creating again.

it's been a long time since I really sat down with the intent of creating a piece of art beyond just means to exercize emotional demons. yet yesterday i did just that...i began work on an exegetical sculpture piece that i am doing in lue of a paper because lord know's my brain can't handle writing any more papers. this is one of two art pieces i will be creating for class. when i originally thought about this piece i had visioned it made up of wire mostly since that is my default medium for sculpture. but as the piece began to speak to me and i did my background research on purification rituals during the time of Christ, clay seemed to be a better medium to construct the vessels from. i haven't worked in clay since elementary school, sitting in art class with my mom teaching and feeling a bit over looked. when i started out with the piece i wasn't even sure that i could construct what i had in mind from the clay. but with a little gentle care and patience i was able to not only create the two vessels and heart that i wanted but also created a embodied person out of clay. from here i am planning on creating another person out of wire..much easier since i've done that before. i'm so excited to see how this piece takes shape and speaks to whoever ends up viewing it in ways i never imagined. mostly thought i am so greatful for the chance to create art again.

sitting on the fence

I have spent so much of my life sitting on the fence between faith and art. Often when I am in dialogues around this issue I talk about the tension of living with one foot in each world, yet even while speaking to this tension so often I have disregard my own struggle. For the last few weeks I have been battling with desires which seem opposed to each other. On one hand I want to teach media studies with a theological bent and the school I am at has the professor who I can work with to learn how to do this in a way that matches my style of intergration. On the other side is my ever growing need to be creating and living in the rhythm of artistic life. As I continue to sit with these two desires I find that I am also in a space where I am asking hard questions such as am I able to journey outside of my safety zone to experience life? It is an odd thing to realize at thirty one you finally can break away from family expectations and choose you life. What choosing life might looks like is taking a walk outside of faith to find it again...I have wanted to push bounaries since I was a child both artistically and spiritually but was raised in a context where that wasn't allowed. Now I have this chance, instead of sitting on the fence I get to learn to play in the field or the road or both.

Old movies and technology

My best friend's family, whom I am spending Christmas with this year, have a tradition of watching one Christmas movie a night for the twelve nights leading up to the holiday. In light of this tradition last night we watched the 1938 version of a Christmas Carol. While I love film I am the first to admit that I know very little about anything made before the late '70's/early 80's and it is an area where I want to become more educated in. Watching this classic version of the film I was blown away by the creativity and challenge of the film's artistry. Today we are heads and tales beyond the technology used to create this film but as I watch I pondered the time it must have taken to shoot a film like this. There is something to the idea of time and craft that I feel we often loose sight of today in our space of constant accessibility. Looking at Jacob Marley's ghost especially reminded me of the time intensiveness required to over lay two images. While I am blessed to live in a time where I can very easily change or superimpose and image in post-edit, I also need to remember that there is something important about taking time to do thinks in a manner which takes time and care.

over and over again let the record spin

I've been listening to BRMC a lot since we saw them play over two months ago for various reasons. Ever since I heard "Howl" I have had a great affinity for them...in all honesty I know I had been listening to them when "Red Eyes and Tears" came out but in terms of totally becoming swept away it was "Shuffle Your Feet" & seeing them live that did it for me. Having been a bit of a club kid for the last ten years I have seen many bands that I listen to live but I have to say hands down that BRMC is one of the most if not the most sexy and hopeful bands I have ever seen play. Their music is so multi-dimensional rhythmically and lyrically, almost like a Salmon Rushdie novel because they are playing on at least three planes of meaning. Each time I put on one of their albums I find that I am drawn even deeper into the dynamic interactions happening with in the music. To see them live is incredible, and with Leah now playing drums, they are a visual exercise in collaboration and listening. After chatting with a few people who know them well I find that they are not only incredible and insightful artists who live out their ethic and beliefs in an integrable way but are also kind and lovely people as well. What I find most interesting about my love of this band is that I find myself constantly coming back to their instrumental album "Effects of 333"...there is something in this record that inspires me to wash myself in it. While I go through musical phases I know that they are one of those bands that will forever be at the top of my list.

revisited, charity:water

about four years ago i had the chance to travel to NYC with some of my fellow MHGS students to attend the IAM (international arts movement) conference. while there one of the sessions i went to was for charity:water which had just come into existence about six month before. i remember being blown away by scott harrison's story and passion. yet like so many other things in life what i experienced went and found a nice little cervice in my brain to sit in for a while. fast forward to last week when i got an email from my church here in los angeles (mosaic), for the last six weeks the church had been donating $10 for charity:water for every first time attender, and yesterday they had scott harrison come speak (which we found out doesn't happen often having outside speakers for service). i told my best friend that we had to go to church just to hear his story. so once again i found my self sitting in a large room with many other people listening to scott's passion for getting clean water to those who need it and his creativity about how to get said funding. and once again i was inspired, inspired to create, and work towards good in the world to bring God's kingdom here to earth in all the goodness and love and life and freedom and glory....to bring shalom the holistic blessing of old to the lives and lands of all people. shalom mean whole life in flourishment and while it is an impossible and lofty goal i do want to encourage and help as many people as possible encounter this in their lives.

glorification of evil?

ian, my brother and i were having a conversation about whether or not he thought i should go and see the film "grindhouse". first of all he didn't think that i could stomach all the violence which is probably true. but more importantly he thought that there was no real reason for anyone to see it because it was just about the glorification of evil. the whole point of the film was that the directors were glorifying the grindhouse genre of films, low budget films from the seventies with lots of blood and sex and mayhem, their modern tribute to these films of their youth. his question was are there some things that are just evil and should not be made? the artist in me wants to say there are very little parameters from which we should judge art and yet i think there are films that just should never ever be made..."the hills have eyes".

what is that line between art and obscene glorification of evil? there are many films that my father has told us were pure evil and yet i found redemption in them. magnolia, boogie nights, requiem for a dream, and brokeback mountain to name a few. so then what determines a film worth the time and a film that is not? when is something just not worth being made artistically vs content-wise?

trusting the passionate fires

trusting my self is a comman theme in my life as whole. today while i was talking through some of the confusion that come out of this dissance for me, my dear friend marie said but look at the passion in which you are talking with. essencially my passion for faith and art are the evidence that this is where i am called. why is it so hard to trust this call?

it is so ironic that given the way i see the world i can't trust that vision. i believe that God is powerful and yet i constantly live in a way that doesn't really believe that. if all of this is true then it will come, roles will come, school will come, everything that God wants in my life will happen.