Tristan Meinecke's are goes to church!
The art of Tristan Meinecke is now on display at Tapestry Fellowship church at 3824 W. Irving Park Road in Chicago. Graciously hosted by pastor Mark Johnson and the congregation et al.
Tristan had a cantankerous relationship with an entity he sometimes called God. Like with many other aspects of life he encountered he had a bone to pick with the almighty.
He didn't believe in religious doctrine per se, but he believed in something. He called it "Old Strange Ways".
Sometimes Tristan could be heard yelling in his studio when he was alone. When asked who he was yelling at he sometimes said God or Old Strange Ways.
However, he unequivocally believed creating something was one of the most Godlike things, the most sacred things, a person could do. This was especially true where art and music were concerned. He wanted anything he created to break new boundaries. To be illuminating. To cause thought and reactions in the people who viewed them.
As Franklin Rosemont wrote "Meinecke's basic equipment as an artist has included large quantities of refusal--refusal to obey idiotic rules, or to submit to senile traditions, or to follow commercial fashions." This also applied to God. He refused to blindly follow anything or anyone other than his own creative drive and internal compass.
Franklin went on to say "What makes Meinecke's work so much more powerful and enduring than that of most of his better-publicized contemporaries -- I am thinking here particularly of the vastly-overrated Ivan Albright, and equally hyper-hyped "Chicago Imagists" -- is precisely that fierce dedication to the poetic and oneiric, or in other words: his extravagant and untamed imagination. It was imagination, of course -- the one absolutely essential element in painting, and the very quality that most frightens critics and curators -- which attracted the surrealists to Meinecke and, vice versa."
That fierce dedication to the poetic and oneiric Franklin mentions was one driving force behind Tristan's need to create which is paralleled in the best parts of various religions / belief systems.
With that in mind we believe Tristan and also Angel (the most aptly named person on earth) would find the fact that over a decade after his death his work was being displayed in a church to be poetic and oneiric justice.
We hope you stop by Tapestry, Pastor Mark (a great open hearted guy) or his wife Robin (equally gracious) or others will great you if you call first which we recommend. Please call (773) 588-8295. And by all means, enjoy this momentous day.
Bradford L. Meinecke
May 12th 2022 |
