Your Artistic Life? Are You Guilty?

You call yoursekf a Christian artist, or maybe an artist who is a Christian.

How is that indicated? Are you taking both faith and art seriously?

Ask yourself this: if on trial, suspected of being a Christian artist, what evidence would they have against you?
Or would the judge say, "This guy? All talk. Set him free. He is no worry to us."

How Do You Bring Your Art Out of Hiding?

Hiding good things under a basket?

1. Do you show your work in a gallery?
2. Submit it to publishers?
3. Self-publish it?
4. Work with your church to lead a program?
5. Train kids at VBS?
6. Work with your community to promote the arts?
7. Teach?

You tell me. Give me ideas.

2011? Will this be the year you take your art more seriously?

Lots of artists love talking about art, but when it comes to getting it done, well -- is this going to be the year?

Self-discipline sounds like a dirty word in art. Getting up early, working hard, drafting, crafting, editing, repainting. However, self-discipline finishes the job.

If God has ordained you, are you willing to be a martyr?

2011 is here.

Search Amazon.com for Sistine Chapel puzzle

Christmas Art, Anyone?

Do you have examples of your art with Christmas themes? Besides the usual mangers and shepherds, or caroles and egg nog?

Post them as responses here.

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What Do You Do As An Artistic Discipline?

Artistic Discipline?

Musicians play scales? Painters practices strokes? Poets test forms? What do you do?

The easy answer is what you should do. That's not discipline. That's talking about discipline.

I'm looking for great ideas, even unorthodox ones. What do you actually do? How does it help?



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Karitos Attenders: Tell Your Story

What happened?

How did God move?

What did you learn?

What next?

Must Art Have a Message?

Must art have a message? Pick your medium. Name the art, any art, any art in the deck.

About that -- only those readers playing with a full-deck can answer this one. No replacing two Jacks with Jokers.

What about it? Can art be messageless? If so, does it become, by the definition of the word, meaningless?

Unrelated, I'm jamming to online radio, WYCE, "Independent Community Radio: WYCE is an independent, community radio station serving the communities of Grand Rapids and West Michigan with its on-air FM programming at 88.1 Mhz, and reaching out to the world through online streaming on the Internet."

Are You in a Christian Artist Group?

Say what? A Christian artist group? You mean, like the St. Peter and Paul Painting and Pancake Club? Sure, why not? (for you adventurous sorts, here's a recipe for Hungarian pancakes).

Ours is called "Lively Arts." Not so much in the pancake department, but there are usually enough sweet snacks to overdo our blood sugar levels.

Essentially, we're a group of artists of all flavors gathering monthly. We are serious about doing our craft well, understanding the greater aspects of art, and integrating our art and our faith.

I'm a writer; my art is poetry. There are a few other writers. Mostly, though, we are visual artists. This includes painting, but also, we have stained glass window folks, photographers, a calligraphy expert, someone making those huge banners you see in churches, and many more.

We cover the gamut of denominations: I attend a Bible church, but we've got Pentecostals, Catholics, Anglicans, Presbyterians and others. The focus is on Jesus Christ, so if that's where the person's at, then great.

As Jim Croce once sang, "If you're walking my way, I'll walk with you." Croce's song otherwise doesn't relate, but I like it.

We'll talk about events in art, like a local gallery showing, discuss hard questions of faith/art (like symbolism and abstraction), pray, and show-and-tell. It isn't Sunday school, nor is meant to be. Rather, we're just trying to learn what it means to be an artist and a Christian without compromising either, with God always at the top.

Sometimes we do a hands-on project. While, as I mentioned, visual arts are not my thing, I could appreciate the glory of God in a deeper way after working on snowflake cutting (serious stuff here -- this isn't what you did in first grade with the dull scissors).

I learned, for example, the creative process Tim Botts followed when developing a large commissioned calligraphic design is much the same as what I follow when writing a 10-line poem for Decision Magazine. I heard that others deal with apathy, discontent and frustrations, and shared in the joy of seeing the published book of one of members.

Tell me about your group. Give me the low-down, with ideas and contact info (if it is an open group).

Christian Art: Does It Exist?

Christian Art: Does It Exist?

Let's deconstruct this pretentious question:

Define

1. Christian
2. Art
3. Existence

Next, put these back together

1. Christian existence
2. Art existence
3. Christian art existence

Semantics? Maybe so, but meaning is part of art, isn't it? If we cannot understand the depth of the question, we will struggle to understand the depth of the answer.

What do you think? No pat, contrived, Hallmark Greeting Card replies: tell what you really think, and why. If you've got examples, Scripture or science to back it, even better.