Tag: art

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Air-Tasting

We hear the best things in life are free–how many of us actually believe it?  But it’s true that the most vital things in life are free, such as blood, oxygen, and grace.  The five senses are free, too: how often do you pause to appreciate them?  Especially at the turn of the seasons, when the air can be as rich as wine . . .

The best time comes at dusk.  That’s when the essence of day rises to the top, to be poured off over the cusp of nightfall.  That’s the time to open a window or grab a chair on the porch: clear your head, close your mouth, and breathe.

Each season has its particular character, tone, and finish.

In spite of its reputation for softness and its penchant for pastel colors, I find the Spring vintages to be least subtle.  Spring has a full-bodied, even rowdy character, given drama and depth by rising sap and the mellow dollops of spring peeper.  The damp, earthy tones of spring can overbalance the concert—an embarrassment of riches that may cloy.  It’s an immature vintage, but at least it’s lively.

Summer is more complex than any other season and, in its way, more insinuating.  It owes much of its appeal to the uprush of coolness after a hot day: the sort of dramatic, built-in contrast that could make even cream soda taste riveting.  But even without the drama,  summer has enough singular virtues to shine: the fresh-cut grass varieties are ravishing; the post-rains deeply satisfying.  The dew-at-nightfall labels can be a tad overdone, except for those who enjoy sweet.  Of course, those sticky, clinging vintages that don’t lighten up at the end of the day should be outlawed.  Fortunately, those are few (at least where I live).  More than any other season, summer air links us to childhood–common to all varieties is the lingering aftertaste of chasing fireflies in the field.  This reminiscence  is the virtue that covers a multitude of sins.

Autumn is smoke and frost and nostalgia: a sudden chill that links youth with age, new beginnings with old melancholy.  It’s far more suggestive than the other seasons, yet after all these years I find it a bit of a tease; a complex blend that may appear to mean more than it actually does.  The dusty finish can be a bit too dry, for those of us who have many more autumns behind them than ahead.

But to my taste, the finest and purest vintages are the Winters.  Remarkably consistent, yet never repetitive, best enjoyed through a window raised a couple of inches in a slightly overheated room.  The draft created by a well-stoked wood stove draws it in like a steely stream.  Like the summer varieties, winter owes some of its appeal to contrast.  After the palate has been stifled in wood and artificial heat all day, winter air sweeps in fresher than fresh, cleaner than clean, an exaggerated, sparkly essence with no hypocrisy whatsoever.  Here at the end of the yearly cycle, the master of the banquet gases through the glass and murmurs in awe, “Truly, you have saved the best until last.”

Love surrounds us, not only in objects but in spaces.  Air: what could be cheaper or more abundant than fresh air?  We’d find out if it were ever cut off; then there would be nothing so dear.  But even poured out lavishly from the storehouse of heaven, how rich it is, how sweet, and how divine.

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Nine Things the Church Needs to Understand about Art (and Artists)

Makoto Fujimura, “Still Point – Evening”
  • Art is not a separate category of human endeavor, like “business,” “psychology,” “pest control,” “education,” or “politics.”  Some men and women make a living by creative pursuits, and we call them “artists” (or dancers, authors, screenwriters, photographers).  But in the broadest sense, art is something we are all called to, as imitators of our creative Father.  Art is one way we experience life, and to pay little or no attention to it is to miss an entire dimension of human experience.
  • Artists are not special people—they’re just like you and me, with families, backgrounds, financial concerns, virtues, and sins.  Some artists like to think they’re special, it’s true.  They’re the ones who give “art” (scare-quote art) a bad name.  If God isn’t front and center as their Maker and Redeemer they’re likely to set themselves up as makers and redeemers of the culture, and with a whole lotta luck and the right connections, they might even get paid for it.  But church-member Michael who owns a share in the downtown gallery and teaches drawing at the local community college—and comes late to Sunday school and doesn’t say much—isn’t one of those.  He’s a guy with a particular vision and gift.  You should talk to him about it sometime.  Don’t be intimidated.
  • Art is not a matter of knowing what you like.  It’s a matter of seeing what you haven’t seen before, or hearing what you haven’t heard.  This isn’t teaching, exactly; art can’t teach.  It’s not a substitute for sound doctrinal exposition, but can act as a mediator between sound doctrine and life as it’s lived. Also,
  • Art is not a tool; it’s an encounter.  Bible-story pictures, chalk talks, extended metaphors serving as sermon illustrations—those are tools, direct and unambiguous, and they can be useful for getting a point across.  Art is by nature ambiguous and will affect each member of its audience in different ways, or not at all.  A story, a painting, a song or symphony doesn’t make points or teach lessons.  It sidles up to the individual and walks alongside for a while, leaving its companion a little more insightful or sympathetic, even a little more human, for that brief acquaintance.  More about that below.
  • Art is not an esoteric subject that only specialists understand.  Here again, some artists have muddied the water by creating a club of the like-minded for the benefit of each other—when they’re not stabbing each other in the back, that is.  Also for looking down on the rubes.  But most of us rubes can be taught to see if we are trained to look.  That’s one vital service artists can perform for their church body: sharing what they know and opening windows of understanding for the rest of us.  (Wednesday-night art appreciation class after the prayer meeting?  Why not?)
  • Art should be encouraged.  That appreciation class?  It’s not just for the ladies’ book club and the amateur painter, but also for the pastor and elders and their wives and women’s ministry leaders.  They should go.  And they should ask questions.*
  • Art, like everything else, stands in need of redemption.  That’s where artists need the church, as much as the church needs them.
  • Art can’t do everything (like teach or preach).  But what it can do, it does like nothing else: 1) awaken the imagination—the “bright wings” that gild ordinary experience; 2) illuminate what we already know, and breathe life into propositional truth; 3) unify the mind and heart.
  • Art is for all Christians, who are equipped to know, better than the secular-minded, what it’s for.  They just need to better understand what it is.

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*Come to think of it, the whole church would benefit if some time were set aside, once/quarter or once/month, for members to share about their profession: what it entails, how it benefits the community, how they do it for the glory of God, and how they might do it better.   Retired people and stay-at-home moms, too!  Think how much better we could know and encourage one another if we knew what occupied 1/3 of a brother’s or sister’s time!