by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer

In the documentary “Carlos: Being of Light,” featuring Sewanee artist Ed Carlos, filmmaker Tyler Stallings takes the viewer behind the scenes into the mind of a man whose mystical visions compelled his brilliantly simple and simply brilliant philosophy of art. As a child, Carlos drew and engaged with rabbit figures who stood erect like humans. What some might call childhood fantasy evolved into a lifetime of engagement with the mystical and his transformation from “academic awareness into mystical” experiencing of the world.

Carlos has had more than 100 mystical encounters. In one, a flowing column of honey-like substance forms a passionflower, a botanical favorite of his. He said of the hayyoth, “holy beings” who guide him during encounters, “They know everything about you. They utilize what you know to teach you.” Anyone who has ever viewed a well-done portrait has experienced the artist engaging with the subject’s presence. “Creating a portrait is an invitation to enter into the psychic state of another,” Carlos said. “Empathy comes from collapsing the distance between yourself and the subject, which is what happens when making art and during the encounters.”

He couched the passionflower experience as a dream, when describing the encounter to his aesthetics class — “It made it much simpler to be a teacher without the rumors going around.” For Carlos, though, this was no dream.

“Papa taught [his students] not how to paint, but how to see,” said his daughter Malia. Embracing her father’s sage methodology, Malia recounted a childhood mystical experience to her English class. But the lesson was not well received. Concerned parents questioned the mental health of their children’s teacher. “That’s why you need to be careful when you teach,” her father told her.

Carlos’ 1990 experience on the island of Iona inspired the construction of Carlos’ Iona Art Sanctuary just a few miles from downtown Sewanee. In Scotland to do religious imagery for a church, Carlos visited the island on the priest’s suggestion. He made the visit nurturing a fascination with the shift from Druid to Christian Catholic spiritualism. There he witnessed a beam of light extending from the sea to the water. When he attempted to photograph “the light fall,” he felt himself falling backwards and into the presence of the hayyoth where he lost time for four or five hours. When he left the island, he found himself saying, “goodbye,” impressing upon him the certainty he had been with others.

“I was a different person from then on,” Carlos said. He acknowledged in the past he had “tried to deny images with which I didn’t want to relate…I tried to think them away.”

Carlos taught at the University for 36 years. He said of his final exhibit, a life size creche, “For me, the birth of Jesus is a metaphor for creation.”

“An image once objectified as art takes on its own reality and its own substance and power,” he explained. Commenting on how visitors experienced one of his installations at Iona, he said, “Every move you make, you see more…that’s what happens in the encounters.”

California-based filmmaker Stallings studied with Carlos in the 1980s. Doing research for an exhibit he curated, “Are we Touched? Identities from Outer Space,” Stallings reengaged with Carlos in John E. Mack’s book, “Abduction: Human Encounters with Aliens,” which devotes a chapter to Carlos’ spiritual encounters. Senior curator at the Frank M. Doyle Arts Pavilion, Stallings has since curated several exhibitions that circle back to that theme. Dubbed a feature film by the San Diego Movie Awards and the OC Film Fiesta, “Carlos: Being of Light” premiers this week.

This rare and masterful film integrates the inner working of a mind with the life experiences of artistic genius. To view “Carlos: Being of Light” via online streaming, tickets $10, go to <https://watch.eventive.org/ocf...;.