Ok, I think I have just been convicted of a sin!
In sculpture Jessica Stockholder brought up the Harvard study that shows that we live in an economy fueled by experiences. I knew ours was a service economy rather than industrial (Reich, Work of Nations). We trade in lifestyle, we sell buy and sell experience, rather than objects. Some say art has been trending toward the same goal. Artists create experiences rather than objects. This resonates with the goals I have had for art that I have made- to capture experiences I've had and recreate them for others to experience. They are spiritual experiences and they are profound and meaningful, and I would like everyone else to have the same spiritual and meaningful experiences, even to reveal God to people. But to put that in the language of commodity made me realize that in doing so I have commodified God. I criticize mega churches and some charismatic-type evangelical worship for their commodification of worship, packaging it and selling it to people as something that will make them feel good and make their lives better. But I realize that in many ways the decisions I make in life are driven by the quest for the commodity of worship. I seek the experience of God. Is this wrong? Is it wrong to seek to be in the presence of God? To look forward with joy to Sunday mornings at Messiah Episcopal and Tuesdays at Marquand Chapel, to run through the woods ecstatic with joy, to take a week out of my summer to do grunt work at a camp so I could worship for an hour a day with the Urbana worship team? If I make the worship an idol, it's wrong. If the experience is what matters and not worship of God, it's wrong. So if experience shouldn't be my goal, and if spiritual experiences gained through beauty or nature are not God's self revelation and could never be that, then what is my purpose in making art? How can I be a witness to the love that has been bestowed on me?
Once again, God, be my God.

Ann Hamilton "(bearings)"

James Turrell makes architectural spaces relating to the spirituality of light.

Beauty

I think I want to create something beautiful. The idea came to me when Miroslav Volf mentioned how abundant the creation is. His philosopher friend wonders not why there is but why there is so much. God has created an abundant excessive creation, and there really is an excessive of good, we usually just don't see it. And so for my own good I would like to enjoy the abundance. I'm thinking about textiles and used clothing, made to be against the skin, installed in a small enclosed structure that a human could walk in.
Last night my friend TJ lent me a book from an exhibit called "A Broken Beauty". The exhibit shows mainly painting from Christian artists who paint humans, showing the brokenness of human nature as well as the beauty of what God has created. One of the articles was kind of defensive and seems to think that anyone who doesn't paint figures realistically and doesn't base their art on Thomas Aquinas as interpreted by Jacques Maritain are about the business of "disharmonious compositions" and "Late Modernism's dogged determination to overturn those traditions that healthily link the past to the present", whatever those are. But making art that resonates with the Christian view of the world as both broken and beautiful is at least worth considering, and definitely doesn't seem to be the project of most venerated artists today. My previous investigations into the theological idea of beauty led me to the conception that truth, goodness and beauty are all interconnected, so beauty can be defined as the good, or that which expresses the truth and makes the good happen in the world. Is the purpose of theology and of art to make the world a better place? That's something else I need to think about.
Dave Hickey and Peter Schjeldahl are art critics I need to find out more about.

I don't know if this blog thing is really going to get off the ground now that I'm a graduate student, but I really have the best intentions and highest hopes for it.
I'm in the second month of a master's program in religion and the arts (I'm getting a Masters of Arts in Religion in Religion and the Arts ;) at Yale Divinity School. My classes include theology courses, a sculpture class and a class looking at apocalyptic art throughout the history of Christendom. It turns out the specific "religion and art" courses offered at the divinity school have less to do with why I'm here. What I want to do is synthesize in my mind how theology can impact the art I do. I want to make art, and I want to know God more and how God works in the world. Those things are integrated because my art reflects myself and my contact with God permeates every aspect of my life. So I realize that the synthesis of theology of art is something I'll have to do mostly on my own. I would like classes on how Christians living at this very moment and others incorporate their religion and spirituality in their art (which seems to be important to more and more artists as well as classes on how theologians interpret and understand art at this very moment, because I'm hoping to be an artist at this very moment. Of course the art historical background and context will be useful. And I'm taking art classes at Yale! And theology at Yale!
So bear with me as this blog is a dumping ground for my thoughts.

Revelation
Theologians Karl Barth and Karl Rahner have different perspectives on God's revelation. I'm drawn to both in different ways; for Rahner it seems that Revelation is present everywhere, is in fact the ground of our being (sorry if I've simplified it wrongly) but Barth emphasizes that humans are categorically other than God, thus the only way for us to experience revelation is through the Trinity; through God becoming human. I think that must be true, but I also think God works in people and cultures that aren't Christian. And I think that I experience God through nature and art. So what does that have to with it? Not that I think that by looking at nature or art people could come to some knowledge of God or the incarnation. Barth would agree that God can freely choose to reveal Godself to us through anything on earth, including a "dead dog" because God is always the Subject who we can't limit or control. So that means that sometimes God reveals Godself in nature but I can't try to make that happen. Revelation is not a permanent feature of nature. But where do I go to meet God? I think Barth thinks I go to Scripture. But I think I can also go to church and the Eucharist, and to personal prayer. Which I'm sure he would agree with. But I can also go running in the woods and hanging out with friends, although I know that if I only sought God in the woods and in secular conversation, I would lose my connection to God (Rahner wouldn't agree that it's possible for us to lose our connection to God. God is always there. But I know I receive more of God the more I put myself in positions to receive). Perhaps the project of my art is not to reveal God so much as to praise God for being such a wonderful creator.

This is an installation of leaves I did
inspired by being outside in fall:



Sculpture
So, with all this in mind, for my next sculpture I need to think about what I can do. I want to emphasize the relationship between our human bodies and nature, because we live so disconnected from nature and because we live disconnected from ourselves as material and spiritual beings, our materiality and spirituality inseparable and completely integrated. So I also would like to make an installation or object that can serve as that tower Miroslav Volf told us on the first day of class that we should go to sometimes to get away just be with God. A place to be alone with God, in our bodies, in the material world that can perhaps aid and enhance that interaction with God. Or what about a architectural construction where 2 or 3 could be gathered?
I need to research worship spaces and their spiritual intentions.

God has given to us abundantly by putting us in this world, which is overflowing with joy and beauty. The diversity of details, the profusion of colors! Things we can eat and touch and smell and stand on and look at. So that gives me joy, and we are to give to others out of our riches rather than out of our poverty (Kathryn Tanner). Hmmm...

A blog about faith and art

I considered blogs narcissistic until it occured to me that a blog would be a great place to contain all musings on the passion of my life, the intersection of art making, art viewing, bodily expression, and the material world with religion, faith and God. The sacraments and physical and material acts of worship to the God who creates, and loves this creation so much that he became a material reality within it, are the ultimate intersections of art and religion. Art and faith intersect in many diverse and exciting ways, and I would like to use this blog to record and collect observations of that intersection. If anyone besides myself happens upon this blog and has noticed art mingling with faith or religion, I would appreciate your ideas and input as well.