The Art Show
May. 27 2007
We sat down with two of the artists from this year’s art show to talk about truth, the creative process, and why Na has an art show. Connie Jimenez teaches art at Covenant Life School and devotes part of her time to helping with the Na creative process. Seth Remsnyder’s job is to paint…except that it’s usually the bumper of a car instead of on a canvas. Seth spent his weeknights working on his Na art piece.
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Na: Can you respond to people asking, “Why is there an art show at New Attitude?”
Seth: Talk to the curator. ::Laughs::
Connie: Well, for artists I think that part of making artwork is to meditate on whatever concept you’re trying to paint about. So this is a great opportunity for artists to meditate on important truths and then to make artwork in response to that. What’s great is that for the Na art show we as artists get to meditate on scripture, then make art about it.
Seth: Well, I think an image is an extremely effective way to remember truth. Like an illustration in a sermon, an image in our mind can help convict, encourage, or impart faith in some way. Art can be an illustration of truth. It can either be a more symbolic illustration of truth or a more direct illustration of truth.
Art is providing people with an image that they can study and remember and sometimes it helps people in a way that language can’t. Not that it’s a substitute for language, but it can be really helpful.
Connie: And we definitely found our limitations with images and language this year. Also, it was really helpful for a group of artists to come together and take a chunk of scripture and meditate on it and fellowship around it and talk through it. There was this process of making art based on this thing that you‘ve meditated on. And then on top of that, our hope is that people get a fresh view of the truth there, too.
Na: Last year we saw that with the art wall people would take words or phrases from the messages and create images based on them after the messages. There was a big hand that had “Christ died for our sins” written on it (which was a piece of Mike Bullmore’s message). Seeing the hand almost helps the truth stick in your mind in a fresh way. So what was your passage this year?
Connie: Colossians 1 on the pre-eminence of Christ.
Col 1:15-18 “He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy.”
Basically it talks about how Christ surpasses all. How he’s superior. His authority.
Na: How did each of your wrestle with that scripture? You’ve mentioned that the topic was difficult. Why?
Seth: It’s just obvious, think about it…it’s the pre-eminence of Christ!
Connie: What if I said, “Draw a picture based on the pre-eminence of Christ…before all things…all things created through him…in him all things hold together…” What would you draw?
Seth: It’s almost like you’re playing a prank on someone.
Connie: ::laughs::
Seth: It’s an excellent topic for meditation so it’s not crazy to want to base the art show on that. When we sat down to start thinking about the pre-eminence of Christ at first I was pretty discouraged. I felt like I didn’t have the means or the ability. I didn’t have a canvas big enough or a mind strong enough.
There was this stretch of a couple weeks where I just read the text over and over and over again. At a certain point I got the idea that I couldn’t visually portray the pre-eminence of Christ.
But I realized I could make a painting that would help us apply the pre-eminence of Christ. So I tried to make the painting work in a similar way to the sermon. With the piece I think I can do something that’s going to communicate real life and impart gratefulness to the viewer and help them make a connection between the cross and the pre-eminence of Christ.
Connie: Well for me the more I looked at the text and the more I realized how huge God is and the more I realized how he was over all and through all and in all…the only images that came to mind were cheesy Sunday school images.
So I decided to go the route of, “this is ridiculous so let me draw something ridiculous.” I can’t make an image on my paper that’s going to be able to do this justice. But, if I can’t do it justice then I’ll just go with that. So I chose to make a drawing about how God holds all things together and I used a ridiculous piece of tape holding things together to show that.
It still helps me think about it. Kind of, “Oh my gosh I can’t even hold toys and a globe together with tape. But God holds all the molecules of creation together.” The scripture humbled me so I felt like doing something humbled and ridiculous.
Seth: Another similarity in all of the pieces is that they all need a description. They all need words to say “this is what my painting is about.”
Na: Why?
Seth: Because of the weight of the topic and the limitations of images to explain. In one sense an image can be a powerful thing but in another sense it can be an extremely limited thing because it leaves so much interpretation to the viewer. I don’t think we leave truth about God and the gospel up to interpretation.
Connie: When I was showing Eric the art show we were talking about how obvious it is that we need words. I guess in some churches today people are saying that images are so powerful that you don’t need words. I think images are powerful, but I think we need words. There’s this favorite quote of mine by C.S. Lewis where he says that he never would have known what the word glory meant apart from seeing these certain ominous ravines. But at the same time none of us would ever have been saved apart from the gospel, apart from words, apart from text.
Seth: The gospel didn’t come to us in images, it came to us in words. That was God’s chosen means in giving it to us and that should weigh in heavily with this.
Na: So how would you tell a person to approach that art show at Na that doesn’t have a background in art?
