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Evan Rosa: From the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, this is for the life of the world. A podcast about seeking and living a life worthy of our humanity.

Art shouldn't feel like a safe space. There should be risk in it, resistance in it. In other words, there should be the evidence of a rich relationship in it, an unfolding narrative that changes both the artist and the viewer. In this conversation with painter, writer, and educator Bruce Herman, we discussed the human propensity to create, to make, to generate, to originate what it means to be art and what it means to do art.

In response, Bruce taught at Gordon College for more than four decades, where he was the Lothlorien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts. And his latest book is called Makers By Nature: Letters from a Master Painter on Faith, Hope, and Art.

Bruce Herman: The ultimate I AM is God the creator, and we are made in the image of. God and therefore when we speak the I am like that of God, it has to be in relationship. It otherwise you become an object. You die into thinness, as it were. So we are in relationship and we were made by a maker to be makers. If we let that go somehow and we become mere consumers, I think we begin to enter into some kind of illness of one sort or another.

When we're not making something. We're not whole. We're not, we're not healthy. I do think our culture is unhealthy right now. It's become a consumer culture, very passive addicted to entertainment, et cetera. I would say that making art is a form of prayer. It's a form of entering into relationship. Art is not for the artist, certainly no more than it is for everyone else.

And in fact, in some ways, when we make a work of art and it leaves our studio, we are on the level playing field with anyone who's looking at it. We're not. We're not entitled to go around telling people what they see or what they hear or what they feel or what, what they're encountering. It's not our job.

Yeah. It's way above our pay grade. So what I would say is the boundaries are and ought to be the same boundaries that we have in relationships, which is respect, love, vulnerability, mutual submission. Like I said, ultimately. I mean, not to be too glib. Love. Yeah. If it's not, if it doesn't come from a place of love, it will never yield the kind of fruit that we really need and want with one another.

You must change your life. What I think a lot of us are trying to do in our art is to offer the opportunity to the person looking at our paintings or reading our poem or listening to the music to get outside themselves, to give up, to let down their guard, to submit, but not submit. In the sense that I'm a master and you're my slave.

It's more like you're a subject and I'm a subject mutual submission. Um, does that make any sense?

Evan Rosa: In this conversation, we talk about the difference between art and propaganda, the problem of consumerism and commercialism in art, the two-way risk of making and experiencing art. We discuss a variety of artists, poets and writers, including Mark Rothko, Rainer Maria Rilke, Martin Buber, Wassily Kandinsky, Andre Serrano's controversial “Immersion—Piss Christ,” Walker, Percy, and T.S. Elliot.

And finally, we close with the discussion of all the fear mongering and how we might create from love instead. Thanks for listening,

Bruce. It is such a pleasure to have you on for the life of the world. Thanks for joining me. It's a pleasure to be here. Thanks, Evan. I wanted to start off with what I perceived as a, a central question, but as any good question goes, it's evocative of more questions and not just answers. Your recent book, makers by nature nods in my mind to a very longstanding philosophical history of asking what are we?

And toward the end of your book, I believe you have an owl say, who are you? And you say, we reply. I am. Uh, this is very evocative, of course. I think of kind of reference to the Imago day that you're trying to do in this piece, but I wonder if you could expound please about like this question. What are we, who are we?

And where you're coming from there. 

Bruce Herman: Well, thanks. That's, uh, you know, it's a ancient question. I think we've been asking that since probably before the cave paintings 20 or 30,000 years ago. When we awaken and we are aware that we are here and we are, we sense our own presence. It's only. Always in relationship with someone, usually our mother at the beginning, obviously, and father and siblings if we have them.

And, and then eventually the, the world widens. But I don't think that the i that we speak when we say I exists by itself. And in, in a worst case scenario, the eye that speaks could be completely objectified. In other words, we can objectify ourselves just as we can, objectify others. And I think that's what the, is the, at the heart of the first commandment that says, thou shalt not create for thyself and he grave an image or, you know, idol.

I, I think the reason with that is that the, the ultimate I am is God the creator. And we are made in the image of God. And therefore when we speak the I am like that of God, it has to be in relationship. It, otherwise you become an object. You die into thinness, as it were. So when I asked the question. Are we, what am I?

My first response is we are in relationship and we were made by a maker to be makers. And so we are makers. If we let that go somehow and we become mere consumers, I think we begin to enter into some kind of illness of one sort or another. Uh, maybe as a moral illness, it could be actually mental illness, emotional illness, et cetera.

But I think when we're not making something, we're not whole. We're not healthy, and I don't wanna make an idol out of health either. But I, I will say I do think our culture is unhealthy right now. It's become a consumer culture, very passive addicted to entertainment, et cetera. I mean, that's, there's a whole 

Evan Rosa: can of worms we just opened there.

Oh, that's wonderful. Let's, let's pull 'em out and not dice 'em up, but befriend these little worms. Um, so. I'm picking up on a little bit of an eye thou kind of Martin Buber existing in relationship and the way that being addressed as a vow rather not objectified right, but addressed as a subject, addressed as within the dignity of our own perspective taking and ability to create ability to originate something.

Is that part of where you might be coming from there? 

Bruce Herman: Yeah, absolutely. Uh, you know, since you know we're talking, you know, essentially about my book here in this conversation, certainly happy to veer off in any direction that's interesting to you, but the heart of my book is that art making is the most natural thing in the world.

In other words, everyone is born an artist and some of us just never outgrew it. I, I think that's who we are, we're makers. So yeah, that I vow relationship or actually I think the German should be translated you, the IU relationship. That was kind of formal. You know, here we are, we've just met for the first time we're meeting online, hopefully someday in person.

