I’ve finished three pieces today derived from the Family Curse series, Adam’s Lament, I’m calling it.  It takes the elements of the curse upon the ground and our endeavors and works them into one piece. The character in the picture, Clay I have taken to calling him, is cut from a photograph by JohnVachon, 1941.  He is slumped over in despair or depression, and seems crushed. 

The elements from the curse, the earth, the thorns, thistles, sweat in work and our ultimate death form the background and the little bottle of graveyard dust reminds us that from dust we were formed and to dust we will return. 

Ironically making this piece and smaller collaged works has been a struggle for me as I stress about making art and making a living. Comically thinking about making the work, I reflected very little about my own struggles with work, not until I was finished with them and thinking about writing did I realize how much I chase after the perfect livelihood, that somehow I expect my faith to save me from living out this struggle myself among thorns and thistles.  My faith, the real faith, of course has bearings on my whole life, work included, but as I have been making art and blogging over  a year now, there has been constant questions about if/when I might perhaps make a living by art and the perennial, albeit oft forgotten, resolution to trust God where I am at, keep making work from my heart, get better at it and be thankful for the blessings I have and the grace I enjoy.

So it seems like this is a good place to start making art that I will begin to sell, maybe not make a living at it just yet but at least start funding my artmaking with my own art sells.

I had really expected that I was about done with the family curse series, a series exploring the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis chapter three, through the lens of hoo doo curses and Great Depression images, playing on the idea that our struggles as individuals is somehow tied to a curse upon our family of origin, only it is a more ancient curse than we realize.

I have a few pieces in process that use the images of the family tree and family curse and ties it back to the tree of knowledge of good and evil that Adam and Eve partook of that brought sin in to the world.  I had hoped to finish finally with the cursed tree, where Christ became a curse for us and removed the curse of sin once and for all, but honestly those are hard images to imagine and execute.

Possibly as a stall, but also as it relates to the cursed roots of our family I am embarking on a series that explores the cursed fruit we see on our lives and the lives of those around us.  I have struggled between depicting the rest of Genesis after the fall and expulsion from the garden and the seven deadly sins, the resolution will reference both as this piece does.  The pride and rebellion of the Tower of Babel seems like a great parallel to pride in general working out in our own lives.

So here is the first piece of the next part of this series, trying to keep with Great Depression era images, I had to in this case reach back a bit further.  Pictured is the iceberg believed to have sunk the Titanic, the colossal of the White Star Line cruise ships. 

I enjoy that without being explained the image is abstract or looks at the Tower of Babel and Pride from a oblique angle, less literal and I like that, it’s joyful in a way I can’t describe.

We recently moved to the city and I have been stirred to reach out to people, to learn to love my neighbors, to get involved in the life of the city.  I have been inspired by Jeremy Begbie’s “Future Hope” lecture as it relates to art making as well as to engaging in “making all things new.”  

But my real longing, my real loyalty is to another city and this piece reflects that sometimes hopeful, sometimes impatient longing for that city.  There is hope, otherwise we would give up counting the days, but as the days stretch out we can be impatient, I know I am at times.  The Psalms ask several times “How long?”  How long would the enemies prevail against God’s people?  How long would God allow suffering?  How long until they saw their desires?  

The psalms validate that longing and that question as it is asked over and over again.  Faith is total, though it doesn’t have to always answer all of our questions.  We may not have immediate answers to dilemmas that face us but we are not without assurance and hope. And so at times we wait, we look and we long.

 (Mostly) found wood, old calendars, paint.  51″ x 51″

I did not expect the discomfort and emptiness that developed as we got closer to the opening of the Prayer and Wisdom group installation.  I felt the nakedness of having put my work out there and the anticipation of how it would be received, the crushing weight of trying to find my worth or validation through creativity, of trying to save myself, literally, by the works of my own hands.  Of course that’s not what I say my artmaking is about, but hours before the opening I felt naked, exposed and fearful and had to own up to my own misguided, crooked ways. 

And while trying to get the courage or clarity to work through these thoughts, or maybe avoid them, I did something I had never noticed before (though I am sure it has happened) I threw  myself into a new project.

