Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Warfare of Art and Law Podcast sparks conversation about the intriguing – and sometimes infuriating – stories that arise in the worlds of art and law with artist and attorney Stephanie Drawdy.
Warfare of Art & Law Podcast
Jesuit Priest & Artist Father Jonathan Harmon on Art as a 'Work of Service', Defining Sacred Art and Seeking Justice Through Art
To learn more, please visit Father Harmon's site.
Show notes:
1:15 Harmon’s background and work as priest since 2008
2:10 teaching fine arts and being a pastoral resource at Loyola University
3:00 his work in the arts
8:20 history of art in Jesuit community
12:00 Daniel Segers, Jesuit Priest and artist
12:30 Harmon’s process as a painter in light of being a ‘work of service’
16:00 Harmon’s painting from pilgrimage through Spain
17:30 students’ responses
19:15 his attendance at New York Academy of Art
23:30 Jerry Alonzo: how to communicate through your art
26:45 Pope Benedict XVI’s Encyclical Letter Caritas in Veritate
28:20 definition of ‘sacred art’
30:30 seeking social justice through art
32:00 his work in Brownsville, TX connected to his art
33:00 his series of Catholic objects
35:30 his balance of time
37:25 Alan Robertshaw’s comments about all art being sacred
42:10 Tolkien and Flannery O’Connor on religious imagination
44:00 incorporating Catholic objects into his work
46:50 Emily Gould - spiritual impact of artwork/architecture/nature
49:15 Jarnick Vitters - importance of the physical objects to Harmon’s faith
51:00 Alan Robertshaw - subjective importance of objects
53:30 Yelena Khajekian - art as a sacred endeavor
54:40 Nnebundo Obi - interest in hearing about priest’s pursuit of other vocations
Please share your comments and/or questions at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com
Music by Toulme.
To hear more episodes, please visit Warfare of Art and Law podcast's website.
To leave questions or comments about this or other episodes of the podcast and/or for information about joining the 2ND Saturday discussion on art, culture and justice, please message me at stephanie@warfareofartandlaw.com.
Thanks so much for listening!
© Stephanie Drawdy [2025]
And I think that's what art really can do can change people's hearts.
Speaker 2:Welcome to Warfare of Art and Law, the podcast that focuses on how justice does or doesn't play out when art and law overlap. Hi everyone, it's Stephanie and that was Jesuit priest and artist, Father Jonathan Harmon, from a recent Second Saturday Art and Justice online gathering. What follows is a recording from that gathering, during which Father Harmon shares about his background, his decision to earn a master's at the New York Academy of Art and his current position teaching art at Loyola University. And his current position teaching art at Loyola University.
Speaker 2:We also touch on a range of other topics, from the background of art in the church to Fr Harmon's thoughts on broadening the definition of sacred art. Fr Jonathan Harmon, welcome to Warfare of Art and Law. And Second Saturday. Thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 1:My pleasure. It's great to be here.
Speaker 2:Would you give an overview of your various fields of work and your background, how you came into those?
Speaker 1:Sure, so I am a Jesuit priest, a Catholic Jesuit priest, which means I belong to a religious order, the Society of Jesus. I belong to a religious order, the Society of Jesus. I grew up in East Texas, not a very Catholic part of the country, so that was still, you know, sort of a you know here or there way to live growing up. But joined in 2008 and have worked in a lot of different areas sort of volunteering and have worked in a lot of different areas, sort of volunteering and even before I was a priest, a part of what the Jesuit idea is that we are constantly at work, and so I spent a number of years teaching full time, as well, as, you know, summers here and there doing different works of service you could say all around. So all of that really has kind of built up to me.
Speaker 1:Right now I'm teaching full-time at Loyola University in Chicago. I teach fine arts, drawing and painting, as well as my priestly ministries. I offer mass and do things like that around campus. So it really is an interesting role being at a Jesuit school as a Jesuit priest and as a teacher. So I have sort of this dual role as not just a professor but also sort of a pastoral resource for our students here, both Catholic and non-Catholic. That's one of the things that I really like about being at a Catholic school is that it's not sort of taboo to talk about spiritual things and be somebody that can talk to when crisis inevitably comes up.
Speaker 2:The arts for you. What was the seed where that began?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I grew up in an artistic household. My father is a goldsmith by trade, my grandfather is a watchmaker, so I grew up going to trade fairs and things like that. So it's always sort of been a part of my life. I was always drawing, I was always doodling, never really found a real focus as a child. I don't know if anybody else has had this same thing happen to them, but I was told at a very young anybody else has had this the same thing happen to them. But you know, I was told at a very young age that I had this thing called talent, which meant that I didn't have to really work at developing skills. So I didn't and it just kind of, you know, petered out.
