ECVA - Michael Prettyman - Sacrament and Image

Priesthood: Lilac Ash and Lost Sea Voices

Oil on canvas, 2022
36" x 36"

Artist Statement: A priest once pulled me out of a crisis and a pout by asking me, "Do you know what the best attended mass of the year is?" “No,” I said. "Christmas. Easter." "Nope," he said, "it's Ash Wednesday. Wanna guess why?" I didn’t but I said, "Is it a ritual?" "Nope. It's because- I think it's because- Ash Wednesday is the only time we tell people the plain truth." I thought about that. "What is it you say?" "Remember that you are dust," he said to me, "and to dust you will return."

I thought about how whenever a priest has said intimate words to me, it seems like we are the only two people in the world, and that his voice seems to be coming out many places.

"It's weird how that's not depressing," I said, "It seems like it should be, but it's not."

"No it isn't," the priest said and for a second I could see why it is that someone would want to be a priest; and what a tremendous feat it must be to look at the fallen world and see God. If he can see it, then maybe we can too.

Bio: Michael Prettyman is an artist and scholar who grew up on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida's fabled Redneck Riviera. He moved to New York city in 1994. He holds a master’s degree in theology from the Harvard Divinity School He studied at the Academy of Art and the School of Visual Arts in New York City. He has been painting his entire adult life, with gallery shows in New York City, Hong Kong and Barcelona. He has exhibited at the United Nations General Assembly, The American Museum of Natural History, the Tsvetaeva Museum of Art in Moscow and the National Museum of Art in Almaty, Kazakhstan. He has studied meditation and thangka painting a the Tsering Monastery in Kathmandu, Nepal.

He has studied meditation and sacred artmaking in Buddhist and Christian monasteries in Italy, Nepal, India and the United States. Michael’s scholarly work in comparative religion dovetails with his practice as an artist. He is convinced that the practice of art making is itself a religious activity, as is the viewing of it. He writes, “Art is something sacred in and of itself. The sacred, mythological past need not be inaccessible to us-it’s not hiding in a church or a book, it is at our fingertips because it is within us. When we approach our common humanity we approach that which is sacred in each of us.” jmp829@mail.harvard.edu http://www.michaelprettyman.org/