I wandered through the Taylor University art building this afternoon and took a few photos of some interesting works with my cameraphone. The newspaper wasp nest was particularly intriguing. I’m also somewhat enamored with the tall, narrow painting of read flower-ish forms.

This is also a good excuse to try out the new gallery feature on WordPress 2.5; I’m not sure why the tool has spread the photos out like it has in Safari (on my own screen), somewhat randomly. Using Firefox on my wife’s MacBook, all of the thumbnails are in a row across the post. As I recall, this is how the WordPress demo showed them.

My impression was that these are all student works with the exception of the collage, which may have been a professor’s piece. The student works were in the hallway of the art building; the collage was part of a show in the college’s small gallery space. This is some pretty solid work from a student in my experience. Craft and concept are, very pleasantly, beyond what I’ve come to expect in recent years.

Adding: It seems this was, with the exception of the collage, a senior’s BFA exhibit. I learned this after going back to look at the aforementioned painting I liked so well. The painting was gone along with all of the other works, and another senior show was going up. Unfortunately the new works were covered in paper. The artist didn’t want them to be revealed until the 7 p.m. opening, which I wasn’t around for. I had half a mind to see how much (or, sad as it may be true, how little) I could purchase that painting for. Maybe I’ll call up to the art department if I remember. From what I can tell on the Taylor website, the name of the artist whose work I did see is Lindsay Schiller.

My good friend Joel Armstrong recently started his own blog. He’s a prof at John Brown University teaching drawing and illustration. His own work is more three dimensional in nature — other than his art cards. He “draws” with wire and creates small iconic wall sculptures out of small found objects, such as the following “Rust Bird.”

The Wall Street Journal condensed a commencement speech by Dana Gioia into this article, titled The Impoverishment of American Culture: And the need for better art education. Gioia is Chairman of the NEA and an internationally known poet.

Generally I disdain commencement ceremonies; they are long, uncomfortable and largely predictable. They are usually boring events culminated by long-winded speeches employing meaningless platitudes of encouragement. I almost didn’t follow the link to the story after reading that it was part of a graduation speech.

But I’m glad I did. The article is well worth reading in its entirety. A few excerpts follow:

“There is an experiment I’d love to conduct. I’d like to survey a cross-section of Americans and ask them how many active NBA players, Major League Baseball players, and “American Idol” finalists they can name. Then I’d ask them how many living American poets, playwrights, painters, sculptors, architects, classical musicians, conductors and composers they can name. I’d even like to ask how many living American scientists or social thinkers they can name.”

“The loss of recognition for artists, thinkers and scientists has impoverished our culture in innumerable ways, but let me mention one. When virtually all of a culture’s celebrated figures are in sports or entertainment, how few possible role models we offer the young. There are so many other ways to lead a successful and meaningful life that are not denominated by money or fame”

“I have a reccurring nightmare. I am in Rome visiting the Sistine Chapel. I look up at Michelangelo’s incomparable fresco of the “Creation of Man.” I see God stretching out his arm to touch the reclining Adam’s finger. And then I notice in the other hand Adam is holding a Diet Pepsi.”

“In a time of social progress and economic prosperity, why have we experienced this colossal cultural decline? There are several reasons, but I must risk offending many friends and colleagues by saying that surely artists and intellectuals are partly to blame. Most American artists, intellectuals and academics have lost their ability to converse with the rest of society. We have become wonderfully expert in talking to one another, but we have become almost invisible and inaudible in the general culture.”

She goes on to speak of the need for creativity and innovation, for education that doesn’t cater the lowest common denominator and the dangers of an entertainment driven culture. It’s curious to me that “innovation” has been a theme in three of my posts over the last week or so; this was not intentional.

With respect to the last quote from the article suggesting artists have done a poor job at communicating, I read an couple of years ago I lamented at a gallery opening that was, well, very difficult to muddle through at best. It seemed as though the artist was trying to use language that set him apart from non-artists. It came across in a somewhat condescending way.

