 Shield © 1998 Ginger Henry Geyer glazed porcelain with gold 13” diameter x 1 ½” deep, 5 darts 4” high Adaptation from Cimabue's Crucifix, c. 1280 (partially destroyed in 1966) The image of a dartboard came to me during Lent when mulling over my own perennial doubts about the crucifixion. I bemoaned the damage done to Christ (and thus to humanity) by the church throughout its history, wondering if the good balances the harm. The dartboard image at first was envisioned with Christ’s face on it—Christ the stern Pantocrater of Byzantine art, that mean-spirited Jesus that I often take aim at in my artwork. Throwing little darts at God seemed a good symbol for our puny human anger. But making a game out of it troubled me. Had my playfulness gone too far in violating the sacred? In a seminary class we had been studying the psalms of lament. Some of the ancient complaints seemed like poison darts, not at all unlike my own. Then a Lenten study drew me into thinking about woundedness, my own, Christ’s, and the church’s. There is an evocative connection between the wounded body of Jesus and Paul’s insistence that the church is Christ’s body. Yes, the church is wounded too. Traditional symbolism numbers Christ’s physical wounds as five, yet that selection varies. On this porcelain dartboard, we’ve got five bloody dart holes: the head, both hands, one for his feet, and his side. The wounds are important, or he would not have made so much of his scars after the Resurrection. We Protestants don’t like to get into that gory stuff too much. What does it mean that “by his wounds we are healed?” Henri Nouwen’s profound book, The Wounded Healer, shows us how our inadequacies and our suffering can be redemptive for others. After constructing the clay dartboard, it suddenly occurred to me to paint the whole body of Jesus on it. A favorite crucifixion came to mind: the early Renaissance Crucifix by Cimabue, the one that was almost totally destroyed in the Florentine flood of 1966. Pope Paul VI called this painting the flood’s most important victim. This Crucifix turned the tides of art history toward naturalism, and its influence can still be felt despite its extensive damage. Restored, with its wounds “bound up” rather than hidden, the painting exerts a compelling presence—it is the wounded healer. I copied the Cimabue restoration onto the dartboard, showing the patches of cross-hatching where the conservator inpainted the losses. The dartboard cracked in the high firing, another wound. Then the final firing brought forth the gold webbing of the dartboard, embedding the damaged crucifix into the framework, making it part of the whole. During the weeks of working on the dartboard, I became keenly aware of woundedness, both in others and in myself. An encounter with a homeless man named Sam, who was grossly burned, summed it up. Later I experienced my own ego as a dartboard for the harsh words of an art critic. I could not lift up my head; I needed help. A wise friend helped me acknowledge the vulnerability that we artists expose ourselves to when we exhibit intensely personal work—a body of work hanging out there, fair game for dart-throwers and side-piercers. Art sometimes convicts us, that is part of its job. We want it to be pretty and soothing, but sometimes what we want is not what we really need. I didn't intend for this piece to be so harsh; I wanted it to be a shield for my vulnerability, as in Psalm 3:3: "But you, O Lord, art a shield around me, my glory, and the one who lifts up my head." The ambiguity of shields is that they work both ways--they protect and they prevent. Whether or not we go into hiding with our woundedness is a choice. A good friend pointed out that maybe the dart game was shielding me from a deeper, more difficult encounter. Was I hiding behind this shield of religion? Was I stuck on the crucifixion, afraid to face the blazing glory of the Resurrection, afraid, perhaps of being fully alive? Dartboards are often hung behind doors. Perhaps by voicing our complaints to God instead of just sucking them up, lamenting loudly as the ancients did, we may learn that doors with dartboards are meant to both open and to close. REFERENCES: Ephesians 1:23 (see also Romans 12:5, I Corinthians 12:27) |