Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again: Buddhist Wisdom Reflected in 26 Artists

By Kevin Thomas Townley Jr.

“His writing is fresh and accessible, and so tender. As soon as I started reading it, I immediately started thinking of friends I’d like to give it to.”
—Judith L. Lief, editor of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma
A mad riot of interconnections: art, Buddhism, mandala principle, spiritual pursuits, growing up goth in the 90s, the theories of Marshall McLuhan, and a mongoose—to name but a few.

Meditation teacher, filmmaker, writer, and art savant Kevin Townley turns his unique gaze upon 26 artists and magnifies the power and meaning of the five Buddhist wisdom energies through explorations of their work. Rather than trying to “explain” these energies, he reveals them to you in familiar visual language while, of course, pushing the boundaries of what you might have thought you saw at first glance. Townley leads you to, invites you in, and sometimes springs upon you, the perennial wisdom in the worlds of artists from Artemisia to Hilma af Klint to Marilyn Minter.

Beautifully written and hilariously disarming, Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again vibrates with lucid insight into society, history, and establishment, while teaching you a lot about meditation and Buddhism along the way. In exploring the practice, life, and work of these 26 artists (all of whom are women) through the lens of the five wisdom energies, you come away with a deeper understanding of yourself, the world, and the true dharma that transcends culture and religion—and a profound gratitude for anyone really willing to look.

“Without a doubt, Townley is the Fran Lebowitz of Buddhist writing.”
—John Hodgman, host of the Judge John Hodgman Podcast
“Kevin Townley demystifies that daunting link between art and spirituality while leaving room for the divine. By weaving artists' histories with his own, he makes the reader feel comfortable drawing connections between heady concepts and personal experience. Through a unique blend of compassion and curiosity, Kevin Townley has given readers a more intimate, spiritually-minded 'Ways of Seeing.'”
—Tavi Gevinson, actor, writer, and founder of Rookie

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lionheart Press, a division of the Open Heart Project
• Release date: Feb 21, 2022
• ISBN: 9781732277694

Kevin Thomas Townley Jr.

Kevin Townley is a writer, filmmaker, actor, singer, and meditation instructor. He began formally studying Buddhism in 2010 and currently practices with the Sokuko-Ji Zen community under the guidance of Kyoun Sokuzan. He has taught Buddhism and meditation for over a decade. His film and television work includes appearances in My Super Ex-Girlfriend, Men in Black 3, The Detour, and Law & Order. With his band, Bambï, Townley adapted Judith Rossner’sLooking for Mr. Goodbar into the rock opera GOODBAR, performed at The Public Theater. He has written extensively for the Waterwell theater company and Rookie magazine. He has also led hundreds of art tours in museums across the country, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Art Institute of Chicago, and Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts. This is his first book. For more information and to watch his short film Who Knows?, visit www.kevintownley.nyc.

Book preview

Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again: Buddhist Wisdom Reflected in 26 Artists. Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.Clarke (1970-present)

Advance Praise

Kevin Townley has written a delightful and quirky book, which I thoroughly enjoyed. His book is structured around two interlocking discussions. He gives readers a great introduction to the Buddhist five Buddha family teachings, and he brings the reader to an intuitive connection with those teachings by means of art and in particular through the work and life stories of 26 accomplished female artists. His writing is fresh and accessible, and so tender. As soon as I started reading it, I immediately started thinking of friends I’d like to give it to. 

Judith L. Lief, Buddhist Teacher, editor of The Profound Treasury of the Ocean of Dharma

In this book, Kevin Townley pulls off the impossible. He finds, grabs, holds on, and interweaves with lightning speed dexterity the threads of Mandala, Mindfulness, and Marshall McLuhan into a brilliant magnum opus on art, the art world, and the meaning of life. Bonus, it’s hilarious. Without a doubt, he is the Fran Lebowitz of Buddhist writing.