Speaker 1:Before I became a Jesuit I was doing junior college in where I grew up in Tyler, texas, and I studied graphic design. I didn't actually finish that degree but I studied it for a while and that was sort of my introduction to sort of a professional working art Very quickly. Part of the reason why I didn't finish was very quickly. I realized that I was more interested in the artistic side rather than the design side and so I started getting into. You know, this was 2003,. So very early days of digital painting and Photoshop becoming much more than just photo manipulation. So I was very intrigued by that and so I sort of worked through that. Funnily enough, when I did enter the Jesuits in 2008, I didn't take any of my digital art stuff with me I didn't think that priests did that kind of thing just from my own ignorance. And so I left it behind. And then, and as I said, when I was teaching high school full time, I was asked they had a longtime art teacher retire and they know that I had taken some of these courses at junior college. They're like we need this plug to be filled just until we hire a full-time. So can you teach this basic introductory drawing class? I said, yeah, sure, it'd be fun.
Speaker 1:And at the same time I had been given this iPad for the first time ever. I've evolved poverty, so I had never really had an iPad. I entered right when iPhones were kind of becoming a thing, so I'd never even really had a smartphone before this. And so that's when I started getting more into digital art, sort of proper. And that was right around the same time that this little unknown app at the time, procreate, had come out, and so I was able to sort of hop on that and really incorporated a lot of that into, yeah, into my own teaching and had the kit because all of the kids had their own iPad. So I was like, if there's some way that we could help them be a little bit more creative and play fewer games, seemed like that could have been a win. So I was sort of an early adopter of this iPad thing before Apple Pencil, you know, before all that stuff came out and started doing some paintings on my own.
Speaker 1:That was really the primary way that I was creating art for a number of years, strictly iPad. I'd pretty much given up drawing on paper and I'd never really painted before, and so this was sort of, yeah, what I was doing. For a long time, really up until I went to the New York Academy of Art, I had been doing, again, primarily digital. I had taken a few. When I was doing my theology studies in Berkeley, california, I had taken a few courses in or like seminar things, workshops in acrylic and oil painting just as sort of dipping my toes into in acrylic and oil painting, just as sort of dipping my toes into, yeah, just to seeing what that was like I'd noticed there were a lot of traditional painters that could just sort of dip into the iPad world and make really amazing paintings, but I'd noticed that it was a lot more difficult to go the other way A lot of digital painters having a hard time going into traditional media. So it seemed like there was something, this thing that we call fundamentals, foundations. So I decided that, in order to make my digital stuff better, I needed to learn, you know, sort of a more physical, concrete method of you know what do colors mean? And so that was my first dip into, yeah, sort of traditional media.
Speaker 1:And then, probably the next year was what was that? 2018, when the Notre Dame Cathedral caught fire, and I remember thinking to myself man, had that fire been much worse? There's really not any way that we could replace the artworks that could have been lost, that could have been lost. And so I remember that was really the first time when I thought maybe I should take this a little further and sort of pursue it as a more sort of a dedicated ministry opportunity. Really, you know, because there is such a long tradition of art in not only in the Society of Jesus, but the Catholic Church at large, I mean, our history kind of is the history of art, and so there's great foundations, there's great support there and, you know, there are a number of Jesuits that are involved in the arts, one where they're mostly in teaching. There are a few practicing artists out there. But anyway, yeah, I thought that that was sort of the catalyst for my desire to take this as a more, yeah, a more concerted effort.
Speaker 2:A couple of points that you made. I want to circle back to One of them that you just referenced was the history of art in the Jesuit community and we were chatting briefly before we officially started the call about that. Could you kind of recap that and give an overview for everyone? And, as always, if anyone has questions, please feel free to jump in as well.
Speaker 1:Yes, so it's a long history. We've been around for about 500 years, so we won't be able to get to everything, but early on so we were kind of founded. A lot of people will say that the Jesuits were founded as a counter-reformation movement and that's not technically true. St Ignatius the founder saw sort of the corruption of the day. You know, there really wasn't a method of sort of a formal structure for training new priests, and so he wanted to change that. Basically he wanted to change the church instead of. You know where Martin Luther decided to break away and do his own thing, st Ignatius decided that he was going to sort of work within the structure, correct as it was, and try to bring about change that way. And funnily enough, one of the ways in which that happened very early on within his own life was sort of the promotion of the arts. You know, a very sort of a low-hanging fruit was if people are somewhat illiterate, there's not a lot of reading, then we could use pictures, and so the society of Jesus from a very uh, from very early became sort of uh, benefactors of of artists, and then some of the great arts of the renaissance were commissioned by the Jesuits, from Rubens to Bernini. Um, you know, some of the early Jesuits themselves were talking about this. There's a brother named Andrea Pozzo who I recommend everybody just kind of look up on their own time.
