the show is chosen

well the choosing has been done. it looks like a good show, i can't wait to see it in person.

Again, sorry for the delay. we chose artwork a week ago but it took laying it all out on graph paper this week to figure out what would fit in the end. i sent emails of specifics out today.

well now the details will come flying fast and furious...framing, transportation, scheduling...please let me know how i can help. if i get too swamped i'll connect you to some other Na good folks who can help you.

Thanks to all for your hard work and for serving this way.
Connie

by tuesday-ish

hey guys we had a great meeting curating the art show on friday. now i just gotta double check the dimensions of the walls that we're using to make sure what we've chosen fits.

thanks for your patience. i'll send you an email with many more details, soon-ish.

connie

P.S. 100 words

I'm SORRY about the late notice of the 100 word explanation thing. i hope this isn't a burden for you!

Deadline Info: TUESDAY APRIL 17

Hey guys, here's the scoop. For a piece of artwork to be considered for the Na art show, please email the following to Connie by TUESDAY April 17:

1. Digital pic of the artwork as a whole. If you'd like to send additional details or multiple views, thats cool too.
2. Digital pic of yourself next to the artwork so we can see scale. (and those silly faces)
3. REQUIRED: A 100 word or less explanation of this piece of artwork. To be displayed next to your piece. So tell us about Collosians 1 and whatever you think in helpful for the viewer: your process? symbolism? how your concept developed? help non-art folks to look closer at your art.

let me know if you have more Q's.
-conniej

not related to art, but a random question...
(someone gave me an iTunes gift card...)

if you could buy one cd what would you get?

beth

Any ideas?

Happy Easter everybody. . .

I should be painting. But I was wondering what you guys been coming up with? To me (I was an English major) so ideas are easy, "fleshing them out" is another matter. But ideas are just the tip of the iceberg. Often the best ones I've had came after I got going & switched gears.

My ideas of scriptural interpretation tend toward dark, heavy, and dramatic . My friend Noelle takes the lighter approach to drawing. She does drawings that are "cute" (not Japanese "cute style" but childlike, naive), lightly rendered, almost wash paintings with wonderful little creatures and plants, and long flowery letters and shapes. I like it, but not for my own drawing. . .they seem "girly". But I like "girly". Nothing wrong with it.

Maybe its that I feel like I'm carry a cross in my drawings. Is that bad? I think, as an Christian artist depicting scripture, its a great work (and rare) to be both very in tune with yourself and the spirit of the scripture you're depicting. And maybe that means carrying a Cross through it? I have to remember that every line I make won't cause the end of the world. I have to have faith in these situations, when I'm pulling at my hair: I will get to the end.

I hope one day (maybe after I get these "heavy thoughts" out of my system) that I'll be able to draw Easter eggs and plants and little birds and they will be just as God honoring as the Crosses and Edenic paintings I make now. Kids draw everything, and we always say that their drawings are loved by God no matter how perfect they are. Why are we so hard on ourselves? Anyway, those are my two cents (48 more and I'd be famous).

-Will

pale in comparison

Okay here’s some further thoughts after talking with seth about my last post. Consider it my opinionated proposal…

How much can we really portray?
Or said better, can an image really support the weight of the truth we’re trying to portray?

Well I submit: No. theres no way our images can capture the weight and depth of this passage. (So thank God for words!)

So let’s not even try. I don’t mean to give up on making art about this. But please hear this: do not feel pressured to capture it all. So much of this is so HUGE. We just can’t do it justice.

There is so much freedom in this! We don’t have to get it perfect. Which is good cause we can’t.

So maybe comparisons are a good angle to take. Imperfect, yes, of course. But we go into it know/admitting that our cute little comparisons pale to represent the real deal.

checking in

hey ya'll. sorry I've been so quiet; my laptop decided several weeks ago it's time here on earth was over, so i have been without a computer until this past week. excellent posts by the way.

i have had a hard time settling on an idea for my contribution. while gesturing, i played around with the idea of using a crown of thorns and maybe a profile of Christ's face, but that presented too many problems for me, and didn't sit right. but i knew i wanted to do something with verse 20, especially the part about "making peace by the blood of his cross." (you may notice that that's not what i originally settled on- thanks for not holding me to it.)

below are the thoughts i wrote down as i brainstormed/meditated on that verse:

firstborn from the dead- flower bloomed amidst those not yet blossomed
firstborn- waiting eagerly to welcome us as we're born
following in his steps
reconciled to himself- pieces coming together, hope for man, finally reconciliation to God, peace through blood
God squeezing Christ in His fist, drops of blood
-plant growing where it drops- new life
-create a door
-mixes with black and turns white
hand underneath holding person dripped on (2 canvases?)
hands contrast the nature of God
-straining, squeezing, bulging, confining, crushing
-gentle, soft, relaxed, encompasing, safe, loving

so, i think i will be doing a composition of God's hands, one crushing his son, the other underneath either holding a person, the world,... i haven't decided what yet.

my desire is to illustrate Christ taking God's wrath, God crushing his son, and to tie Christ's blood directly to what it means for us- the peace and reconciliation we have found because of it.

i'd love any thoughts on this, especially if there are any concerns regarding how i'm portraying this. any suggestions?

