I just returned from a week in Paris visiting La Fonderie. Seeing friends and co-workers, meeting new artists in the space we opened, hearing about their dreams and projects, their successes and challenges. It is always inspiring to be with creative people.
Speaking about new technology that promises to erase the line between television and computer, Google is quoted in Newsweek (Oct 17 2010) as saying: “The coolest thing about Google TV is that we don’t even know what the coolest thing about it will be.”
No matter what one might think about Google, a corporation like others financially motivated to get people to use their services, that statement expresses a kind of vision that leaves the horizon open for those who would like to explore it and even move it.
It is a vision that invites people in, and challenges them to innovate and create. To imagine.
It is the kind of invitation that I try to give to those around me. Because there are endless possibilities for those who are open to the idea that we don’t yet know what the defining moment or body of work or mark of our lives will be.
That describes, at least in part, an artistic journey and a creative life.
What will you create today?
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Monday, October 4, 2010
A clearing in the forest
My favorite songwriter/poet tells me to write the piece first, then let the title emerge. Okay, I will try that. But couldn’t help attempting to visualize this place in my journey with some image that was not urban, since there is nothing urban around me.
Reading this morning in Devotional Classics, seeking some profound thoughts to help me start my day, I was puzzled by a selection dealing with affections as the spring of action. It is just that affections, somehow tied to the emotions, do not lately seem to have figured significantly in my process. I am trying to find the next right thing. The next action to take. There is an unlimited supply of ideas and possibilities.
I have been more focused on strategy and plans, and spiritual and artistic visions. Creative stuff. Starting stuff. It is not sure that I have been listening closely.
This morning the phrase jumped from the page and stuck in my head: “…do not be stubborn any longer.” Not the inspirational word that I was seeking.
Actually, I have complained that I am tired of waiting, and wondered why God was stubbornly withholding from me.
Odd to be outed in this way. “Do not be stubborn any longer.”
As if it is my heart that needs to relent, not his. As if he were already at work, already extraordinarily generous, inviting me into the new things that he is doing, and the things that he wants me to dream and do.
Ok, I see. And I think the title works fine.
What are you seeing today?
Reading this morning in Devotional Classics, seeking some profound thoughts to help me start my day, I was puzzled by a selection dealing with affections as the spring of action. It is just that affections, somehow tied to the emotions, do not lately seem to have figured significantly in my process. I am trying to find the next right thing. The next action to take. There is an unlimited supply of ideas and possibilities.
I have been more focused on strategy and plans, and spiritual and artistic visions. Creative stuff. Starting stuff. It is not sure that I have been listening closely.
This morning the phrase jumped from the page and stuck in my head: “…do not be stubborn any longer.” Not the inspirational word that I was seeking.
Actually, I have complained that I am tired of waiting, and wondered why God was stubbornly withholding from me.
Odd to be outed in this way. “Do not be stubborn any longer.”
As if it is my heart that needs to relent, not his. As if he were already at work, already extraordinarily generous, inviting me into the new things that he is doing, and the things that he wants me to dream and do.
Ok, I see. And I think the title works fine.
What are you seeing today?
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Hidden from view
Tonight I ran to a super-discount store to buy some boots with steel toes. It is not surprising that the road of my transition would lead me to say yes to work which is as far from what I have known as imaginable.
If certain that this was a short detour, perhaps I would be thinking differently. But moving as I have from the stage to offstage has left me a bit exhausted. For the sake of my youngest son, that weakest one in the family, for now I have essentially stepped out of leadership and left the visionary roles that I had played for nearly two decades.
It is not that I am trying to be dramatic. I am only now realizing that I cannot live this time as a transition. This is where I am to live my faith and put into practice what I have believed about following Jesus. Having chosen, I no longer have choice.
Today I found an excuse to leave the house. Otherwise I would have been inside with Michael, away from the world, for 52 hours straight. But who is counting?
I answered email, communicated via skype with France and Russia, wrote five letters (thus the trip to the post office which broke the cabin fever). My mind was on people and creative projects in New York, Paris, St. Petersburg, L.A., Miami, Austin, Chattanooga and Jackson. And tomorrow will be spent in a friend's factory in my new boots.
This is a curious school in which I find myself.
If certain that this was a short detour, perhaps I would be thinking differently. But moving as I have from the stage to offstage has left me a bit exhausted. For the sake of my youngest son, that weakest one in the family, for now I have essentially stepped out of leadership and left the visionary roles that I had played for nearly two decades.
It is not that I am trying to be dramatic. I am only now realizing that I cannot live this time as a transition. This is where I am to live my faith and put into practice what I have believed about following Jesus. Having chosen, I no longer have choice.
Today I found an excuse to leave the house. Otherwise I would have been inside with Michael, away from the world, for 52 hours straight. But who is counting?
I answered email, communicated via skype with France and Russia, wrote five letters (thus the trip to the post office which broke the cabin fever). My mind was on people and creative projects in New York, Paris, St. Petersburg, L.A., Miami, Austin, Chattanooga and Jackson. And tomorrow will be spent in a friend's factory in my new boots.
This is a curious school in which I find myself.
