Sacred Art is the only way I can think of to help
It's been a year; I'm going to keep going, if you'll come along
A year writing full time about sacred art
I’ve been writing regularly and in a systematic way about the meeting point of Christian culture and history and traditional (pre-Renaissance) Christian sacred art for about a year. I count the start of the real work of this website as about November 9th, 2023. I’d been writing sporadically about it, getting a feel for the subject, but got into the stride of regular writing and a more systematic approach about then.
It all started with a conversation with a client who had asked for a painting of the Annunciation. This was a devout lady in the US who wanted a centrepiece for her home chapel. I asked her what style she liked, saying that I mostly did Gothic and Trecento, and was surprised that she was really only familiar with the Renaissance A-listers. She was so surprised and delighted that it gave me the idea that others could really benefit from learning about them too. I had no idea how right I was!
In August 2023, I opened the online shop at my studio blog, buying a high resolution scanner (thanks to contributions from readers) and started to offer prints of some of my work, and works from the sacred art tradition. But it was over the Christmas season, in consultation with friends, that I decided to commit to writing regularly and focusing on one subject. And as I went, my understanding grew of why this work is not at all superfluous, is in fact crucial to the survival and possible revival of Christian life in the western world.
The shop is mostly a Christmas market. I’ve heard many times, and found myself, that it’s quite difficult to find nice religious things - cards and decorations - for Christmas in the shops. So I’ve stocked my Christmas collection this year with more cards from some of the artists and periods we’ve been studying in the last year.
Enjoy a browse here:
In January I finished the paperwork with the Italian government to have permanent residence status (equivalent of “landed immigrant” in the US), and was able to open an Italian bank account, and do a bunch of other things to make myself “official” here. That whole winter was a real turning point that culminated in finally monetising the site, and accepting paid subscriptions.
And I dove head first into the work of surveying “the first 1200 years of Christian sacred art” - as it says in the “About” page. And I haven’t been disappointed. In fact, I’ve been somewhat astonished that there is such enthusiasm for the project, and from such a broad array of people.
Exactly a year ago, we had 1569 “all” subscribers. Today it’s 4642, and adding in those who clicked “follow” when Substack made it possible on the home page, it’s a total of 5698 coming along for the ride. This, let me tell you, is quite a lot more than I was expecting to take an interest.
We got into the chronological continuity of western sacred art, stemming from the Empire-wide supremacy of Byzantine forms in the early centuries. We have covered the earliest emergence of figurative Christian art just before the emancipation of the Faith across the Old Empire in the 4th century, to the development of uniquely western styles in the Carolingian, Romanesque and Italian Gothic and northern Gothic periods. We’ve talked about the more philosophical end of things, discussing in several increments the real meaning of “deep looking” that is related cognitively to contemplative prayer. And why I don’t like the Renaissance.
We’ve talked about what sacred art is, but also haven’t shied away from what it definitely isn’t. AI “art” is already flooding into the Christian visual world through the internet, and we need to be able to spot it and understand its limitations. And of course we talked without holding back about even worse things.
We’ve even talked a bit about the technical end of things, how the paintings and drawings we admire so much were made - secrets of the trade.
And I’ve been able to make some trips in person to go and see some of the great artistic treasures that are just lying about all over this country, many of which never make any headlines and are little known outside Italy.
Like the incredible Cripta San Magno, at the great Romanesque cathedral of Agnani.
A bit too focused
But in all that, my other work, the thing I actually do “feel called” to by some mysterious and possibly divine whisper, has been effectively lying dormant. I’ve done a few drawings, and a couple of small paintings, but I’ve had the same two big commissions sitting more or less in the exact same place of development for the entire year.
My total priority has been the writing and researching - “getting the deadlines out” as we used to call it in the biz. With three posts a week, I’ve had a constant struggle to keep up with my whole attention focused on the writing. And though there are days between publishing where absolutely nothing gets done - not even laundry or dishes - it’s out of sheer mental exhaustion.