One down. . .

I was really dry last week and uninspired, then I did some chores around the house, and it helped me (strangely enough) to draw: cleaning a sink for my roommates, because it was something humbling-- and in this fateful act of scrubbing-- God showed me a picture of humility. Cleaning the thing that is used in our own cleaning. So I did this painting, of the humbled man cleaning a sink, but of course, I wasn't happy with it. Part of me was so proud of myself, but it wasn't the painting God wanted and I knew it. It was "pretty good", but I was still so afraid to paint over it. . .anyway I did. All afternoon before our final four party.
Its a picture of Jesus on the cross, and the stars are all out, and down below him, he is waking up! (the sink became a tomb and the scrubber became Christ rising up from it) The stone is rolling away, revealing the light of day. The thing I liked the most about it was not the content per se but the way God must have revealed to me -- where to paint light, or what to screw up to make better. I must admit, my cell phone cam came in handy numerous times for the way it uniquely photographs; it often brought out things to me that I couldn't see without it. Anyway, that's all for now! :) -Will

chewing

quick thought - i was making some small sketches, some thumbnails. and i'm enjoying how trying to work through the images really gets me thinking about the scripture.

so i should be drawing from scripture way more often if only to get me to meditate on it.

made visible, made known...

John chapter one seems to have some clues that may answer your question. Verse 18: "No one has ever seen God; the only God, who is at the Father's side, he has made him known." It seems to agree with other scriptures to think that the "seen" in that verse and the "image of the invisible" in the Colossians text mean something more than just visual imagery. John says "no one has ever seen God, but Jesus, he has made him known." It is almost as if He uses "seen" and "known" to mean the same thing. John's first epistle has some very similar ways of talking about seeing and knowing. In fact, He goes even farther to include hearing as a part of the revelation of God that is Jesus Christ. "That which we have seen and heard (this is a reference to Jesus), we proclaim also to you, so that you may have fellowship with us; and indeed, our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ." It seems that what John is getting at and what we might suppose that Paul is getting at when he calls Jesus the "image of the invisible God", is this: Jesus is to us, in every way, the revelation of God, the image of the God who was previously invisible and is still invisible to those who "do not know him (John 1:10)." But not just visible with our eyes, especially our eyes, we've never laid eyes on Jesus after all, but with our hearts! Seeing God, according to these verses, means knowing God through Jesus. Knowing his character, his fellowship, his love, his fatherhood and perhaps most importantly, being like Him (Colossians 2:6). Hopefully it isn't too much of a summary or a stretch to interpret the Colossians verse this way: Jesus, his person and work, makes knowing God possible and effectual. He is the image of the invisible God.
Does this get at an answer to your question? Thoughts about those thoughts?

invisible

this isn't a big thought out post... no huge revelations or anything. just a question and a thought (and then off to get ready for work...)

as i was thinking about our text and going over it several times in my head, i had the line "He is the image of the invisible God..." repeating...

My question...

What does that mean? He is the image of the invisible...?

Then thinking about my question this morning I thought of 2 Cor. 4:16-18...
"So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal."

that verse/those verses probably are completely unrelated to what i'm talking about...i just had that thought...

and i really would love to know your thoughts on this...

beth

p.s.
I'm grateful I don't have to be an amazingly smart, great scholar and understand fully every phrase in the Bible to understand the gospel and know Jesus and have salvation and the hope of heaven... isn't God amazing?

Applications of the text...

I've been brainstorming about ways that I can make a painting that may help provoke gratefulness in mine and the viewers hearts for the massive and glorious realities that we find in the Colossians text. Some things I'm thinking about and working on are "Christ's pre-eminence in our life lens" and "eating from the table of the crucified and risen Christ's pre-eminence." I'm hoping that these paintings will help myself and the viewers think about the cross in relation to the Saviour who now reigns in glory and who has always upheld the universe by the word of His power. I think the fact that he did this while He came to earth and suffered at the hands of, and for, ungrateful sinners like me is one of the most stunning things to think about.
I aappreciated and totally related to the last post concerning the impossibility of directly portraying this text. I felt like curling up in a corner and sucking my thumb whenever I thought about trying to paint it. Yet, isn't it wonderful that the sheer massiveness and wonder of those truths is on our side because of the love of God? I just get to praise Him for who He is and revel in the deep comfort of being in His family... and try to make paintings that help myself and others do this more.
Here's to Connie for thinking big.

brainstormed last night

so a couple of us (jenny, ryan, jeff & i) gathered last night and brainstormed a bit on some visual directions for our artwork. a few points from our conversation:

• its obvious that we can't capture all of what these categorical statements are saying about the superiority of God and the enormity of these claims about him. like that by him ALL things were created and that ALL things were created for him and through him. visual images just can't do that. even our language is indebted to words like "more than" and "beyond" and categorical statements...
  
