"Just now, even more than before the war, I feel the need to be in the cities among my fellow men. This is where our place is. We must take part in the whole misery that is to come. We must surrender our heart and nerves to the dreadfull screems or pain of the poor dissillusioned people...our superflous, self-filled existance can now be motivated only by giving our fellow men a picture of their fate and this can be done only if you love them." --Max Beckmann p32

from the book Max Beckmann by De Peter Howard Selz, Max Beckmann, Harold Joachim, Perry Townsend Rathbone

Beauty and Worship, Art for Advocacy, part 6

I would like to talk about Advocacy as prophecy, 'as giving voice to the true under workings of the empire' as Walter Bruggemann might describe it. The story of David and Nathan the prophet show us how ‘story’/art can reframe life and give us an opportunity for personal insight and repentance. In a recent story I read a spiritual director was speaking with an eager young monk. The young monk was ready to receive his spiritual work assignment to help catapult him towards intimacy and union with God. his Spiritual director oddly asked the young monk to read Charles Dickens, David Copperfield. When the young monk complained of such a worldly assignment the spiritual director said that this young monk needed to learn empathy for normal people in normal life before he could journey into the depths of God.

Much of art is there to help us develop a basic empathy for our fellow human beings. When we sit in the others shoes for 200 pages we see the world different. I believe this is the heart of advocacy. No tricks, manipulation, no arm twisting, just getting to know people we usually are separated from through the mediums of art.

Meet Max Beckman. His painting exposed the Nazi oppression and got him exiled from Germany.

Max Beckman

Guiernica, Picasso

Picasso put the city of Guiernica on the map with this devastatingly real depiction of the bombing of that city.

This is a photograph by Seth Allgire.

These are drawings done by survivors of Hiroshima. This is a great example of letting the victims tell their own story.

“…behind that frightened practice is a symbol gap in which we do not have symbols that are deep or strong enough to match the terror of the reality. What takes place when symbols are inadequate and things may not be brought to public expression is that the experience will not be experienced…’ p48 from The Prophetic Imagination

In the The National Story Project, we see a similar kind of amplifying of voices. This project gives air time to voices that would not ordinarily be heard. I am such there are many similar projects which could be designed to amplify voices of those we work among.

Kathe Kollwitz is another example of illuminating the jewish plight under the Nazi’s. She was a German lady who used wood block printing to print massive amount of pictures showing what was happening to the Jews. Her work is simple and stunningly human.

A more recent example of this kind of global advocacy is Francisco Botero's Abu Ghraib Paintings exposing the horrors of torture in US prison camps. He is giving voice to people who literacy have no advocate...no lawyer.

Kids with Cameras and our Sierra Leone fields, Beauty and Brokenness project in Sierra Leonne again put the cameras into the hands of the kids, letting us see through there eyes.

Georges Rouault, from the Miserere Series

Georges Rouault, from the Miserere Series

By allowing people to see the poor through a humanizing lens, a different angle, stories, songs, pictures, images which give names, face, personality, connect their humanity to ours and evokes a response to their dignity. We certainly do not need to be a Picasso or a Kollwitz to be used in such a way. If the process only helps the artist herself to w in empathy for her brother or sister it is worth all the time and attention given.

True Notebooks, by Mark Salzman gives an inside look at an Orange County Juvenile Detention Center. He combines his own writing describing his experience of teaching writting there as well as he writing of the kids. This is a nice combination of letting the kids speak for themselves and the writer giving voice to the subtleties of their lives.

This was the collaborative animation done with the kids at the Valley center. The hope was to show their beauty and personality. Let them read themselves some of their ideas and dreams.

We can think of advocacy terms of gathering the voices and songs of the poor, of all people. Here is its connection to worship. We gather them from the margins and as Christ does, we place the poor in the center with Him.

If our art starts and finishes in Advocacy, I am afraid it will be shallow and not do justice to the beauty of the world. I believe advocacy needs to be the last and almost unconscious byproduct of art for play and awe, of contemplative art, of art building and expressing the lives of our communities, and art for therapy which is helping us plumb the depths of our inner worlds. Advocacy needs to come out of a deep and long look at the world in all its horrors and beauties. And hopefully our advocacy in the end will be a celebration of isolated people coming together and seeing each other for the first time as fully human, beautiful, and created in the image of God.

