Brehm Blog
Lin Schulz Preiss Oct 26, 2009
Gardens have been center stage for Shakespeare, the canvas for Victorian English politics and wrestling grounds for green thumbs. Some are inclined to dig, finding play amidst the labor of a garden. The incarnate Christ wrestled with the will of God in Gethsemane. Divinity put on the dirt of our flesh to restore us to the garden life before our curse. The garden is a place of wrestling with the divine ever since Eden.
Last Friday, Fuller’s Hubbard Library opened Approaching Eden, an exhibition featuring seven pieces by Patty Wickman that reveal profound in experiences set in contemporary gardens. While we seminary students seek insight and nuance in study of the Word at the library, Wickman’s artwork is an example of how to rediscover the divine in layered conversations with the seemingly commonplace.
In the life-size painting Outside the Garden, a strikingly ordinary man is caught ankle deep in the soil of his garden, as his work is distracted by something outside our view that captures the attention of even the animals surrounding him. All the while, the bright light of the garden nearly catches the revelation of mystery in its rays. This piece is one of three large paintings in Approaching Eden. Wickman’s realistic style evokes the psychological and the transcendence of human experience in the everyday. Subtly playing with focus, she renders some elements naturally soft while accentuating others with striking sharp clarity. There is enough in each of the large paintings to keep you captivated, searching, journeying deeper into the images.
For me however, the most captivating dynamic of the work shown is the juxtaposition of Wickman’s small after-studies alongside the larger three. Four of the after-studies depict scenes from the larger paintings, but stripped down and with their key elements altered. In Outside the Garden After-study the gardening man is still grounded in mud, but his hands are in a different position, striking a notably different chord. As painters prepare a composition, it is common to sketch out studies, playing with the gestures, and juxtapositions of the subjects. However, with Wickman’s after-studies, it seems like something more is being revealed.
(pictured) Struggle Garden by Patty Wickman, courtesy of Lora Schleisinger Gallery, Santa Monica
At Friday’s opening, I asked Wickman about the after studies, seeing that the drawing Outside the Garden After-study was completed nine years after the large painting. She explained that while she simply needed to finish a few drawings to be ready for show, there was also more she wanted to play with in the subject itself. It is like a game, she said, moving around different elements— simply changing a hand gesture or the placement of an object—changes the narrative. This reminds me that as an artist, Wickman herself is on a journey, never fully arriving even when a painting is dry and signed with satisfaction. The elements that first drew her to a composition were simply guides as, like the title of the show, she approaches something, just as her paintings themselves provide layers of meaning offering more of an invitation to a deeper conversation rather than a monologue.
As testified by the after-studies, Wickman works with pieces that keep intriguing her even as she finishes earlier studies. For the Seminary student, the same impulse lies behind our study of scripture in relation to the world-as-we-know-it. For anyone believing in deep meaning in our life experiences, these paintings challenge us to play, even wrestle with the ordinary in our own lives to see things anew. Along the way, perhaps we will find ourselves approaching the proverbial garden, returning to seemingly familiar images of our days, putting things in fresh light, seeing how the narrative changes as we explore, dig and seek God in the midst.
Approaching Eden will grace the Hubbard Library until November 23, inviting us to engage in the conversation of juxtapositions in the contemporary images by Patty Wickman.
Elijah Davidson Oct 18, 2009
I have an extensive cd collection. I particularly enjoy being able to study an artist's or band's entire career. I like to be able to trace their progressions (or in some cases, regressions) as artists. I feel that knowing an artist's catalogue adds an extra dimension to the listening experience. That knowledge makes the good albums better and grants the bad albums a little more grace than perhaps they'd otherwise deserve.
As I've collected so many artist's catalogues, I've noticed an interesting phenomenon - self-titled albums are most often comparatively the least in an artist's catalogue. (Admitedly, this is not always the case. Sometimes bad music is contained on non-self-titled albums as well, as evidenced at left.) I've pondered this. Why are so many self-titled albums bad?
Well, clearly self-titled albums are usually an artist's first album. They're not experienced, and so the songs aren't as good as their later work. That's the easy answer.
But the deeper question is, why are these songs worse than their later songs? What quality is this early work missing that the later work possesses?
I think the answer is identity.
