It seems crazy that the first semester of our senior year has already drawn to a close. There were a lot of challenges, but there were a lot of amazing blessings as well. It has been an eventful chapter of my life to say the least. In any case, it is almost time to move to the next stage. I'm nervous about what the next semester may hold, but I'm excited as well. I'm sure there will be many wonderful opportunities, and I hope to make the most of them!
My act of faith related to some of the challenges I have faced recently, particularly when it comes to letting go and trusting God. I like to be in control of what is going on around me, and it distresses me when situations arise that feel impossible for me to fix. It's terrifying to have to move through difficult events when you are uncertain of what the outcome will be. Though these feelings had been surrounding me for much of the semester, I hadn't taken much time to process them and seek God's perspective. This sparked the idea for creating a work of art based on trusting God and using the art as a form of meditation. I had purchased some printing linoleum to use for my senior thesis class, so I decided to create a print for my act of faith. When preparing a print, I usually spend a great deal of time sketching out the piece I am going to be creating, then transferring the sketched image onto the linoleum. I then trace the image with a sharpie, since the thick and dark sharpie lines give me a better idea of what the final print will look like.
Linoleum being carved. Flipped this way, the image looks like a woman singing or yelling.
Instead of doing all the normal preparations, I surrendered my preference for pre-planning my creative works, and just started carving, keeping my thoughts on God rather than the results I hoped to achieve. Carving without a pre-planned image helped me to reflect on how I needed to trust God with the unknown parts of my life, and that even if things didn't turn out in a way I liked, that didn't stop them from being beneficial or beautiful.
Flipped this way, the image looks like a man with slightly hunched shoulders and a worried expression
After getting over my initial feelings of nervousness and reluctance to carve randomly on something I had spent good money on, I was able to relax into the process. Releasing myself from the expectation of perfection allowed me to act on a whim and pursue whatever lines made me happy. In the end, I found an image of two faces beginning to develop, and I kept adding to them to see what would happen. The print I created became something like the Rorschach Ink Blots, images that one could look at and interpret in different ways to discover things about how she thinks. The faces that I see in the print are of a young woman and an old man. The old man is bearded and looking away, perhaps with worry or concern, and his shoulders seem slightly hunched. The young woman, which can be seen if you flip the picture of the man upside-down, has flying hair and an open mouth. She seems to be singing or perhaps yelling, and the sounds she is making vibrate in lines away from her. When I look at these images, I see hardship and burden connected to movement and freedom. There is both sorrow and determination present, and both are valid. I think this project was an important step forward in my attempts to work through inner turmoil and remember how essential it is to trust God. Even if things do not work out as I want them to, it does not mean things did not work out as they should have. It is okay for things to be uncertain.
While discussing identity in his essay titled, "Who Do You Say I Am?", Theodore Prescott brings up a lot of interesting points regarding how one must navigate the different parts of herself and how they interact. To begin his argument, Prescott describes some of his ideas regarding whether identity is changeable or not. Prescott states, "I believe identity is developed as one's innate abilities and temperament interact with personal and social experience. So I would suggest that there is a core person who, though capable of growth, change, flexibility, and deceit, is bound by innate physical, personal, and cultural limits" (311). In other words, Prescott feels that there is some level of an individual's identity that remains consistent despite their surroundings, which contrasts in some ways with the modern interpretation of identity as something that is highly malleable. The debate over how much of our personality is born to us and how much is developed by either choice or surroundings has been debated for a very long time. The idea of nature versus nurture could easily be applied to these ideas. According to Wikipedia, "The phrase nature and nurture relates to the relative importance of an individual's innate qualities as compared to an individual's personal experiences in causing individual differences, especially in behavioral traits." Though nature and nurture is typically concerned more with the concept of genetics and environment rather than personal character, it is still a relevant way to think about how one's identity is developed.
Are our identities and interests developed by how we are raised, or what we are born with?
