Christians in the Arts

Taking a Break

2009-07-20T09:15:00.000-04:00

After 300 posts, and almost 3 years, I'm taking a break from this blog. I am pursuing other interests this year, including the CS Lewis Fellows Program, as I've mentioned recently. The Fellows Program is a one-year intensive study program that will allow me to read books and articles by great Christian thinkers, to meet with and discuss the readings with other fellows and mentors, to meditate on and memorize related scripture, and to write about what I'm learning. I've already started the reading and have learned so much already. It's going to be quite a year.

I plan to continue writing my other blog, Beauty and the Beholder, about the beauty around us. I post on Wednesdays and often discuss art as well as creation. Check it out if you haven't already.

I'll also continue writing occasional articles, essays, and devotionals and whatever else God leads me to.

I've enjoyed this blog so much and have met many fascinating people through it. Thank you for reading. Thank you, also, to all the artists, art experts and enthusiasts I've interviewed through the years. Artists, stay true to your gift and your faith. And God's blessings on you all.

In the Name of the Greatest Artist of all,
LeAnne

Christian Wiman: Image's Artist of the Month

2009-07-16T07:54:00.004-04:00

Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry, poet and essayist, is Image's Artist of the Month for July. Wiman was raised in a conservative Baptist home but his faith "fell away", he says, in college. He felt its absence, though, and in the past few years has returned to his faith. Read his essay, God's Truth is Life, in Image's 60th issue.

Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones

2009-07-13T08:25:00.005-04:00

I'm reading so many fascinating books this summer--some for the CS Lewis Fellows program and some about creativity and faith. Right now I'm just on chapter two of Luci Shaw's Breath for the Bones: Art, Imagination, and Spirit: Reflections on Creativity and Faith and I have already underlined much of the book. Here are a few favorite passages from the intro and chapter one:

"The artist, then, becomes something of a prophet: the seer, the mouthpiece. The role of the artist is to call to attention."

"The artists--the prophets too--are called to this role: presenting pictures and models, words, and visions. They have a special calling--to recognize God's creating hand, God's storied art, God's order."

"There is another calling for the artist, and that is one of linking earth to heaven, pointing the human to the divine, finding the connections."

"In art and creativity, we make visible to others the beauty and meaning God has first pictured, or introduced, into our imaginations. In that sense we may each think of ourselves as a small extension of the creative mind of God."

"How I Work": Beverly Key, Visual Artist

2009-07-09T12:26:00.004-04:00

Today my mind is on my friend, visual artist Beverly Key, who I enjoyed coffee with this morning. This post is from my original interview with her two years ago when she talked about how she works and gave some advice to young artists.

LeAnne: What are your favorite forms or methods of painting?

Beverly: Recently  I've begun to do large abstract oils, and for many  years now I have been painting large abstact  landscapes on paper with watercolor, where I pour  paint through paper filters using dried beans and peas  and string for design elements. I also do collage.

LM: When did you know you wanted to paint?

BK: When I was in first  grade, I tried to sneak a box of crayons into the  grocery cart. As I was growing up I always thought of myself as an artist. I was one of the ones in school  who was always doing the bulletin boards for the  teachers. Both my parents painted as a hobby so I grew  up with the smell of oil and turpentine. I took some classes after school with a wonderful woman,  Abbott Downing (of course, in south Alabama we called  her,"Miss Abbott"). However, I graduated from college  with a degree in special education, and thought that  would be what I would do. I taught a few years, got  married, had 2 boys and in 1986 we moved to Atlanta.  At that time, my husband and I decided to try to have another child  and I also took some art classes at the Atlanta  College of Art. Since that time I have been painting  professionally.

LM: What advice do you have for young or new artists who are Christians?

BK: I would say "trust yourself". You are the  only person who will see the world the way you see it.  Take confidence in that and draw from your own  experiences. Keep working some every day. Most work  gets recognized because the artist just kept at it.

Arts Moments Yesterday

2009-07-06T09:56:00.003-04:00

Hope you had a great July 4th celebration.

Yesterday was a full day for me. There were three points where the arts particularly touched me:

1. During the worship service at church, our back-up worship singer sang Watermark's "Captivate Us." It's a gorgeous, intimate song, and she sang it beautifully.

2. My family and I watched The Incredibles. The amount of Christian worldview and symbolism in that movie took me by surprise. We loved it.

3. I finished the book, The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, a novel about the German Occupation of one of the Channel Islands during World War II. The story was told entirely by letters--the kind that show up in a mailbox. I thoroughly enjoyed that book.

What arts moments have you enjoyed lately? Leave a comment and let me know.

Replay: Barry Morrow, Part 2: Excellence in Our Work

2009-07-01T21:51:00.005-04:00

This week I'm replaying my interview with Barry Morrow last year. Today Barry has a few words for artists about excellence.

Hope you have a happy July 4th! God Bless America!

Replay: Barry Morrow: Art & The Extraordinary Goodness of God

2009-06-30T07:27:00.004-04:00

A few weeks ago, I was accepted into the CS Lewis Fellows program through the CS Lewis Institute. Since Lewis is on my mind a lot these days, this week I'm doing a replay of an interview with a Lewis and culture expert, Barry Morrow. Enjoy!

Judith Couchman, Part 2: Writer, Art History Teacher, Speaker

2009-06-18T07:54:00.005-04:00

Here's the conclusion of my interview with Judith Couchman. She has published more than 40 books, compilations, and Bible studies. Her books cover topics as diverse as art history, discovering your purpose, thriving in difficult times, shaping the soul, body image, flower gardening, and breadmaking. But whatever the topic, Judith leads readers to consider their own spiritual growth and formation in everyday life. In addition to her publishing career, Judith now teaches ancient, early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art history courses as a part-time instructor for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Judith has worked as a full-time freelance writer, speaker, and writing coach for 15 years. During this time she created the Write the Vision Retreats, intensive weekend gatherings for female writers, and the Designing a Woman’s Life Seminar, a one- to two-day workshop to help women find their purpose and passion in life. She’s also spoken to professional and women’s groups around the country, and has served as a magazine teacher and consultant to nonprofit organizations overseas. In recent years she’s donated consulting time to Eastern European editors of Christian publications.

Before working as an author, Judith founded and served as editor-in-chief of Clarity, a national magazine for women. She’s held jobs as an editor, journalism teacher, communications director, and public relations practitioner. She’s also received national awards for her work in each of these positions, and for her books. Check out her website and blogs:

http://www.judithcouchman.com
http://www.judithcouchman.blogspot.com
http://www.startingover-judithcouchman.blogspot.com

LeAnne: What three things do you want your students to know when they leave your classroom?

Judith: First, because I teach online classes, I want students to know how to research and study on their own. These skills will serve them for a lifetime. Second, art is an expression of its culture and time period, so we need to understand the culture and era in which artists created it. Third, one era of art isn't "superior" to another. When we understand the context, we can appreciate its contribution to the world.

LeAnne: You're a speaker, too. Your seminar, "The Mystery of the Cross", based on your book by the same title, sounds intriguing. You talk about how early Christians honored the message and image of the cross in their art, worship, and lives. Can you tell me more about that?

Judith: I'll first say that I develop seminars based on some of my books. So currently I have about six seminars I offer to churches and organizations. The Mystery of the Cross seminar helps people understand the work of the Cross, how it transforms them, and influences their everyday lives. I use images and sensory experiences to enhance their understanding.

LeAnne: Is there anything you'd like to add about the topic of Christians and the arts?

Judith: Be yourself. Be true to your creative calling. Take in wisdom, but in the end, don't run your creative life based on what other people think. Pursue your passion. Listen to your soul. Your work will be authentic and meaningful, for you and your audience.

Judith Couchman: Writer, Art History Teacher, Speaker

2009-06-18T07:51:00.006-04:00

Judith Couchman has published more than 40 books, compilations, and Bible studies. Her books cover topics as diverse as art history, discovering your purpose, thriving in difficult times, shaping the soul, body image, flower gardening, and breadmaking. But whatever the topic, Judith leads readers to consider their own spiritual growth and formation in everyday life. In addition to her publishing career, Judith now teaches ancient, early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art history courses as a part-time instructor for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs.

Judith has worked as a full-time freelance writer, speaker, and writing coach for 15 years. During this time she created the Write the Vision Retreats, intensive weekend gatherings for female writers, and the Designing a Woman’s Life Seminar, a one- to two-day workshop to help women find their purpose and passion in life. She’s also spoken to professional and women’s groups around the country, and has served as a magazine teacher and consultant to nonprofit organizations overseas. In recent years she’s donated consulting time to Eastern European editors of Christian publications.

Before working as an author, Judith founded and served as editor-in-chief of Clarity, a national magazine for women. She’s held jobs as an editor, journalism teacher, communications director, and public relations practitioner. She’s also received national awards for her work in each of these positions, and for her books. Check out her website and blogs:

http://www.judithcouchman.com
http://www.judithcouchman.blogspot.com
http://www.startingover-judithcouchman.blogspot.com

LeAnne: I came to know your writing through your book, Designing a Woman's Life. What draws you to writing?

Judith: From an early age I knew I wanted to be an author. In my sixth-grade journal I wrote, "I want to write a book." I think it's the only sentence I wrote in that journal, so I wasn't off to a good start! But I remember writing poems and stories in grade school and by high school I wrote for the school newspaper. I thought writing would be the coolest job in the world. I considered some other things, but always returned to a deeply embedded desire to write. I spent years teaching journalism and working as an editor, but I knew that eventually I'd write books. At the same time, those jobs prepared me for what I'm doing now. I learned to write by editing other people's work.

Saying I'm "drawn" to writing probably isn't strong enough. I'm compelled. I can't not write. Being an author is my main identity. It's hard to explain, but something about expressing myself through the written word deeply satisfies me. I also consider writing my calling. It's my ministry in the world; something I want to pursue the rest of my life.

LeAnne: What kind of topics do you write about?

Judith: I write nonfiction about a wide variety of topics, but primarily the work encourages readers to integrate faith into their everyday lives. But I don't think of myself as a how-to person--at least not these days. I like to use stories and memoir to create a common ground with readers and make them think. I don't like giving them "answers." I'm especially drawn to helping people pursue their purpose and passion in the world--to use their gifts and be who God created them to be. That's why I wrote Designing a Woman's Life and have taught seminars based on that book. I also write a blog called Starting Over, for people beginning again in any area of their lives. These days the publishing industry stresses author identity, so I've been thinking about this. I've recently learned that I can be an agent's nightmare because I'm interested in so many things. So after creating 40 books and compilations, I'm wrestling with how to define my brand or author identity.

LeAnne: You also teach art history. Why did you pursue a degree in art history? What draws you to it?

Judith: Even though my main identity is "author," I also love art. I think many creative people are interested in more than one artistic endeavor. Often they work in one main field, but dabble in others. I'm not a visual artist, but I've visited museums and gazed at art for years. Whenever I traveled, I found the nearby museums and spent hours walking the galleries. I wasn't formally trained, so my appreciation was from a gut level. I enjoyed or disliked something based on my feelings. That's not a wrong way to approach art, but I eventually wanted to understand what I observed. Even though I already had a master's degree in journalism, I began taking undergraduate courses in art history--one at a time--in the evenings. Then eventually I pursued another master's degree in art history through an online university. I juggled studying art history with writing. I studied Christian art from its inception through the Reformation. Eventually this led to teaching art history part time (online) for the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. This combines nicely with my writing life.

I've also begun writing about art, combining my two interests together. I recently finished a book for InterVarsity Press called, The Mystery of the Cross. It's about the art, life, and worship of early Christians, based on images of the cross. The book can be described as "art meets spiritual transformation." Readers apply what they've learned to their spiritual lives today. Right now I'm writing The Art of Faith, a handbook about Christian art, for Paraclete Press. I particularly wanted to write about and teach early Christian art. When we explore the art, rituals, and culture of early and medieval Christians, we understand our spiritual roots. When I began studying early Christian art, I was shocked by how I didn't know about my heritage as a believer. The early church and its art was different than I'd envisioned it--more elemental and tied to the Roman culture than I'd thought.

More from Judith on Thursday.

Sound of Music in a Train Station

2009-06-16T08:15:00.004-04:00

I came across this YouTube a couple of days ago and just had to pass it on. The video was made in the Antwerp, Belgium Central Train Station on March 23, 2009. At 08:00 am a recording of Julie Andrews singing 'Do, Re, Mi' begins to play on the public address system. As bemused passengers watch in amazement, some 200 dancers begin to appear from the crowd and station entrances. They created this stunt with just two rehearsals. It's so creative and such fun! I wish I had been there.

Coming soon: New feature!

Ruminate Magazine

2009-06-14T22:37:00.004-04:00

Do you Ruminate? Check this out (from the website):

"RUMINATE is a quarterly magazine of short stories, poetry, creative nonfiction, and visual art that resonate with the complexity and truth of the Christian faith. Each issue is a themed forum for literature and art that speaks to the existence of our daily lives while nudging us toward a greater hope. Because of this, we strive to publish quality work accounting for the grappling pleas, as well as the quiet assurances of an authentic faith. RUMINATE Magazine was created for every person who has paused over a good word, a real story, a perfect brushstroke— longing for the significance they point us toward. Please join us."

On the site you can get a taste of the current issue and glimpses of past issues. Kudos to Ruminate!

On Reactions to Art

2009-06-11T08:22:00.004-04:00

Here's an excellent article written by artist Dayton Castleman called "Can Cy Twombly Be Trusted?". Thanks to my friend Byron Borger of Hearts & Minds Books for bringing it to my attention.

Sacred Harp Singing

2009-06-08T10:25:00.007-04:00

I'm a Southern girl with gospel roots, but I've never been to a live performance of sacred harp singing. My knowledge of it is limited but my fascination is growing. If you've never heard of it, you'll want to check out these resources:

1. An article by Paul Harvey titled "Wondrous Love: The living tradition of Sacred Harp singing". Harvey writes about sacred harp singing and discusses two books that deal with it: Kiri Miller’s Traveling Home, an academic study, and Kathryn Easterburn’s A Sacred Feast: Reflections on Sacred Harp Singing and Dinner on the Ground, a collection of essays, reflections, and even recipes.

2.The documentary, “Awake My Soul.” (The website has a clip of the singing as well as a trailer. You can buy the soundtrack and the DVD on the site as well.) Here's the description:

"Awake, My Soul is a feature documentary that explores the history, music, and traditions of Sacred Harp singing, the oldest surviving American music. While often linked only to its history, (e.g. the songs were used in the recent historical films "Cold Mountain" and "Gangs of New York") this haunting music has survived over 200 years tucked away from sight in the rural deep south, where in old wooden country churches, devoted singers break open The Sacred Harp, a shape note hymnal first published in Georgia in 1844. These singers have inherited The Sacred Harp and its traditions from those who came before them and preserved these fierce yet beautiful songs, many of which are much older than the hymnal itself. And so they, like the early singers, begin each song by intoning syllables which are represented by each shaped note in their hymnal: fa, sol, la, and mi. To the casual observer, it is some foreign, unintelligible language, but to these Sacred Harp singers, it is the key that unlocks mysteries: songs of both beauty and sorrow, of life and of death, songs that cause feet to stomp and tears to flow, often at the same time. They are ancient sounds, which are at times disorienting to the modern ear, and yet they are sung with such passion and force that it becomes obvious that these songs are very much alive. Awake My Soul is a film that captures both the history and the vitality of a music that is utterly unlike any music most viewers are likely to have heard.”

Enjoy! And if you're a fan of sacred harp, leave a comment and let me know.

My Guest Post

2009-06-04T07:40:00.002-04:00

I'm honored to be the guest blogger on CITA's (Christians in Theater Arts) blog for the month of June. My post is about some of my favorite moments in theater. Here's the link if you'd like to read it:

http://cita.org/site/?p=161

Summer Arts Conferences

2009-06-01T08:03:00.016-04:00

School is out and summer is on my mind, so I thought I'd post a couple of summer arts conferences. If you know of any others, please leave a comment with links and contact information.

Two summer conferences sponsored byRedeemer Presbyterian Church in New York:

"This summer, the Redeemer's Arts Ministry will be presenting two Professional and Personal Development Conferences, to use this slower-moving time of the year to think more deeply about our callings, our careers, and our lives."

Redeemer's new professional development series for artists is designed to help artists think through their careers from a Christian perspective, identify their "calling," and approach their careers with information, integrity, and vigor.

Professional Development Workshop
Friday, June 26 - 7:00-9:30pm
Saturday, June 27 - 10:00am-4:00pm
Redeemer offices (1359 Broadway Suite 400)

The Healthy Artist
Friday, July 17 - 7:00pm-9:30pm
Saturday, July 18 - 10:00am-4:00pm
Redeemer offices (1359 Broadway Suite 400)

Questions? Contact Luann Jennings at luann@redeemer.com or (212) 808-4460 x1343.