Passing by the same plastic top of a shopping cart by the railroad tracks I do each week, the thought of actually picking it up seemed more immediate and pressing.  The images and projects I had imagined for it seemed close, coupled with the crushed red heart shaped tin I picked up earlier in the day from off the street in front of an abandoned Catholic church, energized by a week of installation building and fueled by a desire to hide from my own fears I got home and got right to work. 

I have been interested in religious folk art and wayside shrines for years.  From Gothic statutes and their unfinished look and edges, to lead singer Perry Ferrell’s cover art for Ritual de la Habitual for Jane’s Addiction, part of my own interest in assemblage stems from this art form and tradition. 

I have collected candles and prayer cards, rosary beads and symbols from the Catholic faith and I am not even sure why.  My own Protestant impulses and beliefs are not drawn to honor God through these means but I think I always feel an affinity for the ritual, the idea of sacred space or sacred ways.  I think we as humans are drawn to rituals and sacred spaces, even if we are not believers.  We attribute more value to certain activities or places or objects than we do others.  And while these may be simple folk ways, not part of a centralized belief system they do point to a larger human experience.

Yet we are also reluctant to name this or even recognize this in ourselves or society.  We speak of God with no content, no specifics.  Our discourse is polite to the point of having nothing to really say.  It is embarrassing to speak of specific beliefs, just belief in general. 

“TO AN UNKNOWN GOD” was an inscription the apostle Paul found on an altar in Athens.  He spoke to the people present, to declare to them the God they worshipped in ignorance. 

I wanted to illustrate our unwillingness to name this god of no content and make him specific.  I also wanted to point out the mystery is less mystery as it is willful ignorance.  A lot of great “spiritual” feelings get “ruined” by the specifics of faith.  We want to believe that Love is really all you need, as John Lennon sang, but we only seem disturbed by the lack of others to express this love.  We chose to not know, we chose to hide and not answer some questions or know some answers, symbolized by the heart, crushed in the streets of the city, guarded by barbed wire, unwilling and unable to answer or ask.  The saints have been removed from the candles, all that is left is an empty space surrounded by religious trappings.  And the whole structure is not what it appears, it is not special, it is not sacred, it is part of a shopping cart from Kroger and discarded and fashioned anew into a space, put on wheels to make it mobile, not stationary and thus not set in a special or sacred space.

It did not work to hide myself from my own nakedness or to try to save myself by my works.  My art is not sacred and it has no power to save me or move others to validate my efforts.  It’s just art.  We can hide in our little ritual spaces or we can run to them for help but as Paul told the curious onlookers,

 “The God who made the world and all things in it, since He is Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands; nor is He served by human hands, as though He needed anything, since He Himself gives to all people life and breath and all things”

Shield

But You, O LORD, are a shield about me,
My glory, and the One who lifts my head. 

Perils, shouts of despair and hopelessness, shame, enemies, failures, temptations, fears, regrets, trials.  Not all the time and not all at once, but these are common struggles for us all.  One of the surest places in prayer I ever come to is the declaration that God is my shield, He lifts my head and He stands between me and my enemies. 

Ultimately, it is in Christ that we see this expressed, He bore our sorrows and the shame for our sins before His Father so that we might have access to pray and find acceptance with a holy God. 

Psalms 3, 84, 91

Every Tear

You have taken account of my wanderings;
Put my tears in Your bottle
Are they not in Your book? 

Every tear is kept and marked down.  Not a trial or tribulation is missed. 

I think it is easy to miss that God’s omniscience is not a divine expression of scrapbooking.  We aren’t comforted by the fact that God is all knowing or compulsive enough to keep track of everything, but that He thinks fondly enough of us to take note of our every trial and every tear.  It is great reminder that we can confidently draw near to Him, casting our burdens and anxieties on Him because He truly does care for us, on intimate level.

Psalm 56:8

Everything

Let everything that has breath praise the LORD.
Praise the LORD! 

Psalms are songs, no doubt, and most if not all, were put to music, but they are also instruction.  They call us to praise God in all aspects of our lives, sadness, anger, joy, triumph, lament, dedication.  But we aren’t all musicians that get to play in the great assembly of saints, and so Psalms ends with the instruction that everything that has breath is to praise God. Everything.

