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.

Walking With Christ

Reading Roberto Goizueta’s Caminemos Con Cristo (we shall walk with Christ) startled me into realizing how much my own theology of work aimed folks solely towards kingdom transformation in our world. To be sure, this is a good and a worthy project, but Goizueta has reminded me how social transformation is not our end and purpose. In Genesis, God deems humanity good, before he gives out work. Therefore, while God calls us to cultivate, perhaps we should perceive this human activity as aesthetic: the desire for a beautiful life that drives us to do good. Now, I recognize, process and production are not mutually exclusive when we put ourselves into God’s hands. But, I need to be constantly reminded not to measure and value human worth as the world does. So, forgive me, while I counter the pragmatic tendencies of our present realities by promoting process over production. As Goizueta points out, it’s the process, the way we go about our work that makes us distinctly human beings.

While, it's the artist-side of my role as an arts ministry coordinator that encourages artists to create works that are community building, social commentaries, theological meditations, and mimetic observations; its my theological-side that reminds them that their creations do not define them. As my colleague Kenyon constantly quips, "It's your life, taken up in Christ, that determines your worth." While art accomplishes wonderful things, our ability to do, mainly demonstrates we are beings. Ultimately, it’s not so much what we produce, but how we allow our strengths, abilities, foibles, and failures shape the way we live in God’s grace.

The parable in Matthew 20 concerning the hired workers illustrates how God is not as concerned with productivity as we tend to be. Here, he compensates those who worked all day the same as those he commissioned a few hours before pay. In fact, the parable depicts a landowner more preoccupied with giving men work, then his need to pull in crops. This landowner goes out five times to ensure every man within his reach has purpose and meaning for that day. It is God who hires us, therefore, making us desirable.

In a kingdom where the last will be first, our Christian theologies of culture must not solely rely on transforming the world through our work. Goizueta outlines the danger of this one-dimensional agenda: “If the act of production is the prototypical human activity, then all human activity will tend to be judged by the criteria of production…Human life will be viewed and valued as the means or instrument through which we produce a desirable product, whether that product is income and profit, food, or the classless society.”

What? You haven’t written that socially transformative book or shaped lives by calling to attention the horrors of corruption through a photo series? In Mark 18, Jesus calls a child and brings him before his disciples, who were intent on finding out the kingdom hierarchy. Jesus tells his audience, those who are humble like a child, become the greatest in the kingdom.

When introduced to a child, it is not usual to ask the child, or their parents, what they do for a living--a child just lives. Healthy children experience awe and discovery through play. They find joy in newly acquired abilities. Indeed, these actions are precious gifts befit for the kingdom.

Shall we walk with Jesus as we work?

Maria

Passion

The inclination to do good, whether it is conquering a creative technique or a particular ski slope, falls under the realm of the aesthetics. Aesthetics, therefore, relies on desire, this in turn, incites us towards action. This is one of the theories William Dyrness works with in his latest book, Poetic Theology. Here, Dyrness relates how it takes human passion “to act, build, and create;” therefore, we should view these events as deep soul movements towards reaching the good. For Dyrness, our best moments are shaped, not necessarily by what we know, but by the longing “for a life that is attractive.” So, Dyrness asks Christians this question: “In places where community development is in progress, what sorts of practices might best reflect this impulse?”

What are the structures, stories, and events that act like beacons orienting our daily developments? What are our best shared activities that help shape beautiful and good communities? Where do we invest significance? Because of Christ’s redeeming work in the world we should seek out elements and practices that correspond with the gospel in order to sculpt deep and meaningful lives. We need to pick up God’s pattern of play, celebration, and redemption found in the surrounding cultures. Beauty draws people together, beauty also directs us towards God. Beauty, therefore, should also be a hallmark of God's people.

Dyrness further cautions how non-manifested values merely remain separate from us—mere abstractions. As we explore our traditions and the Scriptures we must continually take into account the human drive towards the aesthetic. For Dryness, the impetus to create an attractive life is an expression of God’s presence. We all long to be complete, but as the people of God, this hope relies on Christ's beauty and glory. Far from distractions, we must learn to see worldly goods, this includes our vocation as artists, not as means of power or self-glory, nor as an end in itself, but as a gift pointing us towards a life with God and his good creation; God reflected in and through our cultural patterns and trends. The Hispanic theologian, Roberto Goizueta reminds us how the aesthetic is “rooted” in the concrete. Aesthetics happens through our bodies, for “life is always corporeal.” It, therefore, becomes the artist's job to manifest the human need for the transcendent. Alysha Creighton’s stop action animation The Touch depict these themes of desire, embodiment and the transcendent. The Touch reminds us how the arts, the material, are conduits of God’s touch.

We must question if the desire we have for Christ and his kingdom is purely negotiated through the abstract and propositional. If so, we must devise concrete practices to pull the kingdom into our everyday reality.

Allow your art to draw you, and others, to the love of God. Receive his touch.

Maria

Thank you, Alysha, for granting permission to use, The Touch. Alysha Creighton recently completed a summer residency program at SVA.