Speaker 1:The church of the Gesù in Rome, there's this great, and in San Ignacio is the other one, these great ceilings where there's a lot of trompe l'oeil effects going on. There's a lot of sort of perspectival working with the architecture, sort of developing this idea of the Italian Baroque, romanesque and Baroque art movements, really sort of centered around these new ideas that the Jesuits were kind of working with. So, yeah, you've got these two sort of approaches right. You've got we're building these immense churches that are literally, you know, you look up and it's leading you into heaven, you know, up into the sky, but also a very practical effect that they're taking these woodcuts primarily, and these different artifacts and things music out into the mission no-transcript, in which we can use sort of cultural images and iconography and sounds and sort of meld them with a more, I guess, what we'd call right now a Baroque sense. So you can still hear recordings of sort of the South American operas that were developed, that have very sort of traditional melodies and such as well as sort of an Italian flair.
Speaker 1:Yeah, kind of got off a little off track there, but it's just. Yeah, there's a long history of working with the arts and having artists work with the church, of working with the arts and having artists work with the church. Another great Jesuit painter his name is Daniel Sagers, of the Northern sort of Flemish school. He was a student of Jan Bruegel I can't remember if he was the elder or not but became one of the top floral painters of that area. A lot of cool stuff with Jesuits in the arts and really all over the world, not just European centric.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the imagery that you use and your process, like how have you seen or what is your thought process when you're putting together works now with the idea of having it as a work of service.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question. So my university, loyola Chicago, does not have a. We don't have an MFA program and we don't really have a BFA program, and so a lot of what I'm working on professionally is teaching non-artists you know, future doctors and lawyers and engineers why they should care about art, why they should care about beautiful things, beauty in the world, and that has really sort of taken hold in my own work. And so I for okay, let me back up a little further. Growing up, I didn't really like a lot of contemporary and modern religious art. It just seemed kind of bad, sort of saccharine and sort of kitschy, and so in fact I was sort of hesitant to even get involved in the arts because I thought that that was all that there was. You know, we had this great history, we got this great sort of paintings of the past, but you know, thinking that that was just had to stay there, and so what I? What I try to do right now is Well, ok, so there's sort of two, two branches of this.
Speaker 1:A lot of my work is sort of trying to deal with this idea of the tension between the sacred and the secular. I think it's a fault of the religious imagination, that we haven't done a very good job of broadening our view and recognizing beauty in the world, wherever it is. I made this piece a long time ago where I photoshopped a picture of Jesus over a sky, over the sun, and I called that the religious art. All you have to do is tape a picture of Jesus to it and call it and that's what makes it good but recognizing. So primarily in my work right now, I paint a lot of trees, I paint a lot of portraiture.
Speaker 1:I'm looking for encounters, experiences that people have, ways in which we can have a common, a primal symbol that transcends religious ideologies or what have you and goes down to a deeper truth. And so, basically, what that's trying to do, and why I'm connecting it back to my work at the university, is really I'm trying to do, and why I'm connecting it back to my work at the university is really I'm trying to open conversation, open our eyes, so that we can actually see the world, see the goodness in the world. You know, through the muck, through all the things that are trying to divide us right now. So I don't really use a lot of, you know, religious imagery, iconography, a lot of religious imagery, iconography. I'm trying to find something that is very religious, deeply religious, without sort of slapping you over the head with it, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, one of the images that you sent me was of a farm animal.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:A cow.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So for that, as an example of what you're talking about.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that is.
Speaker 1:It was actually a photo I took when I was in Spain doing a pilgrimage.
Speaker 1:So St Ignatius is from the north of Spain, the Basque country, and so we have this pilgrimage that basically goes from the north down into Barcelona, and so I was fortunate enough a few summers ago to sort of walk that path, and it's a beautiful country and really quite moving to do that, similar to the Camino Santiago, which has become more popular in recent years. But anyway, so this was a moment that I had. I was just again sort of enjoying the beauty of creation, the beauty of the world, and saw this cow just kind of lounging around and was really moved by. I was moved by a number of things the light and that and that, the way that it was, sort of that it also was creating, not creating but enjoying creation, in a sense, just sort of existing, being content, and so with that one I was trying to capture again these very real and explicit religious themes of solemnity, of sort of a transcendent moment of being, a sublimity. Yeah, in sort of a non-traditional way.
Speaker 2:What are the responses from the students that you were referencing earlier when you're seeking to engage them in this way? How is that?
Speaker 1:They're very open. You know it's fun to just say, look, this isn't. You know, because every non-art student and some art students think that they need to be at the master level on day one and my job is to say look, I'm not expecting any of you to be able to draw well. In a sense, that's my job. I need to help you to be able to draw well, help you to be able to draw well, but from day one I really challenge and stress the importance of seeing, of just taking a moment, stop what you're doing, put the phone down and look at the world. Right.
Speaker 1:That's, ultimately, what the practice of drawing is, is close observation. And again, just sort of as an aside, I think that's why I'm so drawn to figurative work is because, again, this deeply religious idea of what we would call the incarnation, god becoming human being, to deeply observe and to critically observe that sort of religious reality for me is so moving that you know, to think that we could ever exhaust the beauty of the figure just seems ridiculous to me, because there's so much complexity, so much individuality that, yeah, it's so compelling. So, just this process of seeing and when you talk about it in those ways, I find students to be very open to it, that it's not about this thing or the other, it's just look and appreciate.
