Intentional Observation: Aroma of the prairie

15 August 2010 by pcNielsen 4 Comments

Morning virga over the north side of Hall County Park

I love the slightly bitter, slightly citrus, dry green scent of prairie flora. I breathed it in deeply while cycling south of Grand Island this morning.

Within that aroma I find something that hearkens to how we were created, as creations meant to inhabit this physical realm. And, somehow, it increases my faith in God. How or why I don’t know I at the moment, but that’s beside the point. “The riddles of God are more satisfying than the solutions of man,” G.K. Chesterton rightly said.

Sounds of the wooded South during summer nights might have done something similar, but not quite as overtly.

Filed under Central Nebraska, Christianity, Grand Island, Intentional observation

On pricing art, art as a hobby, art in the church . . .

16 July 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

Another great article from Comment to highlight today that talks about pricing art and art as job vs. art as hobby. A few quotes to highlight and respond to, and then a link to point you to the writing in its entirety.

I had a professor in my first year of college tell us fresh-faced art majors that if there was anything in the entire world that we could imagine doing besides art, we should do that other thing, because art was just too difficult to pursue without an unwavering dedication. He was right, and those of us that stuck with it knew we had been duly warned about what we were getting into. In a sense, the moment we decided not to change majors, we relinquished our right to whine about being underappreciated or undercompensated. What we did receive, however, was a new responsibility regarding stewardship of the discipline into which we had been adopted.

We talked about pricing a couple of times, but I wasn’t blessed with this kind of accurate bluntness at the beginning of my art schooling. (Does this mean I still get to whine about being underappreciated or undercompensated?) Of course, I sort of eased into my studio art major through pre-architecture, and then graphic design.

On more about doing that other thing besides art, read this post.

The one conversation I really remember on pricing was Eddie Dominguez telling us why his dinnerware was priced as high as it was. Paraphrased as I remember it: “I’d rather sell one platter at $10,000 and have nine to give away than sell ten platters for $1,000.”

Crafting images and objects can legitimately operate as both a form of recreation and a means of cultural reorganization and critique. Making things in order to enjoyably pass a Sunday afternoon, and making things in order to operate as lenses for interpreting the meaning of the world, are both justified endeavours—but they are not the same endeavour. The problem is that distinguishing between the two is complicated by an insidiously ordinary similarity in material and posture. If we imagine two people standing before two blank canvasses with brushes and paints at the ready, how are we to know which one is trying to unwind after a long week, and which one is trying to change the world?

Castleman, the author, describes the difference between art-as-vocation vs. art-as-hobby better than anyone I’ve seen so far, and tactfully too. I’d been thinking about this distinction more and more recently, and his writing on the topic puts my mind at ease.

This article may serve as a personal manifesto of sorts for me. Most of Castleman’s thoughts aren’t necessarily new to me, but they are organized in such a way that the piece is very enlightening. I could end up reposting it in its entirety if I keep going with excerpts and brief responses. That said, go read it for yourself: Will Paint for Food

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Business of art, Christianity

Intentional Observation: Love the place you’re in

16 July 2010 by pcNielsen 4 Comments

Damaris over at the Internet Monk posted a wonderful little entry earlier this week about place after realizing that the monastic vows of Saint Benedict included not just poverty, chastity, and obedience, but also stability.

As I’ve mentioned numerous times here before, this kind of stability is something we Americans mostly don’t understand. In the past century or so we’ve been given the opportunity to be geographically mobile and a lot of us jump on that every chance we get. A few excerpts from Damaris’ post:

There is a virtue to staying where you are. There is a virtue to being where you are. Too many of us are never where we are. We live with our windows closed, shades drawn, televisions on. Our feet never feel the ground, and our skin never feels the air. While our bodies occupy a vague, in-between world, our minds are editing the past or worrying about the future . . .

This place where we are now is the only place we can meet God. God will never be in the imaginary places, the greener grass springing from our discontent, and neither will we.

The author then implores us to take a hard look at the place we’re in now. Be it high or low, noble or ignoble, and find beauty in it. There is beauty in it. “This place where we are now is the only place we can meet God. God will never be in the imaginary places, the greener grass springing from our discontent, and neither will we.”

