The Worship Artist

If I may, let me brag on my church for a little bit. Many churches forget the importance of simply being an active body in the community. The philosophy is generally that the church should only do things that either uplift the body or vocally presents the gospel to the community.

Mid last year we found out that a World Champion Sand Sculptor lives in our community. We commissioned him to create a sculpture over the course of 3 days on our church parking lot. On the 3rd day we had a large festival with local bands (which were not “Christian” by the way) food vendors, and games/events for children through the day; ultimately climaxing with the finalization of the sand sculpture.

We bounced around the idea of doing some biblical scene with the sand sculpture but we ultimately decided to have a patriotic sculpture because it’s some common ground that the community as a whole could appreciate and share in. Some have asked, “What’s the purpose of doing this?” or “Why isn’t the Gospel being presented?” The purpose was to provide an event for the community (being a functioning body in the community) making connections with people and the Gospel was not being presented in the general sense. Hopefully believers in the church would be a “presentation” enough and if conversations went that route then great… but we were not interested in pulling people onto our parking lot, trapping them in one place, and pulling out the megaphone.

The event was very sucessful. Around 1,000 people were there, connections were made, and hopefully lasting relationships. I would encourage Christians (individually) and church leaders (corporately) to find ways to be activly involved in their community. Maybe it’s as simple as going to the town hall meetings, finding needs that should be met, or hosting a community event. Whatever it is… be involved.

A couple posts ago I gave a video from Fellowship Church’s Easter service. Pace Hartfield, at Fellowship Church, posted a series of videos showing what a creative week is like in their weekly planning process.

Day 1: Monday

Creative Week: Monday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Day 2: Tuesday

Creative Week: Tuesday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Day 3: Wednesday

Creative Week: Wednesday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Day 4: Thursday

Creative Week: Thursday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Day 5: Friday (but really Saturday)

Creative Week: Friday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Day 6: Saturday

Creative Week: Saturday from Pace Hartfield on Vimeo.

Came across this video from Fellowship Church of their 2008 Easter Service. I was really impressed with the video and graphics and how they timed it with the live song. I was specifically impressed with the production element of this service and how I didn’t feel like it was a distraction… I actually felt like every element really aided to the message and the church’s worship.

True Love from FC Post on Vimeo.

Beyond Church, in the UK, had a very innovative church launch. They had an artist come in for their first service to produce 12 paintings, in one hour, exploring the question of, “am i your God?”

Here’s what the artist said about the evening:

A few months back through my good flickr buddy asboluv www.flickr.com/photos/asboluv/ i had the opportunity to exhibit a painting for the Moot organisation in a swanky gallery in london. Both Asbo and i sold pieces to a brighton based vicar called Martin.

a few weeks ago i was contacted by Martin and was asked to take part in a live painting session as part of a christian based project exploring peoples view of God. I explained i was not a man of god but he said it didn’t matter. He loved my work and thought it would be interesting to see how i approached the topic from an artists perspective. So i said ‘yeah, why not!’, well you would wouldn’t you?! (he was offering to pay!)

Now i don’t know about you but i’m a rather secretive painter, hiding myself away in my studio (well, family room) doing my thing – thats what us artists do – after all as much as we’d like, we’re never going to be rockstars!

I really struggled with this brief.
-my view of God.
-one hour to paint in.
- in front of a live audience.

i decided to use my stick men as a basis and produce 12 canvasses exploring the question “am i your God?”. the idea was to produce slight variations on the theme. it was hoped that the audience might be drawn to one specific painting, identifying some aspect as something they associate with their own idea of ‘god’ .

12 paintings, one hour – it was only when i got there and someone did the maths, that i realised i had given myself 5 mins per painting! i had added the colour to most of them before getting there. but to say i was bricking my pants was an understatement.

what made matters worse was the place. a beautiful and rather big theatre. what does a theatre have? a stage! and there in the middle of the stage was my table. back lit by huge spots.
i was part of an exploration of what is meant by god, images of god through nature, god in us and god incarnate. video and sound projections and interactive webcam activities.

I approached Martin with idea of giving the work away to those that associated with a particular painting and he was well up for it!

i’m not great at estimating but i’d say there were well over 100 people there. i got all but one picture completely finished in the time.

it was a fascinating evening. explaining my work to strangers gave me a real chance to get my own head around what i do. people seemed to really ‘click’ with certain paintings and many were able to give powerful reasons for that association. that was pretty powerful.

if someone told me 12 months ago that i would be painting live on a stage to a bunch of 100 people, people o f faith, i’d have fallen about laughing. it’s through this mad and fascinating world of flickr these opportunities have opened up to me.
Thanks all. thanks for all the great comments, the wonderful collaborations, wacky projects and great friends.

sorry for the rant.

I’d encourage you to check out his flickr account (My Dog Sighs) and see the comments from artists of the community. It seems to have had an impact on the church, the artist, and the artists around him.