John Hodgman, host of the Judge John Hodgman Podcast

Kevin Townley is a seasoned meditator who, in recognizing the emotion of each of the Five Wisdom Energies of the Buddha families, is able to see how these essential qualities are evident in specific works of great female artists ranging from Artemisia Gentileschi to Marilyn Minter. It is an inspired book that opens both the mind and the heart, filled with enough art history, poetry, and philosophy to delight the intellect, and enough laugh-out-loud lines to instigate sudden enlightenment. A true treasure map for Buddhist art lovers, or a fabulous introduction to both art and Buddhism for the curious. It is a delightful, impressive accomplishment. 

Cintra Wilson, author of Fear and Clothing: Unbuckling American Fashion

If, like me, you agree with John Ruskin’s assertion that all that is good in art is the expression of one soul talking to another, this book will facilitate conversations that once seemed beyond your grasp. Look led me to cast aside ideas about how making or absorbing art should feel and welcome its more visceral effects. By uncovering links between Buddhist practices and creative processes, Kevin Townley demystifies that daunting link between art and spirituality while leaving room for the divine. By weaving artists’ histories with his own, he makes the reader feel comfortable drawing connections between heady concepts and personal experience. Through a unique blend of compassion and curiosity, Kevin Townley has given readers a more intimate, spiritually minded Ways of Seeing. 

Tavi Gevinson, actor, writer, and founder of Rookie

Everywhere we look, we see the harmful effects of human confusion on the world’s ecologies. Townley explores the architecture of Buddhist mandala practice through the lens of 26 artists and unequivocally reveals that the solution to our deleterious confusion lies in unflinching intimacy with our own inner mandala. He helps us look, shows us what to see, and inspires our own creative potential through the obstacles, insights, and creative workarounds of his chosen artists. This book has much to teach us about the nature of mind and how it actually affects the physical world. 

Carson Chan, MoMA/Museum of Modern Art

This book is beautiful and illuminating, sure to make you laugh and feel all kinds of feelings. Townley makes art and Buddhism sing out at us from the pages, making it impossible not to share his wonder at and appreciation of the pieces he looks at, again and again. 

Maeve Higgins, comedian and author of Tell Everyone on This Train I Love Them

This book will change you. It’s a rare feat, but with generosity, wit, and wisdom, Townley shifts your perspective so that when you look, you can actually see clearly. I cannot emphasize enough the profound effect this book has had on me. If you feel lost, confused, caught in the self-help craze, do yourself a favor and read this book, chock-full of ancient wisdom that will enhance your life and awaken your imagination. 

Elna Baker, This American Life

Kevin Townley’s new book is beautiful, smart, funny, provocative, and disturbing in the best possible ways, just like Kevin himself. I love the way Kevin writes so much, he could probably write cereal box copy and I’d still be riveted, but I’m glad he chose to write about art and Buddhism instead. If you have interest in either subject, you’d be a fool not to read this book. And if you have interest in both subjects and still don’t read it, then color me enraged even though the fact that I just said that is proof enough I have many miles to go on my own spiritual journey.

Dave Hill, Comedian and author of Dave Hill Doesn’t Live Here Anymore

Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again is a kaleidoscope of a read: endlessly fascinating, deftly recursive, and wickedly funny. Weaving together Buddhist philosophy and art history, Kevin Townley achieves a real high-wire feat here. And since the idea of self is an illusion, I’ll go ahead and congratulate all of us.

Aparna Nancherla, comedian

From the inside scoop on a delicious portrait of Madame du Barry to a quick and incisive take on contemporary multimedia shaman Laurie Anderson, these explorations of the nature of creativity will delight anyone with an interest in the merging point of art, psychology, and buddhadharma. I particularly liked the ease and adventure of bopping around from artist to artist and Buddha family to Buddha family. It is a fine journey. Kevin’s take on various artists, their work, and Buddha family influences, and his encouragement to go deep with our own interpretations is a spot-on challenge. There is delight in the invitation to take what we’re learning and immediately apply it and look, look, look, look, look again. There’s no question that when finished I found myself thinking that Kevin would be a delightful companion with whom to wander the halls of the Met. But if that’s not possible, then having this book in your back pocket might be the next best thing.