In another section of the text, Prescott discusses the interesting nature of media and art, and how that has impacted the identity of some artists. In order to spread one's name, an artist doesn't necessarily have to be skilled these days. If one wants to make a name for herself, it is now considered best to try and be counter-culture or shocking in some way, as this will draw popular focus, or "interest," to one's works. Prescott states, "In our culture, “interest” has built into it the idea of arousing curiosity, standing apart from the ordinary, and having or doing something that attracts attention. In our media-saturated culture, where so many voices compete for our attention, arousing interest is the first step towards getting publicity" (317). This is certainly an interesting quandary that the modern artist must deal with, particularly if creating art based on shock value is not one's goal. There are some artists who come to mind who have managed to create something of a media personality for themselves while also creating skilled works of art. One such artist is Salvador Dali, who is not only known for his surreal art, but for his various odd antics, such as giving a speech in a diving suit. Dali once stated in an interview that, "The painting, the clowning, the showmanship, the technique- everything is only one manner to express the total personality of Dali" (http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/multimedia/video/2008/wallace/dali_salvador_t.html).
Salvador Dali in his famous diving suit
In Dali's case, the public antics are part of his identity, and he would not be a complete person without these odd behaviors. However, Dali also had artistic talent and ingenuity, which he considered integral to his identity as well. The problem arises when a person either lacks artistic skill yet is able to generate conversation, or when someone who is very talented lacks the ability to fuel commotion. It is very interesting to explore the difference between the identity one presents before the media and the identity one would present before people she is familiar with.
Sources:
Bustard, Ned. It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture
There were a couple different sections I found interesting in Suzannah Bauer's essay on collaboration. To begin with, I thought it was interesting how Bauer stated that even when collaboration is difficult, it can still be beneficial. On page 287, she states, "Sometimes struggle and conflict occur when two opposing visions are forced to compromise in order to complete a collaborative effort." She then goes on to describe the conflicts that occurred when the Church of the Servant was being built in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and how this project was ultimately successful. Bauer concludes, "Perhaps collaboration is an opportunity to let iron sharpen iron" (p. 288). This reminded me of the multitude of approaches to collaboration that guests at Art Talk have taken. For example, though she still encouraged collaboration, Elizabeth McTear from Honest Alchemy stated that one should not work with his or her friends, as the business aspect of work can ruin good friendships. McTear spoke from experience. In this particular case, the collaboration did not work out, and the parties involved incurred some level of damage. However, McTear managed to learn from this experience, and has been able to do other collaborations that were more beneficial. There isn't guaranteed success with collaborations, and it can indeed go awry, but there is always the benefit of learning from mistakes, and using these lessons to create better experiences in the future.
Church of the Servant
Another interesting section from the essay involved Bauer's discussion of the impact that collaboration can have when a community is involved. On page 290, Bauer mentions artist Catherine Kapikan and how she creates large tapestries with members from congregations. Kapikan states, "Communities who engage in and live alongside an art-making process prosper... Community, energized and agitated by the complexity of the challenge, engages rather than shrinks" (290). This reminded me of the Robbers Cave Study conducted by social psychologist Muzafer Sherif. Though his goal in this experiment was mainly related to what caused conflict between groups, there were parts of the experiment that illuminated what created cohesion in groups as well.
The "Rattlers" and the "Eagles" were the names the two groups picked for themselves.
In essence, the experiment involved several boys of the same age and similar, middle-class backgrounds attending a Summer camp in two separate groups that were unaware of each other's presence. There were three stages to the experiment. The first stage involved the separate groups bonding with their individual members. Projects that required participation of every individual to achieve a common goal caused the boys to work together, establishing a co-operative atmosphere
Muzafer Sherif
within each group. The second stage of the experiment involved bringing the two groups together and having them engage in competitive activities where rewards were promised to the winning group while the losing group would not get anything. The groups became hostile and somewhat violent toward one another while remaining loyal and positive toward their own group. The last stage involved a time of separation between the two groups so they could calm down before being reintroduced with activities that required both groups to work together in order to achieve a common goal. This helped dispel the animosity between the groups and encouraged some level of respect (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Realistic_conflict_theory#Robbers_cave_study). In a similar way, community-based art provides a mutual goal that promotes bonding between individuals. Kapikan's observation that communities engaged in an artistic project tend to prosper connects with Sherif's research on the bonding that occurs with team-building activities.
Sources:
Bustard, Ned. It was Good: Making Art to the Glory of God