And this has to change. In one of the last conversations my friend Giancarlo had with our mutual friend Christopher, he asked after me and said, “She really needs to paint more.” I know he, who understood me better than most people I know, believed that actually making sacred art, and not just writing about it, was part of the divine make-up of my soul, the thing I was intended for.
I don’t mean to post less often (we will talk about that below), but organise things differently to take off some of the pressure and handle life better in general.
Five minutes in the penalty box for sharing too much
About a year ago, I wrote a post that sort of officially launched The Sacred Images Project as a thing. In that I talked a little about my strange upbringing in the 60s and 70s, when it was fashionable for the people we would eventually call the Boomers to tell their kids - by logical implication - that nothing they did or tried or aspired to was important. “Go ahead and quit.” It was impossible not to understand that they believed this because to them, the kid was himself unimportant. It’s been a long, long road putting myself together, Lego brick by Lego brick, over the last 50 years.
As you may imagine, there are issues that are lodged deep in my brain - including a massive distrust in the world, a perpetual state of low-level dread (Oh, hi, The Cold War) and a feeling of impending doom, calamity just around the corner - that have yet to be dealt with. That vague, but sometimes crushing, feeling of pervasive anxiety has driven my work for the last 20 years; I was desperate to understand what was going on. Thanks to the advent of the internet, it turned into a career of sorts in investigative journalism, analysis and public commentary.
For a number of reasons, it has all been bubbling up closer to the surface in the last few months. And it seems this weekend, after spending 10, 12 and 13 hour days in front of the screen working on a project about the collapse of the Christian world, it seems to have broken a dam that had been just barely holding.
I was dreadfully afraid of alienating my very patient audience here by sharing about my personal struggles this week. But I felt that the usual polite evasions were probably going to be insufficient. We have enough paid subscribers now that I felt I owed something of an explanation about why I’d been away, and why things in general seem to be flagging here. I feel like I’ve been “phoning it in” lately, really struggling to get the stories filed. I’ve been personally losing heart, and a dramatic falling off of new subscriptions has rather confirmed this idea.
I would like to thank the kind people who sent me encouraging notes and emails this week, quite a lot of which was as insightful as it was kindly meant. It’s not always easy for someone deeply introverted to accept personal approaches, but even if I didn’t respond, please know I do appreciate it.
I know not everyone is as pathologically shy as I am, so it probably is much more normal for everyone else than it is for me. With an upbringing half in the old fashioned English way, where talking about one’s feelings - particularly publicly - is absolutely anathema and half in the “We Share A LOT” hippie way from the 70s, I’m usually perplexed about how to judge the right amount of sharing. I don’t really know the rules anymore, if there are any.
How to have a mid-life crisis - GenX edition
A fellow Substack blogger, and a dad, homesteader and Catholic, known publicly as “Old Hollow Tree,” put a personality disorder test on his Twitter page today. I don’t know if he meant it to be that, but I realised when I clicked, without hesitation, “deserve,” it seemed like a surprisingly accurate and concise rendering of some of the deepest anxieties of my life, particularly with regard to religion.
Quite a lot of GenX - the generation who were terrorised in early childhood by multiple traumas from the hourly reminder of the threat of nuclear annihilation to neglect (“latchkey kid,” “learned to cook by eight,” etc.), abuse and parental divorce - have carried some pretty severe complex traumas through life. Being the generation conceived, often accidentally, by hippies during their drug-addled, patchouli scented love-ins, and raised by these same moral paragons in the middle of the total chaos of the Social Revolution of the ‘70s, it should hardly be surprising that we are a generation of constant anxiety, dogged by depression and fearfulness about the end of the world.
I hit a wall a little over a week ago. This came from a number of “triggering” recent events in my personal life. I wrote in September about the death of my close friend Giancarlo. But, due to various domestic changes, I’ve also been spending most of the last year completely alone every day, and it’s starting to take a toll.