• so if we try to take such a literal approach it could be...well...trying to do too much that images just can't do? too illustrative?
  
• personally i think i'm going to work towards showing how ridiculous it is to try to comprehend all this. i'll prolly work with figures and gestures, i need to do some sketches.
• a few more ideas i'm inspired by : pillars falling or being trumped by God's authority.
• maps globes
• holding things together with tape glue rubber bands
  
• dot & a line - like randy alcorn's illustration from that Na heaven message
  
• Jasper Johns, Richard Diebenkorn
• some greek mythology
  
• the gesture from Michelangelo's Christ in his The Last Judgement

how's everyone else's progress coming?

Preeminence over the visible

Hi. I hope everyone is doing well and whoever is meeting this week is inspired and encouraged. I've been working on my project for the last couple days. It's beginning to take shape as a focus on the visible. I've been focusing on Christ's rule over my community and what I see every day. He rules this as much as he rules the unseen. I would post pictures but to be honest, I'm afraid to because the process isn't reflecting the result I want yet. I know this is prideful but it's true. I am enjoying the process though. It's stretching me into new territory. I hope the same is happpening for others. I praise our Lord for the cross and giving us a most glorious reason to create and worship.

One Month

hello friends,

how's the artwork going? this is your friendly one month reminder.

i haven't started either, but its on my priority list. we're having a brainstorm/work time on the 22nd here in Maryland.

okay well let us know how its going...say hello on the blog....inspire us!

connie

If you're like me. . .

. . .You're idolatrous, admit it. I mean, what is holding anyone back from understanding Christ's preeminence? What is stopping us from seeing it (I include myself )? Is it because we patch together our lives from things that are man sized, not God sized? We fail to see the richness of God's glory, as a picture of our own fallen selves restored. Do we fail to see this picture because we are still trying to control the outcome of our lives (like we can, or like we do. . .news flash-- we can't), or maybe its because we all want to do some art everyone will think is cool or "relevant". . .we still think (deep down) we have the "secret answers" to someone else's soul?

I think that if we aren't seeing the vision, it's not special revelation that's needed, but maybe its worth checking on what's getting in the way. How could we honestly interpret this message of Christ's preeminence if not by attacking our own personal idolatries in the process? What's holding us back from seeing "the image of the invisible God" in our own renewal? And realizing in His grace how great he was to love us, despite our shame. At least that's the angle I'm taking.

inspiration

one day i looked in the fridge at the martins and all i could see was orange. cool, right?

hows it going out there?

i shot this email to our Maryland artists in hopes of getting together soon. has anyone else brainstormed together or otherwise made any progress?

"i was talking to jeff last night and we were agreeing that the art show topic is daunting. and that we should get together with you guys to brainstorm and try to inspire each other. so...what do you think. i know we're all busy, so i'll throw out some dates and could you email me back whats good for you? i'm happy to do it around a meal and make the food if that helps our cause, and we can meet at the martins, maybe get a fire going."

hope yr all well.
more snow in maryland??
c

gratitude & colossians

i've been very aware of my need to cultivate gratitude for my design job. i don't need to go into detail about specific complaints. it's strange, because i don't remember struggling with gratitude before. but, it's not strange! i'm a sinner.

talking to bill tonight, i said that i just wanted a complete overhaul of my personality. later he said that God already did give me an "overhaul" -- He took my dead heart and gave me a new one.

i was thinking about how to connect gratitude with colossians. the thing that strikes me the most is the last chunk of it, when Paul outlines the good news. (this is the Message translation by Eugene Peterson):

"You yourselves are a case study of what he does. At one time you all had your backs turned to God, thinking rebellious thoughts of him, giving him trouble every chance you got. But now, by giving himself completely at the Cross, actually dying for you, Christ brought you over to God's side and put your lives together, whole and holy in his presence. You don't walk away from a gift like that! You stay grounded and steady in that bond of trust, constantly tuned in to the Message, careful not to be distracted or diverted. There is no other Message—just this one. Every creature under heaven gets this same Message."

it was so apparent to me that in my sin, i had my back turned on God; felt that i "deserved better" and "more", i had a hostile mind. when we turn our backs on God, we take His holy words (the Bible) and crinkle it up like old paper and toss it aside.
for NA, i started playing around with crinkling up paper that i printed on to make a visual out of what we do to God's Word when we sin.

i can be FOREVER grateful that God gave His son for me -- for this very sin of mine and countless others -- He actually reconciled a dead sinner to Himself through His death, and made me alive.

[some words i'm using in my art:] my eyes were sewn shut, my ears sealed, my heart was a stone. BUT He reconciled Himself to me, and He gives the grace to continue.