“Your Own Astonishment”: Quotations for Artists in Any Field

"There is something you find interesting, for a reason hard to explain. It is hard to explain because you have never read it on any page; there you begin. You were made and set here to give voice to this, your own astonishment." Annie Dillard

Art does not reproduce the visible; rather it makes it visible.” Paul Klee

If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, I will tell you: ‘I am here to live out loud.’” Emile Zola

“Art is a human activity, consisting in this, that one man consciously, by means of external signs, hands on to others feelings he has worked through, and other people are infected by these feelings and also experience them.” Leo Tolstoy

Coming soon: more great interviews with artists and experts!

Dana Gioia’s Speech at Stanford University

You may have already seen it, but it’s worth revisiting: last year’s commencement speech at Stanford University given by Dana Gioia , chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts and an internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet. The Wall Street Journal ran a condensed version of the speech in an article called “The Impoverishment of American Culture And the need for better art education.” Read it and let me know what you think.

Speaking of American culture, I’ll soon be featuring a culture expert, sculptors, actors, and more.

Luann Jennings, Part 2: The Arts Ministry at Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Luann Purcell Jennings is an arts administrator, theater director, and acting teacher. Originally from Atlanta, GA, she worked with several theater companies there, and founded a theater company for children and families, before moving to New York City in 2002 to pursue additional studies in theater and to work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. She now heads Redeemer's Arts Ministry and has recently resumed directing and teaching.

LM: What are some ways Redeemer’s Arts Ministry serves artists?

LJ: Of course our primary concern is for the artists' spiritual lives, so discipleship and community are significant values for us. Our two main programs in these areas are our monthly InterArts Fellowship (IAF) and our Vocation Groups. IAF meets on the second Friday of every month and is for anyone involved in the fine or performing arts, design, entertainment, or media. Each gathering consists of a speaker or artist presentation and plenty of time for fellowship and networking with other artists. We also have Vocation Groups for Actors, Dancers, and Filmmakers. Each of these groups holds several events per year of special interest to people in their industry. These have included panel discussions, prayer and worship events, speaker events, social nights, etc.

We collaborate with other ministries in Redeemer on several projects. Four Fellowship Groups for artists and three Fellowship Groups for musicians meet weekly. Through our adult education programs, we offered a class on “Christianity and the Arts” last spring, which will be offered again soon along with a new class on film. In January, we launched arts classes for children in conjunction with our Family and Children's Ministries.

Our newest program is called the Greenhouse, and its mission is to cultivate the creation of new works of art from a Christian worldview and to build an audience for them. The name came from a talk Tim gave awhile back, in which he described the work of cultural renewal as a "re-Edening" of God's creation --that our goal in cultural renewal should be to make the world around us look more like the garden God intended it to be. Revelation talks about the New Jerusalem as a Garden City -- what a great thing for NYC to aspire to! And where does a garden start? In a greenhouse.

There are huge implications (and opportunities) for cultural renewal in the arts, design, media, and entertainment. At this point we're still working through how "cultivating new works of art" will work best -- there are lots of possible ways to do that. We have hosted several art exhibitions, just launched a literary magazine and will soon see the debut performance of a new dance project. And we’re thinking through additional ways to support artists and their creative processes.

But we're concentrating most of our Greenhouse efforts right now on building awareness and appreciation for the arts within our congregation -- the "building an audience" part. We're planning a month-long arts emphasis -- "April is Arts Month" -- in which we'll have a number of educational programs, field trips, performances, etc., to get our congregation thinking more deeply about the arts and God's kingdom.

LM: You offer artists so many opportunities for growth and encouragement. How are your efforts being received?

LJ: One of our artists recently gave a testimony in a worship service, and she talked about how much she had benefited from getting involved in several of our programs. Being in community with other artists who were having similar questions and struggles was very encouraging to her at a time in which she was questioning her calling to her creative field. And being involved in conversations about how faith intersects with creative work gave her a fresh way of looking at what she does. We hear these kinds of stories pretty regularly, so God is definitely working through the ministry. The community is the key -- we artists are people who like to tell our stories and hear each others' stories, and, as Jesus knew, we learn and heal a lot through stories.

Coming soon: interviews with more artists along with a culture expert

Luann Jennings: The Arts Ministry at Redeemer Presbyterian Church

Last week, I quoted from the Rev. Tim Keller’s essay in It Was Good. This week, I’m talking to the director of the Arts Ministry at the church he founded, Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York.