Gayle Hanson, Buddhist teacher and artist

An excellent work bringing out a deeper understanding of the Five Buddha families. Kevin Townley sets up an awareness dynamic that allows you to actually enter into the energies. The images he evokes help us proceed on a journey into the underbrush of our own society and from the underbrush right into the museums, into the galleries, into artistic production of artists…and right into our lives. These are brilliant commentaries on the artwork and artists. Needless to say, I learned a lot. Very entertaining, funny, and fantastically good.

Sokuzan, Abbot, SokukoJi Buddhist Monastery

Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again: Buddhist Wisdom Reflected in 26 Artists. Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.Look, Look, Look, Look, Look Again: Buddhist Wisdom Reflected in 26 Artists. Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.

© 2022 by Kevin Thomas Townley, Jr.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews and articles.

Lionheart Press, Somerville, MA, USA

lionheartpress.net

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021924103

ISBN 978-1-7369439-0-8 (paperback)

ISBN 978-1-7322776-9-4 (e-book)

Cover images by Nuala Clarke, Elisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Hilma af Klint, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, and Laura Wheeler Waring

Excerpts of interview, Laurie Anderson and Mohammed el Gharani: Habeas Corpus reprinted with permission from The Laura Flanders Show.

Cover and text design by Jazmin Welch (fleck creative studio)

Look at your life. Look at the ways in which you define who you are and what you’re capable of achieving. Look at your goals. Look at the pressures applied by the people around you and the culture in which you were raised. Look again. And again. Keep looking until you realize, within your own experience, that you’re so much more than who you believe you are. Keep looking until you discover the wondrous heart, the marvelous mind, that is the very basis of your being.

Tsoknyi Rinpoche

If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is—infinite.

William Blake

She made the world her book, took a piece of coal and marked a blank white wall.

Danielle Dutton, Margaret the First

The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report what my dream was.

William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Contents

Even an Abstract Has Eyes

The Artists Included Herein

Mandala

Buddha

Agnes Martin

Jay DeFeo

Leonor Fini

Howardena Pindell

Hilma af Klint

Vajra

Sophie Taeuber-Arp

Alice Guy-Blaché

Tayeba Begum Lipi

Niki de Saint Phalle

Laurie Anderson

Ratna

Nina de Garis Davies

Margareta Haverman

Marilyn Minter

Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun

Jessica Stoller

Dana Sherwood

Padma

Katsushika Ōi

Henrietta Mantooth

Pauline Boty

Laura Wheeler Waring

Marie Spartali Stillman

Karma

Berthe Morisot

Michelle Ellsworth

Artemisia Gentileschi

Nuala Clarke

Joan Mitchell

Conclusion

Acknowledgments

Endnotes

Image Credits

Landmarks

Cover

Copyright Page

Table of Contents

Body Matter

For Sokuzan, a true teacher.

In memory of Francis Mirai Nishida, a true artist.

Tré Gallery, Francis and Ana, 2009

Dear Reader,

I ask that you indulge a brief word regarding the themes and content of this book.

As you will discover, I have chosen to write about female artists from various time periods, styles, and backgrounds. While life is difficult for everyone, I don’t think I’m being controversial in saying that, historically, women have had a harder time of it than men, who, in large part, have gone out of their way to subjugate them.

The Five Wisdom Energies (or Buddhist mandala teachings) explored in this book contain both shadow and light. For women artists, as human artists, no subject matter is off-limits, and contrary to sexist clichés, they have not relegated themselves to quilt-making and painting portraits of babies (though they have done both splendidly). This book examines an array of artwork created by women inspired by the spectrum of human experience—from nature, beauty, and sexuality, to imprisonment, rape, and murder. Dark subject matter indeed. In quite a few of the essays I also explore the lives of these artists as a means of better understanding their work. Some of their biographical details are quite distressing.

I have done my best to approach this material with frankness and honesty, but without being egregious. I, too, am sensitive to how intense human suffering can be. That being said, the following artists’ work contain particularly challenging, even devastating, topics: Howardena Pindell, Niki de Saint Phalle, Laurie Anderson, and Artemisia Gentileschi. The book can accommodate hopping around—after all, the sacred mandala and its Five Wisdom Energies are not linear.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this book and for accompanying me on this fascinating journey.

