A Generous Spirit: Exploring New Directions for the Arts

By Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris and Keri Smith

All artists hit roadblocks on their creative paths and in A Generous Spirit artist Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris tells stories of how we might overcome them. Trained as an artist, designer and calligrapher, Sarah begins by telling the story of building her own career on the 'art as a product' route until she became di

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kaminn Media Ltd
• Release date: Oct 27, 2020
• ISBN: 9781912698998

Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris

Sarah Zoutewelle-Morris (1949-2019) was born in Dublin, Ireland. Her family moved to the U.S. when she was a child, where she started studying with Abe Weiner, a well known American painter, when she was 10 years old. She received a degree in fine arts/illustration at Syracuse University New York, and a BFA Graphic design/ Calligraphy at Carnegie-Mellon University PA, where she studied with master calligrapher Arnold Bank and became his assistant. She taught calligraphy, art and design at CMU and the Ivy School of Professional Art & Crafts, lectured, exhibited, did commissions and appeared in numerous articles in various calligraphy journals. In 1977 she moved to Scotland, to the Findhorn Foundation, where she worked in the design department, designing and illustrating a whole range of publications. She also ran an art gallery there for several years and gave art workshops regularly. In 1984 she moved with her Dutch husband to the Netherlands, where she continued teaching courses in art and calligraphy, working in graphic design and calligraphy, exhibiting her art work, writing articles for various magazines, and illustrating books. Her work was used by several of the big design firms in the North of Holland. She also started to decorate period instruments for various harpsichord builders. In the mid-nineties she started to get more interested in the social side of art and creativity and joined HBG, an organization of artists that developed and executed celebratory art and creativity projects in hospitals, inspired by Patch Adams, the American clown/doctor. She was active for 15 years as a creativity trainer and an art/healthcare worker - an artist who uses her creative skills within a health-care setting to support patients and to help staff develop creative approaches to their work. She also worked as a creative consultant in a home for people with dementia for several years, which resulted in her first book, 100 Ideas for a Creative Approach to Activities in Dementia Care, which was selected by the British library association for their recommended reading list, and translated into German and Welsh. Both her second book, A Generous Spirit: Exploring New Directions for the Arts, and her third book, Pigments of Imagination, were published posthumously in 2020.

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Introduction

‘An artist’s life used to be a vocation, a calling, often demanding sacrifices or renunciation of worldly values. When professionalism replaced vocation, artists started wanting art to serve their careers rather than seeing themselves as serving art.’

—Suzi Gablik¹

rmed with our BAs in fine art/graphic design, the Carnegie-Mellon graduation class of 1973 moved out into the world more or less assured of earning a good livelihood. With some discipline and an ongoing commitment to producing high quality work (and with maybe a little teaching on the side), we could expect to live from our creative abilities. The phrase ‘Good work finds its own way into the world’ had meaning then, and truthfully, this is how the first stage of my career as an artist proceeded. For six years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I made my living from calligraphy and design commissions, from juried art fairs, and teaching adult art courses. All of this unfolded without the need for any branding or self-promotion, or social media (which didn’t yet exist).

Relocating to the Netherlands in the 1980s when I was 33 years old was the beginning of a very different experience of being an artist. In Pittsburgh, I hadn’t realized that the ease of my success was also due to being embedded in several communities in the city, and that most of my work came from within those warm networks. From being a rising star in calligraphy and fine arts in the United States, I landed as an unknown foreigner in a vastly different cultural landscape than the one I had known. Alongside the usual challenges of integrating into a new country, there were other factors at play which made picking up my interrupted career exceedingly difficult. My specialty, calligraphy, was negatively associated in the Netherlands with the World War II German occupation and their use of Gothic script, which had dominated city streets during those years. Additionally, ‘calligraphy’ was firmly relegated to the hobby corner. While accepted in the US and England, the concept of calligraphic art as a branch of contemporary graphics and art was — aside from a handful of practitioners — virtually unknown here. Graphic design in the Netherlands of the 1980s was ever so avant-garde, allminimal lines and slashes. When I showed my portfolio to design studios, my work, which was warmer and more decorative, was labelled as ‘too American’ (whatever that meant) and ‘too traditional.’

