This last week, I lead an art and theology workshop in Manchester, TN. My friend, Michael, asked me to come and give a talk, a presentation, and lead a group of people in an adult vacation bible school in how art and theology relate in the life of the church. So I said OK and prepared. I arranged a slide show of 36 slides for three days each. Each set of slides would chronicle the development of Christian iconography: for instance, how Christ goes from beardless to bearded; how a graffito such as "Alexamanos worships his god" with a donkey-headed figure on a cross spans a tradition that culminates in Serrano's Piss Christ - the Cross as scandal. In all these things the participants were very enthusiastic. Lots of good questions and discussion.
At the end of the evening, I gave an assignment and handed out supplies. The next day they set about continuing to work on the exercises. I didn't want to break the energy in the room, so I canceled the second set of slides and lecture.
The third day I included a bit of slide lecture, mostly dealing with worship space - how artist's like James Turrell and other installation artists change the way we see light in space: light becomes very physical rather than incidental. I also rolled out my 30 ft by 36 in drawing "Time's Arrow". This work is so cumbersome to transport or display, I realize that opportunities to show it are limited. It is a free associated, journalistic collage of words and images relating to events of my life in the last year. It's a very rich drawing of dense imagery and association that I will keep working on for some time, as space affords.
My philosophy for these art and theology workshops is laid out in the Pentecost sermon preceding this post. Life diverges from plan (as it did here) and creativity helps us negotiate and enjoy those divergences. Life is composed of divergence - in fact Romans 8 gives warrant for seeing those divergences as opportunities to create alongside God.
