Art: It Does More Than You Might Think
How can art help us see that God is still actively creating and that we get to be part of God’s work?
My affinity for art began in 2003 at West Virginia Wesleyan College. Before you assume I am a high-sophisticated intellectual, you have to know there was a girl. Allison was studying painting and and I had (still have) the hots for her. Every night, while my friends played video games I’d visit Allison in her studio. I would sit on a paint-stained stool while she painted, worked on a graphic design project, or used toxic chemicals in the printmaking studio. I would bring snacks in the hope that I could win Allison over with the finest foods one could procure from the Buckhannon, WV Sheetz.
Allison is now my wife and she will be the first to tell you that I have come along way in my appreciation and understanding of art. Back in 2003 I had no idea that artwork had movement. I did not know that artists were trying to tell a story or make a point through their work, What I knew about artwork was limited to the Thomas Kinkead style paintings that hung in my mom’s house.
Praise theLord that Allison has helped me grow in y appreciation of art, especially religious art. One of my favorite classes in seminary was a religious arts class where we visited museums and churches in Washington, D.C., exploring the various ways in which God uses art to speak to humanity from generation to generation.
Allison and I spent the better part of two days in 2018 taking in the artwork at the Vatican and then, while she was in meetings, I explored the various churches and cathedrals in Rome. I was able, because I had been trained to do so by Allison, to look at the pieces of art and notice texture, movement, value, and all of the other “artsy” terms.
These days, iconography is my favorite style of religious art. I chalk this up to the visits I was able to do in Washington, D.C. to view various Byzantine collections.
Last night I led the first of five sessions at Mount Olivet using art as a way for us to consider our relationship with God and one another. The author of the study refers to this as a communion. They wrote, “creativity is a pathway to your growth and healing and movement towards oneness. Towards atONEment.” I would take this a step further to say that through art we can explore the ways in which we are at one with the One who has been creating since the wind swept across the dark waters and there was light.
How often we forget that we ourselves are the product of a creator who is not satisfied with passive creativity. God is actively creating in the world today just as God has been actively creating since the dawn of creation.
Creating you.
Creating me.
Creating the saints of yesterday and saints of tomorrow.
Created in the image of the Creator.
Then, we are invited to create, and this is where art comes into the picture.
Art invites us into a conversation where our words have very little value, and so we enter silently. We have to shut up and listen. You have to shut up and be opened. You have to stop and look deeply. And so it engages all of my senses. How else to you engage with a God that is indescribable? And so it invites me into mystery, and into different interpretations, and is a reminder of beauty. —Rene August
Whether we realize it or not, art is an invitation into the mystery of creation. All comes from nothing. An idea is sparked, and in the church we believe this to be the work of the Holy Spirit. This idea then grows, is fleshed out, and eventually becomes a finished piece. But the beauty of creativity is that art is never really finished. Just as we are continually growing and changing so does art. Ask any printmaker what happens after a print is pulled. The will tell you the paper, ink, and even light hitting the piece will cause the print to change over time.
I am not actively creating art these days. I write sermons and blog posts, and record podcast (which I guess is an art) but I am not creating fine art. The art I created in seminary, I would not consider it to be “fine art” but it is art nonetheless. Though, I still have an appreciation and affinity for art that showcases the ways in which God is continuing to create today. Artwork that highlights that God has not forgotten or abandoned what God has created. And, that God is continuing to create today.
I want to share two pieces of art that have been speaking to me over the past couple of weeks. These are icons made by Ivanka Demchuck and Danilo Movcahn. Both are Ukrainian artists.
Their work speaks to God’s cosmic presence, especially in the current war in Ukraine, as well as the harm done by our sin.
God continues to create even as we turn toward destruction.
God continues to create as we turn to one another in oneness.
God continues to create because God has been in the business of creating since the dawn of creation
Bless us to bear communion, O God. To bear our own becoming—
breathe through us, sculpt through us,
paint through us—
call us to you to explore, create and to play.
Inspire our being, God,
teach us how to hum Your frequency, to open up, blur the lines, expand.
Do not withhold that stroke of genius, the alarming red that awakens
to something greater, something more...
Be with us in the chaotic mess,
as we co-create our way through life alongside you, let us be shapable, let us be mendable,
let us be willing to come alive with you. Amen.
- Kelly Ann Hall