I love that. You'll call forth from me and I will call forth from you this third something, which is the relationship, the space between us and to my way of thinking who we are as human beings is always wrapped up in that third something that space between us. Yeah. We don't really exist for ourselves and, and the art making process for me has always been enriched by collaboration.

Because if I think of myself as originating something, it's always lesser than when it's something that's automatically in relationship, either with someone that's commissioned to work for me or someone I'm collaborating with. 

Evan Rosa: But let's talk about origination and making because, uh, to call us essentially makers, and I'm not sure if you wanna go that far to be, and like that's essentially what it is, but perhaps it is to call God essentially a maker.

To call a creator and then to call us as made in God's image. Also, essentially makers. That's like, that's a very fascinating, and I think just very interesting statement to, to say that, that in our essence we can't but make or originate. And so I do wanna hang out on relationality and origination because I think it's an amazing thing.

It's an amazing thing to call something into being when an artist does this, when we see something that is as close to true origination as possible. That's fascinating. That's just astounding, really. It, it invokes a huge sense of wonder for me personally. Hmm. Um, to think that something w did not exist and now does.

Bruce Herman: Yeah. You know, that you mentioned B Martin Buber in that book. I Am Thou at the, towards the beginning actually of the book. Buber says, this is the eternal origin of a work of art. That a form presents itself to the artist and wants to become a work through him, through her. I mean, he already sets it up as the form itself is in relationship with the artist, the artist is in relationship with the form.

Ow is there's never ever a moment when we are actually alone, even in our studios. I spent a lot of time alone in my art studio making art, but I am aware, and I've been aware since as a little boy, that the work itself has a life of its own. And then the form. Whatever you wanna call it, that, that is urging me to make a work of art seems to exist independently of me.

I say seems because I can't verify, I can't prove this, but I, from a very early age, I felt that my relationship with God was wrapped up in making art. In fact, as I've gotten older, I've developed my language a bit. I would say that making art is a form of prayer. Hmm. It's a form of entering into relationship, 

Evan Rosa: as you said.

Dialogue. Yeah. What would artistic dialogue be then? Well, can you give us an example of, I mean, I know that you're presenting a form of artistic dialogue in, in the book, but wondering what other kinds of prototypical examples you, you come to mind for you when you think about art in dialogue? 

Bruce Herman: Well, I think most of the art in the last 20 centuries, for example, the vast majority of it comes out of the Christian cultural manifestation.

And when I say Christian, of course, I mean that very broadly. Those who, I mean it, this little weak group of people who were beleaguered and persecuted, uh, somehow or other without intending to took over the world. Mm-hmm. Um, I mean the Roman Empire in a sense was toppled by Christian Christianity, replaced by it.

So what is that about? I think the prototypical work that is in dialogue is art that serves a community. It has to serve a community. Yeah. The notion of the artist as a lone genius is a very recent invention, and I think it's actually the lone genius concept of the artist is an invention of a marketing scheme that came in with a gallery system in the elite.

17 hundreds, early 18 hundreds. Huh? It, it really is. It has no history before that. Maybe Sari and his lives of the artists tries to turn the biographies of the artists into these kind of sexy, cool things. But, um, the fact is, artists for servants, we've always been servants. Yeah. Servants first and foremost of the work itself, but the work that we produce is for someone else.

Evan Rosa: I think we should go to consumerism here as a, as not just an alternative, but really like an adversarial kind of thing to the social dialog. Purpose of, of originating and, and bringing something beautiful into being. So let's get you going on consumerism. I want to, I want you to, to kind of just use this as an opportunity just to bash it.

Like, and I'll make a sort of a appeal of my own. One of the first places I go to there is Wendell Berry's Quip, uh, of the art of sales resistance, uh, and not being sold to not selling out. And so let me get you going on, what it means to sell out, what it means to consume a piece of art rather than engage it, enter conversation with it.

What's going on here with modern consumerism and its impact on art making? Right. Well, one of the 

Bruce Herman: things that is often asked of me by other artists, younger artists by, I used to, I taught for many years. I'm no longer in the classroom, but is there a difference? And what is the difference between art and propaganda?

And the interesting thing is that word propaganda has come to have a very negative. Cast to it, but it, it doesn't have to have a negative cast propaganda simply means a persuasive form of speech, right? Yeah. And a speech act can take the form of music, art, poetry, um, discursive speech, et cetera. But I, it's not so much that I, as an artist wanna persuade anybody of anything.

But I think that we are constantly being aimed at, by the commercial culture to persuade us to buy products. And not just to buy products, but to sit passively in front of screens now and scroll, and scroll, and just always be taking. And we don't think of it that way. We think of it as we're, we're buyers.

We're discerning buyers. We can decide what we're gonna, but the fact is we're being turned into very passive creatures. And one of the best things you can do is go make a loaf of bread. Yeah. Go, go and grab a stick and start carving it. Anything, anything is resistance to this past this sort of hypnotic.

Passive culture that's being, like Neil Postman said, entertaining ourselves to death, amusing ourselves to death. We're, I think our current political situation is mostly political theater. There's very little actually happening of any substance. It's, it's entertainment and our news services have turned into infotainment.

Uh, there's very little real journalism there. It's there, thankfully, but there's a whole lot of consumer 

Evan Rosa: entertainment. Yeah. We seem to also be getting closer and closer to the product. Right. It's getting easier and easier, feel a sense of desire or need, and to have that stoked and the pathways to consumption are smoother than they have ever been.

Right. It's just so easy to obtain and to consume. I myself have a fear of packaging. Excess packaging, all the cardboard, all the things that come in it. Like where, where it goes. These kind of empty containers become a symbol for the empty consumption for me. And I think that Evan, are, are you becoming an empty container?