From the first few months of living here in Narni, January 2021, I’ve had a roommate, a dear friend to whom I grew even closer after she came to stay with me permanently when lockdowns in Rome become intolerable. In July this year she left to enter the monastery and (please pray for her) has asked this week to be accepted formally as a postulant. For several months before we drove her up to Liguria, she had been away from home, visiting relatives and doing last minute work in Rome.
After a few years of very companionable home life, I suddenly found myself alone again, and the old familiar feeling of creeping dread started growing with nothing to dissipate it - no daily chats, no shared jokes, conversations or domestic concerns, just me talking to myself. And having someone else, someone so close, go into a monastery, closing the door and leaving me outside, has made the old fears and perplexities about the meaning and worth of my life come roaring back.
The ice cold water spilled at last over the edge of the dam when I spent most of last weekend working on the book we’ve been anticipating here, “Where did all the monasteries go?” about the historical events and trend that resulted in the suppression of the entire monastic culture of medieval Christendom, starting in the 16th century. (More on this below.)
But I’ve seen something happening around the internet lately; people are perplexed, confused and even somewhat frightened - the dread is spreading. Something that nearly always happens when you write about your personal struggles is the wave of people saying, “I thought it was just me!” and I got quite a bit of people saying they appreciated it for that. It does seem to help people to hear others honestly saying, “I’m freaked out and I don’t know what it all means, but it can’t be good!”
A different, secret way
So, I’ve been asked again by people involved in my old world of “Catholic online journalism” whether I would start writing about it all again. Or whether I would come onto their podcasts or be interviewed about it. But the answer is even more firmly “no” than before. What possible use could it be? There’s absolutely no shortage of people talking politics into microphones; how could another one help?
What is useful, I’m finally really coming to see, is what we’re doing here at this site. And I say “we” on purpose because I simply wouldn’t have continued writing if you hadn’t come along looking for the same thing. Somehow, through the little secret postern gate of medieval Christian sacred art, we have found a way into a forgotten secret garden where subtle and unexpected answers to our perplexities and fears are growing like glowing fruits. Whatever politics can solve, it can’t even identify the underlying problem, the answer that Christian sacred art can give us: meaning.
When I started studying traditional Christian iconography five years ago, I had an intuition that this was a way to learn a new way of seeing; how to see things that had been hidden for a long time. And I knew immediately that, though there was no clear way of “monetising” at first, it was the direction I absolutely had to follow. It was only a faint glimmer in an immense wood of terrifying darkness, but since it was the only light I’d found, there was nothing else to do - there was no other path to follow.
Where should we go next? - a few polls
One of the things I’ve been doing is a deep-think, one-year re-assessment. Looking at where we’ve been, what we’ve been talking about, what things have “worked” for everyone; me as a writer and all of youse as readers.
So, I’d like to do a few reader polls1 to find out where we are, and where we might like to go.
Lots of “how to write a Substack” advice tells you to post daily. But for me, that would be a way to lock my whole life into writer-only mode. I’m trying to re-configure a balance between writing, painting/drawing and doing the online iconography and painting courses I’ve bought but not started/finished yet - and maybe taking a daily walk, and/or talking in meat-space to other people.
Narni is looking its best right now, in my opinion. I’ve been going downstairs to the shops in the village more often, and it’s really nice.
So, don’t worry; I’m not proposing a daily 3000 word essay. But there are options. I could send out a daily, or “occasional,” mini-post - no more than 300 words (four paragraphs, shorter than most online news articles) with any updates or interesting items I’ve found lying about. Kind of a “Hey, check out this amazing 13th century painting that just popped up in my idle scrolling time!” sort of thing.