Another conference is Karitos

Karitos 2009
"He Must Increase"
July 16-18
Living Waters Church
Bolingbrook, IL

"The mission of Karitos is to provide Biblically-based artistic and technical growth experiences to Christian artists." These tracks are offered: Master Classes, Dance/Mime, Literary Arts, Music Biz Track, Theatre, Visual Arts, Worship. Something for everyone!

More new features coming soon!

The Beauty Around You

2009-05-28T07:10:00.005-04:00

I have another blog called Beauty and the Beholder. I thought yesterday's post on that blog would be a good exercise here as well. Check it out, and leave a comment about your favorite things of beauty.

Coming soon: more features

Happy Memorial Day

2009-05-25T12:21:00.004-04:00

On this holiday and every day of the year, I am grateful for this country. And I'm grateful for the many people who sacrificed their lives for the freedoms we have. What a tremendous gift!

Quotations

2009-05-20T20:54:00.005-04:00

I found these quotations in Leonard Sweet's Soul Salsa. I like them and thought I'd pass them along.

“A true artist always puts something of his time in his art, and also his soul.” French sculptor Auguste Rodin

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and if possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

“Heav’n above is softer blue
Earth around is sweeter green;
Something lives in every hue
Christless eyes have never seen.” from George Wade Robinson hymn, I am His and He is Mine

“He who has eyes sees something in everything.” Roy Lichtenberg

Wilmer Mills, Part 3: Poet, Teacher, Carpenter

2009-05-18T08:45:00.001-04:00

This is the conclusion of my feature with the poet Wilmer Mills.

To hear Wil read two poems, click here.
To read more of the essay he excerpts in our interview, click here.
To see some of his paintings, click here.

LeAnne: In addition to being a poet, you're also a carpenter. Has creating with your hands also helped you create with words and vice versa?

Wil: I have done a lot of carpentry, but I no longer do it professionally. I built my own house and am forever doing projects on it. They never seem to end. Working with my hands is the most important activity for stimulating my creativity. It is what makes me most human and also what puts me closest into contact with my creator. I also believe that working with my hands taps into a separate kind of human intelligence. There is the usual I.Q. kind; I often feel very deficient in that area. But when I work with my hands, I feel a broadening of connection-making ability. I am able to see how things fit together, how things work in a series of steps, almost how a story fits together. Yes, it’s all very narrative. I don’t think, though, that working with words has helped me work better with my hands. I think it only works the other way around. Manual dexterity or activity stimulates mental facility, not the reverse.

LM: You're also a teacher on a fellowship at UNC Chapel Hill. What has teaching students to write taught you?

WM: It has taught me how much I still don’t know. I never wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to work with my hands. But I couldn’t make a living that way and teaching has been my salvation. This has been a great surprise to me, because of how much I love it and for how much I learn by teaching. I’ve learned more about poetry by teaching in two years than I have in fifteen years of writing. Having to explain something forces one to learn the material in a deeper way. I hope to be able to continue teaching poetry.

LM: What would you like for your students to know when they leave your classroom?

WM: I teach my students how to construct a good line of verse both in strict meter and with lively and compelling syntax. Poetry is built out of lines, not feelings. When they learn how to build a good line, when they know the rules, then they can learn how to break them in intelligent ways, something that is essential for formal poetry, but especially for free verse, which, by definition, depends on variation. If you don’t have a grasp of regularity, your variation or “freedom” from a norm has no meaning.

I teach them to develop their ears to pick up the rich musical possibilities of language and how to channel that music through accurate observations of the real world around them. Too often, student poets think that writing a poem is about constructing an elaborate riddle with words, and that their job is to give cryptic clues to what the meaning is. This is at the root of most horrible poetry. If given the choice between the subtlety of mystery and the enigma of the mysterious, they will invariably choose the latter and drip it with oozings from their psyches.

I teach them to get out of their own heads, to stop thinking that poetry is a soapbox for self-expression. Poetry is about expressing the dictionary. Once they catch on, they realize that words are more intelligent than people are, and that words do a much better job of expressing their feelings and thoughts. Let good language do the work. So I teach students to look at what they see right in front of them and to say what they see in the most compelling language. Poets should make sense and make it sing.

Wilmer Mills, Part 2: Poet, Collector of Words

2009-05-14T08:00:00.001-04:00

This is the second of three parts of my feature on poet Wilmer Mills. Mills was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was graduated from The McCallie School in 1988 and The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee with a B.A. in English Literature in 1992. He received a Masters in Theology from Sewanee in 2005. His first book of poems, a chapbook, Right as Rain, was published by Aralia Press in 1999. His first full-length collection of poems, Light for the Orphans, was published by Story Line Press in 2002.Wilmer Mills has published poems in The New Republic, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Poetry, The New Criterion, Shenandoah, Literary Imagination, and others. His poems have been anthologized in Penguin/Longman Anthology of Contemporary American Poets, 2004, and are forthcoming from The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets.Mills has worked as a carpenter, furniture maker, sawmill operator, artisan bread baker, white oak basket weaver, farmer, and a white water raft guide, and poetry teacher among other things. He lives with his wife, Kathryn, and their two children in a bungalow he built himself in Sewanee, Tennessee. But he currently teaches poetry at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is their Kenan Visiting Writer.

To hear Wil read two poems, click here.
To read more of the essay he excerpts in our interview, click here.
To see some of his paintings, click here.

LeAnne: Describe your creative process.

Wil: I’m a linguistic bower bird. I collect words, bits of conversation, road signs, etymologies, etc. I write down what I find in a pocket notebook, and these bits and pieces then germinate in my mind and slowly settle into the lines of my poems. Whole poems grow out of certain images on their own. I don’t go after poems. They come to me as sonic excitement clicking in the syllables. I wait for the idea, the thing, the moment--wait until it appears already packaged in the phonetic music that will make it sing.
Then, ironically, what writes a poem is the syntax. Once I latch onto the right syntactical pattern (a tone, a pacing of clause, subject, and verb), the poem basically writes itself, pulling the subject matter along through the meter, sometimes in rhyme. It is important not to force the language to go where you want it to go, but to listen to it and let it guide you. The word “author” is descended from the same word as “augur,” meaning “seer.” A poet’s job is to see things, to point out the obvious that other people don’t see, not to reinvent reality with some hokus-pokus romantic notion of “inspiration” or creativity. That’s called disappointing the obvious. Once I have a draft of a poem, I sometimes spend years revising it. That’s when the real writing takes place.

LM: Tell me about your book of poems.

WM: In 1999, I published a small chapbook called Right as Rain by Aralia Press. In 2002, my full-length book of poems, Light for the Orphans, was published by Story Line Press. The press is now out of business, and my book is out of print, but used copies can still be found. Many of the poems in that book are narratives, stories about imaginary characters. That means that I am also a fiction writer--only I do it in verse, not prose.

Recently I have begun writing fiction in prose. A short story of mine was in the April issue of Image.

More from Wilmer Mills on Monday.

Wilmer Mills, Poet

2009-05-11T09:15:00.003-04:00

Wilmer Mills was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He graduated from The McCallie School in 1988 and The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee with a B.A. in English Literature in 1992. He received a Masters in Theology from Sewanee in 2005. His first book of poems, a chapbook, Right as Rain, was published by Aralia Press in 1999. His first full-length collection of poems, Light for the Orphans, was published by Story Line Press in 2002. Wilmer Mills has published poems in The New Republic, The Hudson Review, The Southern Review, Poetry, The New Criterion, Shenandoah, Literary Imagination, and others. His poems have been anthologized in Penguin/Longman Anthology of Contemporary American Poets, 2004, and are forthcoming from The Swallow Anthology of New American Poets. Mills has worked as a carpenter, furniture maker, sawmill operator, artisan bread baker, white oak basket weaver, farmer, and a white water raft guide, and poetry teacher among other things. He lives with his wife, Kathryn, and their two children in a bungalow he built himself in Sewanee, Tennessee. But he currently teaches poetry at The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill where he is their Kenan Visiting Writer.

To hear Wil read two poems, click here.
To read more of the essay he excerpts in our interview, click here.
To see some of his paintings, click here.

LeAnne: How did you get started in poetry?

Wil: The best way to answer this is by using an extract from an essay of mine that already answers this as best as I can.

My youthful epiphany that poetry was to be my major creative direction did not come like St. Paul's on the road to Damascus or like what the French call a coup de foudre, a lightning bolt. It was a gradual unfolding in my life the way that a story is told. I can look back to its beginning and see that a certain seed was planted in my adolescent mind. The sap was rising. The proverbial lights were coming on when, in the tenth grade, I was brought along by my mother and uncle to what would be my first literary event, a reading by Robert Penn Warren at Nichols State University in Thibodaux, Louisiana.

I was likely included because for several years my mother had been pulling wads of paper from the pockets of my dirty laundry. While bored in classes, I had written down thoughts and images, never admitting to myself that their lines about deer hunters and pickup trucks could be considered poems. At the time they were more a means of getting rid of perennial bouts of sadness that overtook me whenever I got a sense of things I didn't understand, feeling, nevertheless, the weight of their presence. It caused me to assume, at the worst, that there existed other territories of thought, places to which I was called, or even entitled, at best, like a young mallard on his first migration. Much later I learned that there were words for such feelings, most of them in foreign languages: Saudade, Sehnsucht, Hiraeth, Ahnung, all sentiments that have led many young writers into the production of copious drivel.

My earliest attempts were already far too much in that vein. To my credit I never expected anyone to read them and actually thought those wads of paper just got ground up in the washer and sent to the septic tank where they belonged. My mother only confessed years later to having saved them. My juvenile writing must have caused her to think that the Warren reading would inspire me or help shape my efforts. She was more right than she could have ever expected. But I had never heard of Robert Penn Warren and had never used the word "literary" to refer to anything. I knew what poetry was and liked it but felt no personal connection to it. My maternal grandfather, whose name was Robert, often recited Robert Service, Robert Frost, and Robert Burns. Not being named Robert myself I didn't feel called to be a poet or lover of poetry, so the presence of Robert Warren did nothing to change my assumption. I went along dutifully.

Unknown to my mother, my dominant creative outlet at the time was not poetry but painting, not so much what I drew or painted on my own but how I thought about art. Whatever interest I had in poetry was purely that it seemed to be a compatible medium to painting. Out of a reflex instilled in me by my grandfather, I had memorized Robert Frost's "The Gift Outright." In doing so I was compelled by the tone of the poem, which carried with it authority and a definitive social message about the land and culture of the United States. What also compelled me was how its tone and message dovetailed with its rhythm, something about the way the lines were put together.

After reading more by Frost, I compared his haunting narrative aesthetic to the texture of paintings by Andrew Wyeth whose works, while structured, dry brushed, and stark, seemed also vibrant with human stories of flesh and feeling. I could tell that in Wyeth's painting and in Frost's poetry the stories were told while following strict rules. I sensed that when such rules were mastered, the artist or poet was able to achieve a measure of freedom that rose above the rules. I wouldn't have been able to articulate this too clearly then, but I thought about it a lot and my early fascination with stylistics was the result of a strange rebelliousness, the likes of which had nothing in common with the "acting out" of my contemporaries. I was looking for ways of embracing submission to stylistic authority and tradition so as to gain artistic freedom from them.

Toward this end I secretly wanted to be a watercolor painter because technique in that medium, when done well, involves getting a thought or response to nature on paper quickly and exactly in a practiced gesture of the hand. The technique takes skill that, after becoming second-nature, releases you from technique. You strive toward realism but to do so must employ significant impressionistic skills, downright abstraction, to suggest reality. So watercolor, to me, promised in an unsuspecting way to be more accurate and true-to-nature than oil painting, which seemed to require much more revision and repainting to get right.

But in one evening Warren changed my field of vision from painting to poetry. It wasn't so much Warren's poetry that initially affected me. I mean no condescension to his talent. It's just that at the time I would have been outright embarrassed to say anything out loud about art, much less poetry, so what moved me was seeing that oak of a man stand up in front of grown people and read poems. It was the equivalent in my mind of the small change in sunlight that causes whole continents of birds to fly somewhere else. Warren's poem, "Audubon: A Vision," particularly moved me. The painter, John James Audubon, had lived and painted birds only minutes from my family's land in Louisiana. I had grown up hearing the name and knew that my ancestors would have almost certainly had dealings with him. The last section of Warren's poem about him made me want to be a poet.

"Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse. I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart."

These lines didn't strike me as a poem, though I'm certainly not saying they don't constitute one. I just mean that I was mainly aware of them hitting me as powerful writing should: like a truck. The fact that there wasn't an underlying metrical structure in the poem didn't bother me. While I was compelled by the rhythms in Frost I didn't yet know what the word "meter" was, iambic pentameter and such things, and the term "free verse" had no meaning to me. Frost and Warren both had an explosive impact on me, even though I could tell they were not in the same vein, like two oak trees of the same genus but of different species. Warren inspired me to look for the acorn in myself. Frost made it grow. While I cannot claim to be an oak, much less of the same variety and stature of Frost or Warren, I have at least become some kind of sapling. The fact that I have taken root in the forest of Frost does not diminish my awe and respect for Warren in the least. The end of the Audubon poem reads, "Tell me a story of deep delight," and this may be utter silliness but I have taken that as an exhortation as if given to me personally as a charge. It is my motto as a writer. I met Warren that night. He asked me where I was from. When I told him North of Baton Rouge, south of St. Francisville in an area called The Plains he said, “there are good people there.”

Secular Music--or Sacred?

2009-05-06T19:58:00.006-04:00

On Christianity Today, I came across an article by John J. Thompson, a Christian music insider who has been an artist, critic, retailer, fan and label executive. Thompson discusses the power of music and addresses the oft-asked question: is music secular or sacred or neither? He says, "We should stop trying to define a dividing line, because when it comes to music, it's all spiritual." Check it out.

Imago

2009-05-04T08:43:00.003-04:00

Do you know about Imago?

Begun over 30 years ago, Imago is a faith-based organization that seeks "to engage in promoting artistry of high caliber that will be both enrich and carry positive influence on the Canadian cultural landscape." Check out their website here.

"How I Work": Stephanie Tumney, Part Two

2009-04-29T20:33:00.003-04:00

Stephanie Tumney is a stone sculptor. At an early age, her creativity and love for art were evident. In kindergarten, her favorite sculptor was Michelangelo, and she is still influenced by his work today, along with others such as Bernini, Picasso and Henri Moore. Stephanie graduated from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC. She also studied marble sculpture in Tinos, Greece. She has shown in museums, galleries, churches and private homes in California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, and Cairo, Egypt. She works primarily as a sculptor in both stone and bronze, although she enjoys drawing, painting and photography as well. Many of her paintings have been displayed in churches, used for spiritual direction and reflection. Her sculptural work is often figurative, in poses that depict raw emotion, as well as spiritual and psychological transformation. Stephanie grew up on the East Coast, in Massachusetts, and currently resides in Campbell, California, with her husband Mark who is a pastor. Stephanie is available for commissions in either sculpture or painting.

LeAnne: What are you working on currently?

Stephanie: Last week I finished a large outdoor sculpture project for Saratoga Presbyterian Church in Saratoga, California. My husband has been pastor there for over two years. Our church is re-opening its doors and wanted a guerilla marketing campaign to grab people’s attention and make them wonder what is going on, rather than a typical campaign of just banners and postcards. My proposal of “Opening New Doors” was chosen, which consisted of erecting 24 doors along the two main streets that border the church. Each door has the contour of a person carved out of the middle. I tried to include people of all shapes, sizes and walks of life to show that the church’s doors were open to all types of people. The doors are painted vibrant “Island” colors that catch your eye as you drive by.

Part of the project was to construct the sculptures on site, and over a specific span of time leading up to the launch of Saratoga Pres.’s new post-contemporary service. That way, those who drive by consistently can observe the progress and see what has changed, and it will retain their attention for over a month. My working on site served its purpose and sparked the interest of many. There were many who were curious and asked questions, who honked or yelled out to me as they drove by. It was quite a spectacle.

God really blessed the project from its conception onward. I credit Him with planting such a simple and yet perfect marketing strategy for the situation. Then He brought us a door replacement company that was willing to have me raid their dumpster consistently for appropriate doors. God has used these doors to give the members of the congregation an opportunity to talk to and invite their friends and neighbors to church, something that they were less comfortable doing before. They actually have people asking them about their church now, which is close to preposterous in this area where less than 10% of the population goes to church, and some seem hostile to Christianity. I am grateful that God used my sweat and talent to be a witness for Him, and keep praying that this may open doors for people to come to know Christ, the True Door.

