A Creative Christian

I will focus on practicing art. I will not focus on the quality at all times and instead focus on quantity. I will not allow society to define what my art should look like and instead focus on highlighting God’s amazing creation from the planet to human beings. I will allow myself to engage with art that is not created by me nor by people who only have the same beliefs as me. I will create art that is both about capturing memories for myself as well as to share with others. I will not allow myself to give up and abandon my art practice, no matter how long it is between times I create art. I create art that is for myself and others to enjoy and will not forget that sometimes I make art solely for myself.

We started class by talking about the reading. As always, it was interesting to hear my classmates thoughts on the reading. I really enjoyed talking about how consumerism can affect how we live our lives and even measure our success. It was interesting to hear how everyone measures their own success in the world. Then we talked about how we all take different steps so that we are being useful and are trying to fulfill our calling. 

When thinking about if the Church respects artists, I could separate two different categories of “Church” and how either group does or does not respect artists. First, I want to preface my statement with the fact that I believe sometimes the “exterior” (non-pastor/ leadership) workers at a church are overworked and underpaid, including those who work at a church and are in charge of the social media and other artistic things around the church. However, I do think that each church organization respects artists when they are found useful for the church, as they tend to try to hire someone who is skilled at whatever art practice they need things for and they don’t tend to hire just anyone for the position. However, the other group that came to mind is the Church body (those who attend church and do not work at one). I would say that they are typically the people who do not respect artists, and I’m sure that anyone who has decided to major in art can agree, as the typical response from Christians about majoring in art is about how artists do not make enough money to live and they should have a back-up plan. Since we have discussed artwork changing our perspective on something, I decided to focus on things in the church. The thing that came to mind is worship music and how some songs have opened my eyes or even allowed me to relate to some topics in the Bible.

When I think of “bad” art, the first thing to come to my mind is abstract pieces that sell for a lot of money (especially when it sells for a lot of money simply because of the name attached to it. To me, most abstract art looks like something anyone of any age could create and I would understand the pieces that sell for a large amount of money if it was maybe 2-3x the amount the supplies and the hourly price it made to create the piece, but when they are selling for millions or billions of dollars, I become annoyed and really dislike the work of art. On the other hand, works of art that have changed my mind include things that depict the social injustices that people face and cause me to want to research into the issues of minority groups and find ways to help them as well as to be one less person they fear or face discrimination from. Image credit: https://www.iloboyou.com/ridiculous-paintings-sold-for-millions/

When I initially saw the question “does a work of art need to be beautiful?”, my first reaction was “well, yeah”, however I thought about how we can define conventional beauty compared to what each individual finds beautiful, so in that case I would say that “beauty in in the eye of the beholder” so thus any work of art can be defined as beautiful or ugly, depending on the viewer. Then I also thought about different works of art I have seen and enjoyed, even though I was not a fan of the stylistic choices or other things about the aesthetic of the work. I also think that things that are conventionally beautiful can still be boring to look at sometimes. Personally (and probably an unpopular opinion), I do not find much joy looking at the Sistine Chapel, other than to appreciate the work load that went into painting it. On the other hand, there has become a trend on drawing bodies in “abstract” ways that appreciate a female body without sexualizing it and I almost always like the pieces, no matter the medium it is made in. The two things that I appreciate about these works of art is that they are to promote body positivity as well as showing female bodies are not sexual objects, they are just bodies.

I think that a lot of art can be made to the glory of God. Sometimes these questions feel redundant, but I think that there is art that is good art, but not necessarily “to the glory of God” and there is “bad” art that is “to the glory of God”. I think that art that is “to the glory of God” is art that captures the goodness of Him and even other things about the greatness of what we were given by Him. As usual, I would say that things that are glorifying things that aren't of God or that may cause another person to stumble into sin.