Am I an empty 

Bruce Herman: vessel, Bruce? No, I said container. I know, I know. 

Evan Rosa: Well, let's make, let's, let's draw the distinction between a container and a vessel, right? Like, because if the work of art is service, then to be an empty vessel is far better than to just be an empty container, right? Um, no, sometimes, sometimes the world is a little too half empty, uh, for me.

But what, what are you seeing in the promise of art making, if not the promise? The, just the hope that it engenders for a response to consumerism right now. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah. Thanks. That, I mean, that's that word, hope. Boy. It is. It's like, uh, living in a desert. Without any hope of finding water these days. Uh, in many ways, I think hope is being stolen from us surreptitiously moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.

And I don't think there's a, a malevolent human agency that's trying to do that. I mean, there may be a handful of really bad players out there who want to cynically spoil people's hope, but I think the Apostle Paul says in, in the, one of his letters to the, the churches, I, I think it's a church of Ephesus, he, uh, he talks about, he says, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the powers and principalities of spiritual darkness.

I think what Paul was saying there was, don't identify your enemy as your neighbor, even if they support the wrong political candidate. Understand that there we're in this together, and my way of my shorthand for this is there is no them, there is only us. There's no us and them. There's only us. Yeah.

Meaning the human community. And we are increasingly, as you point out with in terms of, uh, the accessibility of consumer goods being smoothed out through the internet and through the massive Amazon River of goods is pouring out every day across the nation and across the world. The internet has made it possible, both for good and for ill, that we really become one community.

I guess what I would say there is, what I'm interested in is the, the question about of of desire. How do we understand ourselves as makers and also consumers, but I mean, certainly not just consumers. But how do we understand ourselves? And I, I started off by saying, I, I only think a self exists in relationship, but I think also what, what the, the engine behind that is desire.

And I don't know if you've read any of the work of Rene Gerard, but I've 

Evan Rosa: not nearly enough. 

Bruce Herman: He's another thinker I've spent a lot of time with. Gerard has this idea that all human communities originally came into being, um, as a result of interesing rivalry or kind of contagion of rivalry that then results in the need for a scapegoat because the tribe threatens to fall apart or, or, or collapse.

And so some outsider, some foreigner, some stranger comes by and, oh, they're the cause. Blame the stranger, kill the stranger, and then deify the victim. He claims that he sees this in every major tribal tradition. It's very obvious and more current. Primitive cultures, if you wanna call 'em that. Um, simpler cultures.

I like that idea 

Evan Rosa: of the current primitive culture. That's evocative for sure. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah. But I think getting back to desire, I think the engine behind our way of being together is desire. When we're little kids, we learn to desire what the other kid desires. It's not so much that we actually want that toy. Yeah.

We see that the other kid wants that toy. So we want their desire. And that's how we learn. We learn that by looking up to people. Idolatry in a way is, has an innocent motive on one level, which is that you want to be like that person. Mm-hmm. The trouble is that you can objectify that person and then you end up objectifying yourself because they're not real.

They're fiction of your idle factory. Yeah. Between the ears. Have I gotten too confusing here? Is this getting too, not at all. 

Evan Rosa: No. I wanna stay on desire and consumption because I wanna ask. The ask you to elaborate about what you see as a more virtuous orientation of the audience toward the work or the audience for the artist.

If this is dialogical, if this is an act of service, and if we're thinking about the way of the mode of reception, because if the mode of reception is not properly consumption, what more can we say about what that a more befitting and dignifying approach to engaging in orienting ourselves toward art?

What would that be? 

Bruce Herman: Well, I, I think it's the same as it is in some ways person to person, and I'm gonna use a word here that's not very popular these days, and there's good reasons why it's not popular. The word submission, we don't nowadays like that word very much because it seems to point toward.

Slavery of some sort or some kind of enslave enslavement. But actually when we make love, when we are in a deep erotic state, human beings submit to one another. They give themselves away actually, and that's where the problem of all the sexual sins, if you wanna call it that, everything from incest to pornography, to adultery, et cetera, et cetera.

All those things are a corruption of desire, and they're also a disease. I mean, what they do is they never yield the satisfaction, the joy that comes from mutual submission. Well, the same thing is true in art. I mean, if you wanna really receive what a poem is communicating, you have to submit to it. You have to let yourself go and be and enter into the what might feel like a bad risk of being changed.

Yeah. This, this great poem by Rilke. It's a meditation on a Grecian torso, and he says at the end of the poem, he says, the torso says to you must change your life. And I think what he's getting at there in that poem is what I think a lot of us are trying to do in our art is to offer the opportunity to the person looking at our paintings or reading our poem or listening to the music.

To get outside themselves, to give up, to let down their guard, to submit, but not submit in the sense that I'm a master and you're my slave. It's more like you're a subject and I'm a subject mutual submission. Does that make any sense?

We cannot know his legendary head. With eyes like ripening fruit, and yet his torso is still suffused with brilliance from inside like a lamp in which his gaze now turned to low gleans in all its power. Otherwise, the curved breast could not dazzle use, so nor could a smile run through the placid hips and thighs to that dark center where procreation flared.

Otherwise, this stone would seem defaced beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders and would not glisten like a beast's fur would not from all the borders of itself burst like a star. For here, there is no place that does not see you. You must change your life

Evan Rosa: reading that right now. What? What emerges for you? 

Bruce Herman: Well, it's the. The fact that when a work of art is submitted to it comes to life, it's no longer the cold marble. It becomes, uh, like a bursting star or like a, a beast, a wild beast's fur bristling. It, it surges into life. There's a great story. You may have heard this Walker, Percy, the novelist.