"How I Work": Sculptor Stephanie Tumney

2009-04-26T17:58:00.001-04:00

I interviewed Stephanie Tumney last year but wanted to find out more about her creative process and her current projects. Stephanie is a stone sculptor. At an early age, her creativity and love for art were evident. In kindergarten, her favorite sculptor was Michelangelo, and she is still influenced by his work today, along with others such as Bernini, Picasso and Henri Moore. Stephanie graduated from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, DC. She also studied marble sculpture in Tinos, Greece. She has shown in museums, galleries, churches and private homes in California, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Virginia, Washington DC, and Cairo, Egypt. She works primarily as a sculptor in both stone and bronze, although she enjoys drawing, painting and photography as well. Many of her paintings have been displayed in churches, used for spiritual direction and reflection. Her sculptural work is often figurative, in poses that depict raw emotion, as well as spiritual and psychological transformation. Stephanie grew up on the East Coast, in Massachusetts, and currently resides in Campbell, California, with her husband Mark who is a pastor. Stephanie is available for commissions in either sculpture or painting.

LeAnne: Describe your creative process.

Stephanie: When most people think of a process, they think of a linear process. I’ve found that my creative process is much more of a spherical process. There are many steps, and they may be repeated at various times, or omitted altogether, and their order is not fixed. The basic elements are prayer, scripture study, sketching, research, model making, and the actual sculpting. If each was assigned a point in a sphere, the lines connecting them according to order and frequency of use would gradually fill the sphere like a tangled ball of twine. For instance, sketching is integral, as well as research, and they both happen at different points during the process, usually during the initial idea generation and then when a problem arises. For some work I form a model first, for others sketching is sufficient. Additional key elements in my creative process are prayer and contemplation of the Scriptures. These also are not limited to the beginning stages, but occur throughout, even after completion.

Each artwork takes on its individual order of process, but includes much of the same steps. Sometimes an idea comes to me while praying in church, sometimes while reading the Psalms, sometimes while working on another piece, sometimes while doing something mundane like grocery shopping. Sometimes the idea is almost completely formed in my head at its first inception. Other times it takes hours or weeks of sketching to get the arm placed correctly. Usually I form a model out of clay before I begin any stone work. Psychologically, the toughest part is always the first hit or cut into the raw material. I imagine it is similar to a writer with a blank page in front of them. After there is something on that page, it is a lot easier to proceed, even if it’s just to scratch out that first word. During the actual sculpting, I simultaneously try to pray. I also read the Psalms in the morning before I begin. Often, something will arise so that I do more sketching to change or further develop a particular aspect. When I make a mistake or some other setback occurs, after the initial fury, when I can look objectively at the piece again (which can take hours or months depending on the severity) I try to see how it could be used for the good of the piece. I have seen God turn the largest mistakes of mine into pieces that are better than they would have been before. Usually I am continually researching methods, tools, geology, art history and whatever else I may need to know. I enjoy the fluidity of a spherical process, allowing each piece to progress as it will, and allowing God to direct my work.

More from Stephanie Tumney on Thursday.

Calvin College's Festival of Faith and Music

2009-04-22T17:43:00.012-04:00

Are you familiar with Calvin College's biennial Festival of Faith and Music (FFM)? This year's recent festival featured seminars and concerts by bands like The Hold Steady, Over the Rhine, Julie Lee and Pedro the Lion's David Bazan.

Here's a review of FFM from Christianity Today online:

"In its mission to become an 'agent of renewal in the academy, church and society,' Calvin College is making a habit of facilitating deeper discourses in faith. The recently held Festival of Faith & Music (FFM) was no exception."

For the rest of the article, click here.

If you're interested in faith and writing, Calvin College also does a biennial Festival of Faith and Writing, which alternates years with FFM.

Next week, a discussion with sculptor Stephanie Tumney about her creative process.

Dick Staub's The Kindlings Muse

2009-04-19T21:52:00.007-04:00

Have you been to Dick Staub's The Kindlings Muse? (Click here to see my interview with Dick.) He has recent podcasts with Nigel Goodwin, Os Guinness, and Earl Palmer, just to name a few. Topics under discussion? Books like Christ and Culture; the theology of music by Dylan, Sufjan Stevens, and Fleet Foxes; the theology of the Academy Award nominees; calling; and more. It's worth your while!

I just got back from a CS Lewis retreat where I met and talked with several people I'll be featuring in coming weeks. Stay tuned!

"Why I Do What I Do": Steve Broyles, Part 2

2009-04-16T12:11:00.003-04:00

Many of the artists I interview are teachers as well. Steve Broyles, whom I featured on Monday, teaches middle school drama in addition to being an actor, director, and screenwriter. Last night was opening night of his spring show, Honk!. In honor of that, I thought I'd have him tell us why he teaches.

LeAnne: What made you decide to teach? What do you like most about it?

Steve: Teaching, for me, was an acquired taste. I think I finally got to the point where I understood that teaching was just another form of telling a story—albeit a very structured, organized one in which the student has to learn to tell your story before they tell their own. When I made that transition to telling my own story is when I realized that I wanted to teach. I enjoy the discovery of teaching. To watch a student realize they have a comedic side or to hear a student learn to speak clearly and with power is a rush.

LM: Why do you believe students should be involved in theatre?

SB: I always remind the students that, whether they want to do theatre ever again, a theatre class can change their life. It is a proven fact that a person’s level of success in whatever field they choose bears a direct relationship to their skill in public communication. In theatre we ask students to overcome their stage fright and get on stage. We show them that they communicate with their whole body. We ask them to memorize a script and perform it. We ask them to write a script and perform it on our main stage. All of this prepares our students for times when their performance up front will be for much greater stakes.

"Why I Do What I Do": Steve Broyles, Theater

2009-04-13T08:02:00.001-04:00

Steve Broyles wears many hats: actor, teacher, screenwriter, and more. He is currently Director of Middle School Drama for Wesleyan School in Norcross, GA. In addition to directing two shows each year, he teaches music and drama to grades 5-8. Steve graduated from Regent University in 2001 with an MFA in Script and Screenwriting where he received the Outstanding Graduate Student Award of Excellence. Prior to entering graduate school, he managed the Foothills Playhouse in Easley, South Carolina, and directed large scale musicals for Covenant Presbyterian Church in Easley.

Steve was a commissioned writer for Art Within in 2003 and is a graduate of the MTI Broadway Classroom in New York and a member of the Thespians Society and SETC. Steve is also the regional director for the CITA (Christians in Theatre Arts, http://www.cita.org/) south region.

LeAnne: What is your background in acting? Why do you love theatre?

Steve: My theatre background is scattered. My first play was in the 10th grade—I was a sophomore in a senior play. I played Earnest in The Importance of Being Earnest. Theatre, though, for me, didn’t really kick in until after college. I began to make a name for myself in the local community theatre. When we moved to South Carolina in 1989 I began to look for new connections. Eventually I found two. Besides directing large scale musicals for my church, I hooked up with the Foothills Playhouse and soon began managing, directing, designing and acting. It didn’t take long for me to realize a door was opening and that walking through the door was going to be a huge step for me and my family. So, in the spring of 1998, we sold our house and many of our possessions and moved to Virginia Beach, Virginia, where I attended graduate school at Regent University.

In many ways it would be arrogant for me to say I was making conscious decisions all along the way. As a child who grew up with undiagnosed learning disabilities, all I knew was that I, somehow, understood the world from a perspective I couldn’t seem to express scientifically or mathematically. For me, story telling is the oldest art form—when it is done well, it activates all the senses and intellectual faculties to get its meaning across. That is Theatre. Naturally, my Creator didn’t give me an option. One way or the other, I was going to come back to theatre at some point in my life.

"O Sacred Head, Now Wounded"

2009-04-09T09:16:00.004-04:00

One of my favorite hymns of all time is "O Sacred Head, Now Wounded." The harmony, written by Bach, haunts and moves me. Holy Week would not be the same without it. Last year for Easter, I wrote an article for The Lookout magazine using "O Sacred Head" as a starting point to write about the cross. If you'd like, you can read it here.

May this Easter weekend be especially meaningful for you, and may the beauty of the cross fill you with gratitude and wonder.

"How I Work": Composer Virginia Pike

2009-04-06T09:00:00.006-04:00

If you've been reading this blog for a while, you know that I'm fascinated by how artists work so today I'm focusing on Virginia Hart Pike and her creative process. Virginia is a composer, piano teacher, and musical director living in New York City. She is cofounder and Artistic Director of Music for Skylight Dance Theatre.

LeAnne: What is your composing process like?

Virginia: Well, it always starts with prayer. In fact, the process is similar to praying, because I start out trying to listen to God's still, small voice. From there it depends on what stage of the process I'm at. If I'm just starting a piece, I first have to decide what I'm writing exactly and what I'm trying to convey through each movement, or section.

For instance, in the song cycle I wrote entitled First and Fairest, I knew the overall work was about the journey of a woman who had just come off of a painful rejection by the man she loved, and finds herself in the arms of God by the end. It was told through a setting of six poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, set for women's choir. Each movement was a different stage of the woman's healing process. So in beginning writing for a particular movement, once I'd established what the movement's role was in the overall piece, then I'd start out by exploring different sounds on the piano, accompaniment patterns, musical phrases, etc. that might convey the particular emotion I'm after at the start of the movement. Or I might start out by finding a melody first (which is always easier when there are words to set - I prefer writing music for voice for this reason), which I generally do by saying the words out loud to myself and listening to their cadence. This gives me an idea of the shape of the lyric, or poem in this case. 'll often find a part of the poem where I feel like the whole song kind of lands or leads up to, and I'll shape the rest of the melody around that moment.

From there I'll establish a form for the piece - deciding where the music should be repeated, where it should change, and about how often I want the harmony to change. Then I'll start putting together melody and accompaniment patterns and harmonic colors and do a section at a time. In the case of First and Fairest, some movements took a couple of months, and others took a couple of weeks.

To find out more about Virginia Pike, Skylight Dance Theatre, and First and Fairest, click here.

Happy Anniversary, Image!

2009-04-02T08:31:00.007-04:00

Image is 20 years old this month! If you don't know about Image, do yourself a favor and find out.

Image is a quarterly print journal that explores the relationship between Judeo-Christian faith and art through contemporary fiction, poetry, painting, sculpture, architecture, film, music, and dance. Each issue also features interviews, memoirs, essays, and reviews. On the website you can get a taste of what the journal is like. This month find out what's in the current issue, listen to Bret Lott read his fiction, read an essay by singer/songwriter Claire Holley, check out Image's events, sign up for the email Update, and more.

Happy Anniversary, Image!

"You Are Not Your Gift": A Review

2009-03-29T20:06:00.006-04:00

I recently featured singer, songwriter, author, and teacher, Michael Card. Last week, I came across this review by Aaron Lee at CreateLeVoyage.com of Card's talk at The El-Shaddai Worship Conference in Singapore last month. I found the points about artists, identity, and self-doubt to be interesting. See what you think.

Here's a taste:

The artist necessarily puts so much of himself into his creative work that his sense of self cannot be separated from his identity as an artist. The line between the artist and what he does is a fine one at best, and for so many of us, it often feels like there is no line. For Christians in the creative field, artistic struggles can be even more titanic because, in this field of human endeavor, our counter-culture philosophy and efforts are even more marginalised.

Read the rest of the article here.

On Poetic Language

2009-03-26T08:36:00.005-04:00

Here's something I thought might interest you. The post, Deep Calls to Deep: Poetic Language, is written by Catherine Larson of the Point, the blog of BreakPoint Ministries. Here's a snippet:

It's difficult for me to explain how much poetry revives my soul. Sometimes I feel like we are self-deceptive. We try to pretend that our hearts are much shallower than they really are--that life really is just about making it through the day, getting out the door on time, who wins the game, who makes us laugh, what we had for dinner. The frenetic pace that characterizes our lives keeps us distracted from the deep places that sometimes open up like yawning chasms in our souls. Slowing down can mean we have to face those depths--depths which frighten us because we don't know exactly what to do with them.

Read the rest here.

"What's New": G. Carol Bomer

2009-03-23T06:52:00.014-04:00

Early on, when I started this blog, I featured visual artist G. Carol Bomer. Carol's work seeks to evoke both image and impression, the tangible world and the spiritual world. Her work has been called "a silent form of poetry." She views her work as "a form of play rejoicing before the face of God" (Rookmaaker). This is reflected in the name of her Asheville studio, SOLI DEO GLORIA STUDIO.

I decided to check in with her recently to see what she's up to now.

LeAnne: What's your latest project?

Carol: Much of my new work is more abstract and minimal. I am still using hints of mixed media and text.

My latest project is several books related to my artwork. Actually it started because my friend and published poet Suzanne Rhodes has inspired many of my paintings--such as her poems titled "Advent", "Sunday Service", and "Banding" (see the paintings on my website). Most recently, Suzanne's poems, "The Gardener" and "Faith" and "Noah Plants a Vineyard", inspired paintings you can see in my New Work gallery.

We are working on a book together right now. Plus my first art book, which includes two of her poems that have influenced my work, is The Paradox of Grace, available from Blurb.

In the past year I have been renting a warehouse studio in the River District of Asheville, where I have a lot more exposure to the public. There are two well advertised Studio Strolls in the spring and fall. I am a lot more involved in my city having this space. I also teach mixed media painting at this studio. The River District artists are having a group show this spring. This fall I have a show in Philadelphia at Whitestone Gallery as well as several local shows, one at Haywood Community College Gallery in Aug-Sept.

What I continue to learn is that God is good and that He provides. He always gives me opportunities for His great name and for His glory. Jehovah Jireh!

Quotes on Art and Creativity

2009-03-19T07:36:00.003-04:00

Enjoy, and may you be inspired.

"Art is the signature of man" - J. K. Chesterton

"Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep." --Scott Adams

"Art is collaboration between God and the artist, and the less the artist does the better."--Andre Gide

"Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up." --Pablo Picasso

"There are two ways of being creative. One can sing and dance. Or one can create an environment in which singers and dancers flourish." -- Warren G. Bennis

"What's New": Randall Flinn, Ad Deum Dance

2009-03-15T20:43:00.005-04:00

Every so often, I'm going to be checking back in with artists I've already featured to see what is new with them. Last year, I interviewed Randall Flinn of Ad Deum Dance Company. Randall has been carrying the message of the arts to the glory of God with excellence and servitude for over twenty five years. He is a professional dancer/choreographer, directing the premier Christian contemporary/modern dance company in the USA called Ad Deum Dance Company. He also serves on the faculty for Houston Ballet Academy and Houston Metropolitan Dance Company.

LeAnne: What is new with Ad Deum Dance Company?

Randall: We are quite busy preparing for several spring dance performances including our tour to NY to perform for the exciting Project Dance Times Square outreach. We are also working on a piece called The Long Journey Home created by Hope Boykin (another Believer-Artist) from the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theatre. We will perform this work in conjunction with the Ailey company's end of March performance in Houston, Texas. In the midst of all this, we are also busy preparing for both our spring dance intensive this week (March 16-20th) and our summer dance intensive (Aug. 2-7th) which bring dancers to us from across the globe for a week of integration of professional dance and matters of faith in Christ and spiritual growth.

I stand amazed looking over my own journey as a Believer-Artist/Dancer for 28 years now. The times have truly changed and I believe for the better. Twenty eight years ago it was like finding a needle in a haystack to locate professional dancers that were committed to their Christian faith. Well, we have come a long way from the simplicity of "praise dancing" in the safety of the local churches that would allow it. Now God's dancers are scattered around the world and yet miraculously discovering one another and uniting for visions far greater than themselves. These dancers that love God are being sent out not just into the church or missions but into the world to shine as lights and to be the salt. These are the Daniels in Babylon and Esthers in Persia and they will possess the land with God's grace and favor. I only pray that the Body and the Church will remember them in prayer and support their works and their vocational callings.

Must-Read Books about Art

2009-03-11T20:58:00.008-04:00

Byron Borger of Hearts and Minds Books writes excellent book reviews. You've got to check out this collection of his reviews of books about art and see if there are any you have missed along the way. I found a few that are new to me and am going to place an order with Hearts and Minds. Here's a little about them from the website:

Welcome to a bookstore which attempts to create a new space for serious, reflective readers. Unabashedly Christian, we are often told that we are different than most religious bookstores. Our name, we trust, gives a good first clue to what we are about.

What distinguishes us most is our enthusiasm for the development of a uniquely Christian worldview where Christ’s Lordship is honored and lived out in relevant ways in the midst of our highly secularized, post-modern culture. We offer quality books for the sake of faithful Christian living. We serve business folk, scientists, artists, college students, moms, dads (and kids!), pastors, poets and politicos. We believe Biblical faith leads to "thinking Christianly" about every area of life.

Sounds perfect to me!