Psalm 150

I am exciting to be taking part in this group installation.  There is always a gap between what I visualize a project to look like and how it comes out, but this is even more exciting because it is such a grand scale, other artists with great visions and talents, and hearing their ideas but waiting to see it take shape and come together and how they interact.  The gallery space is being prepped and it looks awesome.  It has it’s own look and I am already amazed.

Below is an image developed for a stencil I made for one of my contributions, excited again to see how things come together and to move away from how I have done things before, open up for input while a project is in process and just have a great time laughing and working and moving pianos and hanging ropes and drawing with ash.  And that was just day one for me! 

 Indianapolis Museum of Art

http://www.imamuseum.org/

Karen Walker, Do-Ho Suh, Tim Hawkinson, Maya Ying Lin

Picasso, Warhol, Hopper, Benton, Cezanne, Cranus the elder

I just wanted to say what a delightful discovery the IMA was to me, it’s totally free with a GREAT collection.  I was amazed at the depth and breadth of the collection and the artists represented.  Certainly worth a trip to check out.

I had limited time to explore but completely enjoyed the collection and the beautiful space it was shown in. 

The above image was taken outside the main entrance while we waited for the museum to open.

I intended to finish up my exploration of the imagery of art of dying by passing out these pins I had made of a pressed flower and obituary page on these hand cut and stamped coffin shapped business cards.  The pins took far longer than expected, so here they are, ready to be launched into coffee shops and other places I frequent hopefully to be found by unsuspecting folks going about their day.

It’s a lot to ask of any creative endeavor to “make a people think” so I will send these off with a prayer to just help folks pause and possibly just be blessed by a gift. 

I have written as much as I think I will for now about the art of the dying but this site has several expressions of the imagery of fading flowers, wilting grass and flying time.  There are a couple of  bigger pieces and while I continue to be fascinated by the works of Holbien the younger and his Dance of the Dead wood cuts and other such works of art, and while I have some more ideas along the same path I am pretty excited about exploring what’s before me, “Family Curse” and expect to spend a good amount of time working on that theme, as well as some other projects in the coming months. 

I hope to revisit the art of dying themes next fall for Day of the Dead, but for now this is where I rest from this series.

Below is basically the letter I wrote for my brother in law, a great kid, still in High School who really inspired me this last week by his desire to give gifts for his family, earning and spending his own money to get gifts, real gifts, for his family, and his new brothers in law.

A little about this gift…

It is a portion of a letter tray, used for holding type, I love trying to figure out how to design and create in small spaces and it allows for there to be more than one thing being said at a time…like our lives, but we are also beyond compartmentalizing ourselves.

Left bottom 

Your initials, mine too, and I was glad to share the few letters I had to make you a gift.

The first little jar has the phrenology head you like, sorry I don’t have a spare one I can part with right now, but if I did, you would have it.  But the image is powerful to me because it is a great example of humanity’s attempts to understand ourselves, our behaviors and our souls.  It is a scientific attempt but it ultimately fails.  The jar contains withered grass and a pinch of dust; both from a graveyard, reminders of our mortality and that there is a terminal limit on searching for self knowledge.

Left top

You are one of the few people I talk with who both enjoys political discussion and also sees limits to our system the way it is.  I did a piece called “Neither Ballots NOR Bullets,” you saw it and this little piece is based upon it.  Christianity and the Bible are above politics though they have political relevance, Jesus didn’t come to setup a political system or support a political party.  The bullet I found in a parking lot and the Rockefeller campaign “pin” is from either his 1960, 64 or 68 presidential bid and it is the kind of “pin” that you would fold the back over the top of your shirt pocket to clasp it.  I had Goldwater too, but thought you’d appreciate the Rockefeller pin more; money, moderate social stances, fiscally sounds, etc.

Right bottom

Key holes to me represent mystery, we don’t know everything, nor can we…it’s not wrong to ask questions as long as you can handle not everything has an answer or more accurately we may not understand the answer. 

“The secret things belong to the LORD our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our sons forever, that we may observe all the words of this law.”

Light bulb, because you are very bright, as in, intelligent, but the bulb also must be connected to the source to shed light to others. We are at our best when connected to the source,  and we also, despite our understanding and intelligence must also be ok being next to mystery.

