art | Jamie Downs, Visual Artist

The Search for Oneness: 50 Years of Spiritual Art

The Search for Oneness: Fifty Years of Spiritually Based Art by Jamie Downs

Artists and Makers 2, 12276 Wilkins Avenue Rockville, MD 20852
Office – 240-437-9573 Mobile – 240-481-5034

10AM – 4PM Tuesday-Friday Saturday 10AM – 4PM Sunday/Monday by Chance or Appointment

These paintings represent quite a bit of my history. Let me present them chronologically:

The earliest paintings in the retrospective, “The Search for Oneness: 50 Years of Spiritually Based Art” are from around 1969-1972. I was 19 to 22 years old, finishing art school and very intrigued by Abstract Expressionism and the Jungian Collective Unconscious. I made a commitment to this search and have continued it since. These are oil on canvas and 34 x 34.

Next is a large work from the same point in time, acrylic on canvas. This is one of three large paintings remaining from the early 1970’s. I only have room for one in this show. One that is missing here caused me to be banned, along with one other artist, by the presiding judge from the Monroe County, PA. Courthouse Gallery. The judge felt that this painting (which can be seen by appointment) was phallic. This was the beginning of his attack on the arts which ended with another artist and an ACLU court case which made the newspapers as far away as California and The Howard Stern Show in New York City. The gallery was closed.

In the 1980’s Liquitex started making iridescent acrylic paint. Helen Frankenthaller had a show at, I think, the Whitney Museum which featured these and was a big influence. I had a three person show with Susan Bradford and Nancy Hebard at Nancy Hebard’s Barking Dog Galleryand some of the iridescent paintings shown here were featured in this show. The two paintings in copper frames and the large painting on wood panel in the back of the gallery were from this same time but not in that particular show.

Also, at this time, I produced this installation. It started when a friend gave me a wooden framework for a crafts show exhibit. This served as the basis for the installation along with the found objects used for the floor piece. They were found on a friend’s property and may have come from a music camp on the adjacent property. First this work was shown at Shawnee Inn in Shawnee, Pennsylvania at an Arts Council and Crafts Guild juried show and fine art exhibit. After that it became an environment for a Marilyn Cooper, Tai Chi master’s meditations. Next it was the back drop for the stage at a teen night club in A Family of Artists Art Center where it oversaw hardcore, punk, ska, krishna rock …. concerts and finally a wedding. Now it has been reproduced here and next fall may be in the Wheaton Arts Parade.

The 1990’s were a particularly difficult time with the illness and death of both my parents at a fairly young age. At this time, I was a member of Art Space Galleryin Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania.One of my shows there was a two-person show with Sculptor and Musician, Maxwell Kofi Donkor, a friend and co-worker from Ghana. Maxwell and I called the show Ancestors and River Rocks, paying tribute to Ghanaian ancestor traditions and to my ancestors and their roots in Sullivan and Columbia Counties of Pennsylvania. The largest painting, approximately 8×10, on the long wall of the gallery, is one of the main works I had in that particular show and the one to its right is also from that series.

In the mid-1990’s the Art Center I had been directing for 10 years was defunded when the governor defunded Medicaid which was paying for 60 children, sent by psychiatrists, to attend our summer camps and after school programs. Separately funded was an arts alternative school for 8 children from three area school districts and general art center programs for the public. The Medicaid funding made it possible to keep the 10,000 square foot facility running so A Family of Artistswas forced to close. Distress over this situation and the fate of the children separated me for a time from the spiritual place from which the inspiration for my paintings came. In the early 2000’s after moving to DC, I turned to the writings of the 14thcentury mystic Meister Eckhart, translated by Matthew Fox, to try to find a path again. As a result, I did a Meister Eckhart Series, four of which are shown here.

Also, in the first decade of the 2000’s, I was teaching continuing education. The students in Clinton, MD wanted me to teach collage based, non-objective art techniques. That lead me to produce the two paintings to the left of the large Ancestor work.

In 2007 I was diagnosed with triple negative breast cancer and had approximately a year and a half of chemo and clinical tests. At each treatment I did a healing painting. The painting on the back, right wall is based on one of these studies.

Newer work has been produced in this, my favorite, series of work in recent days. Most of these are smaller paintings and a few can be seen on the second floor of Artists and Makers 2in Gallery 209.

My studio is open by appointment. I hope you enjoy the exhibit.

January 6, 2019 at 6:49 pm 1 comment

Animal Series, Spider Monkey

This is a painting of a spider Monkey. I photographed it in Belize; however I’m told they are not native to that area but were brought in by some property owners living along the river we were traveling on. We were on our way to Laminai.

May 26, 2015 at 1:27 am 1 comment

The Work of the Hand

I am doing a new series of paintings based on the hand – the symbolism, the ritual, the meditative function. I’m exploring how the placement of our hands effect our emotions and spiritual perception. Here are the first paintings in that series:

“Ask” mm/paper 14″ x 20″

“Receive” mm/paper 14″ x 20″

“Only the Hand that Erases Can Write the True Thing” – Eckhart
mm/paper 10″ x 12″

“What We Plant in the Soil of Contemplation We Shall Reap in the Harvest of Action” – Rumi
mm/paper 10″ x 10″

“Your Deepest Need and Desire is Satisfied by the Moment’s Energy Here in Your Hand” – Rumi
mm/paper 7.5″ x 8″

“Open Your Hands if you Want to be Held” – Rumi
mm/paper 9″ x 9″

March 17, 2015 at 3:35 pm Leave a comment

Still working on Harriton Carved Glass

We spent the last few days with Lynn Harriton. She brought an actual copy of the earliest catalog so I will be updating the photos soon. The old zeroxed images were so bad….