"How I Work": Poet Jean Janzen

2009-03-08T21:38:00.007-04:00

I interviewed Jean Janzen last year and wanted to find out more about how she works. Jean is a poet living in Fresno, California, who has taught at Fresno Pacific University and Eastern Mennonite University in Virginia. She is the author of six poetry collections, the most recent one entitled Paper House (Good Books), and a book of essays on writing entitled Elements of Faithful Writing (Pandora Press). Her work has been included in numerous anthologies and many journals, including Poetry, Gettysburg Review, Christian Century, and Image. Janzen received an NEA grant and other awards. She also has written hymn texts which have appeared in various hymnals, and some of her poems have been set to music, including an oratorio written by Alice Parker. She was interviewed in Stonework, an online magazine from Houghton College, where some of her poems have also appeared. Her poems have also appeared in New Pantagruel.

LeAnne: Jean, I'm fascinated by artists' creative processes. What is yours like?

Jean: The first necessity for me is to be open, a stance I try to keep as I go through my day. To begin writing I need to sit down, to be quiet and open, to receive whatever is willing to rise from the deeper places, the far places. In that position I sense the swirl of chaos--so much milling around from memory, observation and reading. From that disorder I hope to be given a beginning, an image, or an event. Sometimes such gifts arise from the stream of writing in which I have been immersed in recent weeks or months.

The next move often requires my willingness to move into unknown territory, a kind of wilderness. Questions arise for which I won't have answers, but perhaps an understanding of the question will enlarge. I am participating with God in the ongoing creativity of life.

Overarching all is the necessity of humility, the knowledge that I may not discover or be given anything, and that my efforts may not become art. With this position I am willing to start writing a rough draft, short lines that move down, that turn and turn again. Something concrete, a real connectedness to the senses is required. Abstractions float away, do not connect. Will it lead to something? I don't know. If I know the outcome, the poem will not be art. The joy of discovery comes when the poem assumes a direction of its own.

A developing poem is making some order out of chaos. It is finding a shape, a form,in which the wild can be held. It can become a reservoir for grief or for joy, or both. Even then, the necessity of revising and revising again is paramount, for precision and for beauty. I test the meter and the line-breaks. Are they appropriate to this poem? I listen for the music of rhyme and alliteration. I let the poem rest for days, weeks, and sometimes a year and look again. Does it need more revision? This is not about self-expression; it is about giving faithful witness to the grace which is present in the created order, and sometimes finding it.

LM: What is your latest project?

JJ: Currently I am working on memoir essays as well as new poems. My latest book PAPER HOUSE was released in October 2008 by Good Books, Intercourse, PA.

2009-03-02T13:41:00.002-05:00

Today is the conclusion of my "How I Work" feature on Corrie Eddleman, who I interviewed last May. Corrie Eddleman is Assistant Professor of Acting at North Greenville University. She holds a BS in Theatre and Speech Communication from Hannibal LaGrange College and an MFA degree in Acting from Illinois State University. Corrie will begin her training as a Certified Alexander Teacher this summer and hopes to complete the program in 2012. A member of Actor’s Equity since 1999, she has worked professionally in New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois and Texas. Most recently she was seen as Kate in Taming of the Shrew and Tamora in Titus Andronicus at The Illinois Shakespeare Festival in 2008. Corrie has also had the privilege to study acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford, England), The National Theatre Institute and the Chautauqua Theatre Conservatory. In addition to teaching, acting and directing on campus she directs the Act Two traveling Drama Ministry Team. She is married to Matthew, a hospice chaplain with Spartanburg Regional.

LeAnne: What are you working on currently?

Corrie: Currently I am in the throws of directing The Miracle Worker at North Greenville University. The play tells the historical story of Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller. It is a story about rising above the difficult circumstances we encounter in our life. It is a story about strength, endurance, hope and redemption. The Christian surely can relate his/her life to Helen Keller’s struggle. As Christians we used to be moving about this earth blind, deaf, and ignorant of an amazing world of light and possibilities. Once we said “yes” to our Redeemer and Savior, we could not imagine living a life back in that darkness.

I am very excited about this production. We have a great cast who all are ready to take on this challenge. As a director, I will be applying Viewpoints, a technique developed by Tina Landau and Anne Bogart. Viewpoints helps develop a common vocabulary between director and actor as well as helps the actors create ensemble. My goal is to help the actors let go of performance anxiety so that their world on stage becomes second nature to them.

"How I Work": Corrie Eddleman

2009-03-01T20:55:00.006-05:00

This week, I'm starting another new feature called "How I Work." I'm fascinated by how artists approach their work and would like to learn more so I've asked some of the people I've interviewed to talk about their creative process.

First up is Corrie Eddleman, who I interviewed last May. Corrie Eddleman is Assistant Professor of Acting at North Greenville University. She holds a BS in Theatre and Speech Communication from Hannibal LaGrange College and an MFA degree in Acting from Illinois State University. Corrie will begin her training as a Certified Alexander Teacher this summer and hopes to complete the program in 2012. A member of Actor’s Equity since 1999, she has worked professionally in New York, Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois and Texas. Most recently she was seen as Kate in Taming of the Shrew and Tamora in Titus Andronicus at The Illinois Shakespeare Festival in 2008. Corrie has also had the privilege to study acting with the Royal Shakespeare Company (Stratford, England), The National Theatre Institute and the Chautauqua Theatre Conservatory. In addition to teaching, acting and directing on campus she directs the Act Two traveling Drama Ministry Team. She is married to Matthew, a hospice chaplain with Spartanburg Regional.

LeAnne: Describe your creative process. How do you work?

Corrie: I always start at the beginning… with the script. First I read for pleasure and to comprehend the story line. Then I will read through the script multiple times, looking for how my character helps move the plot forward, acquiring character clues, and acquiring clues about the world of the play.

Throughout these multiple readings I will also begin my research. I look up the meaning of words, research costumes, music, art, political climate… anything that might be helpful for me to visualize a fully developed world. After I feel like I have a grasp on the world of the play, then I will start digging into the details of my character.

From the character clues, left to me by the playwright, I will play around physically and vocally. How does my character hold herself? How does my character speak? How does my character laugh? Etcetera, Etcetera. This exploration is the most exciting part of the process for me. This is the time I turn off my edit button and just say “yes” to my instinct. I must turn off my head and allow the character to show herself through my movement and through my voice.

I will then walk myself through the five senses. I decide what my character’s favorite sight, sound, smell, touch & taste is and I keep those items in my dressing room for inspiration. Being a visual person, I have this need to put up inspirational pictures of the world of the play and my character around my make-up station.

Lastly and most importantly, I listen to my scene partners. I could develop a very intriguing character but if she doesn’t listen and genuinely interact with her world then all of my work would be in vain and I would have failed the playwright.

This whole process is my ideal way of working, but very rarely do all of these elements fit into a nice neat box. I have to allow flexibility in my creative process so that I stay open to what the Director wants, what the play is calling for, what my cast mates are calling for, and of course the ever practical time restraints. I’m always open and looking for new ways to approach a character.

Daniel Siedell, Part 2: Looking Closely

2009-02-26T08:12:00.003-05:00

Daniel A. Siedell is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He was previously Curator of the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where for over ten years he organized exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Siedell has an M.A. from SUNY-Stony Brook and a Ph.D. from The University of Iowa. His most recent book, God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art, appeared this fall from Baker Academic. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife of seventeen years and three children.

LeAnne: Tell me about your book, God in the Gallery.

Dan: It's a very personal attempt to reconcile my professional interest in art with my Christian faith in an honest and authentic way.

LM: What are three or four tips that you can offer Christians viewing a work of contemporary art?

DS: Keep an open mind. Look closely. Don't expect a work of art to 'mean' something to you right away. Look at art first before you read what Christian writers, including me, have to say about it. Be free to dislike anything but also know that looking at art takes work and practice.

LM: Who are some contemporary artists that we should know? Why?

DS: Enrique Martinez Celaya, Robyn O'neil, and Conrad Bakker. These are artists whose work reveals the world to be transcendent, porous.

Daniel Siedell, Part 1: On Contemporary Art

2009-02-23T09:19:00.005-05:00

Daniel A. Siedell is Assistant Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History, Theory, and Criticism at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He was previously Curator of the Sheldon Museum of Art at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, where for over ten years he organized exhibitions of modern and contemporary art. Siedell has an M.A. from SUNY-Stony Brook and a Ph.D. from The University of Iowa. His most recent book, God in the Gallery: A Christian Embrace of Modern Art, appeared this fall from Baker Academic. He lives in Lincoln, Nebraska with his wife of seventeen years and three children.

LeAnne: What draws you to contemporary art?

Dan: I am fascinated by its diversity; it can be quite traditional, it can be quite radical. I'm fascinated with what is or can be art.

LM: For ten years, you served as curator for the Sheldon Memorial Art Gallery at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. What was that like?

DS: It was exhilarating and frustrating. I loved working with a very strong permanent collection of 19th and 20th century American art on a university campus. I also enjoyed working with contemporary artists on projects for the museum, and I enjoyed talked to diverse audience groups about art. I became frustrated with the increased focus on marketing and fundraising.

LM: You are now Assistant Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. What three things would you like for your students to know or understand before they leave your instruction?

DS: I want students to be able to look closely at art. I want my classes to help students understand the historical and theoretical development of modern art. I also want them to understand that modern and contemporary art are practices that require work to do and to understand.

More from Daniel Siedell on Thursday.

Screwtape a Success in Chicago

2009-02-18T17:12:00.012-05:00

It seems that the devil has taken a Chicago stage by storm. The stage adaptation of CS Lewis' Screwtape Letters, produced by and starring Max McLean, is a "scorching" success. Read more about it in this WORLDNETDAILY article:

Devil hits success on Chicago stage
Christians, non-believers flock to see C.S. Lewis' 'Screwtape Letters'

A play about devils has become a "scorching" success in Chicago, where even Christians are flocking to the theater to witness the stage adaptation of C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters."

Max McLean, producer of the show and the original actor to portray ol' Screwtape himself, says the play's popularity lies in its appeal to both Christian and secular audiences.

"Lewis is huge with both the Catholic and the evangelical Protestant audience," McLean told the Chicago Tribune. "For everybody else, the devil always captures the imagination."

Read the rest at http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=88852.

Coming soon: a new feature

Gene Crosby: Arts Enthusiast

2009-02-16T08:00:00.003-05:00

Lately, I've been featuring arts enthusiasts and today's post is the last in this series. Arts enthusiast Gene Crosby is Chief Operating Officer of Jackson Spalding, where he is responsible for monitoring and directing all aspects of Jackson Spalding’s operations including general office management, financial operations and human resources.

LeAnne: Tell me why you support the arts.

Gene: When I was growing up, my parents were always supporters of the arts. I now carry on that tradition for my own reasons. I find great joy in watching and even participating in some forms of the arts. It can be a great escape from what can be a crazy world to live in. I also find the arts to be a great educational tool for all. What better way to learn something and have fun at the same time? I think everyone should have that opportunity.

My favorite type of art to support is live theater. I love the theater because it brings me great pleasure to sit down and be taken away to another time and place, even if just for a little while. To watch an actor work his magic, making you feel like you are a part of what is going on up on stage. To laugh, to cry, to learn, to feel uplifted, and to feel convicted in such a short period of time. That's why I love and support live theater.

Glen Jackson, Part 2: Arts Enthusiast

2009-02-09T21:50:00.004-05:00

Arts enthusiast Glen Jackson co-founded Jackson Spalding in Atlanta where he provides leadership for the firm and many of its clients, as well as in the community.

LeAnne: You are a big arts supporter. What is your favorite type of art to support and why?

Glen: Well, this is not an easy question to answer. There are so many art forms I respect, admire and appreciate. I just wish I could support them all! Claire (my wife) and I have tried to help Theatrical Outfit here in Atlanta when we can. It is such a marvelous venue for theater in Atlanta; the vision cast by Tom Key is inspiring. Tom has a real gift, and what I love about Tom is he shares his gift so naturally, graciously and professionally.

One area of deep interest for me is poetry. In today's text-message world where the word "you" is now spelled "u", it is important that we not lose sight of how the English language was meant to be written. Poems from Tennyson to Langston Hughes to Sandburg to Frost catch my eye and force me to look at the world with a fresh perspective. I was reading a Sandburg poem over the weekend about fog. It is a simple poem, and the words surfaced in my mind this morning as I was looking out my office window at the thick clouds hovering over Peachtree Street:

"The fog comes on little cat feet.
It sits overlooking harbor and city.
On silent haunches
And then moves on."

Glen Jackson: Arts Enthusiast

2009-02-09T09:20:00.008-05:00

Arts enthusiast Glen Jackson co-founded Jackson Spalding in Atlanta where he provides leadership for the firm and many of its clients, as well as in the community.

LeAnne: Why do you support the arts?

Glen: My abiding love for the arts began my sophomore year in college when I spent a semester studying 18th century literature and architecture in London. It was in London, a formidable city culturally, that I first discovered the beauty of a J.M.W. Turner landscape painting, witnessed the wit of a Tom Stoppard play, heard the melodious sounds of the London Symphony and absorbed the architectural brilliance of a Sir Christopher Wren church. These experiences took my breath away and sparked something inside me to learn more about artistic expression --challenging me to see further how God expresses Himself to us in the artistic process.

The cool thing about the arts is God truly speaks to us in sonnet and song and in performance and paintings. What a gift! He changes lives this way and helps people discover their often latent gifts this way. Through it all, He allows us to take in the holy hues of His light and absorb it, learn from it and illuminate it for the rest of the world to see.

When I returned home to Atlanta from London, I decided to stay connected with the arts and support excellence in the medium when I could. This commitment has broadened my mind and emboldened my spirit. Some of the most treasured memories of my life have been related to the arts -- along the way experiencing a soulful closeness to God who created it all.

More from Glen Jackson on Thursday.

Caroline Duffy, Part 2: Arts Enthusiast

2009-02-04T20:47:00.004-05:00

Arts enthusiast Caroline Duffy is Director of Marketing at Jackson Spalding in Atlanta
where she tries to inject art into her work on a daily basis.

LeAnne: What is your favorite type of art to support and why?

Caroline: Money is an unfortunate barrier these days, so I spend as much time as I can at local arts festivals where I can stroll through, jot down ideas, meet with artists and begin percolating my own ideas. Even if I buy nothing, I leave happier. Even if I'm alone, I am drawn to it. Artists tend to support one another and I have felt welcomed in that community even though I haven't yet begun to display anything.

Theatre is my first love in the arts and I never tire of studying the actors and the nuances they bring to their roles.

One of my favorite sounds is the orchestra tuning up before a musical performance. In that moment I feel a rush of excitement, a wave of appreciation for their professionalism, and a certain jealousy for the energy that is about to be unleashed on stage.

Caroline Duffy: Arts Enthusiast

2009-02-02T06:14:00.005-05:00

Arts enthusiast Caroline Duffy is Director of Marketing at Jackson Spalding in Atlanta
where she tries to inject art into her work on a daily basis.

LeAnne: Why do you support the arts?

Caroline: I support the arts because I honor the gift, the commitment and the
creativity inherent in them. I gravitate to artistic people because they are open and generous with their souls.

I have dabbled in acting, singing, poetry, drawing, crafting and writing and I know the heart that goes into a piece well crafted. I love the exhilaraton of hitting the perfect pitch in an ensemble, making an audience believe in a moment or evoking a smile when an art piece connects with the viewer.

God is the Great Creator and I think he chooses special people to channel His vision. Art inspires me, uplifts me and gives me new perspectives. Artists feel like my friends before I even meet them. They deserve to be appreciated, loved and supported.

"Art and Spirituality": Essay by Luci Shaw

2009-01-29T08:18:00.007-05:00

Check out this essay called "Art and Spirituality: Companions in the Way" from Luci Shaw, poet and essayist. It was reprinted in Direction Journal from The Swiftly Tilting Worlds of Madeleine L’Engle, ed. Luci Shaw (Wheaton, IL: Harold Shaw, 1998).

Here's a little snippet to pique your interest:

"Art finds meaning in all of human experience or endeavor, drawing from it strength and surprise by reminding us of what we know but may never have recognized truly before, transcending our particularity with soaring ease."

"How My Faith Affects My Art": Dance, Part 2

2009-01-21T21:03:00.005-05:00

Today I'm continuing a collection of responses from dancers I've interviewed about how their faith affects or influences their art.

Randall Flinn, founder and director of Dance Ad Deum: I believe my faith and a true understanding of a Biblical worldview of the arts opens my life to the limitless possibilities of the glorious freedom of the children of God. I have come to understand a relevant and redemptive revelation of a New Testament priestly-artist –one that seeks to bless the Lord and serves the culture around him as the Lord’s servant. No need to be religious here in this position and calling. The freedom comes in resting in the relationship and calling and understanding the cultural mandate and claiming the truth that God’s artists can take up their towels and basins and wash the feet of this world with art that resonates with glory and honor.