Novelist, said that there was a painting that he once encountered in a museum that just blazed into life for him, and it took up his entire emotional and psychological and visual field. And he was absolutely hypnotically engaged. And then every time he went back to the museum after that, it was, it was nothing like that.

And he was sad. He wanted it to come to life again, Uhhuh. But he did discover that whenever he would bring a friend with him, he could have vicariously enter into that original. Blazing encounter. Well, one day he brought a friend who was visiting from out of town and they went into the museum and just as they walked into the gallery and he was waiting for his friend to see this amazing painting, a workman shelved through the skylight above and shattered the glass, shattered in every direction.

This guy, boom, hits the floor and Percy happened to turn and look at the painting and it blazed to life again the same way it was the first time he saw it. Well, I think that encounter is possible, but some version of it is always possible. It seems to me, if you're willing to let down your guard, apparently in in work or Percy's case, and maybe in all of our cases, we're so guarded so much of the time that it takes something catastrophic to open us up again, suffering of some sort.

There was a great bunch of poetry by, I think you know him, he is a colleague of yours, Christian Wyman. Ah yeah. Who has suffered greatly with this damn cancer and yeah, but it's been the occasion. It's not like you would ever wish this on anybody, and he certainly wouldn't. But it's been the occasion of, of great poetry because it's opened him up.

It's ripped him open actually is what it's done. But it also, reading his poems does that to us if we're receptive. And so it, it's like at the end of this kus poem here, you must change your life. You might be changed by this thing, this film, this piece of music, this painting, this poem. And it might not be what you want to become.

Yeah. But that's the risk you have to take. If you want to encounter a work of art, you have to be open. You have to it down your guard. And that's what I mean by submission. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. This is fascinating and I, I do want to kind of stay with this real poem for a moment because. It's just the torso. After all, if that's lost on any listeners, there is no head.

He's missing its arms. We cannot know his legendary head with eyes like ripening fruit. And then when you see, and then down to the end from, for here, there is no place that does not see you. Such a paradoxical statement, given that there is no head, but it is. But in this case, Rilke has allowed himself to be addressed in the imagination, perhaps, but so much more than that.

He's allowing this art to, to see him in a way, and that's a very submissive, vulnerable place to be in. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah, I think the risk is two, two ways. The, the viewer takes a risk by encountering the work, but the artist takes the initial risk by letting down her guard to make the work right and risk making it terrible.

Failure. I mean, one of the things I said for years when I was teaching to my students was, look, your main thing. Yeah. All things being equal, you need to learn your skills. You need to develop your knowledge base, your theoretical sophistication. But none of that stuff's gonna guarantee you're gonna make a work of art.

Your job is gonna be to show up again and again and again in case you make a work of art. But if you don't show up in the 

Evan Rosa: studio, we know you're not gonna make a work of art. You, you quote Elliot along these lines, there is only the trying the rest is not our business. Right. Yeah. I want to come back to TS Elliot, 'cause I know how important he is to you, but I feel like we can't leave the poem without just lingering for a moment on this final imperative of real, perhaps Apollo is the torso.

Is is lording over him? You must change your life. Yeah. What's that? What's going on there? 

Bruce Herman: Well, 

Evan Rosa: and what does art and I say does all art or are there particular pieces of art for you that spoke to you and said you must change your life? 

Bruce Herman: Oh, yes. I can tell you one story that's totally surprised me. This was, I was in my late twenties, um, I had finished graduate school school and was blessed to win the graduate exhibition prize, which was basically a year in Europe.

All expenses paid, no strings attached, which was amazing. Yeah. No program, just money given to you to go and you had to spend it to go to Europe for a year. And I, at the time, even having gotten all the way through undergrad and graduate art training, I was still a total skeptic of the work of people like Mark Rothko, for example.

The, and so, and I was, I was very drawn to the expressionists people like Max Deckman and George Ru and yeah, others, but, and to a lesser extent, Picasso, but I. I was not drawn at all to the abstract painters, especially color field painters like Rothko. Well, one of my little trips when I was over there in Europe was to the Tate Museum in London.

I was living in Italy at the time with my wife and our two little kids. That year's worth of grant was really only good for six months when you bring your family. But Meg was staying in Italy with the kids with near her sister, who lives there and teaches, has taught there in, in Florence for, gosh, almost half a century.

So I took a trip to London and just to visit museums and I went to the Tate and I had seen, what I really wanted to see was the work of William Mallard Turner, these amazing landscapes, which are border on being almost completely abstract, but which are still landscapes. And I'd gone, they have, at the Tate Museum, they have like five or six galleries devoted entirely to Turner.

He gave his entire studio and everything to the state. It ended up in the tape after I'd gotten out of the last of the Turner Galleries, I saw a sign that said Rothko Gallery. I thought, Rothko what? Whatever. I'll go look. I followed down the hallway and I turned into this gallery and it was, I was overcome.

I began weeping uncontrollably skeptic about Rothko overtaken by him and by his work, and just entering into this incredible sorrow. I believe The paintings were all from the Seagram Commission. It didn't ever really end up becoming part of Seagram's collection, but there were a series of very dark, like dried blood color maroon paintings with black, but they were.

Some might say they were morose. I don't think they're morose at all. I think they're just deeply melancholy in, in a profound way. Yeah. But they overtook me. And from then on I was converted to believe that Rothko was really into some, I mean, it was really onto something about color. That is enough. The color is enough to, and if you let down your guard in, in my case, I had my guard shattered.

