Katy Mantyk
From Dust to Gold
Michelangelo. Carve me beautiful. Take this heavy stone. Can you hear me? Down below. Buried. Master of miracles. Spin me from dust to gold. Show this hopeful soul. What you see beneath it all. Free me.
While NMA founder Joshua Jacobo lectured on Michelangelo’s technique, singer-songwriter Katy Mantyk joined past Mondays NMA’s ‘Master Monday’ live stream event to give an intimate and stirring performance of her original song, ‘Michelangelo.’ The ethereal songstress demonstrated some other valuable lessons gleaned from the master, Michelangelo.
Mantyk, a self-taught musician originally from New Zealand, shared with Canvas her inspiration for this song, about crossing disciplines for inspiration, and her belief in the sacred and transformative potential of creating.
“Discovering Michelangelo’s process of creating art left a deep impression on me. In fact I think about him often, in amazement really.”
Mantyk explains how she had recently watched the movie, The Agony and the Ecstasy, based on Michelangelo’s life, and although she understood that it probably was not totally accurate, she gained tremendous insight from watching another artist create, “Learning from them and understanding their process is just as important as the art itself.”
Expounding on the idea that artists emulate or imitate the Divine Creator, Mantyk said, “I see Michelangelo as one of the finest examples of a creator, and it mirrors to me how the Divine Creator can help refine us to become better and more beautiful, so my song, Michelangelo, is a metaphor for the Divine Creator, it is my humble prayer asking to “carve me beautiful” like a sculptor with a heavy stone.”
“I think about Michelangelo chiseling a heavy, rough slab of marble,” she continued, “Just a big rock. He saw potential in it, that he could make it beautiful. It’s akin to my own self-cultivation, where I work on my inner self, and painfully chip away at ugliness, unrefined human desires, things that block me from higher wisdom and make me heavy and stuck. There are so many parallels,” she said, acknowledging that she is certainly not the first human to notice this.
Mantyk says she draws inspiration from his intense work ethic, his fierce passion, his commitment to his vision, all with a reverence for the sacred. But she was equally impressed with the integrity to his vision that enabled him to let go of what is not right.
“I have so much to learn and improve on. Seeing Michelangelo tear down the frescoes he’d worked of for so long on the Sistine Chapel ceiling and start again. Deep down he knew it wasn’t right, it wasn’t good enough, it wasn’t his vision. Despite all the pressure from other people, he followed his instinct. I’ve made music I am not proud of. I know I can do better, I know it. I need to be more like Michelangelo.”
Mantyk quotes American novelist Willa Cather, elucidating how creating art is a process of refining and coming closer to truth, “Art is the refining of truthfulness. Only the stupid believe that to be truthful is easy; only the great artists know how difficult it is.”
In addition to the visual arts, Mantyk also derives inspiration from old folk tales and songs.
“I read an old Chinese fairy tale of a monk choosing a large rock to carve. As the story goes the rock was too large, and he smashed it in half and began carving one half into a statue of the Buddha. But the rock complained loudly and groaned, and the monk felt bad and started using the other half of the rock instead. That rock quietly endured the pain of the chisel, happy knowing he would become a Buddha statue in a temple and inspire reverence in the divine. And it did, meanwhile the rock that couldn’t endure the hardship ended up being a stepping stone in the temple, and was walked on every day as people came to visit the stone Buddha statue.”
Like the rock that endured the suffering of being carved, Mantyk expressed similar tribulations, the pain of refining and being refined simultaneously, and gleaning the results of this sacrifice and perseverance.
“Since writing the Michelangelo song, this prayer, I have been going through a difficult year,” shares Mantyk, on the painful emotional work of relinquishing heavy emotions that had been suddenly brought to the surface. “Then I’ll sit back and play this song, and remember I genuinely asked for this, the pain is good and I am really making progress in my heart. And so this song has changed me. I listen back to the recording I made a year ago – exactly this time last winter actually! And I hear a different girl.
“I remember reading that it took Michelangelo so many years to do the Sistine Chapel that you can actually see his art improving, getting better, as it crosses the ceiling. I can see that in me, too, and it’s encouraging. I do feel I have been carved a little more beautiful. I hope so anyway.
Great artists show me by example how to cultivate my art, and also cultivate my heart.
There’s a song I adore called Heavy Stone by Louis Baker, a New Zealand based musician. It’s so deeply moving. “I’m a heavy stone, I don’t want to be weighed down any more…” that song nurtures my spirit. He must have really enlightened to it. When I listen, I feel it.
“Whether the song will be moving, or the art deeply affecting, I think that has everything to do with how the artist has cultivated not only the art but themselves and their understanding of what they are expressing during the process of creating it.
“Then that process of enlightenment is a gift to others who listen and experience it. The music will be felt deeper if I go deeper.”
Mantyk articulates how an artistic discipline can be a cultivation path for outer as well as inner improvement. “It seems my art gets stuck when I have not deeply understood what I am trying to express. I’ve gone through tribulations simultaneously with songs that pushed me to search deeper for answers that I would not have grasped or elevated on without trying to write music.
“Visual art shows me, I see and I understand more deeply. Music moves me, I feel and I understand deeply. The artist must have enlightened to the truth of what they are portraying and expressing for it to be deeply affecting.
“One painting I was recently introduced to had the ability to change my heart and enlighten me. The painting is Courage, Anxiety, and Despair: Watching the Battle by James Sant. I read an explanation of the painting in The Epoch Times by artist, and Canvas writer, Eric Bess.
“It pushes me to think deeper on how I can express more profound inner meaning in my own art. So much intention and thought went into it, and I felt it was just as relevant today to me personally as it seemed to be to the artist over a century ago.”
In conclusion, Mantyk had this advice for all the diamonds in the rough, “If I could give younger artists any advice, it is that it will make your art so much more satisfying and meaningful if you think about others when you create. You have the potential to create anything, so make it a gift that uplifts and moves people’s hearts in some way. It’s not enough just to express yourself in the end. People will remember your art and treasure it if it moves them and gives them an experience that improves their lives somehow.” Listen to Mantyks song Michelangelo here.
LYRICS
Michelangelo
By Katy Mantyk
Michaelangelo
Carve me beautiful
Take this heavy stone
Can you hear me
Down below
Buried
Master of miracles
Spin me from dust to gold
Show this hopeful soul
What you see beneath it all
Free me
As we are, we’re diamonds in the rough
Souls fallen from heaven above
As we are, we are, diamonds in the rough
Fallen, fallen from heaven above
From heaven above
Maestro of symphonies
Make me a melody
If my voice had wings
I would sing in harmony
With you
As we are, we’re diamonds in the rough
Souls fallen from heaven above
As we are, we are, diamonds in the rough
Fallen, fallen from heaven
From heaven above
Diamonds in the rough
Oohhh
You know that we’re diamonds
As we are, we’re diamonds in the rough
Souls fallen from heaven above
As we are, we are, diamonds in the rough
Fallen, fallen from heaven
From heaven above
Michelangelo, will be released as a single, as part of her first album, From Dust to Gold,coming out this Spring 2021.
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