Katherine Gant, dancer and instructor: I once danced for my own glory and satisfaction but it left me feeling very empty. When I realized that my gift of dance comes from the Lord and can be used by Him, a whole new world opened up. The burden of perfectionism that comes with this art form vanished and a new freedom to simply dance came. I deeply desire to help all dancers find the freedom that comes from surrendering their gift of dance to be used by Him.

"How My Faith Affects My Art": Dance

2009-01-21T19:50:00.005-05:00

If you’re a regular reader, you know that I often ask the people I interview about how their faith affects or impacts or influences their art. I have received some fascinating responses so I’ve decided to collect the answers by art form and post them occasionally. Today we'll hear from two of the dancers.

Steve Rooks, Resident Choreographer and Associate Professor of Dance at Vassar College: Particularly now as a teacher, I feel it is a God-given honor to dance and to serve others (as a mentor/teacher) through dance. I don’t think that I could love the art if the Lord had not given me that love. It is pretty impossible for any dancer not to feel that there is a “heavenly endowment” that he/she has been given to experience the world of dance, and I believe that as one passionately seeks to know the giver of all good gifts, it will ultimately lead that person to the feet of Christ.

Marlene Dickinson, dancer and choreographer: Sadly, I spent the first twenty years of my life completely oblivious to the fact that faith and dance had any relationship whatsoever. Church was Sunday and Wednesday, dance was Tuesday and Saturday, and never the two would meet. Fortunately, dance was not forbidden in my faith culture, as it was for many Christians in generations past. But for me, dance and faith were not adversaries, they were complete strangers.

Sometime around 1982 I began to discover what has been known since the dawn of time: Movement has the power to move us. It is for this reason I name my pick- up performance companies “Moving People.” Dance is our universal, primal language. It transcends all barriers of time, culture, and communication.

Now, we know that all powers can be used for good or evil. I choose good. As dancers, we literally offer our bodies as living sacrifices and our work as fragrant offerings to God. It is His work to transform. So, I see dancers as translators of truth and dances as spaces for God to move—not that He needs us to do so. I am thankful for a host of studios and professionals across the country that are now connecting the dots for young dancers, teaching and mentoring them in these principles.

Kate Campbell at the Balzer Theater

2009-01-19T15:27:00.005-05:00

On Saturday night, folk singer Kate Campbell gave a wonderful concert at the Balzer Theater at Herren’s, home of Theatrical Outfit. Not only is Kate a gifted singer and musician, she’s also a gifted songwriter. Her songs are full of heart, humor, and layer upon layer of metaphor and meaning. They touch you when you hear them for the first or the 50th time. I always laugh and cry at her concerts but Saturday was extra special.

My husband and I and a few other friends including Tom Key of Theatrical Outfit and his wife, visual artist Beverly Key, went to dinner with Kate beforehand at a diner across the street. We had a marvelous time talking about Martin Luther King, Eudora Welty (a favorite writer of many of us), our new president, and the South.

Using her beloved American South as a backdrop, Kate tells stories in her songs that touch on the universal themes of race, religion, and history. She often writes about the intersection of the old and the New South, alluding to the way of life before desegregation and using her own experiences as a young girl watching the South change during integration. On Saturday, her second set was devoted to her civil-rights-related songs. It was moving and powerful, especially on the eve of the Martin Luther King holiday and tomorrow’s historic inauguration. The location was fitting: the Balzer Theater, former site of Herren’s, a white-tablecloth restaurant that was the first in Atlanta to voluntarily desegregate.

Kate's first set featured other favorite topics in her music, the three icons of the South--Jesus, Elvis, and Coca-Cola. Her sense of humor and her faith shine through in much of her music.

Kate's latest project is Save the Day, which came to her after reading a quote from Frederick Buechner. If you’re not familiar with Kate Campbell, check out her website and listen to her music.

And watch this blog for a Kate Campbell feature coming soon!

Five Minutes with...William Edgar

2009-01-15T08:56:00.004-05:00

Today I’m kicking off another new feature. Called “Five Minutes with...” these features will be shorter than normal and are meant to spark questions and provoke thought rather than provide lengthy answers. My first five-minute interview is with William Edgar, Professor and Coordinator of the Apologetics Department at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia. He serves on several boards and is a Senior Fellow at the Trinity Forum, a speaker and advisor in the Veritas Forum programs, an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church in America, and more.

Professor William Edgar studied musicology at Harvard and Columbia. He has written about music and he plays in and manages a professional jazz band. “Music is part of my soul, and it’s been in our family for generations,” he says. “I cannot live without it. Plus, it is one of God’s best gifts.”

In Edgar’s essay, “Why is the Light Given to the Miserable?” in the excellent It Was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God (Square Halo Books), he asserts that Romantic composer, Johannes Brahms (1833-1897), was not afraid to address the problem of evil in his music. What might we learn from his courage in facing "the drama of human suffering with passion, but not always with clear answers"? “The same lessons as Job teaches us,” Edgar says. “We know God is good, but we don’t see how and why he allows evil. We know there will be final justice, but we don’t see how the chaos of the present world is fully in his control.”

Still, Edgar urges artists who follow Christ to avoid the extremes of pessimism and optimism and “forge a third way: hopeful realism.” He sees a big difference between joy and happiness. “My aesthetic is moving from deep misery to inextinguishable joy.”

Edgar, author of several books, wrote Taking Note of Music, which he calls “an attempt at a biblical theology of music. It asks where music comes from and what is its purpose.” He takes a “somewhat unusual approach of rooting music in the cultural mandate of Genesis 1:26 ff., and the role of Jubal. I explore such questions as the power of music and its place in the world.”

In addition to writing about his love of music Edgar, Apologetics Professor at Westminster Theological Seminary, has written an apologetics book, Reasons of the Heart. When asked how followers of Christ can share and defend their faith in a way that reaches the culture, he says, “I urge them to get over on to the ground of an unbeliever’s heart and world view in order to help him/her to see their inability to live successfully on their basis in God’s world. Culture is not a bridge, but the life we all live. To reach our culture is to reach humanity in the midst of its life.”

“Why I Do What I Do”: Poetry

2009-01-11T21:15:00.003-05:00

If you’re a regular reader, you know that the first question I ask each person I feature invariably goes something like this: “Why do you do what you do?” I want to know what draws artists to their art forms. I want to know and understand what motivates and inspires them to create. I have received some fascinating responses so I’ve decided to collect the answers by art form and post them occasionally. First up: the poets.

LeAnne: Why do you write poetry?

Jean Janzen: Having grown up with hymns and the King James Version of the Bible, I was exposed to the power of language. Who can explain why a child responds with her own words? I wrote poems occasionally and studied English literature in college. My first attempt to study the craft came after my children were in school, when I gave myself permission to continue my education at graduate level. I had grown interested in telling my father's history in an artistic way, his journey as an orphaned teen from Ukraine to Canada. That moved into a poetic investigation of all of life. I write because I sometimes am able to make connections in unexpected ways, and I find places in my soul that continue to long for discovery of meaning and mystery.

Jill Peláez Baumgaertner: I write in order to figure out how to say the unsayable, to put into language that which goes beyond language, to make myself pay attention.

Brad Davis: I am drawn to images and ideas. By image (plain, textured, or figured) I mean a sensory impression, and by idea I mean anything from a concept to an emotion to a motivation. In poetry I find a concentration of both image and idea that is usually compressed into a brief language event. And yes, I am drawn to brevity, perhaps because I am drawn to contemplation, the poem functioning nicely as a springboard to, as Merton spoke of it, thinking into and with the heart of God. I also love the music of language, especially of plain speech. Though I am not as much a sensualist (one who, apart from virtually anything else, loves language for how it plays on the tongue and in the ear) as many of my poet-friends, if a poem is aurally clunky (without meaning to be), it cannot be an excellent example of the art. I am drawn to poetry for the experience of how it makes my brain work: in an encounter with a well-written poem, whether on paper or articulated at a reading, I see, hear, feel things vividly in my inner self that enlarge my experience of the beautiful, broken world in which you and I serve as stewards.

Coming soon: new features!

Peter Bannister on Olivier Messiaen

2009-01-07T21:33:00.008-05:00

Today I want to focus on music. Peter Bannister, a Franco-British composer, performer and musicologist, composed a large-scale choral and orchestral work Et iterum venturus est in memory of composer Olivier Messiaen. Commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria, the work recently received its first performance at the church of La Trinité in Paris.

Bannister wrote an interesting article about Olivier Messiaen for Thinking Faith in which he addresses the inevitable accusation aimed at any artist who professes Christ--that his work is simply "propaganda" for the Christian faith. Bannister makes a compelling argument to the contrary as he discusses Messiaen and his music.

Coming soon: new features

Arts Theorist Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

2009-01-04T19:58:00.005-05:00

Today I have a thought-provoking article to point out to you. It's a
Q&A with arts theorist Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin in Comment Magazine. Chaplin—formerly professor of Philosophical Aesthetics at the Institute for Christian Studies in Toronto—is writing a new book from her home in England. (Thanks, Byron Borger, for sending the article to me.)

Coming soon: new features!

HNY

2009-01-01T13:24:00.001-05:00

Happy New Year! And may 2009 be an art-filled, wonder-filled year for you and yours.

Reflecting on the Arts

2008-12-29T07:18:00.007-05:00

I always enjoy a time of reflecting at the end of the year and this morning I'm thinking back to some of my favorite moments in the arts:

* hanging and admiring a new painting by good friend Beverly Key (who I featured last year) that fits perfectly in our den and looks as though it's always been there. The painting is an abstract but we see at least three deer hiding amongst trees, brush, and an azalea bush--much like they do in our back yard.

* sitting beside my husband and my parents at Les Miserables and experiencing that incredible music again

* watching many stirring moments in Big River, performed by Theatrical Outfit at the Balzer Theater in Herren's, but especially when Jim is "reading" Huck's palm and sees "considerable joy, considerable sorrow" ahead for them

* watching my daughter's face and hearing her laugh during "It's a Wonderful Life: A Live Radio Play", also at the Balzer, and seeing her go from actor to actor for autographs afterward

* reading Little Women with her this summer

There are many more but I'm going to stop for now. What were some of your favorite moments with the arts this year? I'd love to hear about them.

What Christmas Might Have Meant to the Father

2008-12-24T23:15:00.000-05:00

A few months ago in early fall I wrote an article about Christmas. My assignment was to explore what the birth of Christ might have meant to God the Father. I approached it at first with trepidation. How could I begin to fathom what giving His only Son to us cost Him? The scripture "His thoughts are higher than our thoughts" kept coming to mind. Humbling though it was, I enjoyed the experience very much. I used Handel's Messiah and the prophecies referenced in that wonderful work as my framework. If you'd like to read the article, click here.

Thank you for reading this blog. Merry Christmas!

Image's Top Ten Picks for 2008

2008-12-22T15:29:00.006-05:00

Today I was planning to provide the link to an article I wrote about Christmas but it's not on the magazine's website yet. I'll send you the link when it's posted.

In the meantime, check out Image Update's Top Ten Picks for 2008. Here's the intro:

With all of the books, films, CDs, and visual art featured in this e-newsletter, we know there's much to choose from each year. Hence our gift to you just in time for Christmas: a list of our top ten picks of 2008. In chronological order of appearance, here are ten of the works we've featured in ImageUpdate this past year that stand out to us (and many of which would make fine gifts). This is an admittedly subjective list—these are personal favorites of ImageUpdate contributors. If you'd like to read the original ImageUpdate feature on any of the works, click on the links provided. We hope you'll enjoy this list and that you will find time to spend in the company of the many gifted writers, artists, musicians, and filmmakers we have featured in ImageUpdate this year.

Jane Wolford, Part 2:Fay Jones and Thorncrown Chapel

2008-12-16T12:22:00.007-05:00

Dr. Jane Paradise Wolford seeks to "enlighten the public about the transformational potential of architecture." She has a Doctorate in Architecture (in History, Theory, and Criticism) as well as a Masters degree in Architectural History from the Georgia Institute of Technology. Wolford wrote architectural articles and conducted market research for more than two decades for a firm that provided market analysis and costing services. She currently researches and writes for The Greenway Group, in addition to other consulting projects. For more than a decade Wolford has spearheaded educational initiatives for advancing architectural education among the public in her active role as a Board Member of The AIA’s educational outreach, the American Architectural Foundation based in Washington D.C. She also serves on a small, select Board to preserve and run the Octagon Museum, the oldest museum in the U.S. dedicated to architecture and design. She's a founding member of the Design Futures Council for DesignIntelligence. Wolford lives in Atlanta and maintains active memberships in many professional organizations related to architecture, preservation, and sustainability. These include lifetime membership in the Society for Architectural Historians (SAH), the Southeast Chapter of Architectural Historian (SESAH), the Construction History Society, Southface, and The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.

LeAnne: Who are three architects (past or contemporary) whose work we must know and why?

Jane: The American architect Frank Lloyd Wright because he was probably the most famous American architect. He definitely marched to the beat of his own drummer and defied convention but he was unique in his perspective and extremely talented. After years of conflicted feelings studying his architecture and visiting his buildings I have decided that I am willing to separate the strength of his architecture from the frailty of his humanity (e.g., abandoned his wife with five young children to live with a married woman and her children --- Mrs. Cheney--- but that’s another story) because he was so uniquely talented. Features of his style reflected a comfortable human scale complemented by the warm, rustic features of stone, wood and other natural materials. The architectural features of some of his houses from the early twentieth century (such as low roof lines with overhanging eaves), often reflect a prairie aesthetic characteristic reflecting the long, flat vistas stretching for miles and miles in the Midwest. His most famous residence, Fallingwater, is a breathtaking alliance of architecture and nature --- perched on the edge of a waterfall.

The Swiss architect Le Corbusier ---because his architecture heralded the emerging modern aesthetic in the 1920s and 30s in Europe. His Villa Savoye (1929-1931) expressed the dictums of Modernism --- no ornamentation, white planar surfaces, suspended by pillars, an open plan free to be configured as the occupant desired, and long ribbon windows offering unencumbered views.

The American architect John Carl Warnecke is important because he was an early contextual architect who successfully merged modernism with a respect for the building’s context. As the focus of my doctoral and masters’ research, personal interviews with Warnecke for more than the last decade (by my husband Arol and myself) taught me about contextualism and its relationship with architecture. Designer of hundreds of buildings, a few of his most famous designs are President John Kennedy’s grave with the eternal flame and the Hawaiian State Capital (a modern building with a Polynesian flare). In addition to his architecture, he is also known for his romance with Jackie Kennedy after Jack died.

LeAnne: You and I attend the same church. Because of our church's recent building project, I've become fascinated with the award-winning Thorncrown Chapel, designed by Fay Jones. Can you tell me more about him, his work, and his relationship with mentor Frank Lloyd Wright?

Jane: E. Fay Jones was probably Frank Lloyd Wright’s most famous apprentice. He is the other contextualist my husband and I had the pleasure of interviewing extensively and touring his most renowned building with him before he passed away in 2004.

Jones and Wright had an immediate rapport when they met while Jones was a professor. Jones’s entire family visited Wright in his winter workshop, Taliesin West, near Scottsdale, Arizona. Later, Wright invited Jones's entire family to his home and design institute Taliesin in Spring Green, Wisconsin. Jones returned to both sites numerous times as both friend and apprentice and became a Taliesin Fellow.

A quiet, unassuming intellectual (also a strong Christian) who taught Architecture at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville, Jones’ most well-known buildings are chapels and residences in his home state (as opposed to ego-driven skyscrapers). Thorncrown Chapel, a small, breathtaking glass chapel nestled in the Ozarks, pays tribute to the beauty of nature created by God. Since it won The American Institute of Architects' coveted Gold Medal in 1990, pilgrims flock to it daily to enjoy its transcendent beauty. Jones' residences express the ultimate tenets of contextualism with nature. They blend gracefully in the Ozarks with their cladding of wood and stone; in this respect they give homage to Frank Lloyd Wright’s prairie-style buildings.

When the design for our church was underway Fay Jones was already too ill with advanced Parkinson’s disease to become our church’s architect. However, he did advise John Busby (our architect), my husband (Arol Wolford), and myself about our church design. Ultimately, John Busby did a great job incorporating Jones’s principles, along with his own design expertise, into the finished product of our beautiful sanctuary.