I wasn't expecting this. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. I, I sat in front of a piece of Rothko's called White Center at the LA Contemporary Museum of Art lacma and, and had a similar kind of experience that you described, and it was with a friend. So, Peter, David Gross, if you're listening, thank you. Hey. He's the one that introduced me to, to this, not just the Rothko, but the exact experience that you're discussing, which is the, his ability to communicate emotion in color and, and it's, it was absolutely wonderful to.

I mean, I mean, full of wonder in that sense. Like, uh, it was a, a way of renewing my appreciation for art and then a allow and allowing myself to be changed, I think by least. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah. You know, I certainly was changed after that encounter with those rothkos. Oh, the other thing I would say there that, that might bear bringing up is Kandinsky.

Sly Kandinsky. Yeah. Wrote an essay called The Spiritual on the Spiritual and Art, in which he, he talks about color having an emotional and psychological and spiritual temperature, or inner necessity is another phrase he uses there. Yeah. And I think what would help people who are skeptics about modern or contemporary art, um, is to read that essay, but also to, on the spiritual and art by vastly Kandinsky, but also to understand that I think it's a supremely, it's a form of humility to say, I.

Well, this doesn't immediately appeal to me, but maybe if I spent a little time with it and was a little less, brought fewer expectations to the thing and just let it be, it might get under my skin. It might, it might, um, might move me. Yeah. I, I think of it, the other thing that Kandinsky does in that essay I think is really brilliant is he connects the di the dots between music and color, between music and form shape relationships.

Yeah. He talks about visual music and I think we all understand music because music immediately enters our bloodstream as it were, you know, addressing our nervous system through sound. Yeah, 

Evan Rosa: the 

Bruce Herman: physical vibrations. 

Evan Rosa: Right. Like, I mean, that's what like, it's so physical. Yeah. And we often weep, allow the art to enter into us in a very physical way.

Well said. 

Bruce Herman: Well said. Yeah. 

Evan Rosa: Well, I, you said under the skin, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna use this a moment to go there. Um. Art, getting under our skin and the, the public purposes of art, whether it's protest art or the use of art stock. I wanna talk about boundaries in art. Mm-hmm. And you do bring up, at least in Title A work by Serrano Immersion Piss Christ.

Right. And in the very cursory research I've done on that particular piece and that artist, he is a confessing believer of some kind. He's, he meant to present that piece, a crucifix emerged and bodily fluid to address the commercialization of the cross. And, and I, and yet it's become. I feel like understandably, because of how very shocking and subversive it feels, it's become a very offensive piece of work presented in the late eighties and has become a kind of test case for boundaries in our making.

And so I want to ask you about what are the boundaries? Are there boundaries to our making? And where do we find ourselves on shaky ground? Is piss Christ on shaky ground? What is going on there? 

Bruce Herman: Well, I mean the question of boundaries is a good one. It's an important one. Um, and it brings me back to a conviction that I have that art is not for the artist and any, but certainly no more than it is for everyone else.

And in fact, in some ways, when we make a work of art and it leaves our studio, we're on the level playing field with anyone who's looking at it. We're not. We're not entitled to go around telling people what they see or what they hear or what they feel or what, what they're encountering. It's not our job.

Yeah. That's way above our pay grade. So what I would say is the boundaries are and ought to be the same boundaries that we have in relationships, which is respect, love, vulnerability, mutual submission, like I said, ultimately. I mean, not to be too glib love. Yeah. If it's not, if it doesn't come from a place of love, it will never yield the kind of fruit that we really need and want with one another.

Um, that love can be complicated 'cause love sometimes is between humans, right? 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. 

Bruce Herman: But I mean, in the case of Andre Serrano, if you put that piece, piss Christ in context with all the other things he was doing at that time in the eighties, blood Cross, which is a, a hollow, uh, plexiglass, crosses filled with animal blood.

Which has overtones of both the blood of Christ, but also the blood of all those animals has sacrificed for millennia scapegoat in pa, pagan religion, but also in the Hebrew tradition. The covering of the altar with blood is sprinkling of blood. Then he does a whole bunch of those. He does a milk cross.

He's exploring what he's doing. There is, he is trying to ask the question, does the cross still have sacred weight to it? Yeah. Or is it just a, a nice gold-plated decorative thing you hang around your neck as a piece of jewelry? Among other pieces of jewelry? Yeah. That's what he's asking. I think it's a good question.

It's a tough question. And the cross itself, I mean, the Apostle Paul calls it an offense to religious people and utter foolishness to sophisticated intellectual people, but to us who are being saved is the power of God. Well, that's because we've. Accepted this crazy idea that God came among us and not just came among us like some apparition, but as a human being and then suffered.

And, you know, one of the things that just makes my head spin still 50 years later, having committed my life to Christ, it still, it still upsets me, it still a scandal to me, is that when Christ stood before Pontius Pilate said to him, what's going on? I, why are these people after you? I don't find anything wrong.

He says, but you know, I have the power to set you free or to put you to death. And Jesus says, no, you don't have any power over me, except what my father has granted you. Yeah. And then he is scoured and beaten and mocked and flogged, and then executed in the most hideous possible way through suffocation and blood loss on a cross reserved for the most, the lowest of the low for slaves only.

So he dies a slave's death. At the hands of a brutal empire, which is bringing peace to the world. That brutal empire was bringing peace to the world. That's really complex. Here's the thing, Caesar was still Caesar after the crucifixion, after the resurrection, and there were some worst Caesars that came along after him.

Um, you know, Kula and Niro and these monstrous characters that make Hitler seem like a pansy. So I asked the question, what does the cross mean? And I think that's what Andre Serrano was asking in that series of works, including this Christ. But he's saying, does it matter? Does it matter that this crucifixion is submerged in a jar of my urine?

