Beneath the Mask

As we discuss the various forms and reasons for masks--offense/defense, gender, festivals of renewal, theater, and rites of passage-- it seems to me that this brief movie creates a strong juxtaposition between the face/mask that is obvious and shown outside the bathroom and in public as opposed to the face/mask that is present and seen in the isolation of the bathroom. With the shift from color to black and white and with the switch from a smooth, gold mask to a more textured and unpolished mask that is white and devoid of any rich color. This shift, along with the contemplative piano solo playing in the background creates a mood that questions. As I watch this short film I am moved to question why the girl is wearing the mask. Moreover, near the end when she takes to mask off, one would expect to see her face in the mirror, to find renewal or redemption in her act of removing the first mask, but instead beneath her mask is another. This movie uses mask in the form of a defensive mechanism. Whether the girl is trying to cover up her second, white mask, or more deeply, is trying to cover that which may be beneath the second mask is unknown. However, what can be perceived is the complexity to masks. As our lives often show us, we are not able to easily put on or take off our masked selves. Sometimes, we become so accustomed to our masked selves that we are unable to distinguish between masked and unmasked. Also, at times amidst the confusion we are unable to distinguish between the multiple roles, multiple masks we are donning .

Keep Breathing

Our Landscape

Landscape: (noun, often attributive \ˈlan(d)-ˌskāp\) - : a particular area of activity

As I consider life and any attempts to characterize and reduce it down to a conceivable definition, I am continuously reminded of the diversity found throughout our world. As I try to decide what is representative of a significant landscape here in 2010 I remember all of the exceptions to the rule, the cultural variety that contradicts our assumptions, and even our own personal complexity, I am confronted with an intense difficulty to find universal commonalities, a landscape that is felt by all. With this in mind, I resolved to work within these limitations, and to accept that my experience is limited, but no less true. My experiences, though not universal or applicable to everyone, are my own and therefore one of the few places from which I can begin to take steps to understand the world around me.

I took a picture and created an image of someone holding a laptop, using a blackberry, and listening to an ipod. Based upon the broad definition of a landscape as a particular area of activity, I believe that many people here in America, or in the Western World, or maybe just on this campus, spend a majority of their time interacting, working, and living alongside or on a electronic devices. Our lives are constantly spent working on computers, doing homework, emailing family, checking facebook, and editing photos. Computers are used for work and for recreation, play and entertainment. Equally, our cell phones have become very nearly an added appendage, another arm or leg, composing who we are. Phones keep us eternally connected to the world, our friends and family, they wake us up in the morning, take photos of memorable events, and sometimes become the miniature version of our computers when our laptops are not readily available. And the ipod fulfills so many people’s dream (or at least mine) of having a constant soundtrack and background music to my life. Depending on my mood, I can have a song playing in my ears, reflecting, reinforcing, or encouraging that mood. Ipods take us from one place to another, keep us company when we sit alone on the train, or travel with us as we workout, running through neighborhoods. Electronics are a major part of our lives; maybe even a major part of who we are. And since computers, cell phones, and ipods have become the terrain of major activity, they are the reason and composition for my photo of a landscape in 2010.

Compared to earthworks, as exemplified in Andy Goldsworthy, a landscape has the possibility to become more abstract or even more indoors. As my image reflects, a major landscape of 2010 need not bring to artist close to the dirt and insects found beneath a river rock, but can be that which we touch and use and utilize each and every day.

portraits: real and ideal

Who am I?

What am I like?

Where do I fit?

Product Placement

My Image of God

How do we create an image of God? The idea of the image of God may evoke a myriad of responses. Exodus and Leviticus commands us not to create images or pictures or idols of our God. Yet how do we then reconcile these directives with Colossians' description of Jesus as the image of the invisible God? And even so, how do we know what Jesus looked like?

It seems to me inherent that any image of God that we create will be reductionist. As fallen beings anything we ever do in relation to God--thinking, picturing, describing, or praising--is never enough. Regardless of all of our efforts, our God will always be too small in our own minds. Yet, it seems that as beings created for relationship (especially relationship with our God) that our inadequacies are ok because more importantly than getting everything right in our mind and thoughts and words when it comes to Christ, it is even more important that we simply come to Him. So, with this knowledge, I created an image of God. An image that is inadequate, reductionist, and imperfect, but an image created in an effort to more fully understand and relate to my God.

So in my endeavor to create an image of God I came up against the difficult task of having to define what I believed God would look like. Although God is not subjective, I believe each individual may have a slightly different view of our God based upon their own personal experiences with Him. So, from my perspective, would I seek to create an image of God as the romantic arms and eyes of a God who is deeply in love? Or could I create an image that embodied my understanding that I see God in other people, yet people are not God. Essentially, I was struggling with what a friend more adequately expressed: How do you take an image of that which cannot be captured? Like the wind or the waves of the ocean. The inherent goodness of these things is in their dynamism, and once an image is created that movement stops and something is lost. For me, God has elements of movement, He is a dynamic trinity, a life-source, and breath.