Jane Wolford: A Taste of Things to Come

2008-12-14T19:43:00.005-05:00

Dr. Jane Paradise Wolford seeks to "enlighten the public about the transformational potential of architecture." She has a Doctorate in Architecture (in History, Theory, and Criticism) from the Georgia Institute of Technology in addition to her Masters degree in Architectural History from Georgia Tech. Wolford wrote architectural articles and conducted market research for more than two decades for a firm that provided market analysis and costing services. She currently researches and writes for The Greenway Group, in addition to other consulting projects. For more than a decade Wolford has spearheaded educational initiatives for advancing architectural education among the public in her active role as a Board Member of The AIA’s educational outreach, the American Architectural Foundation based in Washington D.C. She also serves on a small, select Board to preserve and run the Octagon Museum, the oldest museum in the U.S. dedicated to architecture and design. She's a founding member of the Design Futures Council for DesignIntelligence. Wolford lives in Atlanta and maintains active memberships in many professional organizations related to architecture, preservation, and sustainability. These include lifetime membership in the Society for Architectural Historians (SAH), the Southeast Chapter of Architectural Historian (SESAH), the Construction History Society, Southface, and The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation.

LeAnne: What drew you back to school to get your degrees in architectural history and architecture?

Jane: With my bachelor’s degree in English, I had been interviewing architects for our construction information publication and found them fascinating. When my older daughter turned 16, I felt I had a little more freedom since she could drive her younger sister the half hour distance to their school so I decided to enroll in Georgia Tech’s masters program in architectural history. I had been trying to study architecture on my own ---- periods, styles, and theory --- but found the undertaking too comprehensive outside of a directed study program.

After I finished that program, and was looking for God’s direction for my next steps, I was invited into Tech’s Ph.D. program. Although the first three years of classes were difficult due to the full-time requirement (in contrast to my master’s which I did part time), the last three years of self-directed research and criticism by committee members was even more grueling. But, ultimately, armed with the doctorate, I finally understand architecture in the multitude of its ramifications.

LM: What can the study of architecture teach us about God? Ourselves?

JW: That is a big question. I think architecture reveals a lot about God’s role as Architect and Builder (Hebrews 11:10). In the Old Testament he gave very specific instructions to Moses (Exodus 26), David (1 Chron. 28:11-19), and Ezekiel (Ezekiel 40) about the construction of his places of worship --- from the choice of the builder down to the smallest details ---- design mattered to Him.

God is also concerned with beautiful design in his creation of nature everywhere. Oceans, mountains, trees, plants, flowers, etc. point to God’s wondrous sense of design – and we haven’t even touched upon his marvelous creation of the human body. All his creations (disclaimer --- as he created them) are not only magnificently beautiful, but are awe-inspiring. The colors of vegetation and natural landscape features such as mountains or oceans both complement and contrast each other in color, texture, structure, and a multitude of other qualities. But dissonance and ugliness are not qualities of God’s creations in their pristine state. Only man’s fallen nature interjected these ugly realities into his earthly paradise. Peace, Joy, Harmony, Beauty, and Order were subservient to the promptings of man’s will after the fall. In our imperfect nature beauty can be stumbled upon every now and again --- but it is not the norm. This is what the study of architecture can teach us about ourselves – we crave balance, stability, order and beauty. Good architecture can speak to these needs.

I believe that the focus of my doctoral research offers a possible solution to increased Beauty and Harmony in our world --- contextualism (check out my website for more info). Contextual buildings can forge attractive relationships with their environment --- offering a unifying effect to a previously fragmented environment. My expertise delineates the metrics of contextualism that can help a person design anything to relate more intimately to its surroundings --- whether built or natural --- and forge visual connections, resulting in peace and harmony, with its neighbors. My contention is that there is enough stress in the world without introducing more in our architecture. Like a good book or movie, I don’t believe our buildings should increase our adrenaline --- but offer a balm to our fallen condition and give us a taste of things to come in heaven.

Soli Deo Gloria's Listening Room

2008-12-11T08:39:00.006-05:00

Soli Deo Gloria is dedicated to enhancing, promoting and preserving the classical sacred music repertoire in the Biblical tradition. An important part of SDG's mission is commissioning new work. Check out Executive Director Chandler Branch's blog for news about this week's premier in Paris of a new musical work for choir, orchestra and soloists by composer Peter Bannister. The title of the work, Et iterum venturus est, comes from the Nicene Creed and translates “And he shall come again.” Et iterum venturus est is inspired by Bible prophesy in both the Old and New Testaments and is epic in its reach into the past and embrace of the future.

I'd also like to call to your attention the treasure trove of music and video interviews with composers commissioned by Soli Deo Gloria in Soli Deo Gloria's Listening Room. Because I love to know what makes artists tick, I am really enjoying the videos. It's well worth your time to check it out.

A Few Words about Art

2008-12-07T21:28:00.002-05:00

You know how I love quotes. It's been a while since I've shared any. Here are a few I especially like today:

“The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without work.” George Bernard Shaw

"The test of the artist does not lie in the will with  which he goes to work, but in the excellence of the work he produces." St. Thomas Aquinas

“There is no vehicle which displays the Glory of God and the Wonder of God as clearly as the arts. Art is the reflection of God’s creativity, an evidence that we are made in His Image.” Martin Luther 

“Thy will be done in art as it is in heaven.” Willa Cather

"Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life." Pablo Picasso

Phillip Spears, Part Two: "God's Light"

2008-11-30T16:31:00.003-05:00

Today I'm finishing up my feature of photographer Phillip Spears. Phillip came to faith at the age of 15. He has a BS in Design from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1983. Since then, he's been working as a commercial photographer in Atlanta. He specializes in educational marketing and annual reports. He and his wife, Dr. Dana Spears, have three children, Anna Kate, Maggie, and Benjamin.Make sure you check out his website for some gorgeous images.

LM: Tell me about your "God's Light" series.

PS: I actually stole that term from a guy I used to work with. Photographers are all about light. We are always trying to manufacture or emulate God's light. I wanted to apply this to a particular set of images using light that only happens naturally and atmospherically.

My clouds series on the website is the second incarnation of the "God's Light" series. I want to put together a big series. This will be a much more serious attempt than the first. It'll be my first real foray into fine art photography in years.

I've been shooting thunderstorms for a long time. I love watching a storm, especially when it's over and especially if it's early or late in the day. It's like a symphony and a ballet all at once. The light is changing so fast. Everything is moving.

The clouds series was taken during a storm over about 35 minutes. It was magnificent in beauty and scale. I love being able to watch it happen. God is both infinite and personal, and shooting these storms feels like a personal gift to me. I know the Creator is watching me enjoy it and enjoying me enjoying it.

LM: What has been a highlight of your career?

PS: One highlight was born out of one of the worst times in my life. My wife Dana and I lost our first child, Sarah, when Dana was 4 1/2 months pregnant. I was 30 or 31 years old, and that was my grow-up moment. Even though Sarah was still in utero, we had named her, referred to her as our child, told our Sunday school class about her. When she died, we held her and prayed over her. It was a very difficult time.

Dana's great aunt gave us some money to do a memorial. We didn't know what to do at first. Our church at the time had lots of young children so I did a series of children's portraits--about 40 or 50 shots up close that weren't sophisticated but were very meaningful. I prefer to shoot on location but we did this in a studio we set up at the church. I called it "Children of the Covenant." One Sunday morning, we ran the series as a slide show with a song that the worship minister had written. That night, I did a eulogy for Sarah.

About a year ago, we reproduced the project. The new work is better than the first one. We took some of the same kids we shot earlier and photographed them now as adults. In the slide show we had the younger photos morph into the adult ones. The series hung in the church for four or five months.

I think that first "Children of the Covenant" series was meaningful to the church as a whole, not just to us as a memorial to our child. Producing that series, looking into the eyes of all those little children, being immersed in all that wonderful innocence helped me to heal from the most traumatic thing that has happened in my life.

Though it is not technically the most demanding project I have worked on I think it does what I want all of my work to do. It serves to remind us that we are human, made in the image of God.

Phillip Spears, Photographer: Being Creative an Act of Obedience

2008-11-30T16:20:00.006-05:00

Photographer Phillip Spears came to faith at the age of 15. He has a BS in Design from Illinois Institute of Technology in 1983. Since then, he's been working as a commercial photographer in Atlanta. He specializes in educational marketing and annual reports. He and his wife, Dr. Dana Spears, have three children, Anna Kate, Maggie, and Benjamin.Make sure you check out his website for some gorgeous images.

LeAnne: I like to start at the beginning because I'm fascinated by how an artist grows and develops. How did you get started in photography? What draws you to it?

Phillip: I came to photography largely against my will. Although it is one of the few things I've been naturally good at since a young age, my long term interests were in several other areas, mostly the ministry. When I was ten, I got a Polaroid Swinger camera so I was able to take pictures instantly. Four or five years later, my older brother, who in my mind could do everything well and easily, got a 35 mm camera but he couldn't make it work. I could and so I latched onto photography for some identity. In high school, I was one of the yearbook photographers. I came to faith at about 15 and earnestly wanted to do something intellectual for the faith like preach. Throughout high school and college and early career turmoil, though, my friends continued to encourage me and tell me that photography was what I should be doing.

I thought I wanted to be a civil engineer--I had a romantic notion about what that entailed --so I went to Georgia Tech for one quarter. I hated it. Then I met a guy named Dave Fredericks, on his way back from a summer missions project, who was studying photography at the Illinois Institute of Technology. I was planning to go on to seminary, but I needed a four-year degree first and photography seemed like a good choice. But unfortunately, I neglected my studies. Then, the summer before senior year, I went to Africa on a missions trip and made some wonderful images there--some of my best still. That trip helped me realize that I was much more attuned to photography than I was to ministry. So I got serious my senior year and did really well. My professors were stunned at how fast I progressed.

When I graduated, I went back to Atlanta and worked as a commercial lab tech and studio assistant until eventually I got an offer from a successful commercial photographer to join him, which I did for ten years. Then I decided to go on my own.

Photography was the thing other people encouraged me to do--to develop the creative part of my character. On the other hand, my father had warned me about how difficult a creative life could be. He practiced medicine but he was actually a poet at heart.

The voice of God has been very clear, though, throughout my career that I am doing what He created me to do. And I love what I do. It took me a long time to realize that. Life in the creative world is open-ended, with advantages and disadvantages, including doubt. But this is what I need to be doing. And photography has changed me. I'm a radical introvert by nature but my job requires me to interact with a lot of people every day when I'm shooting.

I'm drawn to photography because I love the images. I love to make things that surprise me and to imagine what something might look like. When the finished product is something better than I expected, I'm just amazed.

LM: What do you think it means to be an artist and a Christian?

PS: First, I'm a little uncomfortable with the term "artist" because it implies a certain level of achievement that's best judged by someone else. I'm more comfortable with 'creative' or just 'photographer.' To your question, in some ways, being a creative and a Christian can make being a creative a lot more difficult. Most creatives have no rules. A lot of times for them it's just a design project with no real meaning.

For Christians, there's an innate connection to universal meaning. I used to worry: is my work Christian? But simply by my being a Christian, my work has that quality. The better believer I am, the more my work will reflect God's glory. In that way, it's sort of easier to be both, I guess. I'm not as concerned with the outcome. I'm being obedient to God in my work. If that kind of work is commercial, then I'm happy with that. It has made me a better artist than I ever would have been. I love making beautiful things out of nothing. Commercial photography has been much more of an education than you might expect. Because I've had to do it--to deliver the shots within certain parameters--I've learned so much.

And being a commercial photographer has required me to work. I know creatives who can't not do their work, but I'm not like that. I would be happy to sit and read C. S. Lewis and history books forever. But this work has required me to practice. And it has forced me to compete with some of the best creatives out there. There are brilliant, creative photographers today whose work is inspiring in its inventiveness and beauty. Now I am aware of what I believe is some of the best creative work ever done.

Being creative is the way I practice being a believer. It's an act of obedience. I want to do it well to a particular end. Life is now a stewardship project, which is life-affirming. I'm unbelievably grateful that God has given me this gift. I love that I get to be creative. Being creative is a fundamental part of being human.

C. S. Lewis's book The Abolition of Man has a lot to offer creatives. He divides our humanness into three categories: appetite, intellect, and the soul or the heart--the seat of the emotions. Lewis calls it "the chest." His book is a critique of modern ideology. We've done away with the soul. The appetites will always overrule the intellect if not directed by a well trained heart or soul. We've lost the sense of who we are. We've become so material that we see ourselves as only instinct and brain and so have seen our animal appetites overwhelm our intellect.

I want to give people back a spirituality in a world that's very unspiritual. I make things because they are beautiful and that's enough, really. And maybe that's the reason God made beauty--simply for us to enjoy or to remind us who we are.

More from Phillip Spears on Thursday.

Happy Thanksgiving

2008-11-27T08:50:00.002-05:00

I'm thankful for so many things--first and foremost, salvation made possible through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son. This YouTube on my friend Crystal's blog says it all.

Thank you for reading. I'll have a great new feature next week.

For Fun

2008-11-23T20:43:00.010-05:00

Because this blog tends to be serious, I'm shaking things up today. I'm having technical difficulties, however, with no time to investigate further so here's the link to the YouTube on my friend Nancy's fabulous blog.

Enjoy.

Next week: a new feature!

deAnn Roe: Still Before the Lord

2008-11-18T11:01:00.007-05:00

Today I'm concluding my interview with deAnn Alyse Roe, Director of Visual Arts at her church in Pennsylvania and the blogger behind Vertical Creativity.

LeAnne: What are some ways you're helping people to "live in their creativity"?

deAnn: I post much of my own creative journey on the blog, my struggles and highlights, which I hope encourages others to approach God through their creativity as well. I also feel strongly about the importance of arts communities. These gatherings offer people a chance to meet with others who are exploring their creativity through a particular art form. Currently there are three arts communities at our church: a photography group, a reflective writing group for women and a new writing practice group that will begin in January. Other art communities are forming--sketching and painting. The synergy that builds when a group of like-minded creative people gather is unbelievable and fun.

LM: What are your favorite creative outlets?

dR: Oh my, I have several. But honestly, the current favorite depends on were I'm at in my spiritual journey. I've always liked words. I'm a big journaler and occasionally a poem will birth from a place of gratitude or grief. Sometimes when words can't express what's on my heart, I sketch or sit before a canvas and paint (usually with my hands and fingers--I like the feel of the paint and the texture of the canvas). In high school, I played the saxophone in marching band. Recently, a friend sold me their saxophone. When the mood strikes, I pick it up and squeak out the only song I know, "I Love You Lord." It's a song from my heart to God's heart, a real source of worship for me. However, photography, particularly macro photography, has really captured my interest.

LM: Why?

dR: Photography causes me to slow down and see--really see the world around me. There are two little lakes close to my house and it's a near perfect day for me when I meander through the tree-lined trails in silence, enjoying God's presence. I don't zoom past anything; instead, I get on my knees, nose to the ground and investigate a fallen acorn, decaying leaf, spider web, or dew drop on a blade of grass. Then after taking in its wonder with my eyes, I try to snap a shot that will remind me of the experience. With macro photography, you get up-close and personal with your subject. You see things that you never would have noticed if you hadn't slowed down to really look. This gives me a deep sense of gratitude for the beauty of creation and God's love for me.

Also, photographs can tell stories or lead your mind into imagining--whether it's the aged face of a stranger, the broken TV on the curb, even the Ghost "Peeps" [marshmallow puff candies] that I saw abandoned alongside the road (yes, I took a picture of them!). There is something healing about slowing down our pace of life and being fully present in the moment--and the arts cause us to do this. I believe it's important to develop our creative voices for this reason: to break out, from time to time, of the fast-paced lives we've grown accustomed to living, to slow down and "be still" before the Lord.

Coming soon: new features!

deAnn Roe: Vertical Creativity

2008-11-17T08:29:00.004-05:00

deAnn Alyse Roe is Director of Visual Arts at Living Word Community Church in York, PA. As Director, she is curator of the monthly art gallery exhibits and creates the sacred space installed for the season of Lent. She plans to offer classes on discovering creativity soon. She's also involved in the Spiritual Direction program at her church through which she meets with a small group of women every month and walks alongside them in their spiritual journeys.

deAnn's blog is Vertical Creativity. She says that God has put on her heart a passion to develop her creativity and meet with Him through her creative endeavors. She believes that spiritual formation through the arts is very real. It's her desire to explore this and offer her experience to others and encourage them in their own creative and spiritual journeys.

LeAnne: Your blog is called Vertical Creativity. What is the focus of it?

deAnn: The focus of my blog is to encourage people--from artistic dabblers to professional artists--to live into their God-given creative Imago Dei (image of God). I can't help but think there is a connection between our creativity and our spirituality. So, I try to help people think vertically about their creativity and to consider approaching it as prayer, which has great potential to deepen their relationship with Jesus. I call this practice, "sitting before the canvas," being fully present and in prayer. Your canvas may be a sketch pad, hunk of clay, your garden, computer keyboard, the viewfinder of your camera, or an actual canvas for painting, etc. Then create whatever bubbles up from within.

