I think each of the artists in the Art:21 presentation finds a way to use a spiritual tradition and manipulate it in a way that brings about personal spirituality. When I was watching this presentation, and having read the reading, I thought about my spirituality when expressing myself through my art. The painter, Shahzia Sikander, said about her art, “the sheer act of doing it gives [her] peace” (2003). As a musician and a writer, I connected to this sentiment, because I feel like I get a religious experience out of expressing myself through my art. Each of the other artists seem to find this kind of experience in what they do as well, and the act of putting that experience into art is the “translation” portion of the creative process (Grey, 2001, 75). For some of these artists, like John Feodorov and Shahzia Sikander, their religious experience is a product of exploring a combination of religions and discovering how a meaning can be pulled out of both cultures.
But I think the main point of the video presentation is that spirituality can be found all over art. It does not necessarily have to be a product of exploring religious traditions. Art itself can act as a religion of its own, and artists can find spirituality in exploring the artistic elements of the natural world. Ann Hamilton found it in the way the thin stream of water reacted to her manipulations and James Turrell found it with light and his crater.