Luann Purcell Jennings is an arts administrator, theater director, and acting teacher. Originally from Atlanta, GA, she worked with several theater companies there, and founded a theater company for children and families, before moving to New York City in 2002 to pursue additional studies in theater and to work at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. She now heads Redeemer's Arts Ministry and has recently resumed directing and teaching. For more information on the Arts Ministry, check out the website.

LeAnne: Why does Redeemer Presbyterian Church feel it's important to reach out to artists?

Luann: Largely it grew up practically. Of our weekly attendance of 5,000, some have estimated that up to 1/4 of those folks are involved in the arts, entertainment, media, fashion, etc., full-time or in addition to other paying work. NYC can be a tough place to live -- it's very competitive in these fields, and most of them don't pay well (except at the top tier, which everyone is scrambling to get to, and that’s why they came to NYC in the first place). Add in questions and confusion about how our Christian faith should intersect with our creative work within this context and you have a ministry area that's ripe to be developed.

Also, Redeemer has a strong commitment to cultural renewal through the arts. Our greatest asset and resource is our senior pastor, Tim Keller, who really gets how much influence the arts and artists have on the thinking and choices of the culture around us. Tim stays very current on the arts and talks (from the pulpit and otherwise) about artists as important members of our community and the culture at large. This makes the artists in our congregation feel valued and understood, an experience they may not have had before in church. Besides just the nature of being located in NYC, that's the biggest reason we have so many artists at Redeemer.

LM: How did the Arts Ministry come to be? How did you get involved in it?

LJ: The seeds have been there since the beginning of Redeemer nearly 20 years ago, through Tim and the philosophy and ministry of the Worship & Music department. But it was in 2004 that the Arts Ministry was officially created as a unit within Redeemer's Center for Faith & Work(CFW), a department that was started in 2003 to help people in all industries to integrate their faith with their work and their work with their faith

I was working in the Worship & Music department at the time. My background is in theater, and I had begun a project through the department with other theater professionals, which has since developed into an independent non-profit theater company, Threads Productions. Worship & Music was also hosting a worship dance project, and CFW was interested in hosting programs for artists, too, and had started a Writer's Group. So between Worship & Music and CFW there were several programs available for artists, but we (the directors of Worship & Music and CFW, and I) felt that there was still a great need that was going unmet. So the Arts Ministry was created in the CFW and I stepped into the leadership role in September 2004. Worship & Music still hosts programs for musicians, and the Arts Ministry houses programs for artists working in visual arts & design, theater/film/TV/media, dance, and writing. We also host several inter-disciplinary programs.

LM: How many artists does the ministry serve? Are most of them professional artists?

LJ: Between Redeemer’s artists and artists from other churches (who we welcome) I'd guess that we have around 500 folks who are actively involved on some level with our ministry.

The term "professional" is a bit fuzzy in NYC. Most of the folks who come to our programs came to NYC to pursue creative careers. However, fewer than half are making 100% of their income through those careers. It's a necessity for most artists here to have a part- or full-time "survival job" that pays the bills, while they pursue their creative work as well. But these artists are still very serious, talented people who have the same education and passion as those who are making a living at it. The reality is that the pie is just not big enough here for everyone to get a large piece, but that’s not a reflection on them. I consider them all "professionals." I haven't met anyone through the Arts Ministry that is an "amateur" in the sense that they view their creative work primarily as a hobby for personal enjoyment. There’s always more to it than that, or they wouldn’t be here.

More from Luann Jennings on Thursday.

Coming soon: interviews with more artists along with a culture expert

Stealing Art

Did you hear about the art theft on Monday at a small museum in Zurich? Three masked thieves with guns snatched four oil paintings by Cezanne, Degas, van Gogh and Monet. Read about it here. It’s easier to steal—or, for that matter, to destroy—than to create. I’m praying they don’t get away with it.

On Monday, I gave you a few sentences from Tim Keller’s essay in It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books). I promised to give the next sentence to complete Keller’s thought. Here it is:

“We need Christian artists because we are never going to reach the world without great Christian art to go with great Christian talk.”

Whether you consider yourself a Christian artist or an artist who happens to be a Christian, use your gift to the best of your ability. Do whatever you do with excellence, and don’t let anyone steal your desire to create.

