Art as Relational

God desires for us to know him. So, when the Word became flesh, the Triune God actively established himself in our world through a relationship. Even now when we read the four apostles' distinctive gospel accounts of their time with Jesus our emotions are drawn upon because of specificity of time, place, people, and things—their experience and our experience become essential. The artistic value of the narrative is its ability to feed the imagination by employing what is familiar: emotion, experience, the things we bump against day in and day out. Unlike the scientific that views things as object, Jesus, Incarnate, make all things subjects. In the same way, art employs things—ideas, emotions, people, and places--and begs for the participant to “see” them. At a recent lecture the sculptor Anish Kapoor reminded the audience that “art is good at saying ‘come here and take a look at me.’” * Art, therefore, can assist in detecting Jesus, who John relates “was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.”

Roberto Goizueta also reminds us how the aesthetic “allows us to live life itself as an end in itself rather than as some-thing to be understood.” Goizueta observes when we treat subject like object--analyzing emotions and things as information, we continually set apart the emotional and spiritual dimension of our humanity (Goizueta, Caminemos Con Jesus, p.94). Likewise, John Dewey notes how in our society "prestige" goes to those who use their minds “without participation of the body.” Dewey continues that a further mind-body separation occurs when we depend and take control of the “bodies and labors of others” to accomplish our ideas and wants (Dewey, Art as Experience, p.21). As artists we frequently experience this disconnect when we are asked to create something overnight with no consideration for creativity's lengthy and costly process. The prophet Isaiah laments how we are people who hear, but never understand; we see, but never perceive. It takes relationship between the heart, mind, and body to hear with our ears, and understand with our hearts, in order to be healed.

Art allows both emotion and experience to formulate connections and weave patterns until the next experience causes us to establish anew our way of seeing, feeling, knowing. Art enables our transformation, the taking in of the new. And, indeed, it became the gospel writers’ mission to explore the new world Christ initiated. Furthermore, according to theater director Peter Sellars, our experience with art “holds us together.” * The sharing of art deepens our relationships with one another and with the art itself. Think of how much more we understand a work of art through the action of describing it to another. Art enlarges us. We, reciprocally add to its profundity. Through Christ, we no longer look at the world as object, to be owned, exploited, ignored. The king, who calls us his subjects, asks us to be in relationship with the world. Art is one way of embodying this commitment.

--Maria

* Quotes from Anish Kapoor and Peter Sellars are from the New York Public Library Lecture Series event of November 13th. Their conversation also included Brian Eno.

Missing the Mark

Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang up and I died. Romans 7:9

I like to say I got into acting on a fluke, but I believe God wanted me to be an actor so that I would become more like Him and that through my work others would see what Christ has done. In my pursuit of each character I discover that God is changing me, whispering to me about my own heart. The work of the actor has been called incarnational. We embody characters and enter the world of their story in order to pursue their ultimate good no matter who the character might be. All good actors discover their character through compassion, identifying with them and seeking their highest end.

I once prepared a scene for a TV episode in which my character was being questioned by the police at his little brother’s funeral. At first I believed my character was angry at his brother for having lived such a careless life and ending up a statistic. Just beneath the surface of his anger was latent sorrow and grief. Simple right? But the moment of breakthrough in the audition room came when I realized that my character was actually angry at himself and desperately trying to avoid the shame and guilt he felt for being unable to save his brother, a task that was never within his ability to accomplish. It turns out there’s something more universal than grief…pride.

A funny thing happens in our hearts whenever we hear about the thing which we must become… or else. Somehow we construct a perimeter by which we can measure or express our negligible resources to pull it off. And when the dust settles we’ll tax the world and everyone in it before we can admit our own failure to measure up to the standard. It’s a very fancy version of the blame game. The bible refers to this high standard as the law. But why is it that a perfect description of our intended purpose in the world, our teleos, awakens in us a sense of dread or even self hatred rather than inspired moral character?

In the Garden of Eden (Genesis chapters 1-2) Adam and Eve had no concept of their smallness in the great scheme of things, and they were never meant to. An infant is small but is never made to feel small in the world of the family. In fact it’s just the opposite. We’ve all seen how the nuclear center of the family shifts to accommodate a new born. But let the infant get the idea that it will enact it’s sovereignty on the local government to produce abundance and society on its own, then it must either have a moment of devastation or else it must find a vision more within its reach.

The gospel shows us that Jesus Christ the King, who does all things well, made himself lowly and condemned on the cross so that we could be held in great esteem by our Heavenly Father. He became insignificant so that we could become God’s treasured possession. Most of all, he fully claimed the condemnation that cries from every corner of every human heart “You’ve missed the mark!”

As you continue to reflect on the intersection of Christ's work on the cross and your own work in the world, consider how these gospel-conversant questions for the actor might also apply to your daily reception of God’s favor and love, which he stands ready to lavish on you in every moment of life, especially now.

Kenyon

Suggested Questions for the Actor in Loving Pursuit of a Character:

(Also may be helpful to ask questions in first person or “in character” using "I" and "my")

■ What does my character like most about herself/himself?

■ What is she/he most proud of in the story of their life?

■What would she/he likely change about herself/himself or their story if they could?

■ What mark or measure would she/he feel they have failed to attain in life?

■ What does she/he most regret in their life?

■ With whom does she/he need to be reconciled?

■ How will they she/he know they have been restored in that relationship?

■ How will she/he know when everything is finally ok in their story?

■ How would they describe “the good life”?

Our Story

Artists in the Church need to develop a theory of art informed by the bible in order to return to the world a profound story. With society’s loss of the meta-narrative contemporary lives feel detached, humanity’s significance seems to have diminished, we have forgotten what it means to be human. Despite how the power of God’s story has shaped Christian lives for some time now, we choose to depend and trust those who can feed us information, analysis, doctrines. Furthermore, viewing soul salvation as the primary function of Christianity means we have missed the rich dimensions of God’s redemptive plan for the world. We have disconnected God from our everyday lives and experiences. As Christians we need God to break into our lives in real and tangible ways. We need to reconnect with the whole Christian narrative. Perhaps art, which so heavily depends on narratives, is one way we can practice entering into God’s story again.

The whole of the Christian narrative speaks of a triune God, his people, and his plan for the world. God as Father, Son, and Spirit is a unified diversity. Likewise, he is the true unifier amid the great variety he has created. Therefore, our God is equipped and has equipped us to handle the many episodes, sagas, and movements that are part of the Christian epic. We need artists to formulate new stories rooted in the biblical narrative. We need to write, play, and dance in the margins of our beloved texts.

Typically, in our contemporary society, an artist’s identity is tied to what they create, not in God the creator. Our formation as artists, our art, must flow out of what we know and experience of God. If faith transforms our art, think how much more, the Triune God will open the art-making praxis to inform faith further. Gerardus van der Leeuw asserts art will intersect with religion if it “turns to the absolute; where the wholly other is.”(Sacred and Profane Beauty, p.33) Van der Leeuw quoting Jacques Maritain writes “If you want to make Christian art, be Christians, and seek to make a beautiful work, in which your entire heart lies; do not try to make it Christian.”(Sacred and Profane Beauty, p.36) Part of formulating a theology of the arts is redefining what it means to be a Christian—God’s work of art. Let’s begin to retell God’s story through our hands, feet, lips.

Maria