I also post local art scene happenings hoping to encourage people to get out and interact with other people's creative endeavors. Vertical Creativity is currently a blog but by the beginning of the new year, it will be a website with an attached blog. I'm excited to see where God takes this ministry.

We are all created in God's image. Therefore, we all have the ability to creative. Vertical Creativity is a place of encouragement as we move along the creative journey.

LM: Why do you want to see people "live in their creativity?"

dR: I believe that we can meet with God in unique-to-us ways as we seek to discover and live in our creativity. God is Creator of everything beautiful and we can co-create beauty with Him. But it's hard to get past the negative inner critic we hear so often, that voice that tells us we are not creative, that we are not artistic, that it's a waste of time, that we have absolutely no ability. That squelches the Imago Dei that is within each of us. You never know what can be created through you until you take the time to try, and then allow God to surprise you!

Interview about Culture with Andy Crouch

2008-11-13T08:16:00.001-05:00

Click on over to BeliefNet for this interesting interview with Andy Crouch, who wrote Culture Making: Rediscovering Our Creative Calling. Andy is editorial director for The Christian Vision Project at Christianity Today International, a member of the editorial board of Books & Culture, and senior fellow of the International Justice Mission's IJM Institute. His writing has appeared in several editions of Best Christian Writing and Best Spiritual Writing.

Come and See

2008-11-10T07:08:00.008-05:00

Today I want to call your attention to an article written by acclaimed artist, Makoto Fujimura. The article, called "Come and See: Leonardo da Vinci's Philip in The Last Supper," describes his experience with one of the most famous paintings of all time. Enjoy.

I hope to feature Fujimura soon.

On Abstract Art

2008-11-06T07:35:00.002-05:00

This morning I was checking out a new blog that looks interesting: Tolle Lege. I haven't explored it fully yet--I was actually drawn to it because the blogger quoted from Philip Graham Ryken's book, Art for God's Sake. I read the book last year, I think, and found it helpful.

Here's the passage I wanted to pass on to you today:

"Some Christians continue to think that certain forms of art are more godly than others. They make a sharp distinction between the sacred and secular, not recognizing that so-called secular art is an exploration of the world that God has made, and therefore has its place in deepening our understanding of God's person and work...

"What Christians tend to dismiss is abstract art, especially as it has come to expression in modern art. Yet abstraction has God's blessing as much as any other art form....

"Therefore, as Christians we are not limited to crosses and flannelgraphs, or to praise choruses and evangelistic skits. These simple forms may have their place in the life of the church, but God wants all the arts to flourish all the fullness of their artistic potential, so that we may discover the inherent possibilities of creation and thereby come to a deeper knowledge of our Creator" (pps. 34-35).

2008-11-03T08:30:00.004-05:00

Last week, an artist friend of mine and I went to a special exhibition, Sculpture in Motion, at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. What we saw fascinated us. Here's some info:

"Amid lavishly blooming flowers and trees a collection of extraordinary sculptures comes to life at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. Sixteen artists capture the energy of the wind, water, sound, sun, magnetics and touch in more than twenty-five works of fine art. The dynamic sculptures move and shift forming endless compositions in perfect harmony with the beautiful gardens. This exciting exhibition is the most extensive survey of outdoor kinetic art ever held and includes some of the most prominent kinetic sculptors working today."

For an overview, click here.

For photos and descriptions of each work, click here. Some of them have YouTube links so you can see them actually in motion. But I found many of these works to be stunning even when they weren't moving.

If I had to choose, my favorites were Kristina Lucas' Masdevallia Extravaganza 2008 in the Orchid House and Tim Prentice's Yellow Zingers 2008 nestled outside in the trees.

Next week: a new feature

Brad Davis, Poet

2008-10-26T20:45:00.003-04:00

San Diego born and weaned, Brad Davis now lives with his wife Deb in Pomfret, Connecticut, where for 21 years they have worked at Pomfret School, a secondary boarding school. He has also taught Writing Poetry at Eastern Connecticut State University and, most recently, the College of the Holy Cross. Having received an MFA from Vermont College of Fine Art, his job at Pomfret is to administer all things "Broken Bridge," a Fine Arts outreach of the school. He edits the Broken Bridge Review (a journal for emerging adult poets and writers), directs the Broken Bridge Summer Arts Workshops (an immersion program in art-making for high school students), curates the Broken Bridge Poetry Prize (a national contest for students in private secondary schools), and leads the Broken Bridge "062" Creative Writing Workshop (a seminar-style program for aspiring writers who live in Connecticut's 062 zip code area). Brad and Deb have a son and daughter-in-law who live in Brooklyn, New York.

For information about Brad's poetry collection, Opening King David, click here.

LeAnne: What draws you to poetry?

Brad: I am drawn to images and ideas. By image (plain, textured, or figured) I mean a sensory impression, and by idea I mean anything from a concept to an emotion to a motivation. In poetry I find a concentration of both image and idea that is usually compressed into a brief language event. And yes, I am drawn to brevity, perhaps because I am drawn to contemplation, the poem functioning nicely as a springboard to, as Merton spoke of it, thinking into and with the heart of God. I also love the music of language, especially of plain speech. Though I am not as much a sensualist (one who, apart from virtually anything else, loves language for how it plays on the tongue and in the ear) as many of my poet-friends, if a poem is aurally clunky (without meaning to be), it cannot be an excellent example of the art. I am drawn to poetry for the experience of how it makes my brain work: in an encounter with a well-written poem, whether on paper or articulated at a reading, I see, hear, feel things vividly in my inner self that enlarge my experience of the beautiful, broken world in which you and I serve as stewards.

LM: Why should Christians read poetry?

BD: I have issues with "shoulding" on people. Actually, most Christians encounter poetry on a weekly basis, but they don't think of it as such; besides the hundreds of songs they listen to on the radio and their iPods, every Sunday they sing hymns and spiritual songs, read aloud from the Psalter, intone canticles, and listen to the words of the prophets and the poet Jesus. Music, secular or sacred, is poetry's number one delivery system in the modern world, and yet I suspect most believers fail to make the connection. For them, "poetry" remains one of those subjects they hated in high school. That said if there are Christians who, as stewards of the Mystery, understand that before compassion there's the necessity of attending to the culture in which they serve, then they "should" read all kinds of things, the culture's poetry included. And go to art installations and lectures and other highly valued cultural events. Even NASCAR races (poetry in motion?) and music festivals. How can you connect meaningfully with a neighbor about kingdom stuff if you don't know anything about his or her cultural orientations, or favorite music, or the language used to describe his or her lived experience?

I often joke that the best reason for Christians to read and grow comfortable with poetry is that poetry is the highest form of kingdom communication. In the Garden before sin, the only recorded example of speech is the poem uttered by Adam when introduced to Eve. In the Bible's most ecstatic, transportive moments (prophesies, love lyrics, proverbs, laments, beatitudes, parables, doxologies, etc.) the human authors launch into poetry. And, of course, every biblical representation of heaven reveals a realm in which all inhabitants do all of their communication business in poetry. So there would be two big reasons why we Christians "should" read poetry: first, for its value in understanding the world and communicating with the culture in which we serve (see Paul in Athens), and second, because (see tongue in cheek) poetry is the official, eternal, and highest mode of kingdom communication--so get used to it! I joke about the second reason, but it may not be entirely wrong-headed.

Joey O'Connor, Part 2: From a Heart of Grace and Truth

2008-10-23T08:17:00.007-04:00

Joey O'Connor is the executive director of The Grove Center for the Arts & Media in San Clemente, California. He is a pastor and author of 18 books. He is currently writing a screenplay about slavery and genocide in Africa in the late 1800s. He lives in San Clemente, CA with his wife and four children.

LeAnne: One part of your mission is to create a national network of artists in the church. How are you accomplishing that?

Joey: Facebook! One of our larger goals is to create or be a part of a national network of artists and artistic organizations who want to develop a creative hub for intentional artistic spiritual growth and excellence. As a small ministry, we've had a number of false starts in this area, which is a matter of trying too much too soon. Our best work this past year, in terms of national networks, has been in developing relationships with Mission America Coalition, Hollywood Prayer Network, Visual Story Network, and some conversations with Christians in Visual Arts (CIVA). At the most basic level, we receive emails and phone calls from people all over the national looking for how to connect with other artists and groups. We try to help people do this as best we can. With so many social networking sites out there, we've decided to camp on Facebook and build from there.

LM: The Grove Foundation for the Arts gives grants to professional and emerging artists. What are the requirements? Who can apply?

JO: Over the past five years, The Grove Foundation has given over $40,000 in small grants and scholarships. We've also helped other artistic ministries in their fundraising efforts. That said, every penny has come from money we have raised through our donors. We have no endowment or pile of cash we're sitting on. At this time, we are accepting no new applications because we're not in a position to release any funds. Previously, the majority of the grants were given to artists, churches and non-profit artistic ministries in the Southern California area.

LM: What else would you like to say about The Grove Center for the Arts and Media?

JO: From speaking to a number of ministry leaders in the arts throughout the country, there is a great desire for education, collaboration, and eliminating redundancies in the Church as well as a very strong desire to create new culture in our society. We need to move forward with new ideas, innovation, and not imitation. We are very committed to helping develop tools and resources that help churches, pastors, and worship leaders incorporate the beauty of the arts in their worship services. Artists are always looking for their next commission. I believe we've already received it: the Great Commission. Artists and churches need to be committed to authentic spiritual formation and community building so we truly will be a city on a hill. The danger is to put artistic craftsmanship before authentic apprenticeship of Jesus. Pursue excellence, yes, but let's have it proceed from a full heart of grace and truth.

Next week: another new feature

Joey O'Connor: The Grove Center for the Arts & Media

2008-10-20T07:20:00.001-04:00

LeAnne: How did The Grove Center for the Arts & Media come about?

Joey: It came as a complete surprise to me. As a writer and pastor, I have always loved the arts, but I never had the aspirations to develop a non-profit ministry. The Grove came out of a time of prayer in August, 2002, while I was spending time alone with the Lord at the San Juan Mission. As I sat among the beautiful mission gardens and architecture, I thought to myself, "What if there was a place for people to get away and be renewed? What if there was a creative, sacred space for artists in the Church?" After a couple of hours of thinking and praying about this, I asked, "Lord, are you speaking to me?" By the end of my time in the gardens, I said, "Okay, Lord. I'm in." We had no plan. No vision. Only a calling.

Three weeks later, very unexpectedly, I received a phone call, and six acres of lemon and avocado were donated to develop this retreat center that didn't have a name yet. Within the year, the six-acre gift turned into a twelve-acre gift. We formed the non-profit and started doing retreats for artists in the Church.

Our vision is to see Christ in culture through the arts and media. Our mission is three-fold: 1) Cultivate spiritual transformations in people's lives through retreats and events. 2) Connect artists, non-profits and churches. 3) Create film, audio and printed resources for creative ministry in the Body of Christ.

LM: What do the retreats offer?

JO: Right now we are offering one-day retreats on the actual Grove property. Our focus is the spiritual formation of artists and creative people in the Church. The day retreats are a combination of solitude with the Lord, small group discussions, a creative spiritual formation exercise, guest artists, pastors, and worship leaders...and a great meal. All of our retreats have received very positive feedback, but we pay real close attention to our retreat evaluations. The retreats are not focused on artistic "product" (i.e., what the artist produces), but giving artists a place to grow deeper within the Lord among others who share similar values.

LM: Tell me about Grovefilms.

JO: Grovefilms is the media ministry of The Grove. We have several goals with Grovefilms. First, we want to provide high quality church media to churches across the world. We also want to be very intentional about supporting the work of filmmakers who are Christians. Every time someone buys and downloads media from Grovefilms, filmmakers are financially supported through the sales of their products. Next, we wanted to produce our own short films and feature-length films with stories of spiritual transformation. There are a lot of great stories to be told! Last, we wanted a tool to produce sustainable income for the ministry. We want to show our ministry partners that their investments are taken seriously.

More about The Grove on Thursday.

Quite a Concert

2008-10-16T08:30:00.006-04:00

I'm excited to be offering a new feature next week so be sure to check it out.

Today, I thought I'd pass along this article by Mark Gavreau Judge that appeared in Books & Culture about a concert that the writer calls "a holy joy."

It starts like this:

"On Friday, September 19, I witnessed one of the most miraculous things I've ever seen on a stage. I use that adjective with purpose; the only way to describe what happened is the language of religion.

"It was the 2008 NEA National Heritage Fellowship awards presentation, held at the Strathmore Music Center, a spectacular concert hall outside of Washington, D.C." Click here to find out what happened.

I wish I had been there.

Craft or Message?

2008-10-13T07:30:00.004-04:00

Today I want to turn your attention to the blog of literary agent, Chip MacGregor, where he answers questions about writing and publishing. Scroll down to the second and third question. That section starts like this:

"Ben wrote and asked a question that is obviously related to my earlier criticism of Fireproof--"You said that good messages and moral content don't trump quality...but does quality trump message and moral content?"

To read Chip's answers, click here.

*****

On this Columbus Day, may we spend some extra time in prayer for our country.

Coming soon: new features

Words to Create By

2008-10-08T21:06:00.005-04:00

"The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands." Psalm 19:1

"Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a workman who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth." 2 Timothy 2:15

"Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ." Philippians 1:27

"Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven." Matthew 10:32

"You are the salt of the earth...You are the light of the world." Matthew 5:13a, 14a

"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Romans 12:2

Nigel Goodwin: Missionary to the Arts

2008-10-05T17:49:00.010-04:00

This weekend, I had the privilege of spending more time with my friend Nigel Goodwin, Executive Director of Genesis Arts Trust. On Friday night, author, radio talk show host and culture expert Dick Staub did a Q&A with Nigel at a reception in Nigel's honor. (Click here for my interview with Dick last year.) Dick called Nigel "a pioneer" in helping people around the world understand faith and culture, and faith and the arts.

When Nigel came to faith in Christ in the 1960s, he was told that you could not be an artist and a Christian. He, along with other artists who were Christians, struggled with their identity. He spent some time at L'Abri in Switzerland where Francis Schaeffer and Hans Rookmaaker were his mentors. They helped him to understand that it's okay to think and be a Christian and to be an artist and a Christian. He soon married Gillie, a lovely young woman he met at a wedding, and they began to invite people into their home and listen to them. Nigel says that everyone asks these questions: "Does anyone love me?" and "Is it safe?" He and Gillie created an environment that was safe and loving--a place where people could ask anything.

Pastor and author John Stott commissioned Nigel to be a missionary to the arts and years later, he continues to invite people into conversation, creating a safe space for them to be themselves, to ask questions about Christ, to gain a new understanding of how faith and art can work together. He is never too busy or distracted or tired to engage a person, whether friend or stranger. He takes the time to talk to artists who need encouragement as well as servers in restaurants who need to be acknowledged for the people they are. He is as comfortable with famous actors as he is with those who will never set foot on stage. Nigel often speaks about the arts and culture at churches, colleges, conferences, and homes. He loves his Lord, his wife and family, and his calling. The world is a better place because of Nigel Goodwin.

Arts Series

2008-10-02T08:19:00.007-04:00

Last night several arts enthusiasts from our church met to discuss creating a new arts series. We already have a strong worship arts program but this will be a new series of events outside the regular worship arts lineup. One main purpose of it will be outreach to the community. We're just beginning the planning process but are considering concerts, lectures, readings, dance performances, visual art exhibitions, film discussions and more, all intentionally geared toward different age groups.

We had a special guest join us: our good friend from the UK, Nigel Goodwin. (Nigel was the first person I featured on this blog when I began it two years ago.) A graduate of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, Nigel worked in theatre, film, TV, and radio for over 10 years. He trained under Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri. Now, as Executive Director of Genesis Arts Trust, Nigel encourages and supports Christians in the arts, both celebrities and as-yet-unknowns, all over the world.

My husband and I met Nigel several years ago. A common love of the arts brought us together, and we were thrilled to have him take part in our wedding. Since then, he has spoken at our church several times and will do so again this Sunday. I'm hoping to have some time to interview him again for the blog before he goes to encourage artists elsewhere in the US.

If your church has an arts series like the one I've outlined here or if you know of something similar, please tell me about it by leaving a comment. I know of several myself but would love to hear from you.

Les Miserables

2008-09-28T21:31:00.009-04:00

Even though it was my third time, it moved me again as before. Maybe more so. After all, I'm older now, and wiser, I hope, and a mother, too, which has changed how I view just about everything. But I think that if I were to see Les Miserables a dozen times, I would still be moved by this story of grace, forgiveness, redemption, sacrifice, love, courage, compassion, loyalty, and more. I found myself marveling that this classic that deals so obviously with important spiritual questions should be so popular, still bringing in crowds after years of touring the country.

