David Ulrich on his famous teacher, Minor White: 'I remember him coaching me through the contemplative exercise to look at the plants and, for a moment, something opened up in me and I felt that I was seeing, feeling, sensing, the living energy of the plant somewhere in my being. It was a shock.' It was a moment of seeing in which, as Ulrich puts it, 'something relaxes inside and you feel that you.re seeing the world as a living energy. You look at a tree and, in some strange way, you feel a kinship, you feel the life force of that tree. When you look at a person, you feel a unity and a kinship apart from all likes and dislikes.'

Americ Azevedo: The Truth Demands To Be Lived

'When you lose your paycheck -- and it was such a big paycheck and so solid -- now what happens next? I didn't know. Money, in our world, usually represents certainty and stability. But if your supply is wobbly, what's your choice? Without money there's uncertainty. It amplified my spiritual life tremendously because, if you're going to keep your sanity, the only choice is spirit.'