Los Alamos author and artist Henry Finney reads from his book ‘The Fire Gate Poems: a Journey of Spiritual Healing’. Photo by Jenn Bartram/ladailypost.com

By BONNIE J. GORDON
Los Alamos Daily Post
bjgordon@ladailypost.com

Artist and poet Henry Finney has transformed himself a number of times, sometimes by choice and sometimes by necessity.

After retiring from the University of Vermont, where he taught sociology, Finney decided to pursue visual art fulltime. During his years as a professor, Finney studied at Vermont Studio Center (originally called the Vermont Studio School), where he met the late James Gahagan, a protégé and then colleague of famous German abstract expressionist painter Hans Hoffman. Gahagan became his mentor. Finney completed an MFA in painting at Pratt Institute in New York City in 1994.

Finney and his wife, fiber artist Helen Finney, moved to Los Alamos in 1995.

“We had two requirements for a new home,” Finney said. “It had to have a vibrant art scene and it had to be affordable. A realtor in Santa Fe suggested Los Alamos.”

The Finneys found their new home on Barranca Mesa, which came equipped with an art studio. He’s been making art there since that time.

“I realized that realist painting was not for me,” Finney said. “I wasn’t interested in ‘getting it right’. I found abstract painting more satisfying. I feel the need to express myself in colors and forms. It’s given me enormous pleasure to pursue this path.”

Finney’s journey as a student and teacher of Zen meditation are an indirect influence on his work, he said.

“The Zen spirit ranges from no mark on the canvas to many marks,” he said. “Zen is what you’re doing at the moment. It’s chopping wood and carrying water.”

Like most abstract work, Finney’s paintings are hard to render with words or even with photographs.

In person, they are stunning and evocative. The color, form and texture speak to you in a very personal language. Finney’s mixed media work is surprising and original.

In 2000, Finney’s life was shattered by the suicide of his 30-year-old son Christopher. His grief led to his book of poetry, drawings and paintings, The Fire Gate Poems: A Journey of Spiritual Healing.

“I needed a means of coping, of expressing my feelings,” Finney said. “I’d dabbled in poetry, but Christopher’s death was a catalyst. Finding a voice was a way to articulate who I am and what I was experiencing. The book is both grim and joyous.”

The poems are organized into five groups corresponding to the various stages of recovery from grief.

They start with poems about “Origins”, followed by the “Abyss” of those written during the period of most intense sorrow.

The poems of recovery begin in the third section, “Return”, and continue in the next two sections, “Renewal” and “Wonder”.

“You have to pass through the fire gate of grief to get to recovery, hence the name of the book,” Finney said.

Finney’s beloved wife Helen passed away in October after a two-year struggle with pancreatic cancer. Coping with this new tragedy is transforming Finney yet again.

He’s working on a new book about recovering from loss through meditation. The book is nearly finished.

He’s working on getting permission to use the quotations that accompany each chapter.

He continues to make art. Finney takes delight in the artistic creativity of his daughter, Catherine Richmond, owner of Seeking Chameleon in White Rock and in the company of his many friends, in Los Alamos and beyond.

The Lives of Grasses
by Henry C. Finney
From “Fire Gate Poems: A Journey of Spiritual Healing”

Recovering from my deep frozen winter
I wander now
amid a sea of grasses
of new-grown wild flowers
where just last week
(I’ve lost track)
snow lay deep.
No path remains.
Despite your absence
summer has secretly returned.
No pretending winter losses any more.
I re-awaken
like this field
whose sea of waving tassels
swishing, aromatic
beckoning savory awareness
bids me to remember a primeval gratitude for
the lives of grasses.
I re-affirm, re-enter
my neglected garden
step through grassy clumps
inhale fragrances from the East.
Once
years before
to service coming campers
machines broken
I tried to mow a great grass field
with clippers.
Overwhelmed by impossibility
I was reduced
to solitary snips.
One snip. Another snip. Then the next
swallowed by the boundless field.
Will dissolving
hope gone
I found this endless clipping
by some miracle
(snow now forgotten)
brought warm release
saved me
when my trance was slowly permeated
by distant throbbing motor sounds.
By then I was delirious
with the scent of mown grasses
each clip, each snip
nudging open a gateless gate
to this Now.

A painting by Los Alamos author and artist Henry Finney. Photo by Jenn Bartram/ladailypost.com