We started class by talking about the art studio rules from another college. We highlighted rule 8, the creation process and analysis process should be separate things. I also agree that this is an important thing to keep in mind because if we begin to analyze art as we are creating it, we may begin to feel the work is not going to be what we want it to be; we must trust the process. We also talked about how getting rid of things can be hard but also how sometimes things that are no longer doing their purpose can be repurposed into art; i.e. Calvin’s fence who another guy picked up for his wife to make into something else. Then we also talked about the space we use to create. I liked hearing how everyones looks a bit different depending on how their individual brain looks. Personally, mine is an ever changing environment that may actually be a different place every time; the one constant is change. Then we talked about the questions of the week which was interesting to hear others thoughts on them.

I think that art should be highly encouraged in the church. I think that one way that it is neglected in the church is as a way to show concepts besides just drawing people of the Bible. I like the idea of art that captures God’s amazing creation. I think that God created so many amazing things that we forget to look at it and to inspire us. It should also express hardships of the christian life. Many times, Christians will portray their life as perfect, or at least well put together. Firstly, this bothers me to no end because everyone has struggles, and it even says many times in the Bible that even when you believe in God, you will still have struggles. We are a product of The Fall and therefore live in a broken world. I think art would be a great way to portray our struggles (sometimes is already done in meme form, but can be done in a more serious way). Once again, I think the boundary for creating art is anything that portrays sin as a positive thing or portraying something that may cause another person to stumble with their own struggles. I think that using art to portray struggles allows people to feel they are not alone in their struggles. I think that art can also “renew” our mind and give us a different perspective in the same way God can do it; He may even renew our minds through art. We are humans that are constantly growing. I like to think of the idea of being alive as the constant state of learning and growing, and when we are not learning or growing, we are dead.

After reading all the different sections of Emerge, I had many different thought trains. In the first section, I like that the author mentions that their rule to their students is that they are not allowed to say “I am not creative”. I think this is something important in life, as no matter what someone does, they are creative. If you are alive, you have to problem solve, at least occasionally, and problem solving is a creative process. Life is not black and white and there is not always a right answer, however to find the best possible answer, you have to be creative. Then the second section of reading starts off talking about how you need to devote 10,000 hours to a skill or talent to become a master of it. This remind me of the idea of a college education; many people like to argue that we should not be taking classes that do not relate to our major, but I think there are practical applications in other classes that can help us become well-rounded individuals In non-major classes, we are still practicing skills that are valuable to our major/career goal. In the third section of Emerge, it talks about how starting a project/skill can be and should be messy. The author talks about how they once wrote a terrible screen-play, but they look at it as a practice exercise. I think this is extremely important because we are human with faults and are not perfect at everything we do,practice is required to hone a skill. The last section of Emerge talked about forming habits. It highlights 7 things that are important to create a habit: create triggers, create rewards, visualize, add a village member, repetition, believe, and finally renew the mind. I love all 7 of these things for creating habits and I think they can be applied to creating any good habit.

Today in class we talked about the reading and videos and the questions of the week. One thing that was interesting when we discussed the questions of the week was that most of us said we like to look at art we aspire to create or we want to draw inspiration from. It was interesting to see because a lot of people like to claim they prefer to make unique art, but if we are looking at other art for inspiration, how unique is the art we are making? I was also glad to hear I was not the only one who enjoyed the reading this week, as it felt worthy of reading no matter what skill a person is trying to master.

The art I make is different from the art I like to look at or engage with because my art is typically for fun and is about capturing memories for myself and friends and it not a really refined thing but the art I like to view or engage with is typically a refined thing or is intended to create a conversation around it. However, the one thing that I both enjoy doing and looking at is landscape photography. It is always amazing to see because some things are a once in a lifetime photo or captures an amazing landmark. It is probably my favorite type of art to engage with because it always reminds me of how great God is and how wonderful His creation is. Whenever I think about the creation narrative of the Bible, it reminds me of nature and all of the photos that I have seen and taken of different places. Another way the bible has influenced the way I create art is sometimes I will paint pictures that are inspired by a specific scripture passage that holds a particular meaning to me. It also has shaped the way I look at art sometimes because there are somethings that people create, they call it art, however I prefer to not engage with it because I feel like it goes against the Bible and its teachings.

