Glimpes of Clarity

"Sometimes we find ourselves on the edge, falling uncontrollably through life, punctured by a cannonball sized hole of despair, overwhelmed by emotion, facing the perhaps impossible task of trying to pick up the pieces and put ourselves back together from a pile of shattered fragments."

Glimpses of Clarity was a recent exhibition by George Triggs at the Art Academy which features in the current edition of art of england. Broken is the piece that provide the cover photo for this edition of the magazine and about which the above quote pertains.

Triggs has written of this work:

“Broken goes about examining the fragility, isolation and silent determination of our existence. It captures the seemingly impossible task of picking up the pieces and putting ourselves back together after a complete emotional implosion. This life-size figure is in fractured pieces slumped on a stool. It is trying to rebuild itself, examining the deterioration of its own existence, examining what it means to be broken, questioning whether it can return to life anew, questioning whether the cracks and experiences stay below the surface and whether some pieces of itself are gone forever. Broken was created in solid clay, then cast as a hollow shell, which I then literally shattered into pieces and reassembled. Looking at all the pieces, it seemed like an impossible task, which made it both more exciting, exhausting and inspiring. The process was a huge emotional and thought-provoking journey for me which I feel transfers to the work.”

Photos of the work can be found here and here.

T.S. Eliot writes, at the end of The Waste Land, of shoring fragments against his ruin and that equates to Triggs' sculpture but both, I think, also capture a sense of the inspiration and revelation which comes as this shoring of fragments against our ruin takes place. Dennis Potter's The Singing Detective presents a similar vision and one that I have linked to Jesus' restoration of Peter following his denial (John 21. 15-19).

Leonard Cohen in Anthem highlights the sense in which we all are cracked and broken within our lives and that, it is actually through our cracked natures that light comes into our lives and the world:

"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That's how the light gets in."

This echoes 2 Corinthians 4: 6-12 in which Paul writes of our lives as being like cracked clay pots with the light of Christ shining through the cracks or fractures in our lives. I have reflected on this insight in the meditation below:

unregarded

Birthplace,
least among the clans of Judea.
Home town,
a place from which no good was known to come.
In appearance,
without beauty or majesty, undesired.
In life,
despised and rejected, unrecognised and unesteemed.
In death,
made nothing.
His followers,
not wise, not influential, not noble – fools!

The light of the knowledge of the glory of God
in the bodies and form of human beings.
Light shining
through the gaps and cracks of clay pots.
Light shining
in the unexpected places, despised faces, hidden spaces.
Light shining
in the poor, the mourners, the meek, the hungry.
Light shining
in the merciful, the pure, the peacemakers.
Light shining
in the persecuted, the insulted, the falsely accused.
Light shining
in the lowly, the despised, the nonentities.
Light shining
in weakness and fear and trembling.
Light shining
in the foolish followers of the King of Fools.

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Leonard Cohen - Anthem.