Speaker 2:Going to your decision to attend and graduate from the New York Academy of Fine Art. Would you describe your process in making that decision and what your takeaways from your time there were?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So it's funny, a lot of people are surprised when they find out that I'm a priest and an artist, that I went to art school. It's actually a pretty common practice for Jesuits in particular to pursue higher degrees after our ordination, after we become priests. Most of the time it's guys doing PhDs in you know what you consider the, what you would expect right, philosophy, theology, that kind of thing. Junkoots have always been sort of a more diverse group. You know we have lawyers and doctors and just a lot of different. You know, I guess what you could call professional endeavors. A lot of the time these are guys that had those degrees before coming to join. Sometimes that comes up while we're in formation. So me going to get an art degree in itself wasn't unique. What was unique was the art degree. You know it was difficult. I didn't know what sort of support I would get because it is sort of a non-traditional approach to post-ordination studies and you know, just like most parents out there with a kid that wants to go to art school, it's like well, what are you going to do with that? How are you going to make? How are you going to make money? You know, fortunately I don't have to worry too much about that particular problem, which is a huge grace and something that I do not take for granted, but it really was. I just felt so compelled to learn.
Speaker 1:Really, my desire to go to the academy was so that I could learn how to do this well, I just needed the skills to draw well and to paint well. You know, I had sort of an idea in my mind. It really wasn't clear if I was going to, you know, pursue teaching, or if I was going to pursue a more active working artist path. It wasn't. I wasn't clear if I really even wanted to get into religious. You know what we'd call sacred art. I'm kind of leaning more in that direction now. But also you know what we'd call sacred art. I'm kind of leaning more in that direction now. But also, you know, I don't want to just limit myself to religious work, because I do feel very strongly about, again, that tension between the sacred and the secular, that we need to open our eyes to a broader artistic language and a broader artistic imagination really, and just sort of again, this narrow idea of what is religious. So that's kind of why I wanted to go to the academy just to get the skills, to get the techniques, to get those foundations and fundamentals.
Speaker 1:What I was really surprised by there was how open everybody was. I was kind of afraid, in fact, to even mention that I was a priest going to art school all the stereotypes you can imagine Then you know, stereotypes exist for a reason, but it was incredibly. Yeah, they were incredibly supportive, I think partly because I was, I didn't wear my pre-shirt and they kind of got to know me as a person before they found out it's like, oh, that's weird, but you know, whatever. And I think the fact that the Academy is more sort of it's a figurative art school, so it is.
Speaker 1:We are sort of more rooted in things like the Renaissance and neoclassical imagery, so there was sort of a maybe not an understanding, but like when you're sitting in those, in that kind of iconography and, yeah, that mode of existing, there's not as much of a sort of a pushback against religious religiosity and such. Yeah, it was a really beautiful time. I love my years there. I made some really great friends, um, and I think it did equip me, um with a better, a better, uh skill set to to pursue really and not let my. What I really didn't want to have happen was have my skills inhibit my imagination, and I think that they did a really great job in sort of preparing me for that.
Speaker 4:Hey Father, this is Jerry Howdy. Hi. My very vague question is you mentioned a little earlier about how the Jesuits were using, you know, art as a way to resolve conflict or to move from point A to B as a tool, and you've mentioned that that's important to you to communicate and to have others see that, the beauty and the sublimity of what's out there. How do you communicate that? I get step one get out and look and see and paint or do what it is you do. How does that get beyond that student who is with you and you're talking about it? Is it just one by one, by one?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's an interesting question. Yeah, I don't know that there's necessarily a concrete methodology of what happens next. You know, I think there is sort of that. In a sense, it has to be right that that personal contact is, you know, this engagement with another person, um, that if, if, if, you know, if this whole practice doesn't go beyond, you know, bringing at least one other person together so that you can have that, whether it be a conversation or even just that moment where you're standing there. I think it was in one of the journals of Delacroix said that as soon as you have a group of people in front of a piece, as soon as somebody speaks, that moment is broken. You're thinking about the thing instead of being with the thing. Yeah, I think it really is about, you know. Okay, so my religious language would be to change somebody's heart, right, this metanoia, to turn around, to understand a difference of existing, a different way of existing.
Speaker 4:This is a question that I, you know. I struggle with a lot. I do sculpture and my career was in law, as I think most of the people here are, and I make a lot of work that is law and law-themed and things that I see going astray, but it's kind of like I'm making it for myself. I don't have that student in front of me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:To talk it through, help me refine my ideas and also to pass it on to somebody else.
Speaker 1:So there's this really wonderful encyclical by Pope Benedict XVI called Caritas in Veritate, truth and Charity, and he talks about justice and charity as being sort of two sides of the same coin, and what I love about the way that he talks about it is that you can't have justice without charity and you can't have charity without justice, because justice, as he says it at least, is giving to somebody what belongs to them.