Read the brief entry and contribute to the conversation via this link.

Filed under Christianity, Intentional observation, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, The contemplative life

I’m not the only one . . .

20 June 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

. . . who thinks that church is good for sketching. So does Lorraine Glessner. Her oh, what a world, what a world blog features a Sunday church drawing every week. From this morning’s post, an explanation:

i draw in church during the sermons. it helps me hear and retain the words. i usually begin by drawing the first thing i see-a piece of furniture, the shadows in the architecture, the pattern of someone’s shirt-and let the drawing take on a life of it’s own. most of the time, the object or pattern i started with isn’t recognizable. i only work on these drawings for one sermon and rarely work back into them. here’s one from a few weeks ago.

Glessner serves as faculty at Tyler School of Art Fibers & Material Studies.

Filed under Artist profile, Christianity

Vacation. It’s like an Entmoot, but we’re not going to war.

11 May 2010 by pcNielsen 5 Comments

Seems as though we’re headed to Nashville for vacation.

This morning the wife registered us for a Hutchmoot. “An entmoot, without the ents.” It sounds like a nice little retreat, although it’s geared much more (almost solely) towards the bookish — such as my wife — rather than visual art types like me. The Rabbit Room is sponsoring the event and retains an interest in the the visual arts, but only one of it’s official members claims such a title and she would rather be performing her foodie duty by cooking for those of us attending.

I can only think of one trip we’ve called “vacation” in our almost nine years of marriage. We made off through Missouri and stopped at the Botanical Gardens to see a Dale Chihuly installation. A lot of our time off of work has been spent traveling for fundraising in order to serve with M-DAT. Other times we didn’t feel travel was financially feasible and opted for a working (i.e. home-improving) staycation.

And often we don’t know where we want to go or what we want to do. Both of us would like to explore the Northeastern and Northwestern corners of the U.S., and both of us would like to travel internationally if we can. We like the idea of meandering around a place with a camera, eating good local food and experiencing some of the local culture. I very much dislike tourist traps, and therein places that are geared to attract tourists. This is one of the reasons I’m not at all interested in going to places like Branson or Las Vegas. And I’m not interested in cruises either, which have become mightily popular, it seems to me, since I graduated from college.

The one vacation we had laid out for ourselves at one point involved travel to Washington D.C. and New York City via Amtrack. And then we learned how expensive it is to take a train in and around the States.

Despite not being able to muster up much interest in the topics the Hutchmoot intends to delve into in 2010, this kind of trip may be the best kind of vacation for us anyway. It gets us away together — road trips are great for conversation — and gives us some intellectual stimulation with like minded people. (A significant part of why my wife wants to attend this particular event is to meet her brain twin face to face). Yes, I think gatherings such as the Hutchmoot could become a somewhat regular vacation destination for us.

If we’re so blessed, our next one might be to the Glen Workshop. I just wish it weren’t in New Mexico in August.

Filed under Christianity, Personal reflection, The contemplative life

He is risen

4 April 2010 by pcNielsen 2 Comments

He is risen indeed.

A 13th-century wall painting in the Catedral Vieja of Salamanca, showing the Risen Lord appearing to St Mary Magdalene.

Image from Lawrence OP’s Flickr Photostream.

Filed under Art, Christianity, Painting

On how consumerism changes religion

31 March 2010 by pcNielsen Leave a Comment

David Taylor just had to go and post a review of Vincent Miller’s 2008 book, Consuming Religion. As if I wasn’t depressed enough already at how my reading schedule appears utterly doomed for this year, I now have to add another book to the wish list. A few quotes from Taylor’s review (yes, they’re long, but worth reading, and obviously quite a bit shorter than the actual review which is also worth reading):

    Consumerism may fight against religion. But it is commodification that disarms it. As he puts it, “When consumption becomes the dominant cultural practice, belief is systematically misdirected from traditional religious practices into consumption . . . Traditional practices of self-transformation are subordinated to consumer choice” (225) . . .

