Who draws the line?

I had originally intended to write a post about my friend Eric’s opening this weekend. I even had a little film clip from last summer that we made on the rooftop of his studio in Brooklyn. Then I read this post on the Shambhala blog, SunSpace and felt the need to respond.

Here’s a quote from the piece: “Eric Manigian’s past reflects his respect for Zen philosophy; however, his use of the ensô could also be seen to reflect the co-option of religious symbols by secular commercial art. Most of Manigian’s art goes to high-profile private clients. The Ensô Table will be shown at BKLYN Designs, which is presented by the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, May 8-10, 2009.”

The key issue I have with the post is the usual crap I see with “spiritual people” who feel that the sacred is somehow outside of the material, that people with money equals bad and people without it equals good.

I work with people who have little money every day. I find that only those in a position of money and privilege can afford to romanticize those without. Here is my response:

Who draws the line?

Art and architecture have always had high-end patrons, including projects of a religious nature. Buddhists temples (and magazines) in America are created by people with money. The Buddha himself slept homeless in a park designed and donated to him by a king.

In this post, Heisler elevates the ensô as a sacred religious symbol with lines like, “. . . only a spiritually complete person can draw a true ensô.” And then she suggests that Eric Manigian’s Ensô Table is “secular commercial art” because his “art goes” (is bought by) “high-profile private clients” (rich people).

The sacred remains sacred by its very nature.

An ensô creates a distinction of sacred AND secular, yet its essence points to the non-dual. If there is no outside to the circle, then nothing can be seen as sacred. If there is no inside, then nothing can be seen as secular.

Manigian is an artist and a Zen Buddhist who has been practicing for 20 years. What makes his Ensô Table any less sacred? It becomes “secular commercial art” because rich people might buy it? Really?? So rich people are bad and artists must be poor. Sounds like childish platitudes to me.