It's possible to see all bushes burning

Heartbroken over terrible news that has befallen a family friend (and which I will memorialize here, in time), I'm going through the motions of life while thinking mostly of death.

One of the motions of life, for me, is sketching from life, then coloring my sketches with my daughter, then posting the result up here as a trace of something vivid that happened before my eyes.

This is museum professional Gerald Bolas giving remarks at the "Pursuit of the Spirit" opening at the Museum of Contemporary Religious Art last Sunday. Bolas became the mentor of Terrence Demspey when he directed the art museum at Wash. U. and Dempsey was a student in the area. Bolas went on to direct other museums in other places and is now a consultant, I gather.

He had the warmest regards for Dempsey and his MOCRA project at Saint Louis University. He spoke up for the consummately eclectic and inclusive nature of that project. Bolas and Dempsey both are open to flashes of the spirit in unlikely places, which seems to me to be the only way to catch those evanescent winks of light and vision.

As Subcommandante Marcos of the Zapatista revolution once said, "A heart will open up when no one's watching it. Or, as Gerald Bolas said last Sunday, "Once you've see one burning bush, it's possible to see all bushes burning."

Pursuit of the Spirit remains open through Dec. 14 and should be regarded as a must-see show. MOCRA is near where I work, so anyone who wants to catch up with me and see it at the same time, let me know.