A few weeks later I met Jana for the first time in person. I drove to Public Works Art Center just before the state mask mandates were lifted and talked to her about the gallery while we both tried to read body language through our masks. She was very positive and easy to like.
When I arrived to start my installation a few weeks later, the masks were gone and it was easier to read Jana’s smiling face. She was so pleasant and easy to work with and she was a source of positive feedback that really helped keep me working hard through the long days and nights. The bonus was meeting her husband Dan while I was working one night. Dan came in to do some work and we talked a little in the gallery while I vandalized the walls. He was also easy to like and it was clear that everyone in town adored him.
That exhibit dovetailed into a cool little concert set up by Dan, followed immediately by the super-intense weekend installation of a permanent mural in a stairwell. Dan was instrumental in helping set up the scaffolding and Jana continued to be a source of helpful pep talks. Our conversations helped provide some insight into their lives and I learned that the light they give off outwardly was just a part of who they are on the inside. Both are wonderful humans.
We all connected through Instagram and stayed in contact a bit over the next few months. There would be a text message from time to time and one day in class I got a message from Jana asking if I’d be interested in showing at Redux Contemporary Art Center in Charleston. A friend had contacted her asking for artist suggestions and Jana was kind enough to throw out my name. By noon that day it was official and about 30 seconds after I officially agreed to the solo show, panic set in when I realized I had sold several of the drawings that were in the original show. I started counting in my head. Another wave of panic rolled over me as I realized there were several more sculptures and drawings I wouldn’t be able to use because they were in other exhibits. A tiny bead of sweat rolled down my forehead. My plans for the next 4 weeks immediately changed to work, work, and work.
I started turning out new drawings as fast as my Sharpies could draw. I set aside full days to make new sculptures and those also just seemed to flow out of me. Soon I had 7 new drawings and 4 new sculptures but even that wasn’t going to be enough. I needed one more large sculpture.
There’s this one sculpture that has plagued me for about 15 years. I’ve never been happy with it and I keep cutting off parts of it and trying to turn those into other sculptures. A part of that sculpture became a gun sculpture about 2 years ago but my interest in that one fizzled before I was able to solve it. I saw it sitting in my studio and decided I had to figure it out for this show. For the next several days I focused on that sculpture in my head. I knew vaguely what it was about but I didn’t know exactly what story it was going to tell.
One morning I got to my office early enough to run to the campus Starbucks. Kayana let me have one of the giant ceramic mugs for my coffee so I sat down and gathered myself before class. I drew a little in my sketchbook and then pulled out my phone. Jana had just posted some things to her story and I sat there watching her videos that explained what a traumatic day she and Dan had experienced. The meat of the story is this: Their car was stolen from their driveway with some important belongings inside. While the police were no help, Jana and Dan were able to use the internet to track the location of the car to a nearby town and they had a police officer meet them where the stolen car was now parked.
That part was easy to sympathize with. I felt terrible for them. Such good people having a tough thing happen to them. But then this happened…
The police officer got someone to the door of the house. A young lady with visible tattoos denied being the car thief, but with a stolen car in your driveway, you’re pretty screwed. The car and the belongings were returned safely to Jana and Dan and the police officer asked them to press charges so the lady could be arrested.
It’s easy to see what would happen next. Charges would be brought against the lady and she’d be jailed. She’d be angry and would have some financial problems associated with being arrested, jailed, and put on trial. This is where we tend to think that the judicial system “works” by being oppressive towards people who break the law, causing them to come to the epiphany that they should change their ways. That somehow the financial needs they had that steered them toward theft would be magically transformed after some time in jail and they’d return to society corrected and ready to become productive members of the community. I imagine it would also feel sort of “just” to have someone arrested who stole your car from your driveway. A little revenge high knowing they were going to jail.
But that’s not what happened next. Jana and Dan decided to refuse to press charges. In her video, Jana offered an explanation that stuck with me. She said they hoped forgiveness and love would be louder than jail.