Speaker 1:Right, it's returning personhood, effectively individuality. Charity, then, is giving to somebody what is mine, and I can't give of what is mine until we return to a person what is theirs, and I find that is the creative act I'm giving of myself, right, I'm pouring out my desires, my emotions, my ideas, and so I haven't really thought this through too much. I'm kind of coming up with an idea right now of what does that look like in order to give of myself. How is that work of justice then, in the work being developed, how am I helping people sort of receive that idea? I don't know that it works that way in particular, but, yeah, that giving of oneself, I think, is a crucial step that artists, sort of naturally, are engaged with, and somebody that works in law, I think, in particular, is that is actively working through this idea of justice and giving to somebody. There's an interesting connection there.
Speaker 2:This idea of justice and giving to somebody. There's an interesting connection there. I was curious about the term sacred art that you used earlier and how that's defined and whether it's in a state of flux, like even with the process, that you have to broaden perhaps the definition of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it is something that I think about a lot, something that I would like to do. There are. So, in sort of the religious world, there's a number of categories, for better or for worse. So there's what we would call liturgical art, the things that go into churches, that are specifically made and designed for the act of worship, which would fall under this category of sacred art. But I would define so sort of I'm going to put that aside you know, the paintings that I make I don't think would really fit in a church, just because that's, that's the whole other thing. Yeah, I really would like to broaden how we understand Sort of my cheeky approach to this is to say that there really is no secular art.
Speaker 1:It's all sacred. We're all engaging with a deep again I've said this before a deep truth of who we are as human beings, of how we are connected to the world, and that that is sacred. Um, so, yeah, this, my whole process is just try to say look there's, you know we have beautiful architecture, we have beautiful nature, you know we have beautiful people. Um, and again, I'm not defining beauty as just sort of you know, airbrushed and you know, yeah, whatever that is, but like true, true humanity, like real people. That's beautiful, and all of our bumps and bruises is to say look, this is a sacred thing that we do as artists, whether that's explicitly Christian, whether that's explicitly not Christian, as long as you're engaging with the world and people.
Speaker 2:I think there's a real beauty there. I think what I'm taking away and correct me if I'm wrong that all of that is wrapped up in this goal of seeking a social justice. All of that is wrapped up in this goal of seeking a social justice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean again. You know I very much believe that art changes hearts, it opens people's eyes to the reality of humanity. You know, we, I think too. You know this is not a new issue, but just with different effects. You know, this problem of social media, that we're all sort of up in everybody's business all the time, that we can't just take a moment and stop, you know, touch the grass, as the kids are saying, and I think that's something that art truly, truly can do. You know, it just makes you stop and look and maybe even have a conversation with somebody, instead of talking through filters and such. And I can't, yeah, I really can't think of.
Speaker 1:There are specific ways in which we can promote justice, and actually that's what I love about being part of a religious community, part of the Catholic Church, is that you know, in a sense I don't have to put all of that weight onto my shoulders, because there's so many wonderful things, from Catholic charities to Jesuit refugee services, there's a lot of work that's being done in the church to help the physical problems of the world and a lot of the suffering that's going on in the world, and I can, in a sense, be a part of that and go.
Speaker 1:I was just down a few summers ago. I was down. We just started this new ministry down on the border in Brownsville of Texas and Mexico, which is kind of a big crisis area right now, and sort of just being with people, going and talking to people, being in. You know, that 100% informs the way that I see when I, when I'm painting a portrait, right, I'm thinking about all of those, the poor and the suffering and the put down. Um, yeah, and to you know, hopefully so that that there is still good, there is still beauty, there is still something, there is still light in the world, even though so much is is dark.
Speaker 2:With experiences like what you just referenced, are you calling uh from what you're seeing to then go back to the studio and create work Portraits you mentioned like would you do you? What is your process with that?
Speaker 1:So right now, maybe contradicting what I've been talking about so far, but right now I'm looking at developing a series of like Catholic objects, like weird things that if you're not sort of in the circle, you don't you look at it, it's just like, well, that's a weird. Why would you have that little bit of bone or that weird gold? You know thing? Um, I, you know I love those little, those little knickknacks, and you know, in a sense they I shouldn't call them knickknacks some of them are like sacred vessels and things like that. But but so I'd started painting some of them and noticed there was just something wasn't quite sitting like, it wasn't moving me as much as I hoped that they were.
Speaker 1:Like, I love these objects, I love looking at these beautiful objects and I love sort of the interaction of them in whether it's in sacred worship or going out into the world. And what I realized was what was lacking was the figure, was a person, and so I started incorporating hands into these. You know, for example, a chalice is being given. When I have sacred oils that I'm anointing the sick right, there's that physical, there's that touch, and so that's sort of what I'm bringing in when I'm thinking about how do I, how do I take these sort of ideas that I've got lofty and concretize them, make them, make it about this, this moment where you're interacting with another person and sort of developing this idea of what that means in your own, in your own, the viewer's imagination Does that make?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, and so for going forward. Like the projects that you see yourself doing, they would be involved around those objects yeah, for the foreseeable future, I think I, I mean, I still love painting trees.
