The Transformative Power Of Art with Terry Tempest Williams

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The first time Terry Tempest Williams looked upon Hieronymus Bosch's painting The Garden of Earthly Delights it captivated her spirit and didn't let her go until she had walked a seven year pilgrimage through the multiple dimensions of the painting that remains as mysterious and provocative as it was five hundred years ago. The masterpiece spoke to Williams and she returns the favor eloquently by weaving together the spiritual, psychological, religious, ecological, and emotional intensity of a work of art that transformed her life. "Bosch's genius was saying there is a real world, a beautiful world, an ambiguous world, a world of discovery and curiosity that is the center panel, the middle path." Explore the myriad of meanings inside Bosch's masterwork where, "that incredible sense of wonder, born out of longing, creates its own alchemy of the imagination as well as the intellect." (hosted by Michael Toms)

Bio

Terry Tempest Williams is a naturalist, environmentalist, and award-winning author. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and her work is widely taught and anthologized around the world. In 2014, on the 50th Anniversary of the Wilderness Act, Ms. Williams received the Sierra Club’s John Muir Award honoring a distinguished record of leadership in American conservation. She currently is the writer in residence at Harvard Divinity School and divides her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts and Castle Valley, Utah.

Terry Tempest Williams is the author of many books including:

• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place (Pantheon 1991)
• Red: Passion and Patience in the Desert (Vintage Books 2002)
• An Unspoken Hunger: Stories from the Field (Vintage Books 1995)
• Leap (Vintage 2001)
• The Open Space of Democracy (The Orion Society 2004)
• Finding Beauty in a Broken World (Pantheon 2008)
• When Women Were Birds: Fifty-four Variations on Voice (Sarah Crichton Books: Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2012)
• The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America's National Parks(Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2016)
• Erosion: Essays of Undoing (Sarah Crichton Books, Farrar, Straus and Giroux 2019)

To learn more about the work of Terry Tempest Williams go to terrytempestwilliams.com

Topics Explored in This Dialogue

• The personal rewards of listening with wonder
• The genius behind Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights"
• The only way to move out of the darkness into the light
• How to find hope in the midst of despair
• Parallels between the fifteenth century and the twenty-first century
• Why Bosch's work was so futuristic
• Can a painting be a prayer?
• A surprising (and safe) act of civil disobedience
• The essence of the Mormon religion and its challenges today
• Tender and moving passages from Williams' poetry

Host: Michael Toms      Interview Date: 6/29/2000      Program Number: 2821

Music Included

From Album: 8-String Religion
Artist: David Darling
1993 Hearts of Space #HS11037-2

From Album: Unfinished CD for future release
Artist: Catherine Vibert For information, email: thecatwoman@catvibe.com
Tracks: Memorial Day, Circus Gothic