Told you I’d be writin’ with a mug in hand. Here is a shot of me now.
Lately I have entered into many discussions about what it means to be an artist and a Christian. Several professors on campus have written lengthy responses, all of which have hugely inspired me.
For me, the response begins with the terms. Christian and artist. I am not usually one for picking apart details, but I think the use of those two words together have major ramifications. I prefer to not label myself as a Christian artist. For one thing, my art doesn’t have a soul. For another, crosses, a portrait of Christ, fish, and footprints on sand are rarely, if ever, in my work.
I am a Christian. I am an artist.
When talking with my stepdad, Mark the Wise (just made up that title…I hope he reads this post
), he often likens it to Tolkien. J.R.R. Tolkien didn’t intend for Lord of the Rings to have such powerful spiritual metaphors. He wrote the story as a children’s book for his kids! But, man there are some powerful metaphors of spirituality in that story! That mentality of simply doing your work and letting your faith permeate as it will feeds my art. I don’t have to force Christianity into my work. It will be in my art because my fingerprints are on my work, and my faith defines me.
Hear me out, I’m not saying using a cross, a portrait of Jesus, or rope sandals in a piece of art in wrong. C.S. Lewis, Tolkien’s pub mate, was exclusive in his metaphors of Christianity in his fictional tale, Narnia. That is the world Lewis liked to camp out in.
I am saying risk. Risk to discover who God has made you to be in your line of work. Don’t sell yourself short by thinking you have to fit in this narrow genre of “Christian” such and such. What does that even mean?
I am an artist that falls more along the lines of Tolkien because that is how I am built. I am a Christian who happens to be an artist, and an artist who happens to be a Christian. What God does from there, oh man, is an ocean of mystery and excitement. God can do anything, even with ceramics.
I leave you with a quote that greatly inspired me this week:
“‘To fit into patterns of evangelism, artists have often compromised, and so prostituted their art. But Handel with his Messiah, Bach with his St. Matthew’s Passion, Rembrandt with his Denial of St. Peter…worked for the glory of God. They did not compromise their art.”
-H.R. Rookmaaker, Art Needs No Justification



