“Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it.” Luke 17:33

So many thoughts about art and life right now.  This new piece, made for a recent Day of the Dead show is an appropriate piece for this post.  I don’t know all the story of the Latin American holiday, just that it was based on All Saints day and the Day of the Innocents , mixed with native beliefs and celebrations.  Dia de los Muertos seems to incorporate a more festive and also commemorative feel to it then the European Memento Mori motif.  Remembering and honoring deceased loved ones and celebrating their lives.

Recently a couple of changes for my wife and I, all good, have shifted my focus, at least for a season, away from art.  The time and energy required to pursue other things that are more important and pressing, and progress on those fronts will make my continued work in art more enjoyable eventually. But of course I was reluctant.  It meant not doing any shows in the Spring and even possibly the Summer or Fall. And I feel like I am just getting my work out there so that is not the direction I wanted to take. But I also am not pursuing art as a career, so I had to trust I would be able to keep my hand in it and God would be faithful to keep His purposes for me and art making on track (He’s big like that).

And that is still my intention, but God IS faithful.  I had been pursuing a few things recently, trying to promote my work, and while there were a few things in process before my decision, all of sudden I am having more exposure, more opportunities and more feedback since laying down my own plans and interest to pursue things I have neglected for too long.  I was approached recently by a local pastor to do a commission piece for his church’s location.  My work was not just featured in a magazine I had submitted to, but made the centerfold calendar piece.  I was asked to submit an two extra pieces for use in devotional covers, I had only planned on one. That recent exposure led to another sell…it just seems like after letting go, more is opening up than when I was completely consumed with trying to make stuff happen.

I also had decided and then had a few circumstances that kinda confirmed it, to get back to leaving a few small pieces around like I used to, I had been too busy to do that, but there is a joy in giving it away to be found and enjoyed by others as a gift, a grace.  And from time to time, remarkably, I hear from someone or about someone who picked up a piece and how much they appreciated it or how much it meant to them, and that’s pretty cool. So as I have time I’ll have that to work on, even if it isn’t for a big show or goal, it is an enjoyable part of my art making.

So for now, I will put my own plans on hold and work slower on stuff as I can, at least for a season.  I’ll avoid the obvious reference to death, transformation and butterflies, but it would totally fit.

It gets weird, in my life, office and art.  The subject matter, medium, and direction I choose to work in means I am picking up strange items; a shipment in the mail recently included coyote teeth and claws, miniature dried seahorses, snake ribs, pieces from an original 1935 edition of Monopoly, a facsimile of a 1928 $2 bill, and dental x-rays films.  It was a good day, at least to me. My poor wife often shivers at my collections. Though she seems supportive of the ideas I pursue, she always seems a bit concerned about being in the same room with my supplies.

But as funny (or not) as those issues are, I have been reflecting on some of the decisions I make about my art’s content.  The above image is from a Tarot card. As a Christian, I see much of the classic Rider-Waite deck steeped in Old and New Testament imagery and symbols.  It’s largely unknown to the public that the tarot decks originated from French, Spanish, and Italian playing cards, and were only later reinterpreted into mystic and occultic tools for divination in the late 18th century.  And while the images best known from Tarot are the reinterpretations by mystic Arthur Edward Waite and artist Pamela Colman Smith, they reference biblical material, symbolism and passages.

So as a visual artist, whose main work process is to take old images and objects and compose them together to form new pieces that often point in different direction than the original materials might themselves, what am I to do with these images?  What can I do?  What am I allowed to do? What should I avoid, detest, embrace, repent of and pursue?

Harold Best in Unceasing Worship writes that a believer artist is free in Christ to create, explore and make art.  His incredibly insightful writing has informed and served as a back drop to how I think through this issue.  I will quote him at length, because I can’t improve how he said it…

Christian artists have true artistic freedom, not on the basis of something as simplistic as right, wrong and so called artistic license, but on the basis of intent and direction.  Here’s what I mean.  Christian artists first of all understand that making art is indistinguishable from worshiping Jesus. In this sense, their art joins up and is made common with everything else in their daily round for which they are responsible as continuous outpourers (the term Best developed to describe the idea of a living sacrifice).  Their art may be their specialty, and its quality may be—should be—of the highest, but it has no greater standing before God than an honestly prepared income tax return.