Also we found some new leads and images. We could not find an image on the web of the glass with fishes made famous in The Godfather…”Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes”… Looking for it was enough to give me nightmares of my own final season of The Sopranos.

This is a big project…looking for information and collecting images, and then boiling it down and putting it on a site that is worthy of the Harriton aesthetic.

If anyone has ideas, links, images of suggestions, they are certainly welcome.

Howard L . Chaney created this design for Harriton Carved Glass. It was to be at National Airport, but was not executed. The piece is gouache on board, 18.5 x 30 and done in 1940. It is a beauty isn’t it?

February 23, 2008 at 11:37 pm 5 comments

New Work

Here is some of my new work. I’m having a lot of fun with mixed media and paper. I’m thinking of embedding these in Envirotec . I haven’t decided yet.

Check out Eleanor Clarkson’s work on our other site http://www.thedigitalfolklife.org. It’s on the Peace page – a show in Stroudsburg, PA just before the war started. Eleanor is a master of Envirotec

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February 18, 2008 at 10:18 pm 8 comments

A Family of Artists

At some point in the near future, (I DID IT. CHECK OUT THE PAGE LINK ABOVE. THE BOOK- “ARTS AND SOCIAL SERVICES: SEVEN YEARS IN THE LIFE OF A FAMILY OF ARTISTS” IS POSTED. I STILL NEED TO UPLOAD A COUPLE OF THE CHARTS )I will be adding information about the art center that I ran for ten years called A Family of Artists. A Family of Artists was an all purpose art center and 501c3 Arts Service Organization. Though we had gallery shows, general art classes of all kinds, a gift shop, and even a teen night club called The Gate, A Family of Artists and its sister organization, A Family of Artists: The Works, were known, primarily, for their summer camps, after school programs and arts alternative school, mainstreaming at risk kids, sent from social service agencies and psychiatrists and employing 28 staff members, mostly artists, paid by Medicaid funds – a first I’m told. At its height, A Family of Artists: The Works was housed in a 10,000 sq ft warehouse building with a gallery, ceramics and woodworking studio, computer art and computer music labs, a writing lab and library, visual arts studios, photography and papermaking studios, metal sculpture studio and more. The programs were highly multicultural and children sent from agencies could remain annonomous, being, in most cases, indistinguishable from children attending from the general public. This program was a major success, financially (at the end, bringing in 18,000/week in service fees until funds were cut), but more importantly, a success for families and participants who were overwhelmingly pleased with the program, until it was surprisingly defunded by medicaid cuts in 1996 – though the arts alternative school remained until 1997. There are many hours of videotape and many written accounts already available and some will be posted as an educational tool. A book, The Arts and Social Service: Seven Years in the History of A Family of Artists was published in 1994 by the Center for Rural Pennsylvania and it will be available on line along with updates detailing the final three years. This book tells the story of the beginnings of A Family of Artists when it was a labor of love, funded by The Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, The Talbot Hall Foundation of the Episcopal Diocese of Bethlehem, PA., The Deutsh Institute and mostly by Pennsylvania Developmental Disabilities Planning Council.

A Family of Artists and A Family of Artists: The Works were social service providers and experienced stunning success. They were extremely rewarding for the remarkable artists who gave themselves to this endeavor and life saving for numerous children. These programs could serve as a model for others who wish to use the arts to reach at risk children through the arts. I look forward to offering here as much information as possible to help others pursue this rewarding adventure in their own communities. I will post testimonies from many of those who were touched by this amazing organization and encourage anyone with first hand knowledge, who happens upon this site, to join in. For now you can find a short video at http:/abstractart.hypermart.net

Click on arts administration.

February 2, 2008 at 4:48 am Leave a comment

Harriton Carved Glass

I’m working on a web site on Harriton Carved Glass, a company started in the 20’s in NYC by David Harriton. Harriton is the father-in-law/grandfather of friends. The web site will be up soon. Come back and see a link.

June 24, 2007 at 11:56 pm 86 comments

Check Out Upstream People Gallery

Check out http://www.upstreampeoplegallery.com/. They are out of Omaha, Nebraska and run by some people from University of Nebraska and others. ( http://www.upstreampeoplegallery.com/about/default.asp) In the Native American Language of the area “Omaha” means “Upstream.” They have been hosting revolving, on-line shows since the late ’90’s. The current show is digital art, but there are other simultaneous shows running. I have work in the digital show and the Judeo-Christian Art show. There are links to my work in the blog roll to the right. (1976, Living Among the Boulder Fields and May Apples, Orchids and Callow Lily, and several in the Meister Eckhart series) Above is a detail of “Living Among the Boulder Fields and May Apples”.