Speaker 1:it's just kind of a thing that I like. I don't know if it's something that other people would like, but I find it to be sort of a you know, excuse the pun a grounding effort. It helps me to sort of feel like here I am and this is the spot, this is the place where I exist and where I find beauty in the world. Um, so yeah, I'm I'm constantly sort of working on a couple of different uh uh projects like that.
Speaker 2:How do you balance your time with the teaching and the work Uh?
Speaker 1:yeah, not, not. Well, you know I do have the faults of many artists. I tend to be a little scattered at times and you know I go into the studio and just stare at my paintings and it's hard to flip the switch to on sometimes produce work. Um, as part of what drew me to this, to this job, actually to have that kind of built-in balance between teaching and and and production. This is only my second year so I'm kind of still learning the ropes of you know how to balance that well.
Speaker 1:Um, but you know, for me it's just you know my adhd brain I have to sort of gamify it in a sense and make sure I put things in my calendar studio time, research time, teaching time, preparation. I've got to just have it laid out so I can get it done, so I can do it. And, as I said earlier, on top of that I'm going off to help with a student retreat next weekend, so that's time away. That it's part of my job, but not necessarily part of my teaching and not necessarily part of my work, my artistic work, and so it's a balance. You know it takes some things are going to take a hit, and part of it, part of doing it well is kind of recognizing that I can't, you know, only dedicate myself to painting and only dedicate myself to teaching, and I can't only dedicate myself to my pastoral work. It's got to, there's got to be, you know, that tension given, giving and taking.
Speaker 2:And Alan, you put a few notes in the chat. I don't know if you wanted to come on and ask any questions or make any comments no, I just found this has just been fascinating.
Speaker 5:I mean, as always, there's so much to you know, absorb and process. So thank you, jonathan, for doing this. I mean I did find it very interesting because obviously you know you could talk about sort of religious influence and arts forever. Um, I've just been looking at. James painted an amazing video the other day about. You know the last supper and you know the history of how it was painted, the technical side of it, but also you know what it was designed to represent and how it was different from other depictions of the last supper, so you can analyze this stuff for ages. I'm really interested in what Jonathan was saying about getting away from all the clichéd stuff. I mean, don't get me wrong, I think the best piece of religious art possibly is, you know, salvador Dali's St John's Christ, because that's taking a very obvious theme in Christianity. But managing to find a new take on it after the best part of 2,000 years of depicting that, that took some doing, but I do like the idea that it's funny.
Speaker 5:There's a church I love all churches and we're surrounded by them down here. It's amazing. Some of them are all abandoned and there's all the history, but there's one and it's just their logo, because it's like an abstract logo, but it sort of represents the quite unusual features. It's only sort of a fairly standard 19th century church, but they've got quite a modern, hip logo. It looks like something that would be designed for Google, but I just really like it because it's so novel. And down here, because we've got the cathedral, of course, um, and that features a lot. You know, just as a secular logo down here, because there's a lot of things down here called three spires, although I have actually discussed this. That cathedral has four, definitely has four spires and it's like taking photo. You see all four of them. It has four spires. You see all four of them. It has four spires.
Speaker 5:I was having this debate even with the bishop Please stop emailing me but it was interesting because they built the cathedral and they incorporated what used to be the Paris church and that, effectively, is now one-aisled stroke chapel but that's still got its original spire on it. But then they did the amazing and it's quite funny because it was specifically designed, even though it's quite a recent build. It was built in 1888. It was designed to look very old because they wanted they effectively wanted fake tradition. It was all to do with the rows between what was the capital town of Cornwall and it kept moving around. So Truro effectively crowdfunded this amazing cathedral and there's some great artworks in that.
Speaker 5:There's one I really like where it's like an aerial, it's like a big painting of the Cornish Peninsula, but it's got every church represented as sort of like a beam of light going up, and I just like that because I also like maps. It combines two of my favorite things artwork and maps. But yeah, I just like the idea that you're saying that. I mean, I think you're possibly right. You know all art is sacred, um, and I just like the idea that you're moving on from.
Speaker 5:Don't't get me wrong. I mean, some of the traditional stuff is amazing and you know, like I say, religion's contribution to art. I mean I'm not a big fan of it. You know I like contemporary art but obviously you have to accept, you know, like Bernini did no thing or two about architecture. You know, when you sort of I mean I put it about that digitised Vatican project I don't know if people are familiar with it which is just absolutely amazing because you can spend all the time you want sticking your nose right up to places that you wouldn't be able to get to in real life.