Right top

Family Curse Jar

You are the first to receive or even see this piece (besides my close confidant, your sister).  I am working on a new piece that is about curses, and family curses, but it isn’t about our immediate or even distant ancestors, it is about Adam and Eve and their fall and the curse we all bear now.  It is based upon hoo doo (African American folk religion/magic)  of the mojo bags and conjure men and women)  So the jar collects symbols of the curses…cursed earth, from the graveyard, snake skin, tears/sweat from child labor and hard work, thorns and thistles from a ground no longer easy to work, a “nation bag,” used by women in Memphis to allure and dominate men, symbol of Eve’s struggle and fig leaf stamps, exiled from the garden in our nakedness…­

Notes from Jeremy Begbie’s Address at Asbury College, Nov 12th 2009

Keying off a piece of music written in the 1930’s, that was trying to capture the “music of the future enjoyed in the present.” Dr. Begbie explored the nature and central role of hope in our faith and how that informs our lives and artmaking.

We often hope from the present for a better future, but the New Testament employs what Dr. Begbie called a “Reverse Imagination” where our real future hope is to play out in our present, not hoping for the future but hoping from the future.

Looking at Revelation chapter 21 and the city of God, the New Jerusalem, he outlined five features of our subversive hope.

1. Enriching Difference

The diversity of the New Jerusalem that will be home to all nations, or peoples, demonstrates that differences and distinctions among people groups are ok, but we are not to make those distinctions into values or hierarchies of cultures.

 Throughout his lecture he used music pieces as ways to demonstrate how these concepts can inform our art making.  For diversity he used a piece demonstrating polyrhythm and the richness, musically, built upon it.

2. Insane Inversion

The first shall be last, the humble exalted and the Lamb on the Throne, all are clear examples of how God will reverse our cultural norms and expectations.  It was a reminder of the great counter cultural nature of our faith. 

Power is radically redefined based upon our hope from the future.

He noted how Nietzsche is the Church’s best critic, for he saw clearly the cross shaped offense and how “ridiculous” it was, we can learn from him because he often got the implications of our counter culture faith better than we as the church have.

3. Piercing Exposure

Our hope is not sentimental, but reveals the root and depth of evil.  The Lamb who was slain will be central in the New Jerusalem, not covering up the ugliness of sin, but it’s cost to God ever before us.

Our condition is unveiled and God’s response is greater than we can imagine, canceling the sentimentality of our own day. 

He noted how we can’t skip over the Cross as though the Resurrection is just a happy ending, the Cross is central to our faith, the reversal of the Resurrection doesn’t diminish the ugliness of the Cross and our sinfulness in a sentimental way.

4. Divine Excess

The fullness of our Future Hope, its full expression is excessive, “subverting our closed equilibrium.” There is an abundance demonstrated in the extreme fruitfulness of the Tree of Life, its fruits and even its leaves that are for the healing of the nations. 

There is novelty, not trite, but over and above what it “necessary.”

“Art can say more than can be told.”

5. Nominal Order

Dr. Begbie called the “non-order,” the Jazz Factor, it is the unpredictable.  The improvisation, playing between the space between order and non order, not order and chaos. 

Untidiness is not a mark of chaos or disorder, just irregularities.

This is seen in the new creation, and can come forth in art making. 

I was encouraged especially by the idea of piercing exposure as my own artmaking has recently focused on the unsentimental truth about our own mortality.  I have been exploring ideas in the art of dying to try to place before myself the “unpretty” truth that death comes for us all and we may ignore it but we are better served by facing it and preparing it.  I have wrestled theologically on focusing on the bad news when I know the rest of the story and our great hope, but I found comfort in the idea that our hope is open faced and wide eyed and takes full account of the bad news first before the good news can break through.

My notes are of course incomplete and don’t do Dr. Begbie’s lecture justice, please don’t consider them as a word for word transcript, they are just the topics discussed and the notes I made.  I do certainly recommend hearing him speak if you are given the chance, he masterful blend of musicianship, theology and public speaking are insightful and encouraging beyond what I have reviewed here. 

Looking forward to getting him speak at the Calvin Institute for Christian Worship’s Calvin Symposium on Worship, January 28-30, 2010 in Grand Rapids MI.