In addition, the international fine arts scene, already seriously compromised, had by now become completely commercialized. As visionary and art critic Suzi Gablik wrote in the 1980s: ‘Trapped increasingly in a situation that seems both hopeless and inescapable, artists have become increasingly dependent on the ‘bureaucratic machinery’ which now organizes and administers the consumption of art in our culture.’² For the first time I was confronted with a reality where doing good art wasn’t enough. It not only had to fit with the new times and culture I was living in, but above all the artist had to be a skilled entrepreneur to even get noticed, let alone earn a living.

And so this book began as a search for meaning in my path as an artist. I was attempting to understand what I was experiencing all around me as the arts and artists were being devalued and marginalized. As society moved toward the commoditization of everything, I was questioning what artists could do, and what their purpose might be if they refused to produce art solely as a product. During the almost twenty years it took to write this book, many doors closed for me. I discovered that though I was passionate about much of my work, putting it in service to building and maintaining a career was unfulfilling. I didn’t realize it then, but in my heart there was a calling which was not being heeded. I gradually withdrew from art as a career, and began to question what art could mean not only for my individual life, but also for our collective lives. And over time, new doors opened.

So this book is partly the chronicle of a personal journey; it starts with a successful life as a professional artist, and takes us through a search for meaning in an international spiritual community in Scotland, eventually landing as an outsider in the Dutch culture, establishing a career there, working as a healthcare artist in hospitals, and a gradual discovery of purpose beyond the selling of art and oneself. Some parts of the book were written during a period of transition between my old familiar way of life and a not yet discovered new one. It was a time full of doubt and isolation, yet I knew I wasn’t the only one experiencing this. I wanted to share how I navigated a limbo period that went on for years and what I learned from it. I wanted to write while I was in the middle of it to describe the terrain for others who might be experiencing a similar situation.

Choosing to write from an uncertain, constantly morphing period of life goes against the current formula of ‘how I succeeded despite everything’ books. There seems to be a new kind of myth that describes a process of overcoming obstacles to become the ’success that one is now.’ I can tell you early on that this book doesn’t follow that formula. Success can be defined in many ways. By veering away from a profession, the attributes of success changed from money and status to a set of other rewards. These only became evident after giving up the chase, and after a complete overhaul of my ideas and aspirations. In the end, I discovered that the period of feeling lost is necessary when you are radically changing your direction. Like the creative process, once you embark on it, there is no guarantee as to where you’ll end up. Though my life has moved beyond the years of limbo, I see that period as a necessary part of my story.

I also found there was no way to tell my story without taking into account the enormous societal and cultural changes happening all around me. The scope of the book has expanded beyond the personal to consider new areas opening up for the arts and artists. It is not just a chronicle of how one artist had to change with the times, but also a story of the search for a more whole and connected sort of life generally. My artist friends were asking themselves if there is indeed a place in the world for them, and if there is any meaning in that path. I wrote this to get things clear for myself in the hope that others may also benefit from the insights gained along the way. This journey, including an ovarian cancer diagnosis during the writing of the book, has led me back to the rhythms of my own heart’s path, and a deepening connection with the soul of the Earth. Though the book is written from the perspective of a visual artist, it doesn’t matter what your area of work and expression is — creativity and creative thinking can be applied in every field.

The artists you will meet in these pages have changed the rules. By following their calling with integrity and creative passion, they have each forged a unique path that others may in turn follow. They are strengthening the emergence of the new arts — arts done in service to the community and the land, and fully integrated into mainstream life. There are books I’ve read which have profoundly changed me: they have opened a door or taken away a worry, or sometimes lifted me so far above my little personal world that something in me just healed up which I didn’t even know was broken.

