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Catholic Artists Conference
Catholic Artists Conference in Omaha
Here’s the abstract from the talk I was scheduled to give (sadly, the conference was cancelled).
The Poet as Troublemaker – Why the Church Needs Artists
Like the angel of God who troubled the waters of a pool to bring healing, the Catholic artist leads his fellow man back to wholeness. In his person, the artist experiences the encounter with reality in a unique way. Through poesis, he voices the response of God, re-calling man to himself, re-making the broken world.
His agony is to bear the weight of glory in form, to utter what cannot be uttered, to become at once fully himself and also negative space for the presence of Christ. The world cannot fathom him, has no category for the subordination of self-expression to Truth. And, sadly, the Church may also be confused about her artists – wary of our worldliness, discomfited by our struggles, embarrassed by our vulnerability, and blind to the need for the trouble and mess we make.
So, the Catholic artist feels at times lonely, unappreciated, misunderstood, unloved within her own home. We must, then, understand ourselves more fully, let the calling to be an artist dwell in us more richly, support one another, and provide for the Church the very forms by which she may grow able to receive and nurture our gifts.
Charlotte will open with her poem A Poet’s Apologia, weave in lines from other poems in which she has taken up this theme, and close with Rooster – a rousing call to artists to ‘be the answer’ the world needs.
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