I am all for people acquiring and utilizing a broader vocabulary. I believe that people should be able to read above an eighth grade level, which is what my wife used as a standard when editing the local newspaper (and is, from what I understand, that industry’s standard). Further, each subculture possesses its own vernacular which will seem a bit foreign to others. Clear communication can be difficult, especially when the culture at large that painters and sculptors might be trying to converse with are more interested in sports, video games and other uninvolved amusement. In fact, clear communication can be difficult with interested parties. Such intellectual pursuits are, however, innately human. And, in my opinion, they make life worth living.

I found the link to the Wall Street Journal’s article via Christians in the Arts.

Clive Thompson’s Wired column in the March issue is a great testament to working with your hands. He starts the piece by talking about his struggle in trying to put a steampunk clock together; his soldering skills were deficient.

“Why am I so inept? I used to do projects like this all the time when I was a kid. But in high school, I was carefully diverted from shop class when the administration decided I was college-bound. I stopped working with my hands and have barely touched a tool since.

As it turns out, this isn’t just a problem for me — it’s a problem for America. We’ve lost our Everyman ability to build, maintain, and repair the devices we rely on every day. And that’s making it harder to solve the country’s nastiest problems, like oil dependence . . . . “

Wasn’t it just last week I talked about the importance of innovation, wondering where it had gone in America? And a couple weeks before that, didn’t I mention a verse in the Bible that exhorts us to “work with our hands?”

Apparently there is a bit of a do-it-yourself (DIY) revolution here in the states as we speak (or type). Scientists, according to Thompson, have discovered how important it is to use your hands — to be mechanically apt — which uses a different part of our brains than “sitting and cogitating.” I recall something in the news last year that pointed to the success of places like Lowes and Home Depot, typical stops for DIY-ers purchasing products for the projects.

I wonder about the accuracy of applying the word “revolution” with respect to the popularity of steampunk and profit margins of big-box home supply stores. Regardless, this resurgence is good news.

Personally, I feel the need for both sitting and cogitating (which is largely what this blog amounts to) and working with my hands. In a culture supersaturated with electronic media, computers and computer related employment opportunities it can be very difficult to get hands-on time with anything. Our jobs are done in front of a computer and our recreation regularly involves televisions, computers and video games. We are a quite sedentary society, which is unhealthy physically and mentally according to the neuroscientists Thompson cites. We use electronics to a fault, perhaps, instead of treating them as tools they act as a crutch. “Notably,” Thomson concludes, “all this is happening outside our broken education system. America is healing itself at the grass roots — rediscovering the mental joy of making things and rearming itself with mechanical skills.”

This week I looked at the University of Arkansas as I continue to contemplate an MFA with an emphasis in ceramics. A few people have suggested the art department at the UofA isn’t all that great, but since there is a good possibility my wife and I won’t be moving as previously anticipated I nosed around on the Fayetteville school’s website.

Let me first say that their website is — while not fabulous — a lot better than some other university websites my wife and I have perused over the last four months or so. We’ve been surprised at the lack of organization on these websites, websites that host an incredible amount of information and need to be meticulously ordered to be useful. When looking around the UofA’s site, I generally found what I was looking for quickly. The same was not true for other schools, such as Iowa State.

The ceramics department possesses adequate resources — better than some other midwest schools I’ve looked at, but not the best. It lacks a wood fired kiln, for instance, although this isn’t something I count a necessity. The department is headed up by Jeannie Hulen; she’s the only staff in the department. This is somewhat disappointing to a graduate of the University of Nebraska, where three professors shared teaching responsibilities in clay. This provided for a great diversity of expertise and style, a very well-rounded learning experience.

The advantage of the University of Arkansas is that we’re already here. It’s a commute to Fayetteville from Siloam, but only around 30 minutes to campus from our house if traffic is reasonable. This drive may be offset by potential relocation and out-of-state tuition costs if we were to move for the schooling (and begin school before establishing residency).

The following are some questions I asked Jeannie about the program this week and her prompt (albeit grammar-less) replies. I’ve inserted punctuation and articles for clarity:

Are you the only prof in the ceramics department?

Yes, but we have a tech position and they have a MFA in ceramics; also my husband is a potter and accessible, along with Bethany Springer — the sculpture — prof is fantastic.