Coming soon: a culture expert and more artists

What I’m Reading

Alice Bass, an actor and creativity expert I featured last spring, tagged me with a book meme a couple of weeks ago. (Sorry, Alice, that I’m just now getting to it.) Here are the rules:

1. Pick up the nearest book (of at least 123 pages).
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the next three sentences.
5. Tag five people.

The nearest book on my desk is one I’m slowly savoring called It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books). It’s a collection of essays edited by Ned Bustard, who I featured in December. Page 123 falls in the middle of a piece titled “Why We Need Artists” by Tim Keller, founding pastor of Manhattan’s Redeemer Presbyterian Church, known for its arts program.

So, here we go. Page 123, 5th sentence and then the next three:

“There is a sort of schizophrenia that occurs if you are listening to Bach and you hear the glory of God and yet your mind says there is no God and there is no meaning. You are committed to believing nothing means anything and yet the music comes in and takes you over with your imagination. When you listen to great music, you can’t believe life is meaningless. Your heart knows what your mind is denying.”

Keller’s next sentence explains why we need artists. You’ll have to wait until Thursday’s post for that one.

Now, for step #5, I’m tagging these people:

Crystal writes fiction and nonfiction with humor and warmth. I love her voice. She used to write book reviews, too, because she is a voracious reader. She will have a fun and interesting read, no doubt.

Byron from Hearts and Minds Books always has something wonderful on his desk. I hope he has time to do this.

With his book, Chandler Branch, Executive Director of Soli Deo Gloria, may continue the music theme of Keller’s quotation above, but maybe not.

Plus, two other gifted writers I know, both of whom have major projects on their desks right now: Towles and Colin.

So, what are you reading?

John Silvis, Part 2: NYCAMS

Photographer John Silvis is director of NYCAMS (www.nycams.bethel.edu), the New York Center for Art and Media Studies, an arts residency of Bethel University in St. Paul, MN (www.bethel.edu). John has an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and a BA in Studio Art from Bethel University. To see some of John’s work, go to http://nycams.bethel.edu/silvis.html.

LM: Tell me about the NYCAMS program. What is it? How does it work?

JS: NYCAMS (New York Center for Art and Media Studies) is a semester art residency program for Junior and Senior undergraduate students pursuing a terminal degree in art. Students in the program receive 16 credits, which include a Contemporary Art course, a critique based Studio course and an Internship in the Arts. We receive students from 20 different Universities in the CCCU. Bethel University Art Department in St. Paul, MN owns and operates the program. Our studio is located in Chelsea, New York City.

LM: Are the students in the program trying to engage the culture with their faith and creativity? How do you encourage them in this?

JS: Yes, we provide the students with a background in Contemporary Art, as well as how Christians have engaged culture past and present. We have an exciting guest lecture program that allows them to hear from artists in the community and artists that are very deliberate about their Faith.

John Silvis: Capturing Moments

Photographer John Silvis is director of NYCAMS (http://www.nycams.bethel.edu/), the New York Center for Art and Media Studies, an arts residency of Bethel University in St. Paul, MN (www.bethel.edu). John has an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and a BA in Studio Art from Bethel University. To see some of John’s work, go to http://nycams.bethel.edu/silvis.html.

LeAnne: Tell me about your photography. Have you always been drawn to it? Why?

John: Photography has been second nature for me since my twelvth birthday when I received my first camera from my father. During high school, I learnt how to develop and print black and white film, and then continued developing my technical skills and conceptual work in my undergraduate studies. Capturing a certain moment and the possibility of creating a composition with light and form continue to fascinate me.

LM: What are you working on right now?

JS: Since 2004, I have turned my focus from traditional portraiture to the automobile and our relationship to it. I have been making collages, combining Polaroids and magazine images of cars, setting up environments with car models and photographing cars in motion. What interests me is what they represent as cultural signifiers and how they shape our identity. For most people they hold memories and ideas that are unique to our post-industrial era.

LM: You've got a long list of awards and grants, exhibitions and collections. What has been the most exciting highlight of your career so far?

JS: The most challenging and exciting exhibition of my career was the family series I exhibited at the Essl Collection Vienna in 2001, as a part of their emerging artists series. That exhibit was exciting because I was able to work on a large project and have it seen by a lot of people in the art world. The opening was a great opportunity to meet people and talk about the work. At the opening, I also did a performance piece with a Swiss artist, Daniel Ashwanden. It included video, pre-recorded sound, objects, but was mostly improvised.

More from John on Thursday.