The Art Monastery’s Anti-Zombie Stance

Question

What is the conflict the Artmonks are impassioned to resolve?

Answer

We are battling zombies.

We are battling complacency. We are battling that tendency in ourselves and in our colleagues to bumble on in the high-speed stream of consumerism and numbness. We are beating back the armies that are trudging in the direction of ecocide and isolationism. Our earth and our hearts are broken. We are battling that disease of that brokenness. We are fighting a dark and ravaging hunger. The look in people’s eyes when they arrive at the Artmonk Retreat or at Art Monastery Italia is deeply telling: people in the contemporary world are starving. The rest of the world says that America is a spiritual wasteland, that we are a sick people, cut off from what is most important. Well guess what? This disease has a cure. And you are the one to find the cure. We don’t want to give you any answers. Everyone needs to find these answers for themselves. We want to give you a time and a space and the support to figure it out. We want to be there when you do.

We are calling forth the light. We are taking the risks that are necessary. Will someone call us crazy? Will someone say there’s no way? If so, then we’re probably onto something.
Beat back the darkness by calling forth love to beam through you.
Let’s change this world.
Let’s discover the great depth and beauty of the human heart. Let’s find it in ourselves. Let’s find it in each other. Let’s build a space that make it possible. Let’s make art from that place. Let’s make art that surges forward in the world, reaches out to all who experience it, catches them off guard, stops them in their tracks, demands from them a sense of wonder, an awe. Demands that they stop. Pause. And be, for just a moment.
You can change a life in an instant.

Let’s do that.