Creation: ART AND THEOLOGY.

This is where we explore our visual language. This is where we explore the musical language.
The Whys and Hows of art. Why do we respond so viscerally to a song, a painting, a movie?
What do these things say about us? What do these things say about THE DIVINE?

Here we will review, interpret, interact and view ART of all kinds and mediums.
From the typical-classical to the bizarre-modern.
How and Why.
Why and Where.

HERE.

MOMENTUM CONFERENCE.

This weekend, May 9th and 10th, is the MOMENTUM CONFERENCE! Jake Dockter will be leading a seminar on the THEOLOGY OF UGLINESS. How beauty can be understood beyond pretty things to real things.

 

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CHOCOLATE JESUS IS “MY SWEET LORD”

“My Sweet Lord” is a lifesize sculpture of Jesus made from Chocolate by Cossimo Cavallaro. The exhibit was protested and succesfully shut down. Take a look at the art:

And now take a look at the protest…

The Process of Creating

Last weekend I headed down to Corvallis and hung out with a good friend, an artist himself. Check out his art here!!

We had an amazing time of collaboration, a perfect metaphor for the body of Christ. He and I shared our unique gifts and talents to create one piece of art, one result.

This piece is an examination of Christ as a lens. Through which we see the world, through which we have focus, through which light is flipped and life is changed.  There is an amazing series of articles on optic theory and it all is very similar to Christology. Symbols that transfer. Did you know the JESUS FISH (ICTHUS) comes from the symbol VESICA PISCIS, which is two overlapping circles, and that this is also a perfect convex lens and its ratio was thought to be 153:1, known as the measure of the fish. The number 153 appears in the Gospel of John (21:11) as the number of fish Jesus caused to be caught in a miraculous catch of fish. Explore Wikipedia, theres more there.

-Jake

A CHAT WITH WINN COLLIER.

Winn Collier writes for Relevant and is a pastor and has written some great things. He and I have had some good chats about where art comes from, and its connection to Divinity. Read it at RELEVANT MAGAZINE.

ART PROVACATEUR HEADS TO THE HOLY LAND.

Banksy is one my my favorite artists. We will soon be exploring why. To get this going check out these videos. What are your thoughts on this stuff? Can Graffiti (an “illegal” form of art) be moral, ethical and “christian”?

Can Graffiti be “christian” Poll?
( surveys)

ART AND MODERN ART?
R. Wesley Hurd teaches at Gutenberg College in Eugene, Or.
He is an amazing artist, and has some amazing stuff to say.

Read his explorations here.

WHAT IS ART? WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY ABOUT IT?

So, based on the discussion from our comments listed below, I thought I’d ring in on the question. “WHAT IS ART?” First off, I will admit this may take a few attempts, a couple tries and a few installments. I will also admit I am not a scholar, I do not have a degree, I am just a dude. A dude who loves art, loves to read about it and loves to explore it. So on to the question.

“WHAT IS ART?

WIKIPEDIA SAYS: Art refers to a diverse range of human activities and artifacts, and may be used to cover all or any of the arts, including music, literature and other forms. It is most often used to refer specifically to the visual arts, including media such as painting, sculpture, and printmaking. However it can also be applied to forms of art that stimulate the other senses, such as music, an auditory art.

DICTIONARY.COM SAYS: the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance.

Feel free to pull out a dictionary, look it up online, ask around. Definitions abound. I am a bit liberal in my definition, based on my exploration, experience with artists, and discussions with friends, artists and theologians….ART IS….ART. I am not trying to softshoe around here, to avoid the question…IT IS WHAT IT IS. I think that in a way ART names itself, we don’t name it. We can all point at a PICASSO or a MONET or a BOTICELLI and say, “thats art.” But there is also something amazing and artistic about a dance, about a song, about a poem. Who would say a BACH concerto is not amazing, beautiful, transcendent art? No one. But music has no real tangible physicality, besides the evidence of it written on paper, and the waves moving through the air. So art is not physical. A poem is read and thought about and enjoyed, so art can exist in our heads. So art does not have to be physical, on a wall to be art. Art also doesn’t have to be understood to be art. We as christians don’t understand God fully, we don’t know all his plans, we can’t see the whole picture but we trust He is there, and that his systems work. We don’t understand quantum physics but we know there is a rule there holding it together. We know things are beyond us. An example. I can’t read music. But I can lay back and close my eyes and let a song by Radiohead or Dwight Yoakam or Stravinsky or Glass wash over me. I don’t understand the rules and the reasons, but I understand the emotions and the purpose.

So we can agree that art is not always and does not need to be : PHYSICAL. It also doesn’t need to be fully understood to be valued. I will explore this more soon.

And since this website is dedicated to exploring everything with the same reference point of YHWH, lets move onto the question of does art exist in the Bible? and does it exist in the ways expressed above. and the answer is…..yes! Of course art exists in the Bible.

First and foremost, the artistry of God.

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

So God created the great creatures of the sea and every living and moving thing…

etc. etc.

God himself created but also commands our creation. Adam is to name the animals, the israelites are to make the temple with designs and filligree and ornamentation, Music is to be played in worship. The Psalms are worship as poetry. Samson breaks out in song. GOD HIMSELF SINGS in Zephaniah 3: 17 “He will rejoice over you with singing.”

Throughout the universe there are physical laws. Boyle’s Law, Conservation Laws, and many mathematical laws that govern the existence of everything. These are found here on earth and billions of light years away. 2+2=4 here, there and everywhere. These things are hardwired into the DNA of all matter and over all the universe. George Ellis, a Quaker cosmologist and ethicist talks about the idea of kenotic ethic ( Kenosis is the concept of the ’self-emptying’ of one’s own will and becoming entirely receptive to God and his perfect will. It is used both as an explanation of the incarnation, and an indication of the nature of God’s activity and condescension.) being hard wired in as well. The model of sacrifice and pouting out of. If there can be physical and “ethical” laws, I conjecture that there are Creative laws. These are seen and do correspond to physics and ethics, animals procreate by instinct, termites build massive cathedrals in the deserts, stars grow and expand. The filling of emptiness. HORROR VACUI. “Another perspective is the idea that God is self-emptying. He poured out himself to create the cosmos and the universe, and everything within it. Therefore, it is our duty to pour out ourselves. (This is similar to C.S. Lewis’s statement in Mere Christianity that a painter pours his ideas out in his work, and yet remains quite a distinct being from his painting.) ” WIKIPEDIA

I believe I paint, write, dance, and photograph because of the kinetic (not kenotic) movement from the initial moment of creation. All life, growth, love, relationships, history is flowing from the moment of creation in a unescapable line. The dominoes were set up and tipped and knock one after another over. The flow of time, the flow of creativity. I create because I have to, it is in my DNA. As God created….I do….on down through history.