“Use everything in your life to make your art.” Constantin Stanislavski
The theologian Matthew Fox’s description of “radical prayer” as “the utterance of your heart” will serve us well in our exploration of how artmaking can be a spiritual practice. Centuries of Christian art provide us with a tradition that can help us explore not just our personal relationship with our Creator but a vision for addressing the ethical dilemmas and social justice issues of our time. In drawing on the history of Christian art, we can find a common starting place to build a new, collective vision for our lives together.
In our own visual culture, we are bombarded with images, from tabloid magazines at the grocery store to photographs of war on the front pages of our newspapers. How do these types of images inform your understanding of what it means to be Christian? What kinds of images (or art) would you like to see in your church?
This message is excerpted from “Speaking faith through art,” a 2010 resource of the Women of the ELCA, by Mary Button.
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