Your friend,

Kevin

Sawblade Sunrise. Mira Dancy. 2019 | Courtesy of the Artist

Even an Abstract Has Eyes

Iremember the day I fell in love with art. I was in preschool and our minders introduced us to the great masters. They held up reproductions of paintings and explained that people from long ago had made these pictures to express something about themselves and the world in which they lived. Somehow these pictures had survived for me to look at. A taste of art was also a taste of immortality. The only image I distinctly remember was Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait of 1660. It wasn’t that I liked the picture, it was that it seemed to be looking at me as much as I was looking at it.

An interest in art was not something anyone particularly valued in Boulder, Colorado, where I grew up. This is partly why I moved to New York City after graduating high school. I was too terrified to apply to college, so I made what seemed the simpler choice at the time: just pack up and move to New York City at seventeen. I never did end up engaging in higher education, at least not on its terms.

In the big city I quickly realized that being able to look at art and articulate an opinion about what one saw was a status symbol. Glamorous people were magnetized by art galleries, not necessarily lured by the objects they displayed but because of the money, privilege, and power that the art objects were portals to. So to be able to have even a superficial insight about, say, Cindy Sherman or Jean-Michel Basquiat was unexpectedly cool.

At nineteen, I learned that art could be more than a parlor trick. My roommate at the time, a German expat named Cóline, worked at DK Publishing. DK specializes in large-format art books and, one day, Cóline gifted me one being released in conjunction with Sister Wendy Beckett’s television docuseries, The Story of Painting. It was through Sister Wendy’s off-kilter insights into great masterpieces that I understood how art went beyond money and aesthetics. Fundamentally, it is an expression of what it means to be a human being. I realized how, by taking time to really look at the work of another person, I could also learn something about myself.

A decade and a half later, I attended a workshop called Opening the Eye-Mind, led by a Zen monk named Kyoun Sokuzan. I was already versed in meditation and had grown into a serious practitioner, but the idea that one could directly connect art with meditation had never occurred to me. Sokuzan was a student of both Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche and Kobun Chino Roshi. He was also a graduate of the Art Institute of Chicago. The workshop took place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where Sokuzan sat us down in front of some of the world’s creative masterworks. While many spiritual practices engage the breath or a mantra to stabilize the mind, here we used the paintings of Robert Motherwell and Susan Rothenberg as the objects of our meditation.

A 2001 study concluded that museum visitors spend an average of seventeen seconds looking at an artwork. 1 Sokuzan asked us to look at a painting for fifteen to twenty minutes at a go. In doing so, he was giving us techniques with which to strengthen our awareness and realize that, despite vision’s sensory primacy in humans, we rarely see what we’re looking at. His instruction was for us to rest our eyes on some central shape or color on the canvas. Keeping our eyes anchored in place, we would then be directed to move our visual awareness around the canvas (blinking allowed). He prompted us to move that awareness to all of the blue areas on the canvas, then to all of the yellows, or to anything triangular. We might then be prompted to move our awareness to just outside the frame of the canvas, or to the back of our own necks, all the while never moving our eyes themselves.

As frustrating (and surprisingly exhausting) as this exercise was, it was also astonishing. Somehow, the strange combination of a sustained, fixed gaze in counterpoint to the playful engagement of awareness had the effect of dislodging self-centeredness from the visual sense faculty. In spending so much time with the artwork, the ego-mind had basically thrown its hands up in bored exasperation and retired to the porch swing for a snooze. We had traveled beyond concerns of personal preference and aesthetics, out past the carnival grounds, and into an open visual field. There, colors and shapes came alive, conversing and vibrating and rearranging themselves. The landscape we were entering was the mind-state of the artist at the time of the work’s creation. The energy that the artist was (perhaps unwittingly) a conduit for was still present in the work itself, and by paying the toll of time and attention, I was included in it. I flashed on my childhood reaction to Rembrandt’s Self-Portrait. I had assumed it was his penetrating gaze that made me feel like he was staring back at me, but now I saw that this can be true of all art. Even an abstract has eyes.