As I've listened to and studied these bad debut albums (Oh, the things I do for art!), I've noticed a common thread - on early albums, artists seem often to be trying to be someone else. One artist plays the piano and writes story songs, so he tries to be the next Billy Joel. Another captures snapshots of Americana that erupt in praise of God, and so he apes Rich Mullins. This other band is from the South and loves guitars, so they try to remind you of Lynyrd Skynyrd. Don't you just love the irony of a self-titled album where in every song the artist is trying to sound like someone else?
Eventually, over the course of a few albums, if they keep at it, the artist or band almost always finds their identity, but it seems to take time and practice and confidence to drum up the courage to be oneself, and it's wonderful when that finally happens.
This afternoon, I went to Azusa Pacific University to see their production of Andrew Lloyd Webber's Evita. The show is very well done on all fronts. The singing, the acting, the choreography, the costumes, the lighting - everything on stage is top notch. Even the music, which is provided by a live orchestra, is wonderful. The students at APU are really doing a fine job.
And to their credit, there seems to be a large measure of group identity among the cast and crew. All too often, productions of this size try to be more than they are. Companies overreach their rigging. They overstep their stage, and so their productions fail, if not entirely, at least in part. APU's thespians seem very at home on their stage, and theirs is a comfort that is communicated to the audience and makes for a very enjoyable afternoon.
As artists, we can learn from the failure of so many musicians and from the success of Azusa Pacific University's theater department. May we learn to be ourselves. May we be comfortable in who we are. May we act on the stage God has placed us on. May we ply our God-given talents to the task at hand so that when He gives us more, we will have developed the skills needed to be equally as responsible with them.
It's the least and the most we can do.
Aaron Raymond Oct 08, 2009
What’s the point? What’s the meaning? Is there meaning? Why do we do what we do? Essentially to do anything at all employs a contextual level of aesthetics that for most of our day we are blissfully unaware. We all have tastes for certain artifacts in our lives be it our fashionable choice in clothing, what NOT to wear, our cars, our books, our Macs or PCs, or even our coffee, latte, or macchiato. The latter three falling into a broad rubric of culinary aesthetics.
But what is aesthetics? What are we talking about when we say that someone has an aesthetic appreciation for ____________ ? My first answer would be a pseudo-intellectual posturing where I would state that the etymological roots of the word come from its Greek origins, “aisthesis,” meaning sensation or perception. My second answer, and perhaps more honest, would be that I haven’t got a clue!
My professor and mentor Steve Heilmer, associate professor of Art and the department chair at Greenville College, once told me in passing that art is done for the sake of the community. I thought about this and compared it to the very practical applications of famous pieces of art from antiquity where great architecture, and imposing marble statues all made their civic contribution to Plato’s idyllic Republic. But does this reduce the validity of art to a democratic acceptance via status quo?
There is room enough, even within the many Christian communities, particularly Evangelicalism, for art that shocks, offends, and disturbs. It would be stating the obvious to most people to say that Protestantism, and particularly the Reformed tradition, as opposed to the Catholic, Orthodox, Coptic, etc. has the most work ahead of itself in rebuilding the bridges it has burned between its own traditions and the broad, all-encompassing domain of art.
At a time when Europe was experiencing great cultural upheaval, the incentives coming from John Calvin’s work The Necessities of Reforming the Church spoke to an emergent cultural expression which placed emphasis upon a new technological advancement, i.e. the printing press of Johannes Guttenberg. It is a saddening case of cultural misattribution that Calvin makes to describe the various works of art, particularly statuary, that existed throughout the Catholic churches of medieval Western Europe. These “Graven Images” which Calvin speaks of bore little resemblance, aesthetically or functionally, to the false idols of the Old Testament. If you asked a peasant in the rural countryside of Christendom whether or not the statue in the local church of St. George was his god, the answer, lacking in any theological verbosity which Calvin was prone towards, would simply be, “No.”
The result of the Guttenberg press and the Reformation’s consequential emphasis upon the textual aspect of scripture is twofold. The obvious, is that it relieved the institutional church of its burden of authority, most notably a cross taken up hesitantly by Gregory the Great and continued thereafter, and placed it upon the individual reader. The less obvious result is that with an emergent emphasis upon the text, now being read silently by one’s self and not in community, the de-emphasis of art as a form of communication for biblical narrative allowed for a blind eye to be turned to the non-literate parts of society. Hence literacy and salvation came hand in hand.