Furthermore, artistic intent and direction are fully known only to God through Christ, while content is known both to God and to people.  This does not mean that Christian artists must limit themselves to so-called Christian content, especially the all too prevalent kind that is little more than spiritualized gingerbread. It means that every aspect of life is open to aesthetic inquiry, both as to the sinfulness of sin and the grandeur of holy living. Thus, to the Christian artists there are no off-limits subjects even though there are off-limits intentions and directions…Thus, no person has a right to lay an accusing hand, even if it means that artists, along with Christ, may be accused of consorting with sinners, gluttons and winebibbers.

Artistic freedom, however, is not artistic license. There is a twofold danger in what I have said in the preceding paragraph. First unwise or giddy Christian artists will be tempted to take up the badge of artistic freedom in itself (a much flawed and idolatrous badge) instead of being thrust forward in the freedom that is in Christ alone.  Also the public, especially the theologically pinched-up kind, will confuse artistic content and the artist’s intent and arbitrarily accept or reject both art and artist on that ground. Ultimately the artist must stand before Christ and answer for every artistic action taken.

So, the uniformed public be damned, I can use the images I want to!  Right? Maybe, but what this passage sets before me is not just an affirmation of our liberty, but also the wise counsel to consider my heart attitudes, my intentions.

My intentions were easy to ascertain in this regard.  I concluded that my interest in a few of these pieces was simply aesthetic, but by and large I wanted to make some pieces I felt confident would sell, because the images have a certain currency in particular audiences. Maybe I should be more ashamed of that admission, but it is just a fact of my heart.

Also instructive to me was my own review of the New Testament passages regarding witchcraft or divination. Reading the book of Acts, it is Apostles “4″ Occult “0″.  Jesus in his ministry among the Jews in Palestine never really confronts the issue, but as his disciples fan out in to the larger Gentile world, idolatry and witchcraft are constantly encountered.  And of the four times it is encountered in the book of Acts, money and power are linked to it.  The other two mentions are that witchcraft is a work of the flesh and that outside the heavenly city are those who practice magic. Not the company I want to keep.

So here I was, intending to make pieces that included occultic related images for the sole purpose of making money.

And so rather than push through the growing conviction and do what I want because I am “free” I sought counsel from mature, fellow believer artists and creatives, to open my heart and life.  And while the safety of their advice confirmed my sense of conviction, I was also blessed and encouraged to continue, setting my sight less on the commercial opportunities I saw and more on developing at my art.

And that is how in this instance my faith, artistic liberty, scriptures and community work to inform, direct, counsel and set direction for my artmaking, and more importantly how I live all my life.

“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Finished a piece recently that I had started quite a while back.  Things come up, obstacles are faced and sometimes you put aside a piece because your are interested in something else.  But with my old computer crashing recently I returned to work on some unfinished pieces, like this one, called Treasure.

It is  a small reflection on Christ’s teaching about what our heart values and highlights the fleeting nature of riches.  Often enough pieces I make come home to me in new ways as I struggle with my own life and decisions and continue  to walk this life as the sojourner and pilgrim that I am.  More than anyone I need to be reminded of my true home and the real treasures.

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! 

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.

It was around 1986, and he spoke with conviction, thick glasses and cool dreads. He danced to music as his voiceover explained his dancing was like an act of worship, though without using that word.  It concluded with him stating “Some sing, some pray, I dance.”  And then the Levi’s logo faded up as the picture faded to black. 

I of course wasn’t moved to go buy a pair of Levi’s, even though almost 25 years later I still remember the commercial (and somehow still think of Levi’s as the best jeans).  But of the idea that dancing was like a prayer, an act of devotion, I remember being intrigued but never really experiencing that in my own life.   

I think of my frustration through my own waywardness and hearing Rich Mullins sing a song and wondering if it was possible to know God like that, to really enjoy that incredible blend of joyful creativity in response to the Creator who wasn’t the frowning and grey stoic I had come to fear He was.  I had my doubts.

