Art Movement, How do you start one?

HOW DO YOU START AN ART MOVEMENT?

my thought is i could spend all my time promoting myself and my career (boring) or i could help rally others to fill a void that exists. what i keep hearing as a christ follower and growing artist is that there is crappy religious art in the world today.  leaders of the church want better art from christians.  the art world elite have completely dismissed christians who make art.  so how do we make better art that comes from disciples of jesus?

 

but art doesn’t just appear. it isn’t a mathematical equation we figure out that will instantly give us good art. art comes from people.  so when we say we want better art… what we are really saying is we want smarter, skillful artistic PEOPLE making good work.

 

so how do we make better artists?

 

TRAINING

talking with a friend, he was saying that most artists who are making art in the church probably never went to art school.  i think this is a correct assumption. so some of the work we would do would be to ask those questions, provide those critiques that would help an artist grow. deepen there understanding of concepts, interpretations, history, and representations.

 

one of the things that i see in christian art is a lack of different interpretations.  sure we know christ is the lamb of God… but is the only way to represent him is by making a lot of paintings of lambs?  one important aspect would be to spurn contemplation on how one interprets and represents their walk with jesus.  when you think about jesus in your life, do you really think about a lamb?  is that your experience? or is it in a friend? nature? stories…. etc etc.  you get the idea.

 

we could definitely create some kind of curriculum and train artists in communities around the world. so that’s a way to go

 

but i was thinking today about a series of videos talking through these ideas.  simple. 2-5 minutes.  interviews with artists. talking through ideas.  showing people the work they are committing too and the steps they need to consider on their journey.

example

title “HIDDEN”

idea:  your artistic endeavors do not begin on stage.  they begin in quiet lonely rooms where you carve out time to create.  how do you build a community to help you in this journey? how do you except the call to make time to create week after week in these solitude places?  how do you deal with the solo nature of this call?

 

something along those lines

 

MOTIVATION

i think this might be the big piece at least that i’ve been missing.  i was thinking about  the X prize that happened a few years ago.  basically, space flight is expensive. and NASA with all it’s big budgets wasn’t trying to be thrifty and risky.  so some guy created the x prize: a prize of 10 million dollars to the first group that could launch a vehicle into space and land it and do it the next week again. a vehicle that could do mulitple flights.  they set a date.  and before the date came to pass, spaceship one was created and they won.

 

they had a goal.  they had a prize. it moved people to create.

 

if we want to fill a gap, we need to create some kind of incentive.

 

not sure what that is yet… but money, a place to show, fame, accomplishment…. these are all good things that motivate people.  we could create some kind of website to host what people make.  i would think create a competition with assignments that people could create for. deadlines are a good motivator.

 

there is a site

http://www.learningtoloveyoumore.com/

that has great assignments for people or groups to accomplish.

 

 

if there is a void… how do we fill it? how can we start a movement in art that is deep, good, creative, stimulating, what else?

 

so these are my thoughts. any thoughts?

 

let’s continue dialoguing.

 

scott

~ by scotterickson on April 4, 2009.