How many grad students are in the ceramics department, on average?

My goal is 3-5.

What are my chances of getting funding for the MFA (fellowships and assistantships)?

First year is tough, but second and third are more likely.

What is the cost (tuition) of the program (I didn’t look for this online, but I suppose it’s there)?

I’m not sure, but in-state is reasonable.How established is the ceramics department at the UofA? How long has the MFA program included ceramics?

This is my sixth year; the program before me had no reputation. With all of my work on our Ceramics symposiums, we are nationally significant for such a small program, and my grads and undergrads do very well. For over 20 years ceramics has been included in the MFA.

Do you have links to online galleries of the ceramic prof’s own work?

If you Google me, you can see some of my work, as well as at http://art.uark.edu/galleryOfWork-fac/ or http://art.uark.edu/ceramics/info/?page_id=9

I looked cost up on the UofA website. Spring semester of 2008 is $280 per credit hour for graduate students in the fine arts, if I read the chart correctly. This is commensurate with most other midwest schools I’ve looked at such as Missouri, KU, KSU, ISU — the one exception was the University of Minnesota in St. Paul, which cost about twice as much as the others.

Of course, the question remains as to whether or not I will actually go after an MFA. I may be leaning towards it right now (60/40, perhaps?), but it’s by no means certain.

Some readers may not know this yet, but presently I work for a small non-profit. I do marketing and graphic design for a mission mobilizer called M-DAT. Since the work is missions related I raise money in order to be there, like 70% of American missionaries.

For the past five years (as of next month) my wife and I have been in various stages of fundraising, working outside of the ministry as needed and part-time for the ministry as moneys allowed. We’ve never reached full support. In other words, I’ve never been able to work full-time at full salary indefinitely. Life has been in limbo.

I’ve been able to work full-time at a partial salary for most of this year, but come December the money looked to run dry. So my wife and I worked out a plan: We figured we’d be able to continue working part-time with M-DAT if we moved to a larger town with better prospects for other part-time work and less expensive housing. So late this summer we made two eight-hour drives to such a community looking at real estate.

Some may wonder why we wouldn’t just sell our house and rent. While we like owning a home, renting would be fine. However, we hope to take the next two or three years to work on our arts and crafts — ceramics, crochet, writing — while looking at the possibility of grad school, which I’ve mentioned here numerous times now. Thus we need space (and the flexibility to modify said space) for my kiln and clay studio as well as storage for my wife’s yarn and scarves.

So we made an offer on a house, a 100 year old house we liked quite a bit.

It’s in great shape (except for the roof) and completely modern with the formal layout of an older home. We did this at 9 a.m. and then drove home. Halfway home my boss called my wife’s cell phone and gave us the good news that a very large donation arrived in the mail for us. This donation was very unexpected and would essentially allow us to be fully supported for almost two years.

But we’d already made an offer on the house. We’d already taken the time to drive to Nebraska, look at 16 different homes and mess around with paperwork at the bank. Now we learn about the new money? After we’ve agonized over this decision for months and become somewhat emotionally attached to this house? God does have a sense of humor.

And we were confused; very confused.

The sellers countered which gave us an out, but we weren’t able to ignore everything that had transpired. So after numerous conversations this weekend, where we hashed and rehashed the same things again and again, we decided to accept the seller’s counter-offer. I won’t go into the myriad of details, tangible and intangible, that influenced our decision. Suffice it to say that the contract is contingent on the sale of our Arkansas house, and we decided that if it doesn’t sell we weren’t meant to move to Nebraska.

I painted the outside of our house today. The color was brighter than we expected, brighter than the paint chip. With the trim color, however, it will look great — very bungalow-esque.

After I got enough paint on the siding to tell how it was going to look — the first sprayer I rented wasn’t working — I stepped back to take it in. It caused me to remember how important the idea of beauty is to me. I agonize over visual details that, besides driving my wife up the beautifully purple-painted bungalow walls, most people never notice. And I don’t consider myself much of a detail-oriented person, but with respect to the information my eyes take in I suppose I am just that.

