She's tattooed. She's pierced. And she's filled with Christ's love. June Sylvester Wales, who goes artistically by the handle "Juni Moon" (her astrological sign is Cancer, ruled by the moon), defies stereotypes left and right. She's had more than her share of hardship. As humans, we all know how tough it is to be graceful when life sucks. This woman radiates grace, and it's also the subject of her paintings, on display this month at the Little Theatre Café.
I had the opportunity to sit down with the artist, whom I found to be charming, passionate, and open as she told her difficult story. She's found that people react well to her openness, and respect her determination and motivation to get "out of this hole".
Moon developed a taste for art at East Ridge High School, but fell into hard times shortly after graduating. She lost many years to mental illness, drug addiction, and anorexia. The better part of two decades was spent pursuing a music career, a lifestyle too precarious for such a volatile young woman. In 1986, she was helped by a Christian family in North Chili that "loved [her] back to health," she says. Moon met her future husband through her church, but in 1994, everything fell apart again, and she found herself homeless and pregnant. Friends stepped in and introduced her to the welfare program, which provided income, therapy, and computer classes. Church friends gave her a computer, and she began a long-term affair with PhotoShop, which she describes as "love at first click," and developed skills she uses in her freelance design work.
Stability grew from her involvement in the program, and volunteer work helped Moon heal her limping self-esteem, because it made her feel needed and capable. While her divorce was taking place in 1998, she worked her way off of welfare by helping brides-to-be find the perfect gown at a bridal shop (irony is a beast). In 2004 she enrolled in MCC's graphic design program, while balancing life as a single mother of a teen son with Asperger's Syndrome.
Twice fallen, Moon is now soaring, and determined to go "from welfare to the Whitney," as she puts it. She still has days full of doubt, but uses affirmations to keep herself going, and mentors others both to help them, and to keep herself in balance. In October 2007, she got her first personal studio in the Village Gate, where she creates her heavily symbolic and introspective work.
Though Moon's self portraits depict a calm and confident air, her artwork also conveys the struggle to gain a sense of value for the broken self. As a Born Again Christian, a mystical and personal relationship with the sacred is undeniably central in her experience, and is the dominant theme in her work. Several literal self portraits are included in the show, but one could argue that the other paintings are symbolic self-portraits. The recurring image in her work is the everyday light bulb; the familiar shape becomes a symbolic little reliquary of divine light and power channeling through a person. The bulbs are heavenly messengers, they are radiant hearts, and at times, they are broken shells that cannot function.
"20 Piece Portrait" is made of 20 small, painted panel squares, the wooden pages stitched together with suede lacing and stretched across the wall; essentially, it's a strung-out book. Fragmented facial features are combined with solo butterfly wings, missing their other half, and the glass and filament of broken bulbs are attached to the board. White washed and red stained, this work is disorienting and seems to call from a less stable past.
Other works are more confident and peaceful. "Golden Warrior" alters the architecture of the bulb to form a spectral sweep of wings, with tinges of red haunting a golden field, and a full celestial disc present above. "Sarcasm" is a circular canvas with Moon's face off-center, emerging into view with the swing of the bulb that covers one eye. The other eye meets the viewer with a mischievous gaze, and her tongue pokes out in a Kali-esque gesture, both irreverent and sacred.
The surface of the cool-toned work "The Messenger" is taken up by the familiar shape of the bulb, abstracted - the dome of glass is transformed into a kinetic bow of wings around the central column of the filament, which houses a tiny dark red secret of a heart. The brushstrokes express an angelic figure; this piece is perhaps the most successful in quietly conveying her symbolic language.
In "Road of Suffering" bleeding tears descend into an abstract tangle, and Moon's eyes cast upward from a calm face, which radiates trust and is crowned in blooming flowers. This portrait makes me sort of jealous, in my mortal stumblings, of her certainty. On the canvas is a quote from Job (23:10), "But He knows the way that I take; when He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold."
Even the colorful abstract pieces are sacred in nature, and evoke stained glass fragments. For centuries, stained glass has not only beautified the interiors of houses of worship, but also has been used as a symbol of God's power to penetrate without harming (and thus explained the Immaculate Conception). Moon is using the formula of light and glass in a new and interesting way: the bulb has a specific energy source, and through the instrument, light and energy radiate outward, all around. Compassion comes from God, works through people, and everything is illuminated.
Moon hopes to ease the stereotype that all welfare users are abusers. She also defied my impression of the spiritual set, in that she is passionate without being pushy, and reminds me more of a smirking, sweet Buddha than a fanatical God-raver. She rejects the "Buddy Christ" image, stating that the Christian road is not an easy path, but one of sacrifice and discipline. The ways she speaks of accepting her path bring to mind the Sufi mystic poet Rumi, who reveled as much in the mystery of God-imposed suffering as he did in God's grace. "You can't sidestep having to face the self," she says, "healing comes from really hard self-examination." Her art is an important tool, affirming worth and capability. Deciding to have faith in the self to do well is perhaps the hardest thing of all.
Ingenium
By June Sylvester Wales
Through July 26
Little Café Gallery, 240 East Ave
2581-0400, thelittle.org/cafe.php
Monday-Thursday 5-10 p.m., Friday-Saturday 5-11 p.m., Sunday 5-8 p.m.
worldofjunimoon.com