But as I have started to explore making art and writing I have come to enjoy art as devotion. Making art as a response to God, making art to work through His moving in my life and my faltering movements towards Him.  And in it, looking to bless others, though I am not sure how much that happens. 

In making pieces, at least for now, the ideas are coming from my own interactions and reflections on scripture, the struggles in my own life and how I see God resolving issues, though never along my preconceived path.  The processes often involve the meditating and ruminating on some concept, theme or portion of scripture that seems pertinent. 

I find myself echoing statements I have heard artists make about being surprised by what they have created, or how the materials led them in a direction they hadn’t planned.  I have experienced that and was amazed at how you can start with an idea, a vision and by working at something, a solution or direction presents itself because of the materials or process used.  And I have seen how I have already grown in my projects, where before I was too literal, or forcing something, more concerned with “being an artist” than making art. 

But just as important as how the content develops, is how I find myself going about the projects, mindful of patience and how I am exploring and not attempting perfection.  Learning to not be bound by the mental image in my head and literally trying to reproduce it in one attempt. No longer rushing through to finish, but looking to enjoy the development of a concept, and working on it as well. 

Outside of the projects, I am seeking to live in balance, to not forgo my duties around the house or to not leave off interacting with and enjoying my wife’s company. 

So I find that art making is a exercise were I learn balance, learn patience, interact with and reflect on God’s word and look for His leading and respond to Him with my humble little creative acts, as I look for His handiwork in my life and try to be teachable.

This piece, “84”, is my first attempt at collage, assemblage and art making.  I am not fond of it really, but it was the beginning and if nothing else it is a mile marker on my journey.  It is a pictorial representation of psalm 84, one of my favorite psalms.  I didn’t really explore any of the ideas or concepts that I find so salient in the psalm nor why, so it is static, but there it is.

Recent international news has made me grateful for the peaceful transitions of governmental power via elections here inthe U.S. But I also have been reflecting for months on the mostly negative talk coming from Christians regarding President Obama. I didn’t vote for him and I disagree on many of his policies, but I am a Christian first and a U.S. citizen second.

This piece reflects my take on many of us in the church who look to influence our world through politics. We are not called to violence OR power. I am not opposed to Christians pursuing a life of service to community through political involvement but so called, decades old “Culture War” is largely being waged through politics and I feel like that is misguided.

I find most disturbing the Antichrist role many in the church and religious right assign to President Obama, not because that is offensive, it is and it bothers me, but worst than that is the lack of any mention of a Christ role in the story.  Jesus Christ isn’t mentioned, even the church isn’t mentioned, the only uneasy references to saviors are political players and that is what I am most concerned with.  My intention is not to engage as much in the dialogue of politics and speculate on 2012 candidates but to simply refocus my own thoughts and heart on the heart of the Gospel, the person and work of Jesus Christ, not elected, not chosen by us, but victor over death and as will be seen one day, ruler of all the earth.

The background to the ballots and bullets are bible passages that relate our spiritual battle and where our allegiance belongs. They have been cut out, as a symbol of the violence we do to the scriptures when we use them to support earthly kingdoms or ignore them to pursue power over preaching the gospel. But the lowest level has the same scripture passages still whole, shining through, because God’s word won’t fail even if we do.

Verses used
Jesus said…”No man can serve two masters” Mt 6:24
Paul told us that “we wrestle not against flesh and blood” Ep6:12
He also said we “walk in the flesh but don’t war after the flesh” 2Cor 10:3

And finally, Romans 13
Every person is to be in subjection to the governing authorities For there is no authority except from God, and those which exist are established by God. Therefore whoever resists authority has opposed the ordinance of God; and they who have opposed will receive condemnation upon themselves.
For rulers are not a cause of fear for good behavior, but for evil. Do you want to have no fear of authority? Do what is good and you will have praise from the same; for it is a minister of God to you for good. But if you do what is evil, be afraid; for it does not bear the sword for nothing; for it is a minister of God, an avenger who brings wrath on the one who practices evil. Therefore it is necessary to be in subjection, not only because of wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes, for rulers are servants of God, devoting themselves to this very thing. Render to all what is due them: tax to whom tax is due; custom to whom custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom honor.