As inheritors of that Protestant tradition, Evangelicalism has much work to do to rebuild that burnt bridge and to broker the disconnect that is experienced between Art and Religion. Living in the media saturated world of Web 2.0 we are no longer the textual culture of Modernism brought on by the advent of the Reformation. And neither, as Marshall McLuhan would prophecy, are we now solely a visual culture. But instead, as the World Wide Web suggest, we are emerging as a community based (i.e. facebook, twitter, myspace, etc.) visual/textual culture where we recognize art for what it is. Art in essence is the way in which we shape our world. Literature, therefore, even when canonized as scripture by a certain faith community, is still one of many mediums, like oil, marble, or pixel, in which we communicate.
My question would not be if it is or isn’t art, or even if it’s idolatrous. I would have to ask, “Is it intentional? What does it say? What is my response?” Art doesn’t become idolatrous because we can get carried away and lose track of time in the right-brain process, nor because we read our Bible a little less this past week or forget to shake our pastor’s hand at the end of every sermon for his own affirmation. To view Art in conjunction with Faith as an Either/Or premise is to approach God without intentionality. Like the ancient Japanese Tea Ceremonies where every movement is artistically imbued with meaning, or like the intricate and ethereal ballet dances of The Nutcracker or Swan Lake, we can give meaning and create intentionality within our own lives, within our Eucharistic communion with fellow believers, and within our walk, or dance, with the LORD.
Elijah Davidson Oct 06, 2009
Some might call it graffiti. I'd agree as long as no derision is implied in the moniker. If instead of denigrating the art by calling it "graffiti," they were refering to the word's base, the Italian graffiare, I would heartily agree.
Graffiare means "to scratch," and street art like that of Martin Soby, does just that. It scratches beaneath the surface of the urban landscape and exposes the beauty within. It scratches the itch the pedestrian feels as she walks past almost endless concrete and glass facades longing for a bit of beauty amongst the banality. It scratches away at commercialism's near obsessive insistence on functionality and efficiency and reveals a better, more soul-filling aesthetic.
I point you now to Good and an interview with Soby by the Wooster Collective. As artists (and especially as Christians), may we always seek to bring and find beauty in the broken places.
Chris Min Oct 02, 2009
On Friday, Porterhouse Fine Art Editions will release a limited edition vinyl figurine of Mark Ryden’s, “YHWH” from the “Bunnies and Bees” exhibition from 2000. What I love about Ryden, is that he engages theological concepts from various religious traditions, be they Buddhist, Hindu, Christian, what have you, from the “outside,” in. That is to say, the artist claims no formal or institutional religious affiliation, yet his work belies a theological sophistication that, to my eye, offers wonder over disdain, curiosity over critique – not that critique isn’t welcomed. Actually, I would argue that it is Ryden’s theology from the “outside” that provides a fresh lens for those of us on the “inside” who sometimes find it difficult to see the forest for the trees.
What strikes me about this piece in particular, is Ryden’s grasp of Apophatic theology. Strains of Aphopatic theology within the Christian tradition can be traced as far back as Augustine. This approach, known as “the negative way” or “Via Negativa,” holds that the Divine is ineffable and our experience of God can only be recognized or remembered, rather than accurately described. What’s more, the imperfection of language and our finite ability to grasp the eternal necessitates that any attempt at describing God will ultimately prove flawed and incomplete. To that end, practitioners would not make propositional statements about the nature of God or what God is, but rather, what God is not.
Also worthy of noting is that in the Jewish tradition, “YHWH” is the ineffable and unutterable name of God. In fact, for reasons of reverence, its utterance is absolutely forbidden in many Orthodox Jewish communities, even in prayer.
So here I sit at my computer, looking an artist’s attempt to capture the uncapturable, in a painting named after the unnamable, and consider purchasing a $180.00 vinyl toy depicting that which cannot fully be known. I look at the little girl’s bare feet, conveying the holiness of her Audience, her bent elbows and open skyward palms symbolizing reverence and worship. I look at the unblinking maternal gazes of the tripartite ineffable, and I consider the omniscience and benevolence of an eternal First Cause. I’ve never been one to collect religious brick-a-brack but, as I consider these things and find myself moved to tears, I realize “YHWH” is probably a good place to start.
This entry is taken with permission from the author, Christopher Min, from his blog - "aestheticism - searching for meaning somewhere post of modern".