“All Art is Outreach” – Notes from an Arts Ministry Workshop

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Naomi Lawrence, “Magnolia”

Day 28 of my 30-day writing challenge

All of the churches in my denomination make worship music a priority, but a few are also known for their innovative uses of other art forms, such as dance, sculpture, film, and mixed media. This afternoon, a few artists from one such congregation led a workshop for those interested in incorporating spoken word and live painting into their public events, whether a special Sunday service or an event outside the church walls.

The spoken word artist, a young woman named Franklynn, talked about God working through her feelings of inadequacy and inexperience, and providing her with the opportunities to grow, perform, and touch others through her work. She offered a few resources that help her find inspiration – RhymeZone, and Hosanna Poetry among them – as well outlining her process. She tends to start by writing her emotions first, and only worries about the technical aspects – structure, rhyme – during the revision process. She emphasized the importance of connecting with the audience and practicing both writing and performance, but also of knowing that God can work through anyone as long as the person is willing.

The second artist, Jessie, focused on live art: art created in front of an audience, often in conjunction with or in response to other art forms, such as a painter responding to a spoken word piece or music. She stressed that just because something is live does not mean it is done without planning and practice. Whatever you do, do it well, and consider your audience. What symbols will they respond to? Is your work accessible to the general public, as well as to churchgoers? Who are your partners – the people who are praying, brainstorming, setting up, inviting their friends?

Jessie also offered theological reflection on the role of the Christian artist. She reminded us that although we don’t often think of art and outreach together, all art is outreach, unless you’re the only one seeing or hearing it. Art transcends culture; it speaks to people’s emotions and wounds. She advised artists not to worry about getting their paintings in a show or poems published — not that you shouldn’t try to do those things, but you are creating art first and foremost for God, in partnership with the Holy Spirit. And God is the best possible audience, not to mention the widest possible publisher. He will create opportunities for your work to have an impact. Finally, she recommended a book that she said every artist should read: Finding Divine Inspiration, by J. Scott McElroy.

You can find Jessie and the VineArts ministry at http://vineartsboise.org/.

Franklynn does not have a web address, but you can find one of her spoken word performances online. Just go to Facebook and do a search for Vineyard Boise Franklynn.

Naomi Lawrence, the creator of “Magnolia,” is a Christian artist living in East Harlem, where her husband is the pastor of Church of the Living Hope. She creates large-scale yarn flowers, both individually and collaboratively, to beautify neglected public spaces in her neighborhood, offering them as a gift to the community.

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction (Book Review)

Awakening the Creative Spirit: Bringing the Arts to Spiritual Direction

by Christine Valters Paintner and Betsy Beckman

The book’s premise is that “a primary way that we can experience God’s mystery is through the process of our own creative expression,” that the “arts are the language of the soul” and that “God has been inviting us into this sacred dialogue since the earliest awakenings of humanity.” Art is individual, but also collective, rooted in human memory (the authors are fans of Jungian dreamwork) as well as in the primal rhythms and movements of communication between mother and child. The authors link art with right-brain activity, and claim that art making can bring balance between the two hemispheres of the brain, with their different kinds of wisdom. They conclude that we all have divine creativity within us, meaning we are all in essence artists, and write from this same perspective of openness towards many religions and spiritual experiences.

The authors describe the expressive arts as similar to prayer in that the focus is the process, not the outcome. The art-making process is a kind of pilgrimage – a journey that risks the unknown as a way to encounter the sacred. It is also a way to create a tabernacle for the inner self – to create space and welcome for one of the many voices inside you clamoring for attention to emerge, and be heard.

In the context of spiritual direction, the spiritual director becomes an “artist for the soul,” and the artistic process is an invitation to listen to the self without judgment, and to be fully present in the moment.  The book includes guidelines for the direction experience – confidentiality, mindfulness, honoring limits, risk-taking, honoring wisdom, and expressing needs to the group – as well as initial guidelines for engaging the arts that are too many to list here, but would be useful for any practitioner.

The book is broken into three sections: Spiritual Direction and the Arts, Explorations of Different Art Modalities, and Working in Different Life Contexts. It’s a nice mix of background and underlying philosophy, examples of exercises, snippets of artistic products (poems, Psalms, photographs of artwork, descriptions of dances), and responses to exercises from a variety of people, both directors and workshop participants. Each exercise is keyed with a symbol so the reader can easily tell what modality is used, whether storytelling, imagination, movement, visual art, music, or poetry.

Paintner and Beckman have created a useful resource / toolkit for those interested in using art in spiritual direction, either with individual directees or with groups. I do think that experiential learning in addition to reading the book would be helpful, and perhaps necessary, for most people who wanted to use these modalities, especially if (like me in several of these areas) you lack expertise or comfort in the arts.