I don’t pretend to be able to define what is beautiful or know what is Beautiful (notice the capital “B”), but I do seek out the idea and attempt to create objects and environments that reach for the most pulchritudinous experience.

I’m writing this because it plays into my thoughts on going after an MFA. It reminds me that my interests really are much broader than studio art. An MFA may still be the best way to go, to further my ability to define and render beauty, but at this point I can’t be certain.

And, frankly, I probably won’t ever be certain.

I’ve been asking myself a question this past week:

What, in my own life, holds the greater potential influence to foster an artistic renaissance in the American Church: Working as a full-time artist or working as a professor in a BFA program at a Christian college?

Unfortunately, this isn’t really quantifiable. I asked a friend this weekend, a design professor, what he thought of my predicament. He prefaced his answer by saying it’s a loaded question to which he’d give a loaded answer, and proceeded to say that working as a professor brings you into contact with a lot of people in a short period of time. He then suggested I would be a very good prof for reasons x, y and z. My friend then cited local Christian painter Todd Williams saying he makes a good living for himself but doesn’t necessarily exert a lot of influence in the way I desire to.

This may suggest the role of teacher holds greater promise for change in the Christian community, but it’s by no means certain. While I know nothing of Williams’ intent, his website openly states that he’s not out for notoriety as an artist. Neither am I — save for the fact that the more well-known an artist is the more opportunity they’ll likely see to be involved in reforming the culture around us for the better. In this there is an enigmatic tension between narcissistic self-promotion and self-defeating humility. An artist has to market him or herself.

Should I even be asking myself this? Is the answer different for different people? If my intent is to influence does it matter which I do?

I’m worried that I’ll choose the easier of the two options, but I don’t know which option is easier. Teaching — which requires a costly degree up front (assuming you aren’t able to get a decent fellowship) — offers more reliable and steady income and thus might be easier in the long-run. Working as an artist might be easier in the here and now assuming I begin by building up a portfolio while continuing to work an eight-to-five during the days.

I wonder if I’m destined to be an ignoble pot (read Romans chapter nine, verses 20-21), living comfortably but never making an opportunity to step out into either of these options. Is accepting a more ignoble role the same as humility, or is it the same as ignoring your God-given gifts?

A lot of other thoughts are playing into the banter inside my head:

• What about my idea for a Christian artist retreat?

• How does my present role as a mission mobilizer play into this decision?

• Is it a viable idea to work to raise up a healthy art community in a small town?

• Can my wife and I find a place where both of us are accepted into graduate programs with fellowships?

• Is an MFA in studio art the best option for someone like me, whose interest extends to architecture and interior design?

Unfortunately there aren’t any easy answers. No doors are opening or swinging shut to indicate one idea is better than another. This may still happen in the next couple months; my present job situation isn’t sustainable past December at this point, forcing a decision in the very near future.

We press on. We try to wait patiently. We brainstorm for new ideas, which come all too slowly.

My wife and I are still nosing around university websites thinking about MFAs — creative writing for her, studio art for me.

While I thoroughly enjoyed my college years (and miss them with regularity) dealing with university and college administration was always a nightmare. Transferring credits, changing majors, constantly changing course requirements, scholarship applications: Just about every interaction I had with my advisors, the bursars, the dean or any other administrative type was something I quickly learned to dread. Some of the administration people were just visibly uninterested in your particular problem (and by extension, thus, your education), others were inept and uninformed.

And it wasn’t just me. The girl across the street back home had to send her high school transcript six times to the University of Nebraska at Lincoln; they kept losing it!

We’ve been told over the last month that many people in master’s programs have assistantships, and that these pay not only for your tuition but also a stipend for teaching or research. Looking into this at a potential university we found a frustrating discrepancy on their website.

This isn’t surprising when I remember how much trouble I had as a student, but it is still very annoying. Up until now in our search we hadn’t experienced such a glaring reminder of large institutions’ inability to communicate with clarity and consistency. And it isn’t just universities that commit such egregious communication and administrative faux-pas. Many, if not most, enormous bureaucracies tend to say different things out of the same mouth — even if it’s unintentional.

It makes the whole process of looking for a master’s program less desirable.