Beauty is not caused. It is. Emily Dickinson
O
My art pursues the beauty of realization rather than perfect beauty.
O
All of my life I have known
an inviolable place
of
inner freedom
containing:
earth;
pieces of washed clear blue skies;
brilliant unfolding blooms;
wings of flight;
the color and arcs of rainbows;
the hallelujah chorus
of wind, rain and rivers;
the vast panorama of night’s
black diamond;
and
the white glistened
silence of ice.
O
This was my chrysalis:
My life was baptized in hospitals,
a place where time and space was defined
as waiting, compassion and hope.
No flag of creed, race,
religion, gender, or social rank
was raised.
We were all bound and laid in horizontal breathing beds.
I lived in a body cast with a shaven head.
Visitors were allowed once a week
for two hours
and
touching was forbidden-
like in an art museum
with limited hours.
In utero, I was a broken Ming vase
and then
once born into the world
re-created with expert hands.
guided
by listening, following, believing
in the
Divine
and
the heartspine vision
of
an
artist/surgeon:
Dr. Mark B. Coventry,
the internationally renown orthopedic surgeon,
of the Mayo Clinic.
He would look at my x-rays,
and
analyze my bones
and
SEE my spirit!
What a blessing, what fortune- an Anam Cara
who believed and could SEE and call out
the diamond shining within me
that was deeply buried.
Before he died, my beloved Dr. Coventry asked me
to promise him two things:
” Catherine, promise me two things:
First, ONLY let those who honor and respect you come near
and
Secondly, ALWAYS remain an artist!”
We were collaborators.
I crossed immense seas of fear
and
surrendered my body over,
over and over again
to his expert hands, genius
and
improvisational, creative brilliance.
I was three when I became his only pediatric patient,
leaving the Shriner’s Hospital where I was institutionalized,
strapped to a bed,
drugged,
watched and listened to children weep and die
from the moment
my young parents’ gave me to
Shriner’s Hospital for Crippled Children
( OMG- talk about setting children in a perceptual prison/label/box!)
at nine months.
The framed picture below was always set on my Mother’s bedside table
until the moment she exhaled her last breath.
My Daddy fought to get me out for a visit.
He was relentless, determined and persevering,
and
he won.
He fought for me, for my heart, for my spirit, for my soul
that needed
to be unfurled
and
taste, smell, touch, see and listen
to the world
for
8
weeks
ONLY.
I left Shriner’s at 18 months and entered the outside world for the first time.
For two months, 8 weeks, 56 days,
I was enveloped in a world of sound, color,
fragrance, physical touch and flavor.
I had to still be strapped to a board,
yet, the field of my experiences was exponential.
My senses were already acute, honed, sharp
and
open, wide and vulnerable
like an acid drenched copperplate sensitive
to any mark and amplitude and intensity.
Everything was immense and wondrous.
I had never seen the sky, a bird, the scent and colors of flowers
They placed my board down by the garden, and I ate handfuls of flowers..
To touch my Mother’s face,
to watch my sister move,
to drop a toy from my bed and have it returned,
to smell my Daddy’s scent.
to hear laughter
was beyond tears
and
laughter.
I was stunned, astounded and in ecstasy
that bordered/tettered on overwhelming fear.
My appetite to explore was enormous-
even though I was nailed in one position-
belly up or belly down
and
frozen in a plaster cast that
splayed my legs like a frog
and
was built up above my rib cage
with an opening for elimination.
The kaliedoscope and rush of all was a torrent, a tsunami, a hurricane.
I knew stillness and silence.
My Mother wrote a memoir of my early years in the hospital
( nine months to 10 years old)
two years before she died-
unexpectedly and suddenly.
She wrote:
“Of my children,
Catherine had a sense of awe, delight, intense wonder and amazement of all.
She was an artist.”
O
My life began in the environs and culture of hospitals,
places where the human theater
and universal realities of life and death
are played out moment to moment,
and
where time and space is suspended
and
are redefined as
waiting,
compassion
and
meditative.
I have tasted the first inhalation
– the breath of new life;
caressed the full sweeping breath of love and joy;
impaled by the heavy, choking breath of grief;
and
touched the final exhalation
the final breath of life.
My art bears the viewer
to the transcendent moment of an epiphany.
The moment when one’s heart is
Suddenly
set open and rapt,
when all the senses are heralded
and
keen,
and then,
in the theatre of the heart,
a frozen curtain
slowly and gradually rises
and, at once,
all the world is seen in gleaming
pure light,
simple and innocent clarity,
and
all becomes whole.
A forever eternal moment
is
imprinted
as an inextinguishable
fire.
O
My work is awake to
the invisible,
the visceral,
the very intimate,
the shared breath
of
universal humanity,
– the very life
of
life.
O
My art is a spiritual, a gospel song.
A litany of freedom
of the soul
and
the spirit
of/to/for
ALL.
O
I taught myself how to ride a bike
with one leg,
I learned how to swim,
to canoe, to kayak,
to cross-country ski.
I was left behind on the family vacations of skiing, etc..
This repeated choice broke my heart and I knew they could not SEE me.
I knew the vase of my body could not
contain the splendor of my imagination,
my need to
break open
and
fly.
O
After 39 reconstructive surgeries
and a total hip replacement surgery-
where I had to lay at 80%,
I went to the YMCA
and swam my laps
as I had the morning of the surgery!
I had to learn how to walk upright for the first time.
The Fitness Director observed my discipline,
my scars, my gait and my progress,
my teaching/communication skills,
and
recruited me to become a
water fitness instructor.
Twelve years ago.
O
ARTIST
+
FITNESS INSTRUCTOR
+
ATHLETE
+
RECIPIENT OF PRESTIGIOUS
INTERNATIONAL AND NATIONAL
+
ARTIST FELLOWSHIPS
+
COMMUNITY ORGANIZER
+
PHYSICALLY DIFFERENTLY-ABLED
=
NO BOXES/NO LABELS
AND
AS DUKE ELLINGTON SAID:
“BEYOND CATEGORY”.
PERIOD!
O
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CHERISH. WHISPER. SOFTLY. Catherine L. Johnson 2009
CATHERINE L. JOHNSON 