In class today, we talked about stereotypes surrounding artists. We talked about the romanticisation of mental illnesses and how it is harmful to society. Then we got into groups and talked about the questions of the week. We started off by discussing what we think the art world is. Most of the group defined the art world as anyone who creates or consumes art, which was contrary to what I view the art world as. I agree that anyone is an artist, however to me the art world is more exclusive and determined by money. Then we talked about how if the artist of a work we are consuming is a Christian or not. I think we all agreed that it is not necessarily relevant depending on the content and context of the art piece. We talked about how sometimes knowing the artists background can negatively affect how we view an art piece.

Photo from 13 Reasons Why via: Netflix

To me, the art world is the group that is centered around art exhibits and making art for large amounts of money. There are artists with distinct styles, art critics, and consumers with large pocket-books. To me, the art world is an exclusive group that is not very permeable. It is an elitist group that is hard to get into and if you are on the outside, your opinion does not matter. However, I think that there are more artists on the outside of the art world, than there are on the inside, and they are just as qualified. I think the biggest determinant for the art world is money. There have been many art pieces that are meaningful to me, however I do not distinctly remember if the artists were Christian or not (most likely not). I think that the question is relevant depending on the context around the art. If the context is not something spiritual or sinful, I don’t think that the artist being a Christian or not is important. However, if the art depicts something about the Church or the bible, I think it is really important to know what they believe in. Personally, I really like photography and landscape photos, and in that realm it is not important if a person is a Christian or not. Nature is something that is experienced by all no matter what someone believes, and photography does not allow much room for it to be distorted. As a Christian I may look at the pictures and think about how amazing God and His creation is, but that is not necessarily the artist's intention.

We started class by writing down 6 words each that describe/ identify ourselves and then put them on the board to then mark them with our unique color to signify we also identify with it. Then we transitioned into talking about different taboo topics in the church which mostly lead to gender and sexuality in the world and with God. I think within the church, gender is a very black and white topic, and it can be very irritating. It always makes me think of when it is time to move heavy objects, especially in a church, people tend to say “okay men, let's move these things”. However, although I am a woman, I am strong and capable of manual labor. Last winter, my church hosted an event and when it got to tear down time, a guy was like “no, let the men carry those things, they're heavy”, but another male employee of the church just yelled “yayyyy sexisim”. This was something that made me smile because it felt like for once I was seen as strong and capable in the church. I also think something that is important to remember is a quote from St. Agustine, "God is not what you imagine or what you think you understand. If you understand you have failed." Part of being a Christian is the never-ending seeking to understand God through a series of questions that may or may not be answered. We are forever changing beings, shaped by our identity, the world around us, our personal beliefs, and many other things.

Image: Michaelangelo’s Sistine Chapel

I think an advantage of being a Christian in the arts is that you can provide a different perspective on something than a person who has a different belief system or is an atheist. However, one thing that can become a disadvantage is if you only want to depict Christian ideas through your work and want to make sure they are all positive, you may limit your audience. However, I think that a Christian artist is not responsible to make all of their art directly Christian, but rather reflect what God wants for us and should not cause anyone to sin, nor depict a sinful activity in a positive light. We have talked about the “line” that shouldn't be crossed but I think that can be dependent on your audience or the artist themself. However, I think the line can be both an advantage and disadvantage, but also a “double-edged” sword. This line may make your work lean more on the “pg/pg-13” side, and thus make your work appropriate for a larger group of people, however if people feel like it should be more mature, you may lose some people. I do think that everyone is an artist, no matter what they create or how often they create; God gave us the ability to create things and imagine new things thus we should participate in art.