Grace and Necessity: Part IV

Whew, we made it! This dense, thought-provoking, and wordy book is finished, yet something in me still feels incomplete. As I think back about what this book has said + meant, I realize I have many simple unanswered questions swimming around in my brain. 

What is art? 

Is this art? 

Is this art?

What is good art? What is my responsibility as a Christian artist? 

Over the past few weeks, we’ve discussed various views about what makes art important + the reasons we create. I’ve been encouraged and inspired by the words we’ve thrown around + written down, yet I still feel that these topics are so enormously heavy that closing up my book + setting it back on the shelf doesn’t seem appropriate yet. 

Apparently to the Oxford English dictionary, art is "the expression or application of creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form... producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power." 

Georgia O'Keefe thought art is filling a space in a beautiful way. Georges Saurat thought art is harmony. Pablo Picasso said, "Art is a lie that makes us realize truth." 

And that's where I get stuck, too. When I ask myself these questions (listed above), I always come back to the same word: truth. 

Williams says, “But truthfulness unfolds - it doesn’t happen all at once - and makes possible different levels of appropriating or sharing in the activity that is the world” (137). 

In regards to art, this idea that truthfulness can grow or appear more clearly over time seems to invite a dialogue between art + viewer + artist. Imagining that threefold space helps me to see how there is something about the implicit ontology of art which is unavoidable. Art may not always come along with completed perceptions, definitive responses, or straightforward motives, but something about the fact that it simply exists is important. 

To me, that seems to hold some sort of truth. There’s intrinsic value in art, like there’s intrinsic value in us (God’s creation). This connector helps me to see the value of art, and therefore its potential goodness + truth. So while I still not be able to nail down what art actually is (where are the limits?), I do believe that good art is art which conveys some truth... 

However, I don’t think it just stops there. In class, we discussed the idea that an art-artist relationship is similar to a child-parent relationship. At some point after creating + developing, the art (like a child) must be let go. The artist must release it into the world and stop watching over it as carefully as they once did. The art must be free to interact with viewers, and to create conversations and experiences that the artist may not have control over or even be involved in. Basically, art must be allowed to live. 

After thinking about this idea a bit, I realized that maybe good art is art which lives well - meaning that once it is let go, it enters into those conversations and experiences in a way which conveys truth. Whether that truth means it encourages, inspires, informs, questions, or suggests, I believe that’s what makes it important or good. 

Here is a list of some of my other final thoughts: 

• Things are not only what they are. Art is not only what it is. 
• We must interact with our natural (and quiet) inclinations. 
• Art can be an outlet for fulfilling divine needs. 
• We are capable of remaking bits of the world with self-sacrificial love. 
• Through creating, we can discover our own unfinishedness. 
• Like God created us because he loves us, we are free to create art because we love it. 
• Integrity is key. 

Sources:

Images: The Guardian

Mental Floss: 27 Responses to the Question "What is art?" 

Oxford English Dictionary 

Grace + Necessity: Part III

Attempting to translate Rowan Williams to English, Round 3. Here we go.

To start, I must admit that I love the way Williams describes his ideas about art in comparison to Flannery O'Connor's fictional stories. O'Connor has always been a literary crush of mine, largely because of the way she never seems to hide bits of the truth from her readers. Her stories are often creepy or at least uncomfortable to read, but there's something warm about them. They're honest. They're real. And even though they are at times disturbing, I find them beautiful.

It's this sense of reality within O'Connor's stories that I love + long for -- and this doesn't change when it comes to art. I love Williams' idea that "...what matters is the search for the internal necessity of a work" (97). I had to read this line over and over because something about it just seemed so right, but also so vulnerable. There's a purpose in what we do. There's substance behind surface, a sense of life in something that is created + shared.

Take two minutes to watch this video: Ralph Winter on Flannery O'Connor

Ralph Winters suggests that Flannery O'Connor's words are fundamentally at odds with our cultural Christianity. The cynical elements she includes in her stories are bold; they don't fit into the prettily-wrapped Gospel-holding package that we wish to maintain. However, Winters says, "If you're truthful and honest and skillful, those stories can last a very, very long time." O'Connor's words do this; they introduce meaning to this cynical world. Through narrative, they expose truth. According to Williams, "The truth creates its own form" (98).

But what does that mean? Does art always convey some truth (even something insignificant), or is truth something more-so to strive for? I'd like to think that it always does, but that like nearly anything else, the authenticity and intentionality behind it is a great determiner in its overall impact and importance... (maybe?).

According to Williams, "... the event that disrupts and questions and changes the world is precisely what obliges the artist not to try to recreate it from scratch." We don't need to distort reality in order to make things more beautiful, just as Christ is not someone/something we have to sell. Goodness can be found within the truth, because the truth inherently is good (despite what it may entail). I'm starting to think that no matter what the truth is, we don't necessarily have to be afraid of it.