Right?
I was leveled.
I am a Christian and have been around “good Christian people” all my life. Sure, I’ve seen and known just as many bad ones as you have, but I’m not talking about those. Not the ones who are after your money. Not the ones who will run you off the road and flip you off on their way to church in their giant SUV. Not the ones who push for your sins to be outlawed and punished while theirs go unnoticed because they are more socially acceptable. I’m talking about real followers of the God who said He was “love”. The one who said that people in the world would know His followers because they would be love in the world. I know some of those people. I have some of them in my family. Some of the most kind, gentle, and generous people on this planet.
And yet, I don’t know a single person who I think would be willing to do what Jana and Dan did.
And for all my talk of kindness, what would I have done? Could I have done what they did if it had been suggested to me? Possibly, but would I have thought of it on my own? I have to say no.
I think I held my phone for a few more minutes completely blown away by this act of real love. When I started to realize I was conscious again I put my phone down and started recording these events in my sketchbook. As I wrote, I knew exactly what the sculpture was going to look like now. I saw colors, sizes, forms, and even the arrangement in my head. All of it was going to be a ton of work but that really didn’t matter. It needed to be done now.
Part of the process of finishing this sculpture involved cutting out 163 steel hearts and grinding them smooth and perfect. This was a horrible and tedious process that lasted for days. I would spend every idle moment at school and at home grinding hearts. My fingers lost feeling in the fingertips. My arms would cramp so much that I couldn’t hold the grinder or the hearts any longer and I’d have to stop to shake it out every few minutes. During all of these hours, I was actively thinking about Jana and Dan’s decision to not press charges. I thought about my spiritual beliefs and my values. I thought about how I could be love in the world in a similar way.
The sculpture turned out to be an abstracted pistol about 5 feet long painted white. The barrel of the gun is folded back as if Elmer Fudd had been arguing with Buggs Bunny about rabbit season. The end of the barrel is capped with a star and then scattered on the ground in a spiral around the gun form is 143 steel hearts in red, yellow, blue, and silver metallic glitter (cast in resin). The hearts had to be painted in multiple coats on both sides so there was quite a bit of waiting involved in finishing the sculpture so it could be packed up for delivery. During every part of the waiting, I was thinking about what the sculpture meant to me and about its inspiration. This is when I realized the title of the sculpture would be “Jana & Dan” to honor the level of love they send out into the world every single day.
I never saw the whole sculpture completely together until the day of the opening reception. I placed the gun and had my assistant set out all the hearts a few times in a spiral to get the spacing right. After some final touches, it was ready just a couple of hours before the reception began. When the title block was placed, my new friend Cara (the director of Redux) walked over to see it and she noticed the title. She smiled and asked if Jana and Dan knew about that yet. I told her no and asked her not to say anything. I knew they were planning to attend the reception and I wanted it to be a surprise.
When they did arrive we greeted each other and talked for a while. They looked around and eventually Jana walked over to see the new sculpture. She noticed the title almost immediately and said “No you did not!”. Then she told Dan to go check it out. They both walked over and when Dan saw the title both of their faces were perfect. I was a little slow with my camera but I did get a photo of them near that moment. It was great.
I still think about what they chose to do. I still think about the line “We hope forgiveness and love will be louder than jail”. I want to learn to love like that.
This sculpture is in perfect context with the rest of the exhibit “Even When It’s Dark”. Many of the drawings and sculptures relate to our time in quarantine and our couple of years now in a world gripped by a pandemic. Many of us have questioned what it means to live in community and perhaps we’ve more carefully considered who we choose to surround ourselves with. So many of the narratives in this exhibit deal with love of all kinds and how we interact with others in our relationships.
The sculpture “Jana & Dan” tells the story of how things can be intended for negative purposes but can be interrupted, even disrupted by love. It reminds me that in the face of a news cycle that proclaims that the world is completely screwed, there is hope for change. You, me, we are that hope.
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