Connie: Practically I’d say to just look at the images, read the descriptions, and talk to the artist nearby. You don’t have to like or be interested or understand every piece but I think it would be good to be charitable toward pieces that you don’t understand.
Na: You said earlier that you thought New Attitude was a good place for this art show? How does this art show connect with what Na is trying to do?
Connie: For me, being on a Na creative team makes it easy to see that this is just one more outlet for the same values we emphasize in many areas of the conference: in design, in print materials, on the blog, and in the environments we create. There’s an emphasis on creativity and innovation for the glory of God but not to bring attention to ourselves…but to say that these are a means to serve people and to care for people and a means to point people to the truth of the messages.
Seth: Two things come to mind for me when I think of art at the conference: 1. First that (like Connie said) it’s a support to the messages and the gospel being preached. It’s another way to get people looking up to see Jesus. 2. There are going to be a ton of young and gifted artists that are going to be at the conference. It would a secret hope of mine that other young artists would see ways to use their gifts to honor God.
Ricky: You mentioned art supporting the messages…That’s interesting. I was talking to Jeremy White the other day [the producer for Asleep in a Storm] and he was talking about trying to make the truth understandable in our culture. Trying to help people see the truth in a fresh way. And it reminded me a lot of what you guys do with art.
For example with Asleep in a Storm Okay, you may have heard a song on the remix album 500 times and you might be tired of the music, but the words there are still true and they still matter.
And at the same time there could be a guy on the street that could care less about the “worship” style of music but maybe he cares about a beat on the album. And maybe catching his ear will help start thinking about the words of the song.
Seth: Exactly. It’s that timeless truth of the gospel that is unchanging. But it does come in formats that are more “modern.”
Connie: And that’s why we chose a “theme”—the pre-eminence of Christ from Colossians 1—to base all our art on this year at the conference. The attempt was to go after some of those unchanging truths.
Seth: Well I love that because in some of the Christian art stuff I’ve seen lately there’s a sense in which some of the ways they treat art has introduced a change to the message they’re trying to portray. And that’s where we want humble orthodoxy to be different. We don’t want the message to change. God doesn’t want it to change. Truth is unchanging.
But at the same time we don’t want to make the kind of art that we were introduced to in Sunday school. We don’t want to “package” the gospel so that we forget that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” But we do want to package it in a way that people in culture stop and take a second look. That’s why an art show at New Attitude is such a great idea.
Ricky: How does community help and affect art?
Connie: Well that’s one of the reasons for doing this. I think that since many of us are friends we’re able to have conversations about art.
Ricky: So even just in daily life.
Seth: Yeah, it’s really helpful to have people around you that can support you when you’re making art. And it’s hard sometimes for me personally to separate what I used to think of other artists when I was making art before I was a Christian. In that environment making art was pretty cutthroat and there was a huge difference in motivation for why I would even want someone’s opinion in my art, or thoughts about what I could improve. The motive then was that I have to have critique because my professors say I have to and because I want to be the best. Everyone around you is gunning to be the best artist, the most popular.
But now it’s really a sweet thing to see that even in art I need input and help from others. I want to do it in a way that serves other people. I think that mirrors a reality in Christian life: the majority of the time we don’t see our deficiencies the way that other people can see them. So we desperately need our Christian brothers and sisters to help us with practical spiritual matters. I think with art it’s awesome that we can do the same thing…it’s another chance to humble yourself. It’s another chance to say I’m not an independent creature.
I remember that when Connie and I had conversations about our paintings I would come away with fresh faith for the project. I wouldn’t have been as excited if I hadn’t been able to talk to her. She brought another perspective that was really helpful. So that’s a small example of a larger reality that we get to live in as Christians.
Connie: It’s also that art is really hard to make. There’s just a lot of hard work. And I think that the best art—at least in my experience—comes out of good conversations. During the Na art shows there’s a lot of fellowship to be had around all the issues of art.
I’m just remembering last year that there was a lot of fellowship around the topic. There was a lot of give and take. In 2006 Allison and I (she’s the one that did the Volcano) spent a lot of time just brainstorming, thinking. There were a couple of artists that had a really hard time just making the work. Some people struggled with wondered what other people think. So we dealt with a lot of those issues together. I think there’s something so great about having other artists around to contribute.
I really liked what Seth was saying about how it really all takes humility and input from others. Personally, community is really important for me for art. I just need help! I’m pretty weak and stupid by myself.
Seth: I think community tones down art from art’s sake. It gets us away from art being this kind of mysterious sort of thing only certain people do. It wipes away that. When you see it as just another chance to pursue humility and glorify Christ it—I don’t know—it just gives me so much more faith to do it. It kinda puts the whole idea of art in its proper context. It’s important that it’s part of a community. This is not any more special than a guy that builds houses and gives generously and lives his life to glorify God. He’s using his particular gift. And art is just another way for us to use our particular gifts to glorify God.