Friday, August 21, 2009
How's your French?
With sawdust and old coal dust and probably asbestos flying around as I try to "make room for one more" in our old house, this is a day that seems far away from so many of the things and projects and people who have been so central to my life for the last decade. La Fonderie: to value, encourage, inspire, and embolden Christians working in the arts.
Then, a quick pause to check email. Like a cool breeze on a hot Missouri day, a message from a friend. No text, just a link to an article made up of a series of interviews with several artists who are a part of La Fonderie. It is in French, so maybe not accessible to everyone.
Reading their perspectives and a bit of their stories reminded me why we worked so hard for so long in Paris, and why we still care so deeply for the city. (Okay, there are also the cafes and bridges...)
Still waiting for the mist to burn off in Missouri, these voices were a promise that what we do can make a difference.
And for that I am grateful.
Where are you investing?
Then, a quick pause to check email. Like a cool breeze on a hot Missouri day, a message from a friend. No text, just a link to an article made up of a series of interviews with several artists who are a part of La Fonderie. It is in French, so maybe not accessible to everyone.
Reading their perspectives and a bit of their stories reminded me why we worked so hard for so long in Paris, and why we still care so deeply for the city. (Okay, there are also the cafes and bridges...)
Still waiting for the mist to burn off in Missouri, these voices were a promise that what we do can make a difference.
And for that I am grateful.
Where are you investing?
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Nonprofit art galleries
The relationship between money and art can be an ugly one, and the realities of how tough it is to make a living as an artist is never so obvious as during economic periods like the one we find ourselves in right now. But it is never easy to make one's living through art, whether in visual or performing arts, on the stage or behind the camera. When things get tight financially, it is even more difficult for artists to do their art...and pay the bills.
In an interview by Zoe Feigenbaum, Daniel Joseph Martinez said that commercial galleries and museums are mechanisms in a system that is "well fortified and very difficult (for artists) to penetrate. Yet it seems to be in full control of what we think of as taste. This suggests that there is a relationship between sales and the actual meaning of art, which, of course, there isn't."
Martinez, a controversial L.A. artist, suggests that the end of the nonprofit art movement in the 90's limits the potential of the distribution of ideas and the dissemination of art through exhibitions. I don't agree with his politics, but here he and I are on the same page. Because I, too, am interested in the distribution of ideas and the dissemination of art.
One of the reasons la fonderie opened an arts gallery/cultural space in Paris was to provide a platform for artists and musicians and playwrights. It is not a commercial gallery or concert venue, but it gives artists a chance to have their work seen and heard. And it is a very busy place.
Some have rightly thought that it was a unique space because of the values and spiritual commitments of the team of volunteers who run it. But at the deepest level, it is a space that is committed to unleashing the voice of the artist in whatever art form he or she might work. It is about entering into the conversations that are happening in culture, and about starting a few new ones.
And although that does not make what we do unique, it makes it the kind of place we hope will increasingly be found in our towns and cities. What is going on where you live?
In an interview by Zoe Feigenbaum, Daniel Joseph Martinez said that commercial galleries and museums are mechanisms in a system that is "well fortified and very difficult (for artists) to penetrate. Yet it seems to be in full control of what we think of as taste. This suggests that there is a relationship between sales and the actual meaning of art, which, of course, there isn't."
Martinez, a controversial L.A. artist, suggests that the end of the nonprofit art movement in the 90's limits the potential of the distribution of ideas and the dissemination of art through exhibitions. I don't agree with his politics, but here he and I are on the same page. Because I, too, am interested in the distribution of ideas and the dissemination of art.
One of the reasons la fonderie opened an arts gallery/cultural space in Paris was to provide a platform for artists and musicians and playwrights. It is not a commercial gallery or concert venue, but it gives artists a chance to have their work seen and heard. And it is a very busy place.
Some have rightly thought that it was a unique space because of the values and spiritual commitments of the team of volunteers who run it. But at the deepest level, it is a space that is committed to unleashing the voice of the artist in whatever art form he or she might work. It is about entering into the conversations that are happening in culture, and about starting a few new ones.
And although that does not make what we do unique, it makes it the kind of place we hope will increasingly be found in our towns and cities. What is going on where you live?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
When things are multiplied
Twenty-four hours in St. Petersburg is not nearly long enough. The city, built to be "the Vienna of the north" is lovely, and a welcome relief from Moscow. The purpose of my visit was to meet a couple who have recently moved into their appartment close to a park which is a monument to the hundreds of thousands who died in the siege of the city in WW2.
After several years of working through short term trips to improve conditions in orphanges in St. Petersburg, and impact cultural attitudes and policies concerning these children, they have determined to move here in order to invest more.
I guess there is no clearer mandate than the one to visit widows and orphans "in their distress". Through the years I have visited a few. But while his child took a nap, Charlie showed me a couple videos. The second one was an Oscar nominated documentary about homeless children in Moscow. There are about 4 million homeless children in Russia. Many are there because they don't want to go to an orphanage or to be returned to the homes from which they fled. My heart was breaking.
Which brings me to the first video, which was one that this couple shot in an orphanage for handicapped children. The images provoked emotions in me that are difficult to express.
