I. Purpose of art
"Typically, the work I've done is very personal," said Lowly."I feel a real connection with whomever or whatever I am painting."Tim Lowly as been described as an “unaplogetic Christian with a social conscience” because of his heart for oppressed people groups. This sensitivity hit Lowly’s heart with the birth of his daughter, Temma. "When Temma was born my whole faith world was turned upside down," says Sherrie Lowly (Chicago Reader).

Tim Lowly
We live in an unmistakably secular age, yet Tim Lowly's works radiate a naive, almost atavistic faith and present the ordinary physical world as mysteriously extraordinary. text)

II. Subject Matter
A. Daughter, Temma
-story of her birth and influence on his life and work (love and meaning to life
B.

-Temma, Lowly’s daughter, is a frequent subject in his paintings. Conrad Baker, a fellow artist and teacher in Grand Rapids, MI had a statement to put forth after observing Lowly’s work. He said, “The artist and viewer must train their eyes to see the meanings in the world”.

-"The essential quality of God is love," Sherrie says. "Temma loves to be touched. She could sit on your lap all day and be content, although she would have seizures occasionally." Tim adds that Temma has helped him see the line between his own selfishness and the selflessness of ideal love. "I long for my child to know who I am," he says, "but the quest for being known and receiving something in return is not the essence of love."

-“But an hour later and ready to leave the museum, my friends found me staring meditatively at a 9-by-4 foot monochromatic drawing by Chicago artist Timothy Grubbs Lowly. Entitled Carry Me, the haunting work depicts his severely disfigured and incapacitated daughter, Temma, who is held up to our bird’s-eye view by 6 women. (See figure) The accompanying text explains that the artist conceived the drawing in witness of his daughter, wondering what it might mean to be a human being physically and psychically “ultramarginalized.” In the end, he envisages Temma as the self-sufficing answer, one that precedes and dismisses the question, and he imagines her voice: “Carry me, this is who I am, broken in mind, broken in body” [2]. And as observers of the drawing, we are asked to examine our own view and experience of Temma, while the women who carry her await our response.” -Dr. Kate Scannell, M.D.

Carry Me, 2002; by Timothy Grubbs Lowly.
Drawing on toned panel 108 x 48 inches.
Collection of Andreas Waldburg-Wolfegg.
Reproduced by permission of the artist
and Laguna Art Museum.


http://virtualmentor.ama-assn.org/2006/04/mhum1-0604.html

Temma on Earth, 1999, 8' x 12', acrylic gesso with pigment on panel, Frye Art Museum, Seattle

Temma on Earth: Harper’s Magazine (June, 2000) http://www.harpers.org/archive/2000/06/0065670
Lowly says, "There's something very intriguing about what happens when you take a person who in the view of much of our culture is a nonperson and depict her in a
fashion traditionally reserved for the gods." (http://www.timlowly.com/resources/tglcamper.html)

From an exhibition catalogue essay by John Brunetti:
"Temma on Earth is a poetic expression of internal travels viewed through external landscapes. It is a mural-sized painting that reveals Lowly's ability to elicit emotional tension out of the subtlest visual contradictions. In doing so, he transforms personal family experiences into universal, human metaphors. Reacting against convention, Lowly doesn't pose his daughter in a traditional landscape composition of a person standing against the horizon. Rather, he graphically depicts Temma as seen from the aerial perspective of a satellite image. Lit by an even, overcast light, she calmly rests on her side in an unkempt plot of land. She is surrounded by an expanse of dried earth and foliage, drained of vivid color. Her peaceful expression seems at odds with the harshness of her surroundings. Though the heavy folds of her sweatshirt emphasize her horizontal contact with the ground, something else begins to occur. Despite her palpable inertia, she seems to have brokenfree of the earth's gravity. Traditional roles of land and sky have been reversed. The bleached, dried ground becomes luminously celestial as gravel is transformed into surrogate stars and tufts of isolated grass resemble mysterious galaxies. Physically one with the ground yet seeming to journey far away, weighted down while being lighter than air, Temma's image speaks to her ability to transcend her real life disabilities." http://www.flickr.com/photos/timlowly/2075255866/

