Nicora Gangi, Part 2: The Artist's Calling

Today I'm concluding my interview with artist and professor Nicora Gangi (www.machairastudio.com).

LeAnne: What would you say to encourage other artists who happen to be Christians?

Nicora: A Christian artist should not be caught up in producing an evangelical tract- therefore failing to produce a work of art. Many Christian artists haven't made good art because they have only been concerned with the evangelical tract.

God made the world beautiful –so don't reduce creation to just a message about God but also see it as beautiful. It is for Christians to show what is meant by life and humanity and to express what it means for them to have been 'made new' in Christ in every aspect of their being.

The artist with his special gifts has a specific task, a very special and wonderful calling. It is to make life better, more worthwhile to create the sound, the shape, the tale, the decoration, the environment, that is meaningful and lovely and a joy to mankind.

How is the Christian artist to fulfill this role and to work out these norms? It is a calling to promote good and to fight evil, ugliness, the negative; to hunger and thirst for righteousness; to search for the right 'finishing touch,' the right tone, the right word in the right place.

To respond to our calling today means that we shall not be afraid to show that we are Christians, not only in saying that we have been saved by Christ but also in our stand, in our way of life, in our prophetic analysis of the situation. This means that we shall never compromise, never accept the status quo because that is the easiest thing to do or seems inevitable. It means to be radical—to go back to the roots to the very foundation, which is Christ. To be Christian involves all our work and activity, understanding that there is nothing neutral, nothing apart from Christ's reign.

"We have confidence before God, and we receive from him whatever we ask because we keep his commandments and do what pleases him" (I John 3:21, 22).