Homage to Bobbie Brooks Crow

Our friend and mentor Bobbie Crow died in early March.  In tribute, the following are some reflections on her influence on our work and ministry along with some of her artwork and some of our own art inspired by her.

"You Brood of Vipers"

Bobbie Brooks Crow awakened in me the desire to see and to seek the spiritual in art.  This assemblage pays homage to a friend and art mentor and a small pen and ink sketch she did in church on the first Sunday in Advent many decades ago.  Bobbie sings in the choir of Grace Episcopal Church in Chattanooga TN.  It is her habit to bring a small sketchbook to capture images from the scripture stories or the pastoral message that catches her imagination. On this particular Sunday in late November the apocalyptic words of a prophet crying in the wilderness caught her attention.

You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
--The Gospel of Matthew

Bobbie’s image of the prophet John the Baptist juxtaposes him next to a fruit bearing tree.  John’s words are not just angry rhetoric … he is ready for the great pruning.  The world has gone so terribly wrong and only a direct intervention from God can save possibly save humanity.  John announces a world on the threshold of transformation.  The red gash across his neck hints to the cost of his prophetic message and his discipleship. 

While John’s words were aimed directly at his brother Jews and their empty words and actions, his message resonates in all ages in which God’s gift and promises are not made available to all in God’s creation … to act justly and walk humbly with God.  For Bobbie, the tree is Christmas tree and a reminder of humanity’s perversion of God’s great act of love (bad fruit as witnessed in commercialism of the incarnation and the Nativity event), but the tree is also a sign of hope that points toward God’s original intent for creation (good fruit as witnessed in the right relationships embodied in the story of Garden of Eden and the Tree of Life).

The technique I utilized for this homage is an assemblage of found and recycled objects. The style is in the aesthetic, as well as form, of narrative totem poles found in many primal religious cultures around the world.  I these traditions, the form is simplified to only the elements critical to the ethical narrative … in this case eyes to see injustice, a mouth to speak truth and a hand to carry out God’s work within creation.
-VPE

The Road to Emmaus

Karen Armstrong begins her book “Twelve Steps to a Compassionate Life” by identifying the human struggle in which we must constantly seek a balance between the “old brain” or “reptile brain” that we carry with us from our primal ancestors and the “mature” brain into which we have evolved as Homo sapiens.  The latter is capable of compassion such that the Buddha identified in the Four Immeasurables – maitri (loving kindness), karuna (compassion), mudita (sympathetic joy), and upkesha (even-mindedness).  Conversely, the former is driven by what Armstrong refers to as the Four Fs – “feeding, fighting, fleeing – and for want of a more basic word – reproduction.”  Armstrong’s premise is that compassion is like a muscle and must be exercised to help it grow stronger.

Compassion comes when we recognize the sacred in ourselves and in others.  Armstrong highlights three biblical stories in which the characters come to such a recognition – Sarah and Abraham’s encounter with the strangers at the Oak of Mamre, Jesus appearing to the two on the road to Emmaus, and Jacob wrestling with the angel.  Each story revolves around the themes of hospitality, unknowing/knowing, and recognizing the divine in others.  In particular, the climax of Emmaus story occurs as the disciples offer hospitality and a shared meal with the stranger.  The unknowing becomes knowing through acts of compassion.  Bobbie Crow's Road to Emmaus sketch, which hangs in my studio, serves as a reminder of this truth and inspired my Road to Emmaus mosaic.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight.  They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

Moving forward toward a compassionate life, we are required to direct compassion toward our fellow human beings.  Armstrong recommends a Metta mediation using the Four Immeasurables – directing each of the four toward others.  Using the example of Greek tragedies, she also makes a powerful argument for the importance of art in developing compassion.  She writes, “Compassion and abandonment of ego are both essential to art…Art calls us to recognize our pain and aspirations and to open our minds to others.  Art helps us…to realize we are not alone; everybody else is suffering too.”

Bobbie Crows obituary refers to her using the title "Collaborative Artist."  Indeed for Bobbie, the art making process was about abandoning ego and welcoming strangers.  She was known for orchestrating monumental public art pieces created in part by a community of people.  Spreading a large canvas on the ground, she would create gesture outlines using paint squeezed from a plastic bottle.  Then armed with buckets of paint and a brush duct-taped to the end of a broom stick she would invite passersby to add color to the canvas.  Handing the brush to folks she would say, "Here.  Make your mark." 
-MEB