Secret Piety
I am working on a project with a friend of mine for an upcoming event at the Andy Warhol Museum here in Pittsburgh. The project is an amazing one and I am dying inside from not being able to share more of it, but for now it is a secret. Once this project is done and able to be released to the public there will be a great number of photos on my facebook, instagram and a blog post written about the project. I might even invest in a photo book to commemorate the project for myself and the person who I am working on it with! However, in order to prepare for the project I have done a good bit of reading up on the life of the great pop artist Andy Warhol. Andy was from Pittsburgh and is still quite a big deal in the Pittsburgh arts scene. He was also Byzantine Catholic, which shares a similar cultural, spiritual and theological heritage with Eastern Orthodox Christianity.
As I have been reading about Warhol and the life he lived, one thing became evident to me. Even though on the outside he was all about fame, fortune, glamour, being callously cool and making art available to everyone, on the inside he was a deeply devout person. I am not going to write about the influence of Byzantine Art on his own art as that could take volumes in itself. Rather I would like to focus on his life. I have read about how Andy went to Divine Liturgy almost every day of his life, helped pay for his nephew to go to seminary, fed the homeless at a shelter and did many other things a devout Christian would do. What was even more interesting for me to read was how the Hollywood elite and the artists who he surrounded himself with were often quite unaware of his devotion and his pious activities.
As I have been thinking about this element of Warhol’s life, I started to also think about the Gospel. In the Gospel Christ makes it clear to us that when we fast we are to wash our faces, put on our best clothes and not let anyone know that we are fasting. Christ commands us to love God above all things and to love our brothers and sisters as we love ourselves. He tells us to feed the hungry, clothe the poor and help any one in need and not do these things in order to gain fortune and glory for ourselves, but rather do them quietly out of love for others and God. I could not help but think that in spite of all of the worldly excess that surrounded Andy Warhol’s life and his art that quietly he was obedient to these very commands our Lord gave us in the Gospel. As an artist who is amazed by his creativity, I am even more amazed by the way he was able to quietly witness to Christ in his daily activities and how he was able to do this in such a way that did not draw attention to himself. Maybe we can all learn a lesson from Andy on this subject? I know I definitely need to do a better job at that.
Glory to God in the Highest!