As the father of a child whose handicaps are more severe than many of the children in the video, the shear number of children was still overwhelming. I know some of what it takes to bathe, feed, communicate with and help a child develop. There were about 100 children on that ward, one of four in the orphanage.
At times the pressure to be a good father is intensified by the special needs of that weakest member of my family. Sometimes I nearly buckle under the weight. But what do we do when things are multiplied? I could barely watch the screen.
Bed after bed crowded into one large room, children everywhere. Rocking, waving in the air, laying quietly alone. The camera paused on the lovely face of a Downs girl, her nose all red, eyes closed, wrapped tightly in her bed. Standing behind me, Charlie whispered: "She didn't make it".
I have seen the power of one life touching another. When things are multiplied, our efforts must also increase. And if it is only by grace that one man can help lift his son towards a life of dignity, it is clear that much grace is required to stretch far enough to impact the lives of children who are so far away.
We get tired too quickly, overwhelmed by the enormous need. I will never forget those videos. I hold one child in my arms. Who will hold the others?
After several years of working through short term trips to improve conditions in orphanges in St. Petersburg, and impact cultural attitudes and policies concerning these children, they have determined to move here in order to invest more.
I guess there is no clearer mandate than the one to visit widows and orphans "in their distress". Through the years I have visited a few. But while his child took a nap, Charlie showed me a couple videos. The second one was an Oscar nominated documentary about homeless children in Moscow. There are about 4 million homeless children in Russia. Many are there because they don't want to go to an orphanage or to be returned to the homes from which they fled. My heart was breaking.
Which brings me to the first video, which was one that this couple shot in an orphanage for handicapped children. The images provoked emotions in me that are difficult to express.
As the father of a child whose handicaps are more severe than many of the children in the video, the shear number of children was still overwhelming. I know some of what it takes to bathe, feed, communicate with and help a child develop. There were about 100 children on that ward, one of four in the orphanage.
At times the pressure to be a good father is intensified by the special needs of that weakest member of my family. Sometimes I nearly buckle under the weight. But what do we do when things are multiplied? I could barely watch the screen.
Bed after bed crowded into one large room, children everywhere. Rocking, waving in the air, laying quietly alone. The camera paused on the lovely face of a Downs girl, her nose all red, eyes closed, wrapped tightly in her bed. Standing behind me, Charlie whispered: "She didn't make it".
I have seen the power of one life touching another. When things are multiplied, our efforts must also increase. And if it is only by grace that one man can help lift his son towards a life of dignity, it is clear that much grace is required to stretch far enough to impact the lives of children who are so far away.
We get tired too quickly, overwhelmed by the enormous need. I will never forget those videos. I hold one child in my arms. Who will hold the others?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Monuments and Alters
What kind of monuments do nomads build?
In L.A. last week everything was about leaning into the future. First I was with others who resonate with the values of the Mosaic Alliance, of which la fonderie is a part; then with Origins, participating in building a network which is a community of followers of Jesus who are passionate about seeing people know God and experience life as He intended. Then Catalyst, a high potency leadership conference focused my eyes on the horizon, towards the things of which I am certain.
Energizing.
This week has been full of conversations with friends that have been in my life for nearly thirty years. As if the path forward led me past monumental alters and vistas that had inspired and motivated me, propelling me forward from that time until now. It has been an unexpected time of remembering and celebrating.
These markers were placed together, mostly unconsciously, as we ran forward into the future. They are monuments that others might not understand or appreciate, but are significant to us because they are ours. Our moments of clarity. Of commitment. Of sacrifice. Of passion. Of joy.
Perhaps nomad has too weak a connotation. Pilgrim is a better term for those on a journey, in movement, with a destination. From then until now, we have not wandered.
We build monuments that help us remember our deepest motivations and most powerful, transforming moments. When we pass them again on our way, they push us towards the future. We remember our strength, and the grace that made everything possible, and we are brave.
“….miles to go…”
In L.A. last week everything was about leaning into the future. First I was with others who resonate with the values of the Mosaic Alliance, of which la fonderie is a part; then with Origins, participating in building a network which is a community of followers of Jesus who are passionate about seeing people know God and experience life as He intended. Then Catalyst, a high potency leadership conference focused my eyes on the horizon, towards the things of which I am certain.
Energizing.
This week has been full of conversations with friends that have been in my life for nearly thirty years. As if the path forward led me past monumental alters and vistas that had inspired and motivated me, propelling me forward from that time until now. It has been an unexpected time of remembering and celebrating.
These markers were placed together, mostly unconsciously, as we ran forward into the future. They are monuments that others might not understand or appreciate, but are significant to us because they are ours. Our moments of clarity. Of commitment. Of sacrifice. Of passion. Of joy.
Perhaps nomad has too weak a connotation. Pilgrim is a better term for those on a journey, in movement, with a destination. From then until now, we have not wandered.
We build monuments that help us remember our deepest motivations and most powerful, transforming moments. When we pass them again on our way, they push us towards the future. We remember our strength, and the grace that made everything possible, and we are brave.
“….miles to go…”
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