Once again – these are raw notes…

There are two kinds of people

  1. People who are artistic
  2. People are supposed to support them

Art is becoming hip to support, but it’s hard to define who artists are though

  • how are we to respond to that
  • the domain of the beautiful
  • the cross of the artist

The Beautiful is the terrain of the artist.

John Paul II said that the artist should explore new epiphanies of beauty.

Aristotle – the beautiful is wholeness, harmony, and radiance.

Wholeness – nothing is missing, completeness. We were made to cleave to the One and wholeness gives us rest because it reminds us of the completeness of God.

Harmony – all parts are related in complementarity and not in domination. We were made to be in community and this gives us joy as it is an echo of the Trinitarian community of the One God.

Radiance - something profound is communicated that goes beyond language – it becomes personal and gives us fulfillment. Think of a sunset… words can’t express what it does, but it’s personal and fulfilling.

Pope Benedict says you know you’ve encountered the beautiful because it makes you feel small and humble… but happy. This resolves the problem of the garden in that we wanted to be big (like God) and were told that being small is being less than we should be.

As society becomes less agrarian, the only place to experience the beautiful is in art.

Beauty is not cute, easy, banal, silly, sweet, facile, nor non-threatening. It is not Precious Moments.

The problem in the church is that we (the church) try to make art something else:

  1. A political statement – this loses wholeness because it only tells part of the story
  2. Egalitarianism (the idea that art should be about intent rather than craft) – we are trying to make people feel good about themselves thereby flaying the sensibilities of everyone else. This loses harmony for the sake of safe sameness.
  3. Soothing distraction (sacred muzak) – designed to lull the people by simply filling the voids. This suppresses the prophetic voice of the arts

The artist as priest – John Paul II said that an artist stands at the head like a priest:

  1. to bring a prayer that takes the form of a making
  2. to bring a sacrifice as great work takes something from the artist and, in a sense, makes the artist uglier while their work becomes more beautiful
  3. to bring a prophetic voice as a vessel of revelation by making art as a response to God the Creator and in our viewing, we can be impacted by God Himself

How do you recognize artists?

  1. Talent shows up early
  2. Their work has emotional power
  3. It creates a connection
  4. There is a freshness and prophetic quality to the work (hearing a word spoken in a way I’ve never heard done in just this way… seeing a sight that I’ve never seen done in quite this way)
  5. They are obsessed with detail of form
    • Poe said that to write a good sonnet you usually have to crawl over the bones of your 28 other bad sonnets (each line that you’ve written and rewritten before you say the sonnet is complete)
    • Yeats said does not all art come from self-criticism until almost like a trance between waking and sleeping it becomes

Are artists crazy? Dickinson said that it’s not that poets see weird things, it’s that others don’t see all that’s really there. Artists see spiritual reality more completely.

Are artists lazy? No – they dread their work, so they can delay. They get bored once they figure out what they want to do because in their head the problem is solved. Also, the process of creating is often under the surface and not actively visible (so it can look like they’re doing nothing).

The cross of the artist (what they have to bear)

  • Loneliness and isolation
    • The bad of this is the cry of loneliness, the “nobody really gets me” idea, and the temptation of sloth
    • The good of this is that solitude can draw us nearer to God, it promotes thoughtfulness and depth, the “unexamined life is not worth living” – also, it creates humility
  • Rejection
    • Most work will be unappreciated
    • This causes pain, bruising, desperation, bitterness, and withdrawal
    • BUT it also teaches you to value who you are not what you do
    • It draws you nearer to the crucified Christ
    • Also grants humility
  • Instability, Entrepreneurship, Collaboration, and Success are the other parts, but she ran out of time

Again – much here to react to… but it was so very deep and moving and good (even though some of the language in these notes might smack of over emphasized spirituality… it was really very well grounded, but I was trying to capture the actual language she was using).