Speaker 5:You can have a proper exploring, go underground and you know just the layers of history. You know from the original sort of grottos and tombs of the original necropolis. You know from the original sort of grottos and tombs of the original necropolis. You know from Roman times all the way up to what we have now. I just find it amazing. But yeah, just to say I just think the idea of getting away from all that you know, cliched, you know, oh, that's clearly religious art. I do like the idea of you know something, you look at and it isn't even necessarily apparent at first, this religious artwork.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I had a friend in art school, a classmate, who in a sense was doing the exact opposite thing that I was trying to do. She was trying to bring in more religious iconography into her non-religious work, and I was trying to get away from religious iconography but her non-religious work and I was kind of trying to get away from religious iconography but still make it a religious work, and I always go back to this idea of so. Tolkien is one of my great inspirations. Probably my two favorite authors are him and Flannery O'Connor, and they both write about imaginations a lot and how specifically the religious imagination in a sense needs to be a more. It has to have more depth, right.
Speaker 1:And so one of the things that I noticed is that so many people, non-religious people, can read something like the Lord of the Rings, which Tolkien himself has said is a deeply religious book, as well, as go into some of these old cathedrals around the world and just be moved and find and find them deeply beautiful, deeply moving.
Speaker 1:And yet when we look at a lot of sort of more contemporary, modern religious art, you know, sometimes it's harder.
Speaker 1:Well, let me say it's harder for somebody, a non-religious person, to see something like that and say, oh, that's I like that. You know, that's a moving thing for me and so, yeah, part of my desire to move away from some of those more explicit images and iconography again, sort of that liturgical search, worship side aside is so that we can actually begin to have this conversation with somebody, like with what Tolkien did with a non-believer, with a non-religious, and not sort of begin the conversation with a difference of sort of a clash, that we can sort of have this encounter, this engagement and talk about something that goes deeper than just sort of the surface level things images- what I was thinking of when you said that was that then this current project where you're specifically referencing all of these reliquaries or other objects that are very much rooted in church, that in itself to me I could see where it helps start a conversation with anyone from any background and it kind of brings those objects that they might not otherwise focus on into their line of sight.
Speaker 2:And who knows where it goes from there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's a lot of really weird things in the Catholic church and I just think that's kind of neat and I don't want to. I still haven't quite figured out a way of incorporating, incorporating the real weirdness, like chapels built of bones and you know, images of saints with their tongues cut out and eyeballs on a plate. But yeah, I think they're sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 4:No, you're addressing the iconography, the objects, the so on, of which being a lifetime student of. Catholic education from year one up through Boston College, the Jesuits.
Speaker 7:There, you go.
Speaker 4:What you've just said brought to mind kind of a humorous idea on what you're saying is being brought up in, you know, catholic grammar schools and so on. One of the things that was told was a good thing to have was a holy water bottle. Now, probably some people here have never heard of that. It's a little little jar with a, you know, you loosen a cap and you can sprinkle it and you fill it up at the church, at the baptismal font or something like that, and I was taught to do this stupid thing, which was, before going to bed, opening my bedroom door and sprinkling the room with holy water so that the devil wouldn't get me during the night. So there's some humor in it. I mean, at the time it was serious. The absurdity of it now is obvious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And you know, motions like and that's what I think for me, that sort of this breakthrough that I just recently had about adding the figure to these objects, like that motion, that it what can spark those conversations in you know, hopefully, in the work that I do, is that you know whether or not you know the thing that I'm holding. You've been given something, so there's, there's um, there's a connection there which I think is kind of cool.
Speaker 7:I just wanted to say thank you so much for for um, you're talking to us today and it's been really fascinating and something that I've been thinking a lot as you've been talking were kind of two things really the way in which a lot of people, I think, who would not say that they are traditionally religious in any way, are deeply sort of touched and really feel a sense of their spiritual selves when they are faced with or when they see or are in the environment of some kind of spiritual art or architecture.
Speaker 7:I was just thinking of a program on the deli I was watching the other day. About it was. It was about it was very light tv, you know, to relax, and it was about going on cruises and this particular cruise was through India and these people then travelled around in India and they went to the Taj Mahal and so many of them who would have said they you know they had kind of no interest in formal religion necessarily or any experience of it were so deeply touched in what they would describe as a very sort of spiritual way by their visit to the Garden Hall. So I think that's really interesting, but I also think, you know, lots of people would also say again, who wouldn't say that they were necessarily religious in any formal way also feel a sense of their sort of spiritual selves when they are just touched by what you would term as kind of non-sacred art or just the beauty of nature generally.
Speaker 1:So I think there are those kind of almost two sides to a coin yeah, and that's what I love. You know, I've been fortunate enough to travel around the world and seeing non-Christian religious and sometimes secular art, whether it be religious or not, and be moved by it. You know, there's something there that I'm looking for at least, I don't know that I've quite gotten it yet but how do you ev, how, how to, how do you evoke that? How do you get that? That's, that really is kind of what I'm, what I'm looking for, because there's something deeply again, deeply human, about deeply personal, about that, about that connection.
Speaker 2:Jarnik, did you want to offer your question?
Speaker 3:Yes, I was just very curious about the relevance of religious objects or physicality of objects. In what ways is that for you perhaps important for your own personal faith?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a funny thing because on the one hand, they're just things. Again, it's not magic. We like to have this idea that priests are casting spells and high-level wizards and whatnot, but they're just things, right, they're things that we have given meaning to, whereas a non-religious person or a non-Catholic might look at that thing and not know that this is an incredibly sacred thing. That doesn't mean that thing, and not know that this is an incredibly sacred thing. That doesn't mean that. It's not that.