And I think his answer would be, I think it does. I think it matters more now than ever because we're just as brutal. Yeah. We're just as given over to self-centeredness as we ever have been. We just do it better and more efficiently. 

Evan Rosa: It's amazing that he is able to, well, yeah. To, this is not, I'm not meant to be a definitive statement whatsoever, but just the way he's able to reintroduce a fence because the scandal has more or less been erased by Yeah.

Dangling crosses around our necks, perhaps removing Christ from the cross, which in, in of itself is something that Baptist grandmothers everywhere left a harp on about Catholics. But in reintroducing the offense of the cross is something that is, is just overwhelmingly done there, and yet it's evoking something that really pushes people's buttons.

It really makes 'em uncomfortable. Yeah. Is that an act of service when you bring someone to a place of such discomfort, such not just pearl clutching, but genuine. Disturbance, moral disturbance if it, I mean, they feel like it's moral disturbance, whether it really is, it's not his goal. I mean, he's not, it's not meant to be sacrilegious according to Serrano.

It's, it's not. He said, I'm quoting him. He says, everything that God created has to be used and is normal. It's part of life. And God gave us life to enjoy. So 

Bruce Herman: it's, well, one, Evan, one, one of the things that I thought about is what if going beyond Serrano, even if, what if I were commissioned to do a large altar piece for a mega church, say, and they gave me free reign.

They said, do what you think you need to do, Bruce. I mean, I have made colossal altar pieces. Yeah, no. In a wooden box right now. But, um, is that right? But what if I put up an actual electric chair and maybe even gold plated it, but don't even need a gold plated? Or worse, what if. We put up an electric chair up, raised above the altar, and then had a criminal sit in it, and then watch them die.

I mean, actually just watch them die and cheer it on. You know? Crucify Crucify. Yeah. Crucify him. And that's what we, in the, in the liturgical traditions, essentially reenact every year on, uh, you know, Monday, Thursday. And it, it's, we need to get into this head space where we realize that this thing is really, something terrible has happened and something wonderful is happening.

Yeah. 

Evan Rosa: You know? Yeah. I don't think the scandal of the cross really lands. If it truly landed, perhaps we'd all be undone in some important sense, constantly undone. Um, uh. And so the ability of art, whether it's peace, Christ, or um, your electric chair altar, um, this is, um, something to kinda reignite the senses almost.

Mm-hmm. Reignite the spiritual sense. Yeah. And I 

Bruce Herman: think you're right, because the scandal has been erased, not just by gold plating, but by 20th centuries of sleep, as the Yates put it. Right. You know, I think, well, what I've tried to do in this book, makers by Nature, is to open up to, to let people in who, who are not usually part of this discussion.

I wrote the letters to actual people, these fictional letters to actual people who, many of whom are artists. Yeah. But I, I did this with the idea that the people, most of the people buying this book are not gonna be artists. So they'll be welcomed to eavesdrop as it were, and then move beyond the eavesdropping to become part of the conversation.

You know, all these questions you've asked me so far are questions I think are good for people to ask. Yeah. Um, if you, if you want to stay in that space where I think Jesus is always moving, he's always in that in-between space. That between you, between me, he says, well, he actually says it explicitly. He says, when two or more gathered my name, I am there in their midst.

That's the space between, it's, it's both terrifying and wonderful to think that there's, you're never not being noticed by God. There's a great Anglican prayer goes way back, which is Almighty God into whom all hearts are open and from whom no secrets are hid. Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit that we may perfectly love thee and wordly magnify thy holy name.

That prayer gets under my skin because it immediately says it signals to anyone praying it. Everything you say and do is visible. You can't hide. There's no mask. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah, yeah. Aware of our time, but also aware of the fact that I could probably just talk to you for several hours. Um, I know that s Elliot is significant, very important to you.

He participated in this quartets project, which is a sort of, um, artistic expression, reinterpretation and engagement with this sort of astonishing and. Absolutely wonderful epic poem of four Quartets by Elliot. I know it's hard to encapsulate these kinds of things, but I did wanna end with just reflecting a little bit about the significance of Elliot on you.

You are regularly seem to be quoting him, uh, several points in the book. You speak about his thoughts on inhabiting a tradition and, and still finding space to be avant-garde within that tradition. So I wanted to give you an opportunity to say what Elliot means to you and perhaps, uh, talk a little bit about some of the more evocative elements of Elliot.

Bruce Herman: Well, I mean, I think his place in literary canon is pretty secure at this point, although it's been disputed in, in a, in an era in which sensitivities are growing about identity. And he was accused of antisemitism and so forth. I think Elliot was like, I mean, I. It's actually more likely that Ezra Pound was the true anti-Semite.

'cause he was, he was in favor of Franco's fascist regime in Spain and so forth. I mean, artists, poets, composers, they're always the best human beings on the planet. Often their art is better than they are. And, but Elliot was actually not an, an antisemite. He was interviewed in the early 1950s on radio and the ra, the interviewer brought up antisemitism in the wake of World War II in trying to, and Elliot interrupted and said, antisemitism is always a sin definitive.

So maybe he had antis antisemitic feelings now and then, but you know, 'cause we're all sinners. But he knew it was wrong. So he was not an enthusiastic antisemite. So I'll just get that out of the way in case anyone listening is thinking, yeah. Has read oh CSA, we shouldn't be reading his poetry because he's a bad guy.

First of all. Even if he is a bad guy, you should read his poetry, but he's not a bad guy. Um, 

Evan Rosa: can we, can we pause there because I think that's an important, it's important to address that in this moment, in the moment of cancel culture and in the moment of not just artists, but authors whose character doesn't match up with the contents of their work.