Sources:

Flannery O'Connor Sketch: The Gospel Coalition: Kathleen Neilson

Grace and Necessity: Rowan Williams

Vimeo: Ralph Winter on Flannery O'Connor

Grace + Necessity: Part II

When I think of the chalice + bread, it's easier for me to understand the power of a symbol. Though I know that these substances I intake are simply bread + juice or crackers + wine, I also believe in a mystical relationship between myself, these substances, and Christ. Though these are just small tidbits, I am reminded of something infinitely greater than myself, of grace and love, of repentance, and of Jesus' sacrifice for me. So when Williams talks about "transubstantiation," this thought process helps me understand how it can connect to art... 

Like the chalice + bread, art can somehow meet our needs. Christ can be present in art, speak through art, move through art, and celebrate the art which comes from His own creations.

Reading through Grace and Necessity is causing me to question my relationship with + beliefs about art, but what's been sticking out to me most is that art is so much more than whatever it's surface looks like. Backing up to the basics, I first recognize my admiration for the simple substances I'm using as I create: cameras, paintbrushes, canvases, thread, pens, a pottery wheel. The ontology (I discovered this word in the book + hope I'm using it right...) of these materials delights me. Having these things in my hands, being able to play with them + admire them, and respecting their purposes is such a simple yet fulfilling emotion that I experience as an artist. Before they've even been used, I love the anticipation of working with my hands + using these tools to create something. Something about these supplies is like a weird, other type of transubstantiation for me -- like the chalice + bread, these are symbols that almost represent something magical or mystical.

Here are some images of materials I love to use, things which serve as symbols for the way I crave + need + cherish art.

Williams says, "human beings are those creatures who uniquely have the capacity and responsibility to uncover for one another the nature of the world in which sameness and otherness constantly flow into each other, and in which there is no final reading of a 'surface'..." (pages 82-83).

What I think he means by this is that we are not only able to reveal truth to one another, but we are called to do so. When "sameness and otherness" meet, we find the body of Christ with its individual and uniquely crafted facets working in unison. So despite whatever I create with whatever materials, I might fulfill my role as an artist if I portray some truth that humans hearts can connect to. 

After all, "Art is an uncovering of what is uniquely human" (82). 

As we create, we are blessed with the incredible freedom to make choices, to play, and to sing a song straight out of our hands and hearts that would otherwise find no words. Maybe we are meant to find some truth in the world (something beautiful or raw or real), and create the connection between that thing and our own hearts + souls.


ps. Here's the definition of ontology: 

• a branch of metaphysics concerned with the nature and relations of being
• a particular theory about the nature of being or the kinds of things that have existence

Sources:

Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love by Rowan Williams

Merriam Webster Online Dictionary

Personal Images (taken on my iPhone)

Grace + Necessity: Part I

I went to a new church this morning. As it generally goes, the congregation was given a few minutes to make introductions amongst ourselves. I turned around to be quickly greeted by a middle-aged woman eager to know the details of my college career. Upon hearing that I'll be graduating with a degree in Studio Art, she proceeded to encourage me towards grad school as soon as possible -- after all, to teach I'll need a Master's degree... I interrupted her... 

"Actually, I'll probably just be an artist." 

She awkwardly shifted her eyes around the room. Finally, she seemed to find some bit of relief. She proceeded to tell me about her artist friend who works on her "art hobby" because of her husband's great job, and about how I should really learn about drones (because apparently, artists who use drones are the ones who go far). 

"Maybe..." And I drank the rest of my coffee while she described her new boat. 

And I was thinking... (click to see)

As I drove home from the service, I was bummed by the degree of misinformation this woman had. My sadness wasn't really because of her, though, but due to my realization that the majority of my small world probably wonders the same thing. What the heck would one do with an art degree? 

I think Rowan Williams knows. The artist would make art. That's what he/she is called to do; that alone has intrinsic value. And because of that, whatever he/she creates also has intrinsic value. 

On page 15 of Grace and Necessity, Williams says "[the] artist as artist is not called on to love God or the world or humanity, but to love what he or she is doing." For me, that sentence sums up the majority of Part I's confusing verbiage. 

According to Williams (at least, I think...), honing our gifts + interests glorifies God! I think God delights in a math nerd celebrating the solution to an equation, a teacher being tickled by the progress of a student, a parent taking pride in their child, and certainly in an artist creating. 

But before I go babbling on further, watch this video: The Gap by Ira Glass

So good, right? (Thanks to Nicole for sharing this with me a year or two ago.) I hope you're all encouraged by this.

As the video admits, "For the first couple years that you're making stuff, what you're making isn't that good." But that's not where it ends. Makers are supposed to make (no matter what the results look like), and that alone is beautiful and will lead to even more beautiful things. If Williams were here to watch this with us, I think he'd agree. He claims that art which is created for the sole intent of being beautiful or making a difference in the world will simply fail to do so. It's ok to simply let art be art; it exists because it draws from reality, and reality exists because of God. If we love what we're doing, we're doing something right. 

I think that's pretty beautiful. 

Sources:

Williams, Rowan. Grace and Necessity: Reflections on Art and Love.  

Sax, Daniel. "The Gap by Ira Glass," Vimeo.

"First Day of Camp," giphy.com