    The “use” of Mother Theresa illustrates these dynamics. Her indelible image—the cracked outline of her face, a preternatural smile, tenderly touching an untouchable—gets printed on t-shirts. These t-shirts get mass-produced and worn by young Americans “inspired” by her life. They recite her words. They appeal to her work to denounce, say, two-car-garage lifestyles and the war in Iraq. And they do this while drinking Kenyan coffee and listening to “World Music” on their iPods . . . Religious materials, in short, are “thrown into a cultural marketplace where they can be embraced enthusiastically but not put into practice” (28) . . .

    In Miller’s account, the story begins with Karl Marx. Marx showed how laborers were alienated from the fruits of their labors. This, in turn, led to an increased “de-skilling” of workers, who then more easily “employed” by engineers to perform tasks for which they received “wages.” In time a shift ensued in the mode of human existence from being to having. The suburban single-family home epitomized this shift. Here we had a family supported almost entirely by wages. The family, under this rubric, shifted from managing production to managing consumption. Such a family, for example, now collects “devices” in order to make their lives easier. But for Miller the result leads to increasing isolation from neighbors, who are no longer felt to be needed. Wages and benefits replace “extended family and community relationships as the source of security” (48) . . .

    What advice does Miller offer the reader looking to resist assimilation to consumerism? The first task, he argues, is to name commodification as a problem. After this one can choose a number of creative activities. One can find out where their food comes — Chiquita bananas or breast of chicken. One can take up a craft and gain an appreciation for the labor costs that are involved. The liturgy, at least of the more “high” churches, can serve to reinforce the interconnections between doctrine and symbols and thus aid in the stabilization of their meanings.

After a few criticisms of Miller’s use of sociology over hard data and some hasty comments on the arts, Taylor concludes his review:

    In the end, however, I was very encouraged by Miller’s book. He offered an acute picture of the dynamics of a consumerist culture. The problem is not simply that our culture produces narcissistic individuals who increasingly find themselves isolated from neighbor and nature. The problem is the way that the dynamics of commodification make it easy for us to “consume” religion.

Read Taylor’s review in full via this link.

Filed under Affluenza, Christianity, Consumerism, Entitlement, Mass production, Modern culture

More on the feasibility of an artist retreat

13 March 2010 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

Some months ago now my wife suggested I look up Randy Elrod on Twitter. Randy, a Christian man, seemed to talk regularly about an art retreat he was affiliated with. So I did look him up.

The retreat in question is called Kalein. Don’t ask me how to pronounce it. If I recall correctly, I attempted to ask him a few questions via Twitter about the retreat center, but wasn’t very satisfied with the answers. This, of course, may be a problem with the chosen mode of communication. Regardless, I revisited the Kalein website this morning in the course of an email conversation and it got me to thinking about some retreat related things again.

While the website isn’t very clear about what Kalein actually is (or if it’s actually up and running yet as a physical place; it does already have a board of directors, but also still lists start-up costs), it’s described on the About page in terms very similar to my own idea:

    “Kalein exists to provide a place to encourage and equip gifted artists of all genres (i.e. songwriting, screen writing, sculpting, fashion design, culinary arts, painting, writing, cinematography, communication, comedy, etc.) and leaders to discover, develop and discipline their dreams.”

    “An esthetically pleasing and solitary refuge where respected and recognized master teachers provide personal training, encouragement and mentoring to small groups of leaders and artists.”

Mr. Elrod also lists, as I eluded to above, start-up costs for the retreat center. They come to approximately $2.7 million dollars. I did similar math a couple of years ago and came up with a very similar number. Working out the idea from the ground up is not an inexpensive proposition.

The little house we hope to move into in April.
It’s only 720 square feet on the main level though,
not large enough to share with an artist in residence.

Recently my wife suggested we think about starting out in our own house (when we get a house large enough for such an idea). Another more economically feasible idea, it seems to me, is to look for an existing farmstead or acreage, something I’ve mentioned before. The other day I saw this in our local newspaper’s classifieds:

    Reduced to $249,000. or possible lease with purchase option. Acreage 12.5 acres. 1.5 acres of bluegrass, w/ underground sprinklers. 3,500 sq ft. home, 4 bedrooms 3 baths, 4,000 sq.ft. Heated Garage.