'Beauty and Worship' Concluding thoughts…

Here are a couple considerations for worship music.

worship music = music+poetry+theology

If our worship is a sacrifice...we should consider studying the greatest music, the best theology we are aware of, and reading and understanding poetry. Most people complain about mediocre worship music. I don't see many considering higher level theological training, musical training, and poetry studies. It might help?

If worship is about the gathering of creation (into microcosm ourselves and community) and offering it back to God, liturgy ie the work of the people

Then the more we gather the more attentively we gather the scattered parts, voices, tonalities, rythmes, theological prayer experiences, etc, the more rich and beautiful will be our offering.

Let us expose ourselves to great art and great suffering and great theology and integrate it through reflection in art activities

Ideas for collaborative work.

• Short international films (each using birds eye lense, moving left to right)

• Books/ story telling (on chosen themes try to generate poetry and prose around an idea like distance separation, dark, light) get a range of kids parents, audio video reflections?

• Blogging our work (formatts

• Music (worship, narrative, or experimental)

• “Collections” –Sarah said she likes to collect strange things throughout Calcutta. What if we all tried to collect photograph and reflect on the collections?

• A WMF Art exhibit, installations sounds, impressions, voices, images, videos.

• Inventions and ‘merge si asa’ documentation, ingenious ways people solve basic life problems. (ie. Drill gun for grinding eggplant)

• there are certainly many other ideas to be discovered.
  

Beauty and Worship: Art for Play, part 2

Art for Play, Awe, and Wonder

We are talking about discovering, enjoying, uncovering, celebrating God’s creation, the beauty of the world.

'land of milk and honey'

“Now as Erich Fromm wrote in his meaningful book "The Art of Loving", the earth is always symbolized as a woman (mother earth) and according to the Old Testament, the Promised Land is the land of "Milk and Honey". Here Fromm says that any mother can feed her child with milk, a liquid that gives life and symbolizes the acceptance of life and growth but rarely, truly rarely can one find a mother who feeds her child with honey too, a substance so sweet that bequeaths love for life. What Fromm meant was that a true mother would give her child the ability to accept and then above all to love life.

'Art for play' or 'Art for awe/wonder' are ways of trying to talk about those forms of art making which are primarily about enjoying life and experiencing it more deeply. About getting in the mud and playing with the good materials of the world. The lost art of Alchemy was something like this, engaging in direct and joyful observation of how beautiful the colors, textures, and interactions of elements are. (See James Elkins book, 'What painting is' for a great discussion of the similarities of painting an alchemy.)

The mode of play and experimentation with the materials of creation give us the intimate knowledge necessary for all the other forms of art.



This was an old window frame set up like a table. I places sand in it and let the kids from the valley center draw in the sand while took continuous still images. The images were turned into this video. These 'Sand trap drawings' are an example of art for play. They are low risk and fun giving the kids a means of discovery, and feeling successful. The finished product is not the point as much as the simple pleasure of playing in the sand.

Picasso had a famous long exposure shot where you see him drawing (from when the flash went off) and you see a bull drawn with a light (created during the long exposure in the dark). These are not original but a way of playing with light.

This one was done with the boys on the streets.

This is an image produced by 'KIDS with CAMERAS' Our Sierra Leone Beauty and Brokenness photos were another great example of giving the kids a chance to play and discover what happens when you take pictures. The results may turn into advocacy naturally but there is important reflection that is happening in the process of playing with a camera.

Here are more examples of 'Art for Play' that have appeared on this blog already. Another great example was Caleb Coppock and one of the boys from the boys home playing with the reflections of sunlight in CD’s. I found Ron playing with bubbles with the kids at the center. The question of when does play turn into art is a good question, but maybe we should just start with acknowledging that great art always starts in a celebration of materials, of discovery of textures and colors. Jackson Pollock is a straightforward example. Here are some other art for play examples...


I find the simple structure of the Hiku a liberating low key way to experiment with words and ideas.