And if it's true of artists, that they become level with the audience in terms of the art stands on its own afterward. Mm-hmm. After the making, that does seem to suggest that there's some kind of space between the, the piece and the producer and, and I would just. Really fascinated to hear what you'd have to say about that.

About whether the intent, how much intent of the original art, and how much of the original artist's character and representation of themselves, behavior words, how that inflects the even celebration of their work. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah, I mean, I really do think, I, I feel very strongly if I know anything as a painter, it says the best part of my work, I have very little control over.

I mean, I have control. I'm a skilled artist and some might call me a master artist. The people that publish this book changed my title, my original title I gave, it was an Unguarded Gaze and they turned it to Makers by Nature, letters from the Master Painter on Art, faith, and Hope I accepted that because they know what they're doing.

They're published, they're publishers and they have to market things. But so I know that I'm a skilled artist. I've been doing this for 50 years, but I also know. I have known all along that the best part of my work is outside of my control. And so on some level, I can't take credit for it. I mean, I don't, it's not that I wanna, I'm self abating and I'm, you know, I'm just this incredibly humble person.

I'm not, but I, I'm just aware of that and I think that's true for a lot of artists I know who are not Christians or not believers of any sort. They know that. I knew a guy here in Boston who had a really amazing painter, John Imber, who died of a LS, painted right up to the very end when he could barely even move much less paint.

And John, I once asked John, his work was just astonishingly good. And I asked him, I said, John, wow, this work is amazing. Where does it come from? He said, oh, I'm just really lucky. And I did not get the sense that he was being disingenuous, he was just being honest. 

Evan Rosa: And you know, his life to feel like. Some elements, some third element, some outside element is seemingly important.

Bruce Herman: And so therefore, to get back to your question, how do we deal with artists that are jerks? I think you treat 'em like any other jerk. You say you should stop that, but it doesn't have anything to do with whether their work is any good or not. The work is the work. Yeah. It stands or falls on its own. Yeah.

Anyway, enough said. And 

Evan Rosa: indeed, um, I'd love to go back and into Elliot and I think that one of the things that emerges in your book, uh, and in your artists' statements and in your, what I know of your teaching, uh, and just hearing you speak, there is a poetry to the way that you, and, and also a kind of, uh, a really beautiful kind of philosophical improvisation that I am picking up on.

And, and that is how I kind of receive Elliot as this kind of. Majestic, beautiful philosophical improvisation, although of course it's very carefully rendered crafted, so 

Bruce Herman: yeah. 

Evan Rosa: Yeah. Beautifully crafted and intentionally crafted. What gi Give me some more on Elliot for 

Bruce Herman: you. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, uh, my, my mentor in graduate school is the American painter, Philip Guston.

Uh, and Guston was obsessed with four quartets and I think with Elliot in general. Phil was Jewish. He grew up, his parents fled the pogroms in Eastern Europe. He was born in Montreal, but he grew up in la. But so Guston knew all those stories about Elliot, and he realized whoever, Elliot is not the point.

The point is this work. And then he introduced me to four quartets. He heard me talking about my religious faith, which at the time was not very well formed. It was heavily influenced by Eastern. Philosophy and, and mysticism and to a much lesser extent biblical, uh, sources. And he, he knew I believed in God and he said, you should read four quartets.

So I read it when I was in my early twenties. I'm now in my early seventies. I'm still reading it still. I. Not just for Cortes, but a lot of Elliot, but in particular for Cortes. I think that's his magnum opus. Yeah, I mean, let's just start with, I'll just randomly pick a, a piece, the, the last, and would you, are you planning to read it, please?

Oh, sure. It's, it's from the second to last stanza, a little gidding. Ah, great. Um, and I can actually recite it from memory. Please do.

The dove descending breaks the air with flame of incandescent terror of which the tongues declare the one discharge from sin or error. The only hope or else despair is choice of prior or pyre to be redeemed from fire by fire. With the drawing of this love and the voice of this calling, we shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive, always started, and know the place for the first time through the unknown.

Remembered gate when the last of earth left to discover is that which was the beginning at the source of the longest river, the voice of the hidden waterfall in the children in the apple tree. Not known because, not looked for but heard. Half heard in the stillness between two waves of the sea. Quick.

Now, here, now always a condition of complete simplicity. Costing not less than everything and all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well. When the tongues of flame are enfolded in the crowned knot of fire and the fire and the rows are one,

there's that fire again. And he's, what he's talking about is the fire of divine love and the rose is the multi foliate rose of of Dante, of Beatrice in in the divine comedy. And it's, it's the symbol of the church also the rose window of all these cathedrals. It's the Virgin Mary and opening up and flowering with the Messiah in her womb.

When the rose, when the fire and the rose are won. Yeah. Is the way he ends this epic poem, which is about time and mortality. In my end is my beginning. He says over and over again. Yeah. Quoting Mary Queen of Scots, just before she was beheaded. She said, in my end is my beginning. Is that right? I did not know it was Mary Queen of s Scotts.

Yeah. She was martyred for in a really mixed up Britain, which thought because she was still a Roman Catholic. She was a heretic the least. Sure. You know? My goodness. It's profound. It's, uh, well, I mean, in some ways that's what Jesus is saying from the cross in my end is my beginning because what is it that Paul says the apostle about the cross and being sown and, and.

Mortality raised and immortality. I mean, there's a sense in which the cross becomes this kind of fertile soil, all of which life comes eternal life. So yeah, Elliot's had a huge impact on me, and I think when Mako Fi Jamira and Chris t and I were working together on this project, we were all interacting with the poem in different ways.