Of course, we can’t afford $250k at the moment either without a lot of help, but it’s a lot more personally attainable than $2.7 million. The location isn’t my favorite, but it could work and would be plenty large to get going. And I wish it were a 4,000 square foot barn and not a “garage”, but again, it would work.

Another thing Kalein has me thinking about is the number of somewhat similar ideas floating around out there right now. My wife and I are fans of collaboration, partnerships, when they present themselves, and if at all possible we want to avoid unnecessarily duplicating other efforts. There is a limited quantity of both manpower and funding in the faith-based nonprofit realm. We hope to work within the larger Body of Christ as efficiently as possible. If someone else gets around to founding a comparable retreat center before we do that’s just fine and dandy. However, comparable is the key word here. From what I can tell, my idea — the wife and I really need to come up with a name for this thing so I don’t have to call it “my idea” anymore — still bears a number of unique facets that I believe warrant a unique effort. The three facets that most readily come to mind are the longer stays, the strict focus on the tactile or plastic arts (which the church seems to have a harder time with than music, writing, drama etc) and a focus on getting these artists plugged into cross-cultural missions work.

This morning was the first time I realized that there might also be validity in multiples. I like the Great Plains for a location. My wife and I understand and believe in Kathleen Norris’ assertion that the Plains foster a contemplative spirit. We might be somewhat biased though, having both grown up on these flat lands. They are our roots. Other people might might prefer the beach or the mountains for inspiration or meditation (even though Norris argues convincingly for the Plains, despite growing up in Hawaii).

And could it be that multiple smaller retreats scattered around the country could also be more financially feasible, for the artists and the organizers? Artists wouldn’t have as far to travel, and organizers might have less managerial overhead. I haven’t thought this through all the way yet, but it seems like YWAM’s DTS model which has persisted for quite a while now.

Filed under Art and faith, Christian art retreat, Christianity

“Art was not made for evangelism”

9 February 2010 by pcNielsen 3 Comments

This is an H.R. Rookmaaker quote that I read on Rebecca Horton’s Passionately Alive blog quite a few months ago. It’s chalk full of pithy goodness on a few different topics.

    So there are many strange problems in our culture. We have to think and work to solve these problems. They are not just Christian problems but problems of culture in general; many people are working on them, and no one has yet been able to find a solution. Now, the solution is never just a little book or a little definition or a little plan, and it will certainly take one or two generations to accomplish. The answer is not another kind of utilitarian art, Christian utilitarian art, because we shouldn’t be prostituting art to become something it was never made to be. Art was not made for evangelism. We should start a new development that bridges the gaps and solves the problem of the unreality of art in the museum. But first we have to pose the right questions. However, we are only just beginning to see those questions.

Filed under Art, Art and faith, Business of art, Christianity, Creative catalyst, Living incarnationally, Modern culture, Public art

Intellect and compassion

9 January 2010 by pcNielsen 1 Comment

I asked for and received a few C.S. Lewis books that I’ve yet to read for Christmas (I also tried to win a copy of Chesterton’s Orthodoxy at Urbana09, but my dart throwing skills weren’t up to snuff.). What this means is that the recently neglected stack of books — relatively short in comparison to my that of avid reading wife — awaiting my attention swelled when I was barely able to complete one read in 2009. Hopefully I’ll be able to pay more attention to my books in 2010. If I am so able, these give me access to reading material since most of our collection is still packed away in boxes.

I had reason, though, in asking for these books beyond just having “access to reading material.” Lately I’ve come to desire a faith, a Christianity, that is both more intellectual and compassionate than the one I’ve known or been exposed to and involved with for most of my life. I’m not exactly certain where this desire is coming from or where it’s leading, but that’s fine for now.

Lewis challenges me intellectually in a unique way. I used to read his writings regularly, but recently I’ve focused on writings on the arts, a lot of which are also intellectually challenging and steeped in theology. However, I’ve palpably missed his writing. This week I started into The Abolition of Man. It’s a short read I hope to finish quickly; my second reforay into Lewis will be Surprised By Joy.

Filed under Christianity, Imagination, Inspired by, Personal reflection

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