New City Arts Forum

This week Redeemer Arts has invited two close partners to share with you about a new and important art & faith movement which will culminate next month in an exciting way at the New City Arts Forum. To whet your appetite for this event we've asked our good friend Dan Siedell, who will be a featured speaker at the Forum, to contribute a blog introducing the issues he will address at the Forum. You can learn more about Dan Siedell's life and work in his book God in the Gallery or by listening to podcasts at International Arts Movement. One of our favorite articles by Dan is Art as an Aescetic Practice, which you'll find at his blog. Please enjoy reading this article, and we hope you'll consider attending the upcoming New City Arts Forum in Charlottesville.

Kenyon & Maria, Redeemer Arts Staff

A Word from Dan Siedell

The New City Arts Initiative, a network of artists and advocates in Charlottesville, Virginia that is committed to supporting human flourishing through the arts, is hosting it's inaugural conference April 20-22, 2012. Organized around the theme Art, City and Society, a small cohort of artists, scholars and advocates has been invited to facilitate a conversation around the following questions. What is the responsibility of the artist? What is good art? What is the relationship of art and social engagement? Who is our audience? And finally, what is the role of the church?

NCAI has invited me to reflect on the role of the church in the arts from the perspective of God in the Gallery, a book I wrote a few years ago, in which I argued that the church needs to understand modern and contemporary art more deeply and on its own terms in order more effectively to embrace it.

After fifteen years as a museum curator, art history professor, and practicing art historian, I have recently joined the staff of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, Florida as a cultural theologian. This vocational and institutional shift has rotated my approach to the role of the church and the arts in obvious and not so obvious ways. Through the unique opportunities and challenges of Coral Ridge, I will discuss what I have come to believe is the most important role that the contemporary church can play for the arts: love them. It sounds obvious but it is not. The temptation is to make the arts do something for us; make them work for us. But we should love them for their own sake. Love them by examining every nook and cranny of their distinctive practices. Love them by studying their history and theory. Love them by refusing to make them serve as tools for our theology or worldview. It is only through love that the church can support the arts, cultivate a relationship that can bear witness to Christ and the freedom He has won for us—a freedom to love art.

Join us next month in Charlottesville as we explore this and other important and challenging questions together. I will also give you an update on my search, which I discussed in God in the Gallery, for that most elusive and mysterious of creatures, the so-called “Christian artist.”

Dan Siedell, Guest Blogger

Information for Follow Up:

Daniel A. Siedell is Director of Theological & Cultural Practices at Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church, Fort Lauderdale, Florida. He is at work on a book on Christianity and modern art with theologian Willian Dyrness of InterVarsity Press.

To register for the Forum: click here

More about New City Arts: Click here

Read article in Christianity Today re NCAI

Creation & RE-Creation

Twice a year, Redeemer Arts hosts a 7 week art & theology series called In the Living Room. It’s a fail-safe recipe:art, faith, wine & cheese in a Manhattan apartment. But God continues to exceed my expectations when 20 artists from varying disciplines come together to explore how the gospel transforms their callings and their work.

This past Tuesday was the second week in our winter session of the Living Room in which we theologically re-imagine the identity and work of artists as a reflection of the image of their creator God. The buzz words for the evening were creation [aligning the work of artists with the meta-narrative of the cosmos, creation, fall & redemption] and re-creation [describing how artists can join God’s work of renewing humanity and creation].

I was very encouraged to receive the following reflection from one of the attendees, a visual artist, about her new found perspective on engaging the creative process in light of God’s renewing work in the world. Or as she put put it…

We were challenged by the concept that our art is a context that God uses to renew us.

"It is so easy to get caught up in the need to show art, to have an audience, to communicate a message, that we can easily forget that God is working on us and changing us through it as well. But when asked how we can know what work God is doing in us through our art, our small group came to a surprising realization..."

We don’t fully understand what God has done in us until a piece of work is shown to others and they speak back to us about it.

"…When the creative process is just between the artist and God--we are inspired as we respond, feeling the deep satisfaction and focus of being present in the calling… But it was suggested that the process is not complete."

...It is not really art until it is shared in community.

"There is kind of covenantal relationship that can exist between the artist and audience. The artist commits to faithfully, thoughtfully, and carefully share a vision as a vessel of the inspiration; and the audience commits to receive it thoughtfully and carefully and to give back their new understanding and inspiration. This reciprocation of the audience further enlightens the artist and inspires new art to be shared again. It’s a continual three-way dance between the Lord, the artist, and the audience. Art cannot be created merely to please an audience but it is incomplete without being shared with the community.When this paradox is held in balance, the beauty of our work will multiply exponentially!"

I personally hate showing my work.

"It is an incredibly vulnerable place to be and there is a mixture of pride, shame, and fear that holds me back. But I think that an attitude of humble confidence–knowing I am approved by God because of the gospel–would make showing my work much easier. It would relinquish the need for self-glorification. Until my work is shown, I am still “pregnant” with it in some sense. Finally letting it out would bring a new lightness and freedom. It doesn’t matter what people’s reactions are… both criticism and praise can roll of my back if my eyes are fixed on God, my heart trusting his approval of me because of Jesus."

--a painter, age 27. In the Living Room, Winter Session 2012. Redeemer Arts Ministries New York, NY

If you're seeking fellowship and dialogue about how your art & faith are meant to be in constant conversation, flowing out of a holistic experience of your life and calling in the city, visit faithandwork.org/arts to find out more about Redeemer's Arts Vocation Groups, InterArts Fellowship and In the Living Room.

-Kenyon