Speaker 1:But so when I look at these things and that's partly why I am so interested right now in moving away from just the object itself, but how the object engages with the person, how the object engages with the tradition, you know an example forgive me for going onto the nerd side for a second. An example I like to give is in Lord of the Rings, where Aragorn is given the reforged sword right, the sword itself. Anybody could hold it, anybody could use it as a sword, but only he, only the king, could use its authority to command the army of the dead. If that makes it's a weird example, I realize, but the thing itself isn't as important as the thing plus that tradition, that veneration that has been given to it. So it's sort of this coming together of, yeah, this coming together that I find very, very fascinating, very moving.
Speaker 5:I mean just to chip in there, because you're saying about things getting value, and obviously without getting into all the sort of like theology of this, which I don't think my 40-year-old REA level would actually do just like as a long time. Ask me about the synoptic gospels. Hey, fantastic, let's not go any deeper than that. But I'm thinking of things like the shroud of turin, obviously a controversial object, but I quite like you know the catholic church's official position which is, hey, if you like it, you like it, we're not, we're not making any about it, but if it helps you focus or think about things, well, great, it serves a purpose.
Speaker 5:I mean, I do an artwork and I think it was. You know, probably it'd be interesting. You know I mean, oh, it's a forgery. I don't think it was, I think it possibly was designed to be. You know, just something like all art to provoke a response and to get people thinking. But you know, obviously, because I think one thing people find out about Catholicism perhaps is like things like, things like you know, our thing about relics, and it's like you keep what it's like, well, yeah, you know.
Speaker 5:And it's like, yes, okay, if you add them all together, but it's, you know, the whole point is that there's, you know, the official position is we're not saying anything about them, we're just saying and that's why I think it is interesting that there's always you were saying about, you know, trying to distinguish between the sacred and the profane in terms of you know, what's art and what's not art, and what's religious and what, and I think that is something there that it's like you've got these objects and it's like are they holy objects or are they like any piece of art?
Speaker 1:just something to get you thinking yeah, it also takes into account personal preference. Right like, for example, I really like heavy metal and I don't think there's anybody around that would say that that's a sacred work, but I find it very beautiful. So I think there is this idea that the subject matters, the person seeing the thing really matters seeing the thing really matters.
Speaker 5:Well as far as a big fan of the sort of philosophy of the minimalists, that you remove everything from it and it's all completely subjective. It's just what you get out of it.
Speaker 2:So yes. I very much, yeah, I very much, you know empathize with that point of view and, ilana, you have joined today. Good to see you. Did you have any comments or questions you wanted to to offer?
Speaker 8:oh, thank you so much for for speaking to us today. I I think a lot of what I'm what I'm hearing and I think what I'm kind of feeling is like a lot of the importance of spirituality and just the way that it's kind of like this internal journey and it's it never ends. And I think that I feel that also when I'm making paintings, it's kind of like this meditative thing, um, and I never kind of thought of art as a as like a sacred endeavor and um, it's just kind of. I feel like it's a lot, because I I don't think about I don't, I have to be honest, I don't think about this stuff, but but it's really, really cool, uh, to hear you speak about it, because I feel like it just opened up a whole new, um, just a whole new landscape for me. Just it feels very, very expansive.
Speaker 1:So I really appreciate it yeah, thank you, it is a lot yeah never ending.
Speaker 2:Yeah, for sure, yeah. Thank you, uh Nabundo did you have a? Question as well.
Speaker 6:I had a question and a comment. I just wanted to say thank you very much, father Harmon, for this lovely conversation. It's been very enlightening um for the both of us, but for me, um more specifically, it's been very enlightening because I'm I mean, I've been a Catholic my whole life um, and I'm still currently actively practicing my faith. But I find that it's always very interesting um to hear from priests about their various vocations um that they choose to pursue in addition to, obviously, the priestly vocation. So it's been very, very fascinating, very interesting.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for sharing as you have today. It's been really, as Nabundo put and others have said, really really enriching. So thank you for your time and for sharing from your heart as you have. I really look forward to seeing the series that you're working on as it unfolds.
Speaker 1:Yep, I'm excited to get to work on that.
Speaker 5:Thank you, thank you. Thank you, oh Nabundo, you're really rocking the girl in the pearl earring look it's so you. It's so, you Thanks.
Speaker 8:Oh yeah.
Speaker 4:Thank you.
Speaker 8:Thank you everybody, thank you Bye, bye, bye.
Speaker 2:There will be links in the show notes to learn more. If you're intrigued by this podcast, it would be much appreciated if you could leave a rating or review and tag Warfare of Art and Law podcast. Until next time, this is Stephanie Draughty bringing you Warfare of Art and Law. Thank you so much for listening and remember injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.