A Peek Behind the Scenes

A couple of Sundays ago I 'performed' a painting for the Vancouver church of Christ.  I feel very strongly that Art is a type of language- a 'tongue' in the Biblical sense, if you will.  Therefore, I also feel very strongly that for it to be truly edifying to the body, as instructed in I Corinthians 14, that there should be some interpretation provided.  Jay Baker, our preacher, posted some of his comments.  Here are some of my own thoughts.  But first, some philosophizing on the concept of artistic interpretation.

What follows in one sense is not interpretation.  Interpretation in the sense of meaning really only happens in the encounter between the viewer and the artwork.  It involves the viewer's connections with the work, their own experiences, feelings, and memories coming to bear on the experience of looking at the artwork.  What follows are my reasons for the actions I took/decisions I made in creating the artwork.  It flows from my experiences and feelings and memories that are brought to bear on the ideas Jay presented to me in association with certain Biblical passages.  In other words, the process of creating meaning doesn't end with my thoughts on the matter, but extend with your own connections with the work.  Please do not take what I say here as trumping any meaning you may derive for yourself or thinking for yourself.

Okay.  Let's get on with it.

I don't generally like the concept of merely 'illustrating' a sermon. The capability of Art to convey/create a meaningful experience is far larger than just a picture/image of a text or story.  I'll get into more detail about that later but basically I like to work with some, more general information rather than specific instructions on a picture or story to illustrate.  So Jay gave me his basic thrust for the sermon and the books and chapters of scripture that he was drawing from:

Synopsis: The “two” messages are the same: Emmanuel – God with us.  The first 2/3 of the sermon will be exploring the significance of what it means for God to be with us.  We’ll look at several scriptures about how Jesus was present with people in different circumstances (call to follow; party Jn 2; fear Mt 8; embarrassment Mk 5; friendship Lk 5; death Jn 11…).  I’ll close this section with a video called “Four Words” ...  I’ll then do a short piece on the “second” message of Christmas” Emmanuel – God is with the world through us.  We are now his body, his presence, in the lives of those around us, in each of the above kinds of circumstances.  I’ll close with Mt 28 – an articulation of both messages: 1^st message: 28:20b; 2^nd message: 28:19-20a.

Now, Picasso once said "Good artists borrow, great artists steal."  So in an effort to be a great artist I decided to steal a couple of characters from Leonardo DaVinci's Last Supper fresco.  What's fascinating about Leonardo's depiction of this scene is that each of the Apostles is shown reacting in a completely different way to the news that one of them will betray Christ.  I thought this dovetailed nicely with the idea that there are different circumstances and different types of people that Jesus interacts with in the texts Jay was speaking on.  I thought a nice extension of this concept would be to have multiple panels, each with one person, created with a different medium and/or in a different style.  So one panel is straight painting, another is with charcoal, another utilizes collage and text, yet another in pastel.

 In reading the chapters Jay listed, I realized some of them have multiple stories that could be used.  I decided against checking with him (in keeping with my intention to not be straight illustration) and instead let the concepts, stories, and stylistic/imagistic 'cook' in the back of my head until I had something that worked for me.  So, for example, I ended up alluding to the story in Matthew 8 where Jesus sends out some evil spirits into a herd of pigs instead of the 'Calming the Storm' account that Jay used in his sermon.  C'est la vie.

Incidentally that panel took on different meaning for me and is thus a great example of what I feel the real power of Art is.  I've always been intrigued with the story of the demons being sent into the pigs- it's kind of an odd story.  So I saw visions of these pigs being stenciled onto the canvas- thought this panel, in the pantheon of styles, could be a more contemporary approach, using collage, and perhaps be a bit more abstract.  Then I realized that where this panel would fall in the sequence would be the image of Judas.  And it got me thinking:  Jesus could have sent Satan out of Judas just like He sent the demons into the pigs.  Why didn't He?  It begs the question, "What does it all mean?"

And that's where the magic is- the insights and thoughts that I get from looking at, thinking about, and actually making the art.  A picture or illustration is pretty simple.  You think of the picture.  Then you paint it.  You see it.  You recognize what it is.  But that's it.  But when you start playing around with the thoughts and images and then it leads you to see and think things that you wouldn't have thought in the first place- then that's cool.  Sometimes an image can do that, but for me it occurs more with a mix of images, materials, abstraction, symbolic- all these things slowly simmering in my little brain.

