SPIRITUAL ART PILGRIM INTERVIEW: Callahan Pope McDonough–Feminist Artist Engaged in Timelessness with Passion and Soul
*note* all copyrights this interview: Ruth Schowalter & photos |
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LIGHT FILLED SPACIOUSNESS. Callahan’s studio space in the Old Fourth Ward dazzles with its high ceilings and sunfilled walls, countertops, and floor! Her current work is now on exhibit at the Sight and Sound Gallery in the Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. “A Sword of Moonlight and Imperishable Love” can be viewed until June 28, 2013. Original pieces of her work are available for purchase, as well as giclees at affordable prices. (photo by Hallelujah Truth) |
CALLAHAN: Well, that’s like saying what’s my definition of God?
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Mother |
HALLELUJAH TRUTH: What is SPIRITUALITY to you?
CALLAHAN: Spirituality is something I have a sense about, what I consider a deep knowing based on my experience of it. It really defies description, but words are what we have and need to describe life, but of course words and our minds are limited. So that is my instinct/knowing; i.e., my sense is that there is something that is me and simultaneously greater than me which I am and we all are part of. I personally choose to call this God. And so this question is a little bit like your question, “What is art.”
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Know Now We Have Always Been in Danger Down in Our Separateness (1983) |
But, we are not God. There is some Life Force. We can call it Love, or we can call Quantum Physics–whatever it is, life is more awesome than us or even or our ideas of things.
HALLELUJAH TRUTH: And your ART?
HALLELUJAH TRUTH: Has SPIRITUALITY always been a source of your ARTMAKING? Why? If not, when did the SPIRITUALITYemerge?
I have always been somebody who has been questing. These pieces (Callahan waves her hands to some images on her loft walls) look like holy cards. Growing up a Catholic, Northerner, daughter of an enlisted Navy man, in conservative 1950’s Brunswick, Georgia there were no resources for me artistically. But, I had the biggest stack of holy cards with images of Byzantine, Renaissance art on them. I would go into rapture when I looked at images of the Blessed Virgin. I loved ritual and felt close to her even though I flunked in catechism. My spiritual experience gave me a sense of safety and not being alone, and some of those were difficult years for me.
My work has more to do with passion or soul. It takes me out of the moment and into this timeless place where I am so engaged I feel fully present and a kind of Peace.
HALLELUJAH TRUTH: Who (artists, authors, friends, etc.) do you consider influential in the way you think, act, and make ART?
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A Wrinkle in Time |
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HALLELUJAH TRUTH and CALLAHAN. This photo was taken of us at Callahan’s opening “A Sword of Moonlight and Imperishable Love” at Sight and Sound Gallery in the StudioPlex. (photo by Tony Martin)
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ARTIST TALK: “A Sword of Moonlight and Imperishable Love,” May 22, 2013 at the Sight and Sound Gallery, Atlanta, Georgia. (photo by Hallelujah Truth) |
Callahan’s current work is now on exhibit at theSight and Sound Gallery in the Old Fourth Ward, Atlanta, Georgia, USA. “A Sword of Moonlight and Imperishable Love” can be viewed until June 28, 2013. Original pieces of her work are available for purchase, as well as giclees at affordable prices.
If you liked this interview, here are links to my other Spiritual Art Pilgrim Interviews:
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RUBY SLIPPERED CALLAHAN Artist Talk, May 22, 2012 Sight and Sound Gallery Atlanta, Georgia “A Sword of Moonlight and Imperishable Love” (photo by Hallelujah Truth) |
2 comments:
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LOVE this woman…and all of her that you so beautifully captured, Hallelujah.
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Ronna! Hallelujah for good friends and for collaborations between us all! Thank you so much for your kind words of support!