This is the kind of book I wanted to write, and I hope for some of you it is.

—Sarah, Autumn 2018

Chapter One

Re-Envisioning the Arts: Old Roles and New Directions

‘The music suffers, the music business thrives.’

— Paul Simon³

ooking back, the dissatisfaction with being a career artist started even before my move to the Netherlands. The goals of selling art and making a name were no longer making sense to me. I was midcareer and feeling marginalized as an artist. And I didn’t see how I could live my ideals from within an artist’s role. Unhappy with the increasing pressure to glamorize my work and market myself, I had started to look around for alternatives. Though I continued to accept graphic design commissions, exhibit, and teach, I was also on a quest to find ways to be an artist which were less defined by the market and closer to my heart’s path. When considering what a meaningful direction might be at this point in my life and career, the issues that arose were less about a particular role — ‘teacher,’ ‘socially engaged artist,’ et cetera — but more about the context in which those roles could be lived out. The question became: How might I use my skills to create more community, sense of place, and wholeness?

To understand my own dilemmas, I needed to take into account the wider context. The arts themselves are in a serious crisis of meaning. It seems to me that many people are confused about the arts — what they are, what their purpose may be, why they should even care about them. And can we blame them? Even the art world isn’t sure what qualifies as art and what doesn’t. The prestigious Turner prize, presented annually to a British visual artist, was won in 2001 by Martin Creed for an ‘artwork’ which consisted of turning a light switch on and off. The artist, on receiving 20,000 pounds for his bare room with an on and off flashing light said, ’I think people can make of it what they like, I don’t think it is for me to explain it.’ No wonder it seems that the arts have lost touch with everyday life and normal people. Even as an artist I don’t want to be associated with the art establishment.

Around 2012, the Dutch government executed a series of arts budget cuts that were devastating for theatre groups, art academies, museums, symphony orchestras, and other arts bodies. Disappearing subsidies for the arts aren’t new, but what was worrying about this new spate of cuts was the underlying disdain for the arts in general. When the most serious cuts were announced, the media went wild condemning the arts and artists as ‘lazy parasites wasting public money,’ and suggesting that art had no relevance to the man in the street. One prominent politician suggested that art was merely a ‘hobby for liberals.’ Is art really just some fringe entertainment for the elite few, a luxury product without meaning or value? If so, where does that leave me — or you — as an artist?

When the subsidy slashes were first announced, there was outrage from the arts community followed by demonstrations and a fierce public debate about the worth of art. But the arguments put forth in favor of art were weak and unconvincing. There was talk about the arts bringing added ‘economic value’ to an area. Others spoke of ‘character building’ in schools. No one addressed the intrinsic value of the arts. Several years later the debate has quieted down, and the surviving arts institutions have turned commercial to survive without government subsidies. But the period of reflecting on the importance of art when its existence was threatened has thankfully led to some insightful and sensible theories about art’s purpose. In talk shows and newspaper columns we’re beginning to see serious consideration of what the arts may mean to human society. Is art just decoration or does it widen one’s view of life? Is it merely the expression of some rebellious creative spirit, or does it actually provide visionary guidance for a society to move forward to its best dreams?

ln our present world, the idea of intangible value is completely bypassed. Art historian Lennart Booij wrote in 2015 of how profit-oriented thinking is destructive to less profitable areas and initiatives, such as healthcare, the arts, media, and culture, concluding that ‘the public domain is seriously im- poverished.’⁴ The time, attention, and beauty communicated by a product or service have been overshadowed by financial considerations, even while they still speak to us as individuals. An expertly laid dry wall; quality attention for people; the respectful preservation of an ancient landscape; an inspired independent scientific study — all are powerful meaning carriers; we instinctively recognize the deep human value in these endeavors. They bring a feeling of pride, relevance, and a sense of purpose as well as acting as bridges between different people, ideas, and cultures.