Retreat Haiku May 2005

1

Leaflets jump for joy

When through the umbrella comes

Spattering wet joy

2

Grace curving through limb

Raising leaves high to the sun

Gentle bow his hymn

4

Frogs green jokers laugh,

Mountains water gathering

And wind make my bath

5

Straight backed noble grass

Tips its hat in river wind

Roaring green applause

Also, reflective journaling, brainstorming, writing about events of the day are great ways to dig into the raw materials of your life. Other ways to playing in the mud might be working in clay, paint, charcoal, carving, making noises, sounds. All the baby talk of infants is their way of finding their voice, figuring out what combinations of air flow and air stopping makes what kinds of sound. Without this experimentation it is difficult to learn to speak.

In Art for play we are gathering raw materials, learning to enjoy them, use them, delight in them. we play in the sand, clay, and mud learning their inner properties. It is necessary for any artist to 'baby talk', to play in the mud, to be an alchemist wondering at the beauty of the stuff of the world before she can find her voice and articulate a beautiful idea for the love of God and community.

Beauty and Worship: Introduction, part 1

I have debated about how post some of the materials from a talk I gave the the Word Made Flesh staff in the summer of 2007. The workshop included staff from the many different Word Made Flesh Fields, a few have formal art training but most just seemed curious about finding and sharing ways that art may be a part of our lives seeking Christ among the worlds poor. I will try to cover the basic material in a series of blog posts. So here is the "Introduction to Beauty and Worship"...

Introduction to "Beauty and Worship Workshop"

1.Working Definitions for "Beauty" and of "Worship"


I am not a theologian primarily but an artist. I do believe in relying on the wisdom of great theologians, so I hope that my best guesses are informed ones.

Beauty = Diversity in Unity

Maximum Beauty = Maximum diversity in Unity

Worship = Gathering and offering back to God a transfigured creation

These are obviously short and over simplified definitions, so lets look into Chutnification to clear up some other issues before we start...

2. Chutnification and Aesthetic experience

“What is required for chutnification? Raw materials, obviously—fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices. Daily visits from Koli women with their saris hitched up between their legs. Cucumbers aubergines mint. But also: eyes, blue as ice, which are undeceived by the superficial blandishments of fruit-- which can see corruption beneath citris-skin; fingers which, with feathriest touch, can probe the secret inconstant hearts of green tomatoes; and above all a nose capable of discerning the hidden languages of what-must-be-pickled, its humors and messages and emotions. . . at Bragzana Pickles, I supervise the production of Mary's legendary recipes; but there are also my special blends, in which thanks to the powers of my drained nasal passages, I am able to include memories, dreams, ideas, so that once they enter mass-production all who consume them will know what pepperpots achieved in Pakistan, or how it felt to be in the Sundarbans. . . believe don't believe but its true. Thirty jars stand upon a shelf, waiting to be unleashed upon the amnesiac nation”. –Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children p530

What we find here in the genius of Salmon Rushdie's novel is a great example of the role of the work of art in social life, of gathering and offering back something transformed, and possibly even of worship itself as I conceive of it.

Gathering Raw Materials(fruit, vegetables, fish, vinegar, spices)

+ Focused attention (eyes/nose)

= empathy/insight/compassion( ‘how it felt to be’)

& a sense identity/vision (‘amnesiac nation’, collective memory)

3.The unexperienced experience...

It is often not until we journal that we realize the significance of the events. We are gathering the 'raw materials' of our day and adding focused attention. It is often not until we talk with some one about an experience that we realize its full significance. Again, the dialogue happening with another person is the result of collecting experiences within ourselves, sorting them, reframing them into a new form and making coherent conversation with them. We only then become aware often of the significance of the experience.

We only really experience our experience by processing it. We need a pickle processing plant! To process all the ingredients of our life and to integrate them into a meaningful whole. By ‘pickling it’ the experience changes into a form that transcends time, and can nourish us whenever we have need.

People spend 2-3 seconds per painting at an art museum. By never processing a painting with great concentrated attention, and by not suspending judgment in order to understand the work on its own terms, we manage to pass by hundreds of works of art without ever really experiencing a single one!

In a figure drawing session during college my Prof played Arvo Part’s Te Deum. At the end of the thirty minute piece he and one of the student were crying? I was unaffected at the time. How did I not have the same experience of the piece as they did? I was jealous of whatever it was they heard. There are ways we can prepare ourselves to be able to experience more fully art as well as life itself.