And it wasn't so much that we wanted to illustrate the poem in any way. It was more that we wanted to honor Elliot by entering into a genuine encounter, not just with the poem, but with those things in the poem that he's trying to grapple with. Yeah. Um, yeah, there's, there's real richness there in that poem.

Gosh, there really is. I could spend two hours just quoting. I mean, reciting for you. And then I'm trying to unpack what we just recited. You know, 

Evan Rosa: I would I sign me up, uh, I wonder if it would be a fitting way to end. Uh, I'm gonna, I am gonna deviate from Elliot just for our, my last question for you to kind of, um, to come back to the book and, and I think something that would transcend art into public dialogue at the moment.

And it's this concept of yours, make out of love, not fear. And I wanna ask you what that might look like for artists and someone who doesn't think of themselves as an artist to be creative, out of love and not fear right now. 

Bruce Herman: Well, number one, I would say do away with the nonsense that you're not an artist.

People just say, I'm not an artist. Just forget it. Let go of that. You can't help it. You were made by. A maker to be a maker, end of story. So I say, just start making something. It doesn't matter what you make. Like I said, I think making a lo of bread is a great thing to do. Make a meal for somebody, you know, make a cocktail, a really, a good one, and the best you can make for the person visiting you.

Show hospitality. I mean, I really do think that the ultimate act of art is hospitality. And there's a great book, by the way, if you wanna read it, if you haven't. Real presence is by George Steiner in which he talks the, I'd say a full third of this book is about a kind of intellectual hospitality calls it esea, but it's the idea that all art comes to a place of hospitality where you're welcoming someone in to make something beautiful for them.

Beauty again, can be complex. It's not just pretty stuff. What we're getting back from that James Webb telescope is terrifying, but it's incredibly gorgeous. Yeah. But yeah, make from love. Make something for somebody with love. And, but I mean, I'm, I've been married for 51 years and the love between my wife and me is complex and multilayered and it's, we we're fighters.

I mean, we still fight after 51 years. That's all part of the love. So sometimes we're gonna get something it's made with love that's gonna, has a little hot sauce in it. 

Evan Rosa: I, I'm a fan of hot sauce. Then what do we need to be on the lookout for in the temptation to make out of fear? 

Bruce Herman: Well, I think we're living in an era in which the political theater that's being promulgated on all sides, by the way, not that there's a moral equivalency or anything like that, but partisan politics has become such a toxic brew and it's kind of bad theater.

And what it feeds on is fear. But you have the fear mongers on the left and on the right I say don't listen to them. Remember that you have a neighbor right next door who. Probably invited you over for Christmas party or something. Remember that the guy down the street shoveled you out yesterday because he knew that your snowblower was broken, or when you were sick, they brought you this really half decent casserole.

Now, what I'm trying to say is challenge the bad news with a recognition that daily kindnesses are being poured out everywhere, on every street, on every, in every location. Don't give in to fear because it's not a basis for anything good. It says in scripture, the fear of God is a beginning of wisdom, but the fear in that case is not being afraid of other people.

It's not being afraid of wild animals going to eat you or dinosaurs gonna tram pull you down. It's, it's actually the opposite of that. The fear of God is essentially, I could boil it down this way. I'd say there is no threat. Because God loves you unconditionally. He loves you so much. He's willing to lead on his life for you.

So what are you afraid of when it comes to, you know, whether it's Vladimir or Putin or Xi Jinping or Kim Jon or any number of other knuckleheads? Sure. Who, who think that they're important and think they're powerful. You know, Jesus says to them, you have no power over me, except what my father in heaven has given you.

That's the, I think that's the posture right there. Yeah. And so when you have that sense of fearlessness, you can create with great love, because the stakes are very high, but they're also, Jesus is, my yoke is easy, my burden is light. I think we downplay that too much. Mm-hmm. Um, he's saying, this is embarrassingly easy.

Just let down your guard. I'm there. 

Evan Rosa: I'm there. I'm glad you said that because I think, I think where we started with I am is this important, a loving assertion of I am is this kind of, it's an artistic and creative way to just orient yourself toward fear and to just appreciate the being that we've been given the incredible surprise that it all is, and, um, appreciate, appreciate it.

Well, 

Bruce Herman: I wanna say thank you to you, Evan, because I really do feel genuinely welcomed in this conversation we've been having, and I'm glad you taped it and recorded it for others to join us. That's the, that's what we need to do is just welcome people at this point. You know, the churches, I'm glad the church has fallen down on the job so many times in this regard, but that's what we need more than anything else is, uh, welcome to the festival.

Let the festival begin. 

Evan Rosa: Welcome to the party. 

Bruce Herman: Yeah, exactly. You got it. 

Evan Rosa: Bruce, thank you so much for the book. Thank you for decades of art making and for passing on your wisdom to others. 

Bruce Herman: Thank you, Evan. It's good to be with you

Evan Rosa: for The Life of the World is a production of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture at Yale Divinity School. This episode featured Bruce Herman, production Assistance by Emily Brookfield, Kacie Barrett, Zoë Halaban, Alexa Rollow and Macie Bridge. I'm Evan Rosa and I edit and produce the show. For more information, visit us online faith.yale.edu or lifeworthliving.yale.edu. There you can find all sorts of educational resources that help people envision and pursue lives worthy of our humanity. If you're new to the show, welcome friend, and remember to hit Subscribe in your favorite podcast app so you don't miss the next episode. And if you are a faithful listener, thank you.

We've just got one humble request. Would you share this episode with a friend today? Maybe discuss your own perspectives on the boundaries and potential of art making. And as always, we're grateful that you're listening and we'll be back with more soon.