Dutch author Geerten Meijsing, in a newspaper article from 2012, discussed the added worth of the arts and how these are laid waste by treating literature solely as a product. He argues that literature is not part of the commercial market system because it produces not economic capital, but cultural capital, which ‘is as vitally important as other more economically oriented issues for the history and identity of a country.’⁵ Literature is a high expression of a culture, and culture is the face and soul of a society; in architecture, museums, but also in the quality of services offered, higher education in the form of independent research, and ultimately the ‘living arts.’ Obviously, one can’t define this added value in set norms or numbers, but it is a measure of the overall quality of life — or civilization.

In an article in a national newspaper, Jan Zoet, director of the Amsterdam Theatre school, summarized the present question as such: ’Why should the government support the arts? Especially since there doesn’t seem to be a functional reason in society to do so — and public interest is waning.’⁶ He answers his question in support of the arts, arguing that art is the key to the transition to a more sustainable society. Innovation and the respect for art and creativity as tools for renewal are vital to this passage.

‘Sustainability,’ ‘innovation,’ and ‘small scale’ are key words in the transition to a society that can solve the global problems facing us and which politics has failed to answer. The crisis in the arts simply reflects the larger crisis in the world. We keep trying to solve it through economizing on one hand and economic growth on the other, and neither works. Our times don’t call for a slight tweaking of ideals and acts but a major overhaul of how we view the world. Daring to imagine and realize new directions, opening eyes, ears and hearts, taking risks and dealing well with the changes that lead to transition is a collective task that new generations of entrepreneurs, scientists and artists are already engaged in. It is a movement from the bottom up that politics and media are resisting, because they are still entrenched in and invested in maintaining old models. But a lively, innovative arts policy is a prerequisite for the new sustainable information and creative economy.

The future stands or falls with the degree that we’re able to be creative and deal with large fundamental world change. This demands new ethical values; no longer chasing after money and things, but seeking rather a quality of life in inspiration, connection, sustainability, beauty, imagination and a sense of belonging. All lead to a new kind of accountable citizenship — and accountable art.

As a practicing artist, I’ve felt all along that the arts have intrinsic value. And as I explored the topic beyond my personal situation, I found more evidence for the arts being a vital part of what makes us human. Not only do they give our lives hope and beauty, but they are crucial in bringing back enchantment, meaning, imagination, color, and emotion into the center of our lives. The arts help express what can’t be said in words, they connect disparate ideologies and cultures, they make the unseen visible, and provide society with new modes of expression.

It’s easy to see that there are major breakdowns in worldwide economies, ecosystems and energy networks. And we might ask if the arts have relevance in the face of these huge global problems. A prevailing attitude holds that the arts are superfluous, that we need money for ‘more important things,’ such as healthcare and education. Yet countless small initiatives at the grassroots level are coming up with effective local solutions. In the late years of the twentieth century, they were invisible and unrelated. But these micro actions and projects — guerrilla gardening, innovative intercultural work, sustainable agriculture, urban greening, et cetera — have grown into a planet-wide movement geared to finding healthier and more sustainable ways to be here.

The transition, from the old degenerating ways of doing and thinking to the new emerging vision, affects all of us and demands new creative solutions. We are each faced with choices. I’m not alone in being caught between old roles and new directions, nor in wondering how art is relevant to all of this. Couldn’t I contribute more as a nurse or social worker? Or is there a way to use my creative skills to contribute to a better quality of life for myself and for my community?

Arts in a State of Chaos — The Visionary Insights of Suzi Gablik

In that in-between time, I began questioning my ideas and principles that seemed so contradictory to society’s prevailing ones. Certain books helped me gain new insights, and the authors of these works reassured me that I wasn’t crazy, that the deep stirring in myself was being experienced by others as well. And that slowly all these small internal shifts were forming a groundswell of change within the arts and the culture. Suzi Gablik’s books have been indispensable guides in my quest to find meaning in the changing landscape of art. Her courageous work has provided