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artandcakela
May 22, 20153 min read

“In Search of the Sacred” a multimedia art exhibit by Cie Gumucio


Notes from the artist Cie Gumucio:

ART and WRITING

For me – they are elegant and mysterious ways of knowing the world and infuse my life with rich meaning.

WHY are some BOOKS translated across continents and read year after year—?


Intrigued by this question I read Jack Kerouac’s adventures On the Road, Emily Dickinson’s poetic insights on nature, Ernest Hemingway’s risk-taking encounters and John Steinbeck’s gracious view of humanity with all its frailties.

Writers In Search of the Sacred is designed as an immersive experience..An exploration of each of the 4 authors thinking/musing …with a specific lens on each one’s search for the transcendent.


I made a surprising discovery

—all their writing revealed a common thread

— a yearning for the transcendent, the sacred.


Then, I GOT MESSY -making ART exploring this idea

—painting, pastels, assemblage, sculpture, digital photography and video projection.


All this resulted in my current solo art exhibit-

Writers In Search of the Sacred

Michael Stearns Gallery

347 W 7th St

In the up and coming San Pedro Arts District

Opening Reception Thursday, June 4th

a part of the First Thursday Art Walk (Music, Food and Galleries all around)

Check out this great article in Easy Reader News featuring Cie Gumucio.

Emily Dickinson’s Room



Emily Dickinson

Poems


Eccentric hermit ?

Half mad spinster ?


Hardly.


The commonly held beliefs about the 19th century poet barely begin to delve the heart of this enigmatic genius.

Hers was a free spirit for whom living was a succession of intense experiences and poetry an endless expression of their meanings.


The poet wrote most, if not all of her 1,775 poems alone in the upstairs room of the New England home where she lived and died; poems later discovered hidden in a drawer.


In writing, she explored the mystery of the divine and found in nature a source of metaphor to illustrate the truth of her interior world.


Through her poetry she gave the world a voice and vision uniquely her own.


Hemingway Installation


Ernest Hemingway

The Old Man and the Sea


Ernest Hemingway won the Pulitzer Prize for his story of Santiago, the aging fisherman and his heroic three day battle to catch and bring a magnificent marlin back to shore.


His writing drew Biblical parallels to the fisherman’s struggles as well as exploring the honor in adversity and the pursuit of lost faith.


In his quest for transcendence, Hemingway transformed defeat into a triumph of dignity and ultimately death into renewed life.



Steinbeck Cannery Row


John Steinbeck

Cannery Row


Cannery Row is a homage to the people who lived in Depression era 1930’s Monterey, California.


Steinbeck was an environmental writer, passionately interested in jazz, politics, philosophy, history and myth.


He wanted his novel Cannery Row to be read as if observing a ride pool— a colorful world with all its district characteristics, some beautiful, some strange, all inhabiting a vibrant landscape, each calls home.


Steinbeck had great empathy for the poor, disenfranchised, lonely and dislocated.


One of America’s most significant 20th century writers, he wrote with clarity and insight into human nature ..of individuals as they were—and in his gracious and generous view of humanity, we see ourselves.


Kerouac Windshield Projection


Jack Kerouac

On the Road


Jack Kerouac wrote about his spontaneous road trips across the United States in the 1950’s.


“On the Road” was inspired by jazz, poetry, free love and often expressed a spiritual yearning using concepts from Buddhism, Judaism, Catholicism and the mystics.


His writing celebrates life experience over material wealth and the road as a means to self expression and freedom; the novel defined the generation known as The Beats.

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