Okay, so let's look at that question "What does it all mean?"  With the different approaches I was taking - and especially with the stenciled pigs- I thought that might be a question that arises in viewers mind.  So why not make that explicit and play around with that?  Here is a thing about 'performing' a painting that I sometimes utilize- the time aspect of performance.  I decided to actually tape that question onto the painting and let it stay there awhile as I was painting different parts of the painting- fully intending to change it by moving some of the letters around but allowing it to be seen for awhile during the 'performance.'  I didn't move the letters too much- they are all still in the correct order- but I did some creative 'word-wrapping' to align certain letters to create the words 'he' and 'me'.  I did this to emphasize one of Jay's lessons- that we (me) are to be Jesus (he) to the people around us.

That last statement could be read as an interpretation, but again, see it as my reasoning for the decisions I made in making the work.  Interpretation is a process that you, as the viewer, go through in experiencing the work for yourself.  But as far as making art is concerned, the artist is faced with a number of decisions- it is, in essence, a physical process of thinking.  So here are a couple of other decisions I made.

• I switched Jesus' left and right hand positions from Leonardo's original.  I thought the panel that had Judas reaching for the bread (remember he was dipping in the same bowl as Jesus) should be the 'death' panel.  In Leonardo's painting Jesus is also reaching for the bread.  But I decided to have the open-faced hand so that I can tie into the death theme by having the nail-scarred/bleeding hand.  
• I took out some characters because they didn't fit with the theme that I came up - that of having one person per panel.
• Perhaps the biggest decision I made, in regards the message that we are the presence of Christ in the this world, was to paint Jesus on a mirror.  When you look at Him you also see yourself.  

(In an effort to further prompt your own thinking, insert your own ending to this blog post here.)

Cause and Effect

One of my favorite artists is a guy named Robert Irwin.  I won't go into much about his artwork right now- we'll save that for a future post.  But lately I've been thinking about mimicking something he did. He once took about a year off from producing any artwork (okay, I'm not going to do that part) to focus on understanding some things.  He was reading a book by the philosopher/aesthetician named Hegel. He wrote down each statement that Hegel wrote in one color.  Then took another color and wrote his responses.  That was all he did for a year.

I think I want to do that, too.  While thinking about it I was struck by something.  No doubt my responses would be different from Robert Irwin's.  I would be drawing from different experiences and be approaching it from a different place, a different mindset.  However, much of my experience and mindset come from the influence of Robert Irwin's artwork and thinking.  So that thought very much intrigued me.

In responding to and digesting Hegel's work, Robert Irwin helped create a philosophical/intellectual situation that would influence me, which in turn would cause me to respond to Hegel's work in a different way from Robert Irwin...

Untitled Document

I don't think you're going to like this.  I could be wrong.  But I'm pretty sure some of the thoughts that have been rolling around my head lately are going to rub some people the wrong way.  Sorry.

First item:  America is the inheritor of a rich set of values, beliefs and thought structures affectionately known as the Western Tradition.  It essentially began with the Greeks, right?  Our scientific method of understanding flowed from the intellectual rigor of the Greek philosophers like Plato, Aristotle, Pythagoras, all those guys.  And our system of government, with it's chief value of representing the people through a democratic process, owes its origins to the ancient Greek and Roman empires as well.
Here's the rub- Paul said in I Corinthians that the gospel is foolishness to Greeks.  In other words, the intellectual tradition of the Greeks, which has matured and progressed to its current state in our modern times, is categorically opposed to the 'logic' of God as expressed in His story of salvation.

Second item:  About this intellectual tradition.  We've gotten so good at it.  The amount of stuff we've been able to discover;  the technological breakthroughs we've had; the libraries we have filled with the amount of information we have learned.  And we've unleashed this power on our understanding of God as well.  Countless tomes have been written arguing for the correct interpretation of scripture, what we should do and should not do, what the right way to worship is, what the right political party is and what are the correct votes we should cast for particular measures.  It amazes me.
But here's the rub, part 2- What was the tree in the Garden that Adam and Eve shouldn't have eaten from, the one that caused the Fall?  Wasn't it the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil?  So all the activity we spend on observing, discussing, arguing, data processing, conclusion drawing about what is right and wrong turns out to be the VERY activity that caused the Fall, that essentially was the Fall itself.

So essentially, the entire culture that I have been raised in, that we all have been raised in, is one that continually seeks right and wrong- which is essentially the Fall- using the intellectual apparatus of a culture that is antithetical to God's salvation story.

Is it just me or is this cause for concern?