Since they’ve signed up as paid subscribers, I’m naturally going to be trying to give a higher level of value to paid posts - and this includes the on-site visits with videos. I’m thinking that the weekly in-depth discussions about art history, theory and philosophy should be mostly paywalled; which makes it a more serious commitment for me, and gives an incentive to people who are really interested to sign up. The free posts could be shorter, simpler and more focused on just plain old uplifting eye-candy. I’ve enjoyed doing the Artist Focus posts, looking at a particular person’s work, for instance.
The weekly Goodie Bag posts have been proving especially difficult to gin up every week. I realise they’re pretty popular, but as a weekly thing it’s just a big scramble every week to find something suitable for both sides, the paid and unpaid. We’ll keep doing them, but only as I actually have material that looks fun and interesting and light. More a “now and then” thing than an “absolutely have to get the post out” thing.
I’ve also been looking at the archive and seeing that we’ve got quite a few running series about particular topics. These could be mashed together, organised or expanded into e-books, which might be useful for home schoolers especially. Romanesque series, Gothic series, “Deep looking” series. etc.
I’m working with a lady who does professional typesetting for downloadable materials, who’s been working on a timeline to go along with the “What happened to the Monasteries?” book (which she’s also putting together for me when I’m done reworking it). I was going to offer these for free as downloads for paid subscribers, and for sale in my shop to non-paid.
Subscriptions - it’s complicated
In fact, this overview isn’t really helpful. First, it counts comps, gift subscriptions and free trials as “paid”. But in fact there are as of writing 227 actual paid subscriptions. And I’ll tell you right off the bat that this is amazing. I can hardly believe that not only am I being paid by readers to write about this, and to learn about it therefore, but it’s actually covering the living expenses. I am now self-supporting, and I can’t tell you what a relief it is. I’m not afraid of the gas bill for the first time in ages. I can buy my own art supplies. I’ve even bought some new clothes.
So, thanks so much for signing up, I can’t tell you what it means to me.
The number pointing down by -1 doesn’t reflect the reality either. In September, October and November, we’ve had about 9 or 10 un-subscriptions each month, which is quite a lot more than usual. I try not to take each one like a punch directly to the solar plexus, but it’s been pretty discouraging, I won’t lie. We went a long time, from April to the end of the summer, with the number of paid subscriptions only going up - at one point, nearly one new paid sub a day.
Now I get that there’s all sorts of reasons for a person to decide to cancel a subscription. Quite a few say that it’s too expensive; and that’s perfectly OK2.
There are others who have said they’re upset with me for something I’ve said, and that’s fine too. It’s just part of the normal ups and downs of internet writing life; you can’t have been an online writer for over 25 years without learning that it’s OK for people to disagree with you, even strongly. They’re even allowed to get kind of mad at you for it. They don’t actually know you, and no matter how much they’ve read of what you’ve written, lines of text on a screen is not a sound basis for a judgment of character.
But as noted above, and as came out pretty clearly in my Jordan Peterson 5 Traits personality test, I’m at the same time a mass of neurotic negative thought patterns, chronic severe anxieties, complex trauma reactions and high-tension triggers. So, while my rational brain is telling me to be cool and just carry on with the job, the rest of me takes it pretty hard in the gut: “Am I no good? Is this crap? Is it boring? Am I just a crummy writer? Is everyone mad at me? Maybe I’m really just a bad person like that guy on Twitter said. Maybe I should I give up. Is this all going to come crashing down and fail?…” (You can probably write the rest of the script…")
But then someone else signs up, and I reel it in and get back to work. The fact that it says we’re only down 1 in 30 days means that there have been enough new subscriptions to keep the graph line straight flat, which is actually great. (Hi, new people! Thanks so much, again.)
The thing is, at the same time all this Sturm und Drang over paid subscriptions is going on, people are actually signing up as free subscribers in droves, every day. Which on the one hand is very encouraging. And on the other makes me think, “Is it just not worth paying for?”
So, if you’ve been signed up as a free subscriber for a while and like what you have seen so far, and are interested in getting into things in more depth, I hope you’ll consider taking out a paid subscription.