By applying meditation techniques to art appreciation, the Opening the Eye-Mind practice helped to strengthen my overall awareness, and further allowed me to realize the non-conceptual nature of the visual sense. I also realized this insight could be applied the other way around: the enthusiasm I have for looking at art could be directed toward examining the contents of my mind during meditation. Rather than seeing my moods and discursive diatribes as problems to solve, I could regard them as a touring exhibition, curated by someone with very eclectic—and very strange—tastes.

After falling in love with art, I obviously developed an abiding soft spot for Tortured Artists. You know, the poor individuals for whom the protective membrane that buffers the nervous system from the beauty and abrasions of life is frustratingly, gloriously absent. They appear saturated by the vibrancy of the world, causing them to overflow into poetry, painting, needlepoint—pursuits which are largely met with derision by a callous, unsophisticated public. This then leads to any number of tragic ends, from suicide (Sylvia Plath) to customs inspector (Herman Melville). We’ve all heard stories like that before.

Aside from devoting my own free time to feeling misunderstood and a strong predilection for emotional aggrandizement, what is most beguiling to me about this trope is the notion that the very energy which, in one iteration can lead to creation, in another form can lead to self-destruction. How can the same energy lead to such drastically different results even in the same person?

For many artists, what’s most torturous is to begin, meeting space without any idea of what will happen next. We yearn to honor the creative impulse by expressing ourselves, and yet many of us, when met with the imagined edge of our own inner abyss, slink backward, and, adding insult to injury, feel ashamed by our cringing. We cannot bear the intimacy of our own brilliant minds, and so we look away. Looking away can show up in behaviors as myriad as diverting our creative energy into gossip, house cleaning, manicures, masturbation, and volunteer work. Mythologists might grandly refer to this as the refusal of the call, but it is also a completely understandable response to meeting the charnel ground of one’s psyche. There are instances when approaching a blank page or canvas feels more like visiting a crime scene, where a daub of VapoRub under the nose would be more appropriate than a daub of paint on the canvas.

In his brilliant book From Where You Dream, Robert Olen Butler describes the creative process as entering one’s White Hot Center. This radioactive unconscious realm feels like hell, because, for most of us, it is hell. Like scaffolding erected around treacherous architecture, our entire personalities are deliberately crafted to avoid descending into the underworld of missed opportunities, traumas, and gears from obsolete machinery. And yet this is precisely what we must do, whether we are on the creative or the spiritual path (and I would hazard to say they are the same thing). By keeping that portal open through constant visitation, we may not only find our endurance for entering that zone strengthened but also come to be quite adept at navigating its sinkholes and topiary. But you don’t get to choose what you discover.

The Artists Included Herein

You may wonder how I came to select the artists I have included here. In some cases, I chose artists whose work has affected me strongly or whose art-making practices I have found inspiring. I relished the opportunity to find out what exactly I loved about them through the process of writing. Other artists I discovered in the process of writing the book. For example, in the case of Tayeba Begum Lipi, I knew I wanted to include a work that was capable of slicing and dicing in order to evoke Vajra energy. In other cases, some artworks just kind of appeared on their own.

My intention going into the project was to include works that were diverse in style, period, and culture, while staying within a budget (I won’t bore you with the esoterica of licensing fees). The depressing reality is that, given the oppressive nature of colonial capitalism, most artists whose work is in the public domain are white, and most of the non-white artists who managed to break through are hugely famous and their usage fees thus (rightfully) prohibitive. I also set myself the challenge to use only female artists, which further narrowed the playing field. In the case of living artists, I reached out to many directly or through their galleries; some graciously agreed to have their work included, while others graciously declined, and many others never replied. So in the end I ended up where I ended up, with a largely choiceless collection of brilliant artists.

The images in this book are ones that I felt were good emissaries of these five energies. They may or may not resonate for you—maybe an image I use to evoke Ratna energy will seem more evocative of Padma to you. That’s good! There are no right or wrong answers in this exploration, no conclusions to come to. The images are meant to jog your own contemplation, not to be doctrinal. It is my hope that, looking deeply at these images and the profound human energies they contain, we will not only be better able to intuit how these energies show up in our lives, but also feel encouraged to look at art in new ways. Because one thing art and the Dharma have in common is that there are times when we think we get it and walk away feeling some solace (if not a little pleased with ourselves), but