July's Image Artist of the Month: Tim Lowly
Tim Lowly is a Chicago-based painter whose lyrical realism and quiet spirituality have given his work a national reputation. While he has painted myriad subjects, from everyday life on American city streets to village life in South Korea, one series of Lowly’s paintings have etched themselves on the minds of his many admirers -- his portraits of his daughter. Temma is multiply impaired -- she has a seizure disorder and cortical blindness -- and the paintings make us look at the things we train ourselves to avoid seeing: the problems of the body, and the problem of inexplicable suffering of innocents. But as we look more closely, the portraits call even our notions about suffering into question. Though tender, the images are also startlingly realistic. They don't flinch from Temma's condition, but rather than lamenting her, they do a sort of visual theodicy, giving us glimpses of meaning in something we tend to think of as being only senseless and painful. Lowly’s vision, while meditative in style, reminds us that compassion is not the same as pity -- rather, compassion is learning to “suffer with” another and to receive, in turn, something inexplicable and grace-filled from the one who suffers.

Visit the Image Artist of the Month page for Tim Lowly.
To see more paintings, click here.



Temma on earth:
Temma on Earth is a poetic expression of internal travels viewed through external landscapes. It is a mural-sized painting that reveals Lowly's ability to elicit emotional tension out of the subtlest visual contradictions. In doing so, he transforms personal family experiences into universal, human metaphors. Reacting against convention, Lowly doesn't pose his daughter in a traditional landscape composition of a person standing against the horizon. Rather, he graphically depicts Temma as seen from the aerial perspective of a satellite image. Lit by an even, overcast light, she calmly rests on her side in an unkempt plot of land. She is surrounded by an expanse of dried earth and foliage, drained of vivid color. Her peaceful expression seems at odds with the harshness of her surroundings. Though the heavy folds of her sweatshirt emphasize her horizontal contact with the ground, something else begins to occur. Despite her palpable inertia, she seems to have brokenfree of the earth's gravity. Traditional roles of land and sky have been reversed. The bleached, dried ground becomes luminously celestial as gravel is transformed into surrogate stars and tufts of isolated grass resemble mysterious galaxies. Physically one with the ground yet seeming to journey far away, weighted down while being lighter than air, Temma's image speaks to her ability to transcend her real life disabilities.

Chelsea Mecaskey
Art 382: Chapter Seven response

In dealing with modern thought, Turner reports that art is the very foremost in response. He also says that one reason why art can annoy Christians is because artists tend to “…be sensitive to the changing times…” (Turner, 93). Turner’s acknowledgment of art’s interaction with the culture and also how it should interact with “the times” as he called it really made me think.As a Christian I am called to follow after Christ and pattern my life after His life (Mark 8:34). Yet I have felt torn between this calling and the fact that as an artist I need to respond to the culture by which I am surrounded.
For years this had seemed like an impossibility to me, because although I have grown up loving art and creating art, in my middle school years I began to see stereotypes that surrounded art, and I was afraid. These stereotypes exist both in the church and in the rest of the world. The Church’s stereotypes affected me most, because as I was becoming blinded by other people’s opinions and ignoring the fact that God created art. I used to look through the Bible and remind myself that people had used art to honor God through things like designing and crafting the temple or the earlier tabernacle, or areas where music and dance were mentioned as worship. But I was still afraid of what people would think of me if I chose to pursue art.
Yet, God finally brought me to a place where I accepted that I want to add something to this fallen world, and I could only accept how God made me- loving art. Some of Turner’s words stood out to me especially as I attempt to go about doing this. The words (on pages 94 and 102) that really stuck with me were that “…we have to listen to what is already being said before we contribute...” and “...the Bible encourages us to know the times we live in and to choose our communication accordingly...”. This is encouraging a thoughtful consideration of responses to the times in which I live, and that’s important to me, because when I am really inspired about something, it’s too easy for me to rush right into an action or response. People of the world are not stupid- some of them are exceptionally intelligent, and they can see straight through any front or farce I may put on to cover lack of effort or interest.
One of Turner’s statements that really hit my goal was when he said that, “The artists who ultimately gain respect have an imagination that id big enough to embrace trends but also, ultimately, to transcend them” (101). This quote really inspired me, because for years I have been afraid of my own abilities. I know I am capable of more than I know, but so often I’m too afraid to try. I very much identify with the quote from Marianne Williamson that I first heard watching Akeelah and the Bee a year or so ago.
“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”
1 John 4:18 was a passage that also stood out to me (“There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”). I began to see that if I truly love God, I won’t be afraid. His love for me is perfect, and He knows mine is not, but yet He still continues to love me.