This is how I make my living, but more to the point, it’s how I am able to explore this whole “new” world of ancient lost things that seem to hold some secrets that we have forgotten to our great harm. For me, struggling with my faith in this time of great darkness, sacred art is often the only thing I’m still holding on to that connects me to the God who obscures our view of Him, and leads us down dark, unknown ways.
I can’t argue politics or theology anymore. I can sometimes shout and shake my fist, but my heart isn’t really in it anymore. I don’t have answers to all the questions, and difficulties and doubts. I am as paralysed with terror as everyone at some of the things the evil men of this world seem to be getting ready to deliver to us. I don’t have much; but I’ve got this. This one thing of utter sublime beauty and truth that I can share.
In the last few months, and especially in the last few weeks, I’ve felt like I’m just clinging to this one rope, while everything else is falling apart. Maybe that’s more than half the neuroses talking, but I do know that other people feel the same. So, I’m glad you’re here. Let’s help each other hold on.
HJMWhite
NB: not saying I’ll necessarily do the thing that gets the most votes, but it helps me to know how people are generally receiving.
I give clergy/religious discounts and sometimes comps. And have comped people who really like it but are on fixed or otherwise straightened incomes. DM me in the chat or by email.
I think there has been a basic misunderstanding. I must have failed to make something clear in the post: this is my job. Writing three times a week on this website is what I do for a living. It's my livelihood, and it is the foundational structure of my daily life.
I've seen a lot of people, trying to be helpful, say, "Oh just post once a week." but this tells me that they don't understand what this is and why I do it. There's a reason I didn't list one post a week as one of the options; it's not on the table. When they say this, what I hear is, "Just quit your job." And being my brain, how it translates this is, "What you're doing isn't very important, it doesn't matter to us, so you might as well give up." I've responded individually to this multiple times, but the suggestion keeps coming, so I'll answer it here.
I take this work very seriously. I do it because I think it's important and useful, and worth the difficulty of producing. I thought I managed to at least make that very clear above. Posting once a week is the equivalent of quitting. It would be quitting taking it seriously, quitting thinking of it as work, as a job, to which I have serious obligations.
"What's wrong with once a week?"
This is where business ethics come in. I have made a promise to produce the things people have signed up for, whether free or paid, and that lays a serious obligation on me to the people who subscribe. They have expectations that I am obliged to fulfil. I enter into a relationship of personal and serious obligation with every person who subscribes, even moreso with people who pay to subscribe.
I have two levels of subscription, free and paid. I am morally obliged to provide material for both, and a higher level of in depth material for paid subscribers. That's the deal. They pay for it and I provide it; it's how business works. If I don't do that, I lose paid subscribers, and go broke and die under a bridge. And properly so. I would have failed in my obligations.
I don't have any family, no husband, parents, children, aunts uncles or cousins. There's no one to pick me up if I fail. I have no pension and no other source of income. So I work, and this blog is that. It's my work. And if I don't take it seriously, no one who pays me will take it seriously either.
On a personal level, having work to do, particularly having work that other people are expecting in some way, having a schedule, a structure and framework of the time in the days, is immensely important for a person recovering from a serious depression. Sinking into yourself, into isolation and the belief that nothing you do matters, that no one will care if you quit, is how to die. Telling a depressed person to quit their job - to have no income or a reduced income, to abandon their obligations and duties to others, their relationships with others, to jettison their framework and scheduling of time, their daily reason to get out of bed and dress and eat and continue living - is a terrible idea.
This work gives every aspect of my life, financial and personal and even spiritual, structure, form and meaning, purpose and direction.
When I said above: "I don’t have much; but I’ve got this." I wasn't speaking rhetorically or metaphorically. It's literally true. Doing this work is becoming the rope I'm holding on to.
Hi Hilary, just wanted to say a thank you for your time, effort and wisdom. It is appreciated! A Holy Mass is being offered for you and your work.