The first two times I saw it, I was in my early 20s. I identified with Cosette's and Eponine's feelings of love for Marius as well as the students' idealism. But yesterday, I ached for Fantine and her motherless child. And Javert seemed so much more human to me--still obsessed with Valjean and the law but truly baffled by Valjean's act of mercy toward him.

Even more, though, I found myself caught up in Jean Valjean--a sinner given a second chance to make a life for himself beyond his circumstances. To be honest and honorable, even when it cost him dearly. To live the life of a man and not a number. Would I have been so brave and true? I hope so.

This cast had strong, powerful voices that soared with the music one moment, then faded to exquisite harmonies the next. If the words were in another language and I could not understand them, I would still be moved to tears--and cheers.

Les Miserables has given me much to consider and remember. That's what good theater does.

Michael Card, Part 2: Creativity and Community

2008-09-24T21:55:00.010-04:00

Today I'm concluding my interview with Michael Card. In a career that spans 25 years, Card has recorded over 20 albums, authored or co-authored over 14 books, hosted two radio programs, and written for a wide range of magazines. Through all of these means, his love of teaching the Bible and his focus on the importance of biblical community shine through.

LeAnne: In your book, Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity, you talk about listening. Why is listening important for artists? What (or who) should we be listening to?

Michael: Listening represents that state of openness in the artist that really is the basic expression of love. The best way to show someone you love them is to listen to them. We should be listening to everything but always listening for God in the process, realizing all along that He loves by listening to us as well.

LM: Why is community important for Christians in the arts?

MC: Because creativity, true biblical creativity, always happens in the context of community. This is not to say that artists don't create alone, but that they derive a purposefulness in creating that only comes from listening to the needs, hurts, or joys of the community. I think the reason so many artists despair is that they are disconnected from community.

LM: What are you working on right now?

MC: I am currently trying to finish a book on the topic of slavery in the New Testament. I was discipled in the context of two African American churches and heard Jesus referred to as "Master" in both. I had never heard Him called by that name in the white church and so I started investigating why. That journey led to this book and I hope eventually a record.

Michael Card, Part 1: The Imagination

2008-09-20T17:29:00.009-04:00

In a career that spans 25 years, Michael Card has recorded over 20 albums, authored or co-authored over 14 books, hosted two radio programs, and written for a wide range of magazines. While he has penned such favorites as "El Shaddai," "Love Crucified Arose," and "Emmanuel," he never imagined selling more than 4 million albums or writing over 19 #1 hits. The popularity of his work seemed a stark contrast to his goal in life--to simply and quietly teach the Bible.

In addition to teaching, performing, and writing, Card hosts a radio show, In the Studio with Michael Card, which is broadcast on many radio outlets across the US, including Moody Radio stations and affiliates. Each show features Bible commentary, a look at the creative process, and demonstrations of faith lived out in community.

Whether it's through his writing, concerts, teaching or his radio program, the core of what binds these seemingly diverse endeavors together is biblical community. It is at the heart of everything Michael Card does.

LeAnne: You write in your book, Scribbling in the Sand: Christ and Creativity, that we hunger for beauty. Why is that?

Michael: I believe our interior hunger for beauty is a reflection or perhaps a vestige of our being created by the God who is beauty. Most of our behavior connects back at some point to this fact.

LM: What is the call to create and where does it come from?

MC: The call to create is universal and goes back to our having been created by a creative God. It is part of His fingerprint on us. It comes from Him I suppose but you might also say it is imprinted on our souls. It comes out through various creative drives we all have.

LM: Why is it important for Christians in the arts to understand the imagination? Where can we go to learn more about it?

MC: Christians need to understand the function of the imagination in order to communicate truth and beauty more biblically to a world that hungers for them both. The imagination is a God-created bridge or connection between our hearts and minds. It allows art to speak to them both. It allows us to communicate to a more fully-integrated person. I think we go to the Bible to learn more, as we seek to interact at the level of the imagination with the text. That is the best place to see how it "works."

Seeing Your Soul

2008-09-17T20:38:00.003-04:00

While I'm working on the new features, I've been enjoying pulling quotations and passages together for my posts. Here is a group of wonderful quotations I found in The Christian Imagination, edited by Leland Ryken, a book I recommend.

"The poet's job is not to tell you what happened, but what happens: not what did take place, but the kind of thing that always does take place." Northrop Frye, The Educated Imagination

"The primary job that any writer faces is to tell you a story of human experience--I mean by that, universal mutual experience, the anguishes and troubles and gifts of the human heart, which is universal, without regard to race or time or condition." William Faulkner, Faulkner at West Point

"My assumption is that the story of any one of us is in some measure the story of us all." Frederick Buechner, Listening to Your Life

"The poet is not a man who asks me to look at him; he is a man who says 'look at that' and points." C. S. Lewis, The Personal Heresy

"It is the function of all art to give us some perception of an order in life, by imposing an order upon it." T. S. Eliot, On Poetry and Poets

"You use a glass mirror to see your face; you use works of art to see your soul." George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah

Eric Moore: The Gift of Song

2008-09-14T20:06:00.010-04:00

Singer and actor Eric Moore started singing in church at an early age. His first professional acting job was in 1995 with Tom Key in Cotton Patch Gospel at the Alliance Theater in Atlanta. He has since appeared in many shows in Atlanta and regionally and has some film credits too.

We have had the privilege of seeing him in several shows at Theatrical Outfit. One of my favorite moments from last season's Godspell was Eric's performance of "All Good Gifts." He had the audience in tears--with many nodding in agreement and thanking the Lord right along with him.

This weekend, we saw him at Theatrical Outfit as Jim in Big River, a musical based on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. It was an excellent show by a cast of strong performers, powerful moments of poignancy, and of course, the humor of Twain. Eric, with a voice that's rich and full, makes you believe he's experiencing what he's singing for the first time and you are invited along on the journey with him.

"Singing has always been a part of my life," Eric says. "I feel the ability to sing is a gift from God."

Eric says he tries to make sure the work he does is a good representation of his Christian life. "Everything that I have done and everywhere that I have been is due to the gift of song that God has given me."

We are thankful, too, for that gift. Keep singing, Eric!

Remembering

2008-09-11T07:45:00.001-04:00

Today is 9/11. Let's remember the lives lost and the lives changed forever that morning.

Flannery on Learning to See

2008-09-11T07:30:00.002-04:00

A few more words from the brilliant fiction writer Flannery O'Connor. This passage is from "Writing Short Stories" in the book Mystery and Manners.

"Fiction operates through the senses, and I think one reason that people find it so difficult to write stories is that they forget how much time and patience is required to convince through the senses. No reader who doesn't actually experience, who isn't made to feel, the story is going to believe anything the fiction writer merely tells him. The first and most obvious characteristic of fiction is that it deals with reality through what can be seen, heard, smelt, tasted, and touched."

"Now learning to see is the basis for learning all the arts except music. I know a good many fiction writers who paint, not because they're any good at painting, but because it helps their writing. It forces them to look at things. Fiction writing is very seldom a matter of saying things; it is a matter of showing things."

I'm so excited about all the new features I have lined up for the next couple of months. Stay tuned!

Flannery on Fiction

2008-09-08T07:30:00.000-04:00

Today's post is taken from Flannery O'Connor's excellent essay, "The Nature and Aim of Fiction", which appears in a collection of her writing called Mystery and Manners. As with most of the quotations I share on this blog, even though they are about writing fiction, the points O'Connor makes apply to other types of art as well. Enjoy.

"Very few people who are supposedly interested in writing are interested in writing well. They are interested in publishing something, and if possible in making a 'killing'. They are interested in being a writer, not in writing."

"Art is a word that immediately scares people off, as being a little too grand. But all I mean by art is writing something that is valuable in itself and that works in itself. The basis of art is truth, both in matter and in mode. The person who aims after art in his work aims after truth, in an imaginative sense, no more and no less."

"The beginning of human knowledge is through the senses, and the fiction writer begins where human perception begins. He appeals through the senses, and you cannot appeal to the senses with abstractions."

"The fact is that the materials of the fiction writer are the humblest. Fiction is about everything human and we are made out of dust, and if you scorn getting yourself dusty, then you shouldn't try to write fiction. It's not a grand enough job for you."

Coming soon: new features with a novelist, a poet, a photographer, an actor, and more

Randall Flinn, Part 2

2008-09-03T20:56:00.004-04:00

This week I'm featuring Randall Flinn, Founder and Director of Dance Ad Deum.

LeAnne: Have you faced challenges from the world because of your faith?

Randall: Surely at times, but that is to be expected and rejoiced over. For the most part I have found that when we are true and comfortable and "real" in our own skin as Believers working in the arts, and when we have something significant to contribute that is not propaganda for our cause, we then gain many listening ears and hearts. And the applause ain't bad either!

LM: Have you faced challenges from the church because of your art?

RF: Would you be shocked if I told you sometimes this is the greatest warfare of all--where we strain at gnats and swallow camels? Praise God for those churches and pastors and Christian leaders who "get it" when it comes to the arts as good gifts of God to be celebrated and stewarded and offered not only to the "holy house" but also to those in the outer court.

LM: What would you say to encourage other artists who are trying to live their faith and their art in the world?

RF: Don't stop. Pray, weep, persevere. He who began a good work is faithful to complete it!

And network--not for vanity or self-promotion but for the life-giving fellowship of other Believers who are wired just the way you are! The Lord still needs His Joseph in Egypt and His Esther in Persia and all the Daniels in Babylon He can get. No, it's not the church or missions organization--it's the world, but you can still be God's priest and servant and wash many feet in that very place.

Remember, there is a mighty spirit and He dances with us and over us. Here is my offering on that truth.

Randall Flinn: Dance Ad Deum

2008-09-01T21:15:00.000-04:00

Randall Flinn is founder and director of Dance Ad Deum. Flinn began his dance training in Houston over 25 years ago with Glenn Hunsucker, Camille Long Hill, Dina Vail, and Patsy Swayze. His most recent modern dance influences have come from studies with The Limon Company and Steve Rooks, former principal dancer with Martha Graham. He has taught and choreographed locally as a guest artist for the Houston Ballet Academy, The Episcopal High School, Houston Met Dance Company, Joan Karff Dance Company, The High School for Performing Arts and North Harris Performing Arts Dance Company. He was selected as a guest choreographer for Houston's Dance Salad 1999, Dance Houston 2006, and Texas Weekend of Contemporary Dance 2007. Nationally, he has served as guest faculty and choreographers for Cirque Du Soleil--Alegria, Ballet Magnificat, Belhaven College, Friends University, Project Dance NYC, LA, and Sydney, Australia, Hillsong, Australia, and Dance Revolution Conventions. Having lived throughout Europe and Asia for ten years, Mr. Flinn has also been a guest artist for Hong Kong Ballet, City Contemporary--Hong Kong, Guanzhou Modern Dance Company--China, Xaris Danz Europe and Youth With a Mission International Schools of the Arts.

LeAnne: What is Dance Ad Deum? Where did the name come from?

Randall: Ad Deum means "unto God" in Latin. Ad Deum is a professional contemporary (modern, neo classic) dance company based in Houston, Texas. The company began in January 2000, birthed by an ongoing passion for some years to establish a professional dance work where dance artists of Christian faith could fully integrate and pursue their vocational calling with excellence in an environment where their faith could also freely be expressed. Dancers have moved here to Texas from all around the globe to pursue their passion for their faith and their dancing. I still stand amazed!

Not that long ago, professional dance and Christian faith did not fare well among the Christian community nor within the mainstream community of the arts. The church (well, parts of it) was open to liturgical or praise dance offerings by well meaning worshippers. However professional presentations of dance by highly skilled dance artists who truly were seeking to honor God and bless mankind were rare to find.

Well, a new day has dawned and a multitude of very high-caliber and Christ-centered dancers have come into the Kingdom for such a time as this. They are out there all over the world engaging, influencing and impacting the church and the mainstream culture. To this I say, "Praise God--finally!"

LM: What is Dance Ad Deum working on now?

RF: More than I care to think about--that is what we are working on now! Next big performance is Texas Weekend of Contemporary Dance in Houston at the Miller Theatre on September 12/13. We are premiering a new work by Mr. Steve Rooks, former ten-year Principal Dancer with Martha Graham. Steve is a fellow believer-artist who is also working as the Lord's Daniel in the midst of Babylon, so to speak. His life and work as a follower of Christ is that of a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. [Note: To read LeAnne's interview with Steve Rooks last year, click here and here.]

Ad Deum has a full touring season both nationally and internationally. In November, we make the long journey to Malaysia to work with both the church and the mainstream dance culture.

LM: How has your faith affected or impacted your passion for dance?

RF: I believe my faith and a true understanding of a biblical worldview of the arts opens my life to the limitless possibilities of the glorious freedom of the children of God. I have come to understand a relevant and redemptive revelation of a New Testament priestly-artist--one that seeks to bless the Lord and serves the culture around him as the Lord's servant. No need to be religious here in this position and calling. The freedom comes in resting in the relationship and calling and understanding the cultural mandate and claiming the truth that God's artists can take up their towels and basins and wash the feet of this world with art that resonates with glory and honor.

On Thursday, the conclusion of my interview with Randall Flinn.

The Work of My Hands

2008-09-01T08:57:00.005-04:00

On this Labor Day, I'm thankful for the work of my hands. I'm praying that God will:

--help me pour out my gifts with abandon, joy, and courage,

--show me how to squeeze every bit of juice out of the time I'm given to write,

--be glorified no matter what I write or for whom (whether a blog post, article, story, essay or email)

--use my blogs and my other writing to bless and encourage others.

Today as I glance at the overcast sky outside my office window, I'm also praying for those, some of whom are family and friends, who will be affected by Hurricane Gustav.

Because of the holiday, I'm going to do something a little different and post three times this week. I have a fresh new feature I'm excited to share with you starting tomorrow. Check it out!

Craig Detweiler on the Sacred in Film and Culture

2008-08-28T06:44:00.006-04:00

Here's an interview I found interesting called "Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century". John Moorehead talks to Craig Detweiler, co-director of the Reel Spirituality Institute, associate professor of theology and culture at Fuller Theological Seminary, and author of A Matrix of Meanings and his latest, Into the Dark: Seeing the Sacred in the Top Films of the 21st Century.

Coming soon: new interviews with an actor, a director, a poet, and a gallery owner

Rosemary Rutland: Arts Enthusiast

2008-08-24T21:21:00.005-04:00

Occasionally, I interview arts enthusiasts. Today I'm featuring Rosemary Rutland, a certified personal chef and certified pastry culinarian. As a personal chef, Rosemary teaches cooking and baking classes, creates dining memories for special occasions and makes multi-meal service for a broad range of clients. She also enjoys singing, playing her guitar and traveling.

LeAnne: Do you think Christians should care about the arts? Why?

Rosemary: Art is beauty inspired and created by God and through God for us to enjoy. Beauty is all around us in many forms--we must choose to recognize it. One man's "beauty" is often ignored by another. Art and beauty are very personal choices. As Christians, I believe we should care about art and its expression. All things come from God and art is no exception.

LM: Why do you love the arts? Have you always loved them?

RR: My parents took me to plays as a child and I have always loved music. I enjoy art and the older I get the more I appreciate different mediums and ways of expression than I did before. For instance, I always loved watercolor but now I appreciate sculpture too. I think I appreciate the arts more each year and the importance of them in our world.

LM: Do the arts impact or enhance your daily life? How?

RR: Yes, the arts inspire me. I am in awe of the gifts that God gives to others in playing an instrument, writing songs, singing, acting, painting, photography, and creating what is in their heads and in the world around them. I spend lots of time listening to music when I am working, and my husband and I just became members of the local art museum.

Coming soon: an actor, a gallery owner, a director

Replay: Jill Pelaez Baumgartner, Part 2

2008-08-21T09:49:00.002-04:00

Today I'm concluding the replay of last year's interview with Jill Pelaez Baumgartner--poet, professor, scholar, and editor. Enjoy.

Coming soon: an actor, a director, a novelist, and more!

Replay: Jill Pelaez Baumgartner, Part 1

2008-08-18T08:35:00.003-04:00

This week, I'm replaying my interview with Jill Pelaez Baumgartner. Jill is a poet, an author, a professor of English, a dean, and more. Enjoy.

Replay: Alice Bass, Part 2

2008-08-14T17:30:00.005-04:00

Pardon the delay: Here's the conclusion of my interview with writer, creative consultant, and award-winning actress, Alice Bass. Enjoy!

Coming soon: novelist, actor, and dancer

Replay: Alice Bass, Part 1

2008-08-11T08:44:00.004-04:00

This week, I'm pulling from my archives to bring you my interview about creativity with Alice Bass, who is a writer, creative consultant, and award-winning actress.

Coming soon: a novelist, actor, and dancer