Make Honey Not War by Jan Donley
by James Judd
In Tracey Chapman’s song, “All That You Have is Your Soul,” a mother warns her daughter to not lose herself to the shallow temptations and bitterness of the world. Chapman’s lyrics inspired artist Jan Donley to write a poem about her own mother’s anxiety. At the end of “Soul Worry,” Donley describes how her mother’s fretfulness embedded itself in her own psyche.
“People say worry is a waste of time.
But my mother taught me something else –
She taught me to listen, to keep my ear
To the ground, and I’m telling you –
The worry goes deep.”
The Worry Goes Deep is now the title of Donley’s new exhibition of digital art at the Stewart Clifford Gallery, running through August 14th. Donley, a visual artist/poet/playwright/teacher and long-time summer resident of Provincetown, says, “My mother was the top worrier.” Reflecting on her family of worriers, she adds, “I think her worry stemmed from a life of growing up in Dust Bowl Depression. She worried about everything—having food, having a clean house, what I should wear—the 2016 presidential election broke her heart, and she worried constantly about that.”
“I struggle with anxiety,” she says. “My worries, much like my mother’s, range from small, like did I make the right decision, to large, like is the world falling apart.”
Though worry might be her impetus for creation, the works themselves reflect a wide range of ideas and emotions. They consider the paradox of people moving through life together but remaining separate. Images of subway cars transporting strangers sitting together but lost in their own thoughts, books, and music as they journey through a city are Donley’s metaphor for all of humanity. In a video artist statement, Donley describes her outlook for humanity as cautiously optimistic.
“My own wanderings have led me to subway rides, and those subway rides have inspired my art,” says Donley. “In a subway ride, passengers are traveling together, different colors and cultures, different shapes, different ages, different languages, different starts and stops. We are all traveling through time. We are all, like it or not, traveling together.”
“I’ve been thinking about humanity and what it means to be human,” she continues. “Even more what it means to be humane. What it means to love each other. I’ve been thinking about how while we might love each other selectively, we are still hurting each other over and over. I turn to poetry and song, looking for Emily Dickinson’s thing with feathers that perches in the soul. I look for hope.”
That Dickinson line, “Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul” is from her poem “Hope is the Thing with Feathers,” and it is a recurring theme in Donley’s works. A small bird frequently appears on her canvases perched on the edge of a book being read or flittering around the periphery looking for a way into the center of the scene.
“Once that bird appeared in my art, birds started showing up all the time,” says Donley. “I think they are reminders of hope, freedom, choice, nature, possibility—so many things.”
Lines of music and quotes from authors—mostly LGBT or African-American writers—float through the backgrounds. Sometimes there are literal images of historical and literary figure, like, Langston Hughes sitting opposite Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson.
These images are created on an iPad using apps that allow Donley to layer her images with different techniques and materials—watercolor, drawings, fragments of text in the author’s own handwriting. Often the first layer – what would be the physical canvas in traditional art – is very close-up images of rocks or tree bark, bringing a natural element into a technological creation. It’s a thoroughly modern form of expression from an artist who previously worked in traditional mediums of drawing and painting.
“When I was a child, I was always drawing with an Etch-A-Sketch,” explains Donley. “When I bought my first iPad the salesperson told me it could be used to make art.” Once she’d tried, she realized this new means of creating art was going to be her preferred tool.
The apps also created a video history of her creative process by capturing, saving, and arranging her work in a montage. It allows the viewer to see rejected choices in the order they came and went. Stewart Clifford, gallery owner and longtime presenter of Donley’s art, got the idea to take those files and create videos.
“The exciting thing about the videos is being able to share her creative process,” said Clifford. Just a few minutes long, each film is a thought-provoking mix memory, philosophy, and imagination.
“I’ve been very moved by anyone who stands and looks at my art or who buys my art or who listens to or watches the videos that Stewart and I make,” says Donley. “I have also been surprised that people like the sound of my voice in the videos.”
Although the videos are not included in the exhibition, they are available on the gallery’s website and are often posted to the gallery’s social media accounts. They are essential viewing for Donley’s fans, but watching them on an iPhone is not ideal. A large museum wall would be a perfect setting. It would be a delight to sit on a bench in a cold, dark room and watch these pearls of wisdom unfurl on a loop. There’s a future for them, for sure. It will be exciting to see how this collaboration evolves.
Jan Donley’s The Worry Goes Deep is on view at Stewart Clifford Galley 338 Commercial St, Provincetown, through August 14. For more information, stop in, call 508.487.0451 or visit stewartcliffordgallery.com.
