Proof of Art’s Redemptive Power

Although many people speak of the redemptive power of art, world-renowned artist Ed Meneeley is living proof that the creative spirit can renew, restore and return a person from the brink of destruction back to life.  At 82, Meneeley experienced the unthinkable: he was robbed, raped and left blind in one eye on the floor of his apartment by a young man he found shivering in the rain the night before.  Meneeley had simply offered the man a warm place to shower and dry his clothes; for his kindness, he was brutalized and left for dead.

While Meneeley lay recuperating in the hospital, memories of his extraordinary life flooded his mind – for his life had been filled with the people, the places and the events that had shaped the 20^th century.  He had cared for paraplegics as a Navy medic during WWII, photographing amputees before and after surgery when their broken bodies were brought home from Korea.  He had been given his own set of keys to the Museum of Modern Art when hired to photograph the entire permanent collection.  His first solo show of paintings at the Parma Gallery in 1962 occurred the day after the funeral of his close friend, the painter Franz Kline  He had been married, but later came to terms with his homosexuality.  His electro-static prints had been purchased for the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MoMA, The Whitney and other prominent museums,  He had been a lover of Robert Rauschenberg, had worked in special projects with Jasper Johns.  He had traveled abroad to photograph Robert Motherwell’s exhibition in London and while there had studied all that Eurpoe had to offer:  from contemplating Stonehenge and the ancient cave drawings in Spain, to bathing in color under the stained-glass windows of Saints Chapel in France.  He lectured throughout Europe, and spent years dedicating himself to promoting the arts by curating and exhibiting until his life came full circle and he moved to a small town near his childhood home in Pennsylvania to nurse an old friend dying of AIDS.  And all this living had brought him here : to a hospital in a nowhere coal-mining town where he had extended his hand to a predator masked as a shivering young man who looked like he just needed a place to escape the cold, wet, buffeting winds.

Once released from the hospital, Meneeley consoled himself with cheap vodka, chugging it straight from a plastic water bottle, and his life began to spin out of control.  On one occasion, his biographer drove him into Manhattan to appear in a documentary where he made a drunken spectacle of himself.  On another, he fell and broke his hip.  He could now barely lift his painting arm above the shoulder, and became dependent on a walker.  His drinking had eroded his health to the point that he could no longer make the short commute to his studio across the street from his home.  One day, Meneeley received old friend/collaborator who gave him an ultimatum, “If you’re not going to care about your own life, if you want to die, then I can no longer put my time and energy into this.”

Ed decided to live. He spent his whole life expressing himself passionately with color and sculpture. From his weakened state, just thinking about his work gave him strength. He knew he could handle the worse life could throw at him. Art would heal him. It always did.

Weeks later, his studio was closed and his materials were set up in his bedroom.  As had always been his process, the artist went to work releasing his emotions as vivid portrayals of color on canvas and hand-made paper.  Within a few days, the first three works in a series of abstract Stations of the Cross, symbols of his own salvation, were complete. Over the next few weeks he would produce thirteen more.

This shift led to relentless productivity, including the production of over 100 new works including 47 homages to passed friends and heroes, along with the completed Stations of the Cross series.  So moving and beautiful are these paintings the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York exhibited them in 2011.