Perplexed In Quiet

Often art for me is such a conduit from God that reveals Himself and His Will to me that I am engulfed with such urgency to “evangelize” all those I come in contact with to the manifold joys of His service.  This rapture of being is so acute that it seems to strike a simultaneous dismaying cord in my heart to all theologians who set themselves as the only purveyors of God’s Will and see art at best another tool of theirs and at worst as irrelevant to anything pertaining to God or His will. 

I find these two, paired with urgency and dismaying, being simultaneously a part of my quiet time, perplexing. 

Student work, Ben Bredow, 10'/10'/3', bamboo.

PS 1 (Public School #1)

A Testimony.  

Being an artist, by that I mean that one chooses daily to physically involve oneself in the act of creating art, is so much more rewarding than making art.  By the one you are producing something, by the other you are choosing to live in personal, sustained, prolonged collaboration with The Creator of the idea of creation.  This choice to “be” comes with joy of the “being with”; the other is more often than not just hard physical labor, mostly the grunt. 

This “being with” is not making, it is a gentle settling of yourself to quietly and sincerely see how He is always offering you artistic intersections between Him and you.  It is the assurance that He does this just for you and Him to be in relationship, His overwhelming genius and your smiling gratefulness.  The thankfulness of knowing He continually creates for the purpose of being in relationship with you, a relationship that is often, more than anything else, educational.   

Soul Tanning

I would rather sun my weary and often cold soul basking in the Eternal Ethereal Glow of The Great Allusion than to stumble blindly toward death in hopes that all my enlightenment can lay me down to sleep and pray the mind my soul to keep.

PS: Written in great fulfillment of my Lords care for me, overwhelmed by His easy and minute care that often overrides gravity, sunlight and all other majors. 

Balloon Arch
Art gift to the university from the Art Department 

Trying To Survive In The In-Between

There is a slow moving away of the old from the young.  It works in both ways; the old seeing the young so naively passing over so much of the true meanings of life and the young seeing the old as disconnected from much of the reality of their daily experience.  Both are right.  Most meaning of daily life can only be realized by those that have lived a lot of it and one can never know meaning until they have spent the young years setting their path on the many trails that fail or succeed.  What should be of ultimate concern for all is that each of us chooses daily to live; either on the summit of transfiguration or on the trail to Gethsemane.    One is living what the other cannot grasp and the other is grasping what the one cannot understand. 

A Baby Nailed To The Beam

Art Retreat

There are Truths that nail you to the beam.  In 1 Corinthians Paul talks about infants in Christ needing milk because they are unable to understand the “solid” nature of the truths of God.  He goes on to say in 4:16-17 that these babes should “be imitators of me” and that he is sending them Timothy to “remind you of my ways”, each statement being made because of Paul’s assurance that he is in Christ.  It is no small matter to encourage others to imitate you because they can be assured you are imitating Christ.  Art students have a right to expect their professor to “Profess” the truth.  However it is quite another thing to be assured they are professing The Truth in art as it is lived out in them.  What nailed me to the beam this morning?  Knowing that if this be true of me it is imperative that I place myself in a position where I am the infant with another artist who can faithfully say, “Lee imitate me because I can assure you I am imitating Christ.”

"Can't See The Forest For The Trees"
Site specific piece I made at IWU.