My most recent effort in this area is The Giveaway Project (.com). After making art for years and writing mostly from a position of frustration and the harder side of life, as mentioned at the beginning of the post, I’ve been playing a more positive tune lately. After listening to Ziglar and many others, I just want to focus on the positive while not forgetting and never overlooking the realities of difficulties. So I started to make more positive prints.

My first reasoning for this ‘art’ was to get Christian messages into businesses, on their walls, without being the typical cheesy Christian poster or worse yet, a success poster.

I’m not trying to replicate anything else, I’m just doing my thing that has naturally come out of my life path. I enjoy making what I make and I hope others will, too. Some of it just so happens to have verses on it because, well, that’s a core part of who I am.

25% of the proceeds go to charity. The Giveaway Project (.com). Let me know what you think – I can’t hardly get any feedback on it! Send me a message via the site. There are lots of artists like me and it’s really hard for us to get any encouragement from people. We typically just get “you should sell mouse pads!” and a few ‘nice jobs!’. There are always people talking about art and very few people actually creating anything. I want to be in the second group!

Cheers.

It is true that there are many dangerous things about art. We can communicate and form people’s minds about things. But this has rarely been thought of in the positive sense. God does speak to artists as I am sure he has to all the people who commented on this post. God uses artists not just for promoting churches and their community events, but to use in worship, personal devotion, journalling, relaying prophecy, education, communicating where words do not suffice, connecting with people, making spaces beautiful, telling people the truth when they are closed off to other means of communication, and many others. God uses us, the creative people. Generally people won’t get it until they see it.

I Cor. 12, also states that every part of the body has its purpose and reason and is unique. As individuals called to Jesus we cannot forget our unique callings as well. As we are called closer to him we begin to understand our new identities and though some will be called to leave art, many will manifest their talents in new ways. It is completely feasible for modern churches to begin to understand their artists and see that they are there for not just their prior purpose.

The only truly original artist was God because he creating all out of nothing.  The rest of us create with what we’ve got.  Our skill as a craftsman shows in what we choose to work with, how we assemble it and if it works.  Christians have been struggling for a long time with the what how and why of art – I like the continuation of it in this discussion. To clarify, though, it seems like there are two different categories being discussed:
Church art / Explicitly evangelistic art
Art created by or enjoyed by Christians

For the first type:
The seventh ecumenical council determined that images of Christ (and saints) made of suitable materials were not only permissible but necessary tools of evangelism.  So the question remains for us, when the purpose of the art is explicitly religious and evangelistic what is the appropriate material and how ought it to be presented? Just thinking that it even matters to ask the question seems like a good step to me! As so many of you have pointed out – too often for various reasons church art is thoughtless.

But how do we judge what are good materials to use and how we ought to put them together? Perhaps here it’s best to think of orthodox icons – windows to a spiritual realm.  It’s pretty easy to judge if a window is doing a good job – can we see through it.  So with explicitly evangelistic art – can we see Christ through it or is it distracting?  Can a seeker see Christ through it, or are they led only to follow the gimmick? (cf. Mark Dever said, “What you win them with is what you win them to.”) Amen to all those who urged us first and foremost to know Christ – only then will we know if we’re making decent windows.

For the second type:
All truth is God’s truth, and the same goes for beauty and goodness.  Because we are all bound to use god-made materials (Christian and non alike) everything preaches Christ somehow.  That’s the stuff of General Revelation (Romans 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”) However, as Paul tells us in Romans, we need a divine interpreter to “get it”.  This is where the Christian who has the holy spirit comes in.  The Christian can show how that sunset, that Britney Spears’ song, that broken glass is telling us something about God.  This is where the artist, or the art junkie, has an opportunity to interpret.

This is why I agree with those who have said before that art is art. There isn’t a Christian art – there are only Christians who try to do what they do to glorify and enjoy God, and some of these Christians are artists.  Sometimes as Christians our work looks like everyone else’s and sometimes it looks a bit odd. What we don’t need to do is try to look odd (wearing out of date clothes for example) or to try to look normal (living with our boyfriend) when we can’t. Again, let’s keep in the Word, and keep wrestling with what’s been said before and what’s being said now to know how to live this.  Let’s pray for the mind of Christ. Thank you for the encouragement!

What do I do?

http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/
Makoto Fujimura was on the NEA and… just countless people who are influential in the arts are involved with this group or speak at the annual conference. really check it out. I’m going to the conference in less than a week.

IAM’s zine, Curator: http://www.curatormagazine.com/

My university’s sort of local spinoff of IAM:
http://fridayartsproject.blogspot.com

Like it or not we live in the world where the Christian Church compares itself to the mainstream media and culture. It feeds the body of believers bits and samples of what everyone else is doing, and leaves a ton of people empty every week wanting more of something that Christ spend His life taking them out of.

To be honest, I pass by churches on Sunday and think how they are reaching out to people. What’s the real difference between them and the people that are not Christians. Why would I want to sing a song that changes the lyrics of a non Christian song – unless I’m attracted to it? Or where a T-shirt mock-up of an original. Thanks kind of like buying the fake Nike shoes or Coach purses sold on the side of the road.

I thought Christians were supposed to have something that the world doesn’t have and wants. Something original that can’t be imitated.

I don’t think people in another second or third world countries need a “Jesus Package” full of imitations songs, clothing or advertisements.

But if you’re going to “market” Jesus, at least be original, creative and over the top.