This is what happens on a broader scale when we never take time to reflect, contemplate, pause, to be present in the moment or to reflect on the days experience. We pass through life really experiencing very little. This is possibly scandalous for those claiming to possess passionate love for the Creator of the planet and all the life it possesses.

4.How aesthetic experience works...

It is also important to recognize how aesthetic experience works. This is generalized and applies to approaching a work of literature, a painting, or the beauty of a person. The elements are the same.

letting go (of control of the experience)

+ concentrated attention

=Aesthetic Experience (contemplative experience)

The process of experiencing a work of art and the process of creating a meaningful work of art use the same processes. To create a great jar of pickled chutney and to be able to enjoy it both involve this same gathering and focused surrendered attention.

5.Missing pieces...

It seems clear that much of the world has the absence of consciousness of the plight of the poor. We live as if poverty does not exist, ‘the experience of suffering destitute poor’ is not experienced.

I want to give a wide range of ideas or ways we can engage life, ‘suck the marrow out of life’ as Henry David Thoreau said, really experience life among the poor, survive it, and find the Kingdom of God among the poor.



6.Conclusion

• We need to learn the process of chutnification, of taking the raw materials of our life, our experience among the poor, and of the beauty of the world and offering them back, food for our amnesic selves and our amnesic world.

we need to see that...

• Beauty is gathering together many parts into a meaningful whole.

and that...

• Worship is the uniquely Christian act of gathering in symbolic ways all of creation into a meaningful whole and offering it back to God.

In the future posts I will build on this foundation into...

1. Art for Play (or Awe)
2. Art for Contemplation
3. Art for Therapy
4. Art for Community
5. Art for Advocacy
   

As part of a project with the kids I had them cutting out people from magazines. Later as I went through the cuttings I found this on the back of a cut out of a little boy. It is now pinned to my studio wall reminding me of how meaningful 'accidents' can be. "Reality can have metaphorical content; that does not make it less real" --Salman Rushdie, from Midnight's Children

The Role of the Artist:
Physical Play/Contemplation, Theological Insight, and Integration

The roles of the artist must deal with attentive observation. Apprehension of reality through time and work on physical objects in the physical world. It’s modes range from play and quiet contemplation. Play, the joyful discovery and interaction with the wonders of a miraculous creation, is one end of the same attentive observation, and quiet contemplation is the other. In its quiet contemplative mode it shares at its core, a joyful pilgrimage in the vast wonders of the physical universe. Joy is inherent as one is surprised by the beauty in every corner of the physical universe, one must only look long enough. This is true even in the most God forsaken places on earth. Without play and contemplation and art is always shallow, cliché, or an ugly slave and object of some totalitarian alien domain.

The next role is to be a participant in a similar playful and joyful journey into the universe through living theology, the present experience of the church as it is rooted in the historical and living Church. Written theology often opens doors to more fully experiencing God in the church, but theology in this sense is at its core a continuous journey, which is always renouncing false images of God and of the universe, grasping for the true God who reveals himself, but is always bigger than our comprehension.

The third role of the artist is the integration of the first two ever deepening discoveries (joyful explorations of material world through the senses and the joyful exploration of God through intuition and experience of living theology of the church. As these parts remain separate then the artist has contributed little to his communities, local and world. His power, responsibility to himself, to God, and to the world is to offer a synthesized, integrated image of the universe which seamlessly and organically (experiences the whole) ‘images’ a universe without separations, spiritual and physical, body and soul, idea and concrete reality, word and flesh. In the end the artist has done us a service when he has offered back to us the vision of the new heaven and earth where there is no division, separation, or warring parts. All is unified in the apocalyptic Christ Triumphant.

Without playful discovery of the material world the artists’ universe remains disconnected parts offering little hope of their ultimate reconciliation.

Without joyful pilgrimage into living theology, prayer and experience of God in the church, ones art remains abstract and offers little hope that it can ever touch the physical degradation of the world, the poor, or the earth.

Without integration, our play and contemplation remain undeveloped seedlings unable to provide shade or greater nourishment for the world. Though all artistic play, contemplation, and theological study have worth in itself it is their integration that needs to be developed if our work is to outlive us.