The relationship between art and spirituality, between creativity and self-knowing, is vast and multifaceted, certainly—and challenging to put into words. Several of the Hudson Valley's visual artists kindly tackled some hard questions in recent interviews. Here are some of their musings.

Nude Looking for Truth, Andres San Millan, oil on masonite.

Nancy Ward, an artist, writer, and healer in Stone Ridge, describes a moment in her mid-20s when "I had what I consider a spiritual awakening. My inner sight and clairvoyant capabilities were being revealed to me. I began to see with my 'inner eye.' I began to paint the images I saw—inner landscapes." She describes her work as having "the feeling of depths, and flowing...I feel I paint energy, and it's developed and grown within me." Her desire to depict this in visual form "feels like a tug from deep inside, like a part of myself saying 'get to know me a little better,' down deep into some essence of myself. Whatever this process is that makes us create or want to grow, it feels expansive." It also aids emotional work. "My own path of emotional healing has come through very strongly in my artwork." She describes a painting that evolved into a landscape of thorns and darkness, as recollections of childhood came up, bringing a sense of blocked, tangled energy. "But there also were valleys, allowing an easy flow of energy between the thorns"—a visual metaphor that aided her emotionally.

"We're talking about something that's an inward mystical experience," says Lucinda Sisniega Abra of Athens, who started oil painting at three and has seven generations of painters "in her blood." She speaks easily of creativity and metaphysics in the same breath. "In second grade, I started thinking about molecules, and the spaces between everything, and I realized that nothing was exactly as I saw it. I think that's why I don't prefer to paint what I see." Instead, she creates whatever comes to her in the moment. "One of the great things about art is, it's the expression of that moment, like so many spiritual practices teach: Be here, now. When I pick up the brushes, it's a wide-open canvas." She lets impulses flow through her. "You just have to be willing to accept that there is something much bigger than you. There are things that happen in these paintings that astound me."

Tree of Life, Nancy Ward, oil on canvas.

Andres San Millan of Red Hook is a painter, muralist, sculptor, and designer of sets and costumes for Cocoon Theater in Rhinebeck. "It's an ongoing question: How do I bring my spiritual beliefs into my art? It's a heady notion. My spirituality is important to me all the time. But it doesn't necessarily come out in my work. The way I've learned art as an expression of myself doesn't necessarily go in the direction of my spiritual beliefs—it's more my personal expression. When you are painting, everything in you becomes very much alive. You have to deal with everything you are made of—what's in your heart, your mind, fears, desires, what you are willing to expose or not—everything together. You are thrust against yourself. My most exciting times are when I can paint for eight hours. I'm in a different realm, dealing with everything that comes up." It can even be a little scary, he says, going that deep. How, then, does that experience get expressed on canvas or in a sculpture? "Usually I go by my gut feeling, almost at an instinctive level. That is the most real part of who I am. Hopefully, I find the truth."

The paintings of Melissa Harris from West Hurley are featured on cards, prints, posters, and many other items (through her business Creatrix, www.melissaharris.com). She also paints Spirit Essence Portraits—custom-made paintings depicting a person's spiritual essence, as she perceives it through clairvoyance. She explains: "In my late 20s I began to channel, and had a series of psychic experiences." That has influenced her art and evolved over the years. "I used to do more esoteric occult painting then, but now the imagery doesn't need to be so literal. When I create just for myself, I paint images of whatever calls me. There is a certain state of being that I feel when I paint. I experience it as a lifted state, a semi–trance state. It is a very healing place to be." She describes it as an experience of connection with self and spirit that isn't easy to access within the everyday activities of a world that expects us to think linearly. "But when we make art, we are shifting sides of our brain. We become connected to the core of our being. We're also very connected to spirit, or God, Goddess. We are in our bliss. I see the joy on the faces of students I teach after they've worked for a couple of hours. It really opens people's hearts."

Invisible Wounds, Andres San Millan, charcoal on paper.

Gary O'Connor of Mountainville muses about the link between art and spirituality this way: "What isn't spiritual in art? In my Buddhist practice, and others I ran into before Buddhism, people would talk about the 'spiritual part' of things. I couldn't figure out what wasn't the spiritual part." He likes to combine images and materials from both "the sacred and the profane," to suggest that spiritual awakening is possible anywhere, not just in settings traditionally thought of as religious. For instance, his installation The Carnal Prayer Mat included materials reflecting religious traditions (prayer rug, offering bowl, incense burner), and painted panels hanging to either side that depicted sexual imagery (created by Linda Lesley Brown). "As long as you insist on a duality, like a split between sacred and profane, there is a lot of separateness going on." He also has come to see all actions as having the potential for spiritual connection. "Sweeping the walk well, if you are putting your attention to it, is as valuable as creating art—I've come to experience it that way."

Karen Capobianco of New Paltz creates multilayered digital photographs of the natural world, especially of light and water. She describes her creations as a three-step process. "I go into nature to be on my own, to reenergize, and meditate. Eventually, I zone into something that's drawing me in. Photographing that becomes its own meditation. There's a transcendence of time and matter, to a place of connectedness and unconscious being." The second step is in the studio, layering the images with the aid of a computer. "I get back into that meditative state. It's like prayer in a lot of ways, with repetition, and quiet. By the time I'm done, hours have passed." The third part is when others view the work.
"Hopefully, the images transfer the experience, so the viewer is there at that same moment, having their own meditation." She especially wishes people will perceive that we are not separate from nature, but of it, fused with it, "and remember the psychological and emotional benefits of nature. We don't always think of the whole benefit of just having incredible beauty around us, and what it can do psychologically." Her images remind us that ecological and spiritual awareness go together—an understanding that Native Americans obviously had, she points out, but which we have gotten away from.

That is a mere sampling of thoughts from creative beings in the region—which includes you. "But I'm not an artist," you say, to which Sisniega Abra offers: "We're all creative. We have a rich dimension available inside of us. I have several friends who aren't trained as artists, but the greatest joy they get out of the week is when they do art, because they are letting themselves experience their inner life. The inner self is fully aware that there is no right and no wrong in creating art."