And finally, as I worked through the constant and indecisive flow of thoughts that rolled around in my head as I considered this endeavor, I was told this story by a friend: My friend was working with small kids over the summer and during one afternoon she passed around a shoebox to the kids. She told the kids that inside the box there was the image of God. My friend said to each of the kids that they could take turns looking into the box but the make sure that they didn't show what was inside to anyone else. Let everyone have their own turn looking into the box and seeing the image of God. Now many of you, I am sure, know where this story is going. Amidst giggles and smiles of understanding, each child looked into the box which held a mirror.

So as I created my image of God, I sought to implement elements of the Caravaggio and Robert and Shana Parkeharrison images. Caravaggio's style especially emphasized the body and flesh of Christ, a reality that I often forget or ignore. And the Parkeharrison photo illuminated, in my opinion, movement and breath and life, all vital aspects of God. Therefore, in my imperfect way I created an image of God. Almost too easily, and yet with hours and days of contemplation behind it, I took a self-portrait. On the windiest day possible, I stood in the sunlight, allowed the wind to envelope me, I took a picture of myself, and created an image of God.

God, as I understand and see Him in my image, is in the light. God is light, according to 1 John and in Him there is no darkness. God, as I understand and see Him, is in the wind. The Holy Spirit, "Pneuma", is breath and wind. This wind has the ability to overpower us, to change us, and with that, to bring such joy. Whether seen in the trees or in my hair, God in my image is both invisible yet seen in the effects of the wind. And lastly, and maybe most obviously, God, as I understand and see Him in my image, is seen in me. One of the first things we learn about humans in the Bible in Genesis 1 is that God created us in His image. So as the artist, I sought to find the image of God in people, yet also as the artist, I more than anyone am aware that I am not God. Therefore there can be no confusion or belief that we call ourselves God, and yet every certainty that we are the image of God.

The Image of God (2)

Robert ParkeHarrison captures the essence of his own work when he explains, "My photographs tell stories of loss, human struggle, and personal exploration within landscapes scarred by technology and over-use...I strive to metaphorically and poetically link laborious actions, idiosyncratic rituals, and strangely crude machines into tales about our modern experience." Elegy, by photographers Robert and Shana ParkeHarrison is a contemporary image created in 2007. The term "elegy", not to be confused with eulogy, is defined as a mournful, melancholic, or plaintive poem, especially a funeral song or a lament for the dead. This photograph, like other, similar images by the artists, includes butterflies as subjects. Yet unlike Mourning Cloak or Stolen Summer, Elegy conveys a sense of synergy between the little girl and the butterflies that softly touch her cheek.

I was particularly captivated by Robert and Shana's photo as it relates to an attempt to create an image of God. In my mind I considered this photograph as a fantastic representation of Karl Barthes' assertion that "Studying God is like trying to draw a picture of a bird in flight. One result is a bird frozen in time and space with precise detail. The other is a blur which captures movement and speed." When I think about the daunting task of creating an image of God, and when I consider the attempts to draw a bird in flight, and when I consider the butterflies in Elegy, I am reminded of this past summer. While on vacation at a beach that is my second home, I tried to capture exactly what it is that I love about this beach. I realized that all that I love about my beach is precisely that which cannot by captured or frozen in time. I love the deep rumbling of the waves, a sound that is only perceptible in person when the different decibels from different distances reach our intricate ears. I love the beauty of the waves, a beauty that is inherently found only in its movement and gloriously dynamic nature. I love the wind. I love movement its ability to evade restrictive boxes or outlines. I love the ungraspable. So when I look at Elegy, and when I try to imagine an image of God, I imagine movement. Our God-the perfect Trinity- is so immediate, so relational, so real, so human, so apart and Godly, and a beautiful/dynamic/eternal dance of Three. yet our God is also that which cannot be photographed or reduced.

So, Elegy, whether meaning to or not, is a fabulous image of the dynamism and breath of God.

The Image of God

The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, or Doubting Thomas, by Caravaggio is a painting created in the Italian Baroque style in 1601-02. It is currently housed in the Sanssouci in Potsdam, Germany. The subject of this painting is based upon the Gospel of John which says:

"Then, the same day at evening, being the first day of the week, when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood in the midst, and said to them, 'Peace be with you.' When He said this, He showed them His hands and His side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Now Thomas, called the Twin, one of the twelve, was not with them when Jesus came. The other disciples therefore said to him, 'We have seen the Lord.' So he said to them, 'Unless I see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe.' And after eight days His disciples were again inside, and Thomas with them. Jesus came, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst and said, 'Peace to you!' Then He said to Thomas, 'Reach your finger here, and look at My hands; and reach your hand here, and put it into My side. Do not be unbelieving but believing.' And Thomas answered and said to Him, 'My Lord and my God!'" (John 20.19-20, 24-28)

Caravaggio's painting, which truly embodies the new baroque style of the time, is physically very shocking. Abandoning the rules that had guided artists for the past century which idealized both the human and the religious experience, The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, brings the historical experience of Thomas, Jesus, and the other disciples to life. The folds of skin and expressions on the subjects' faces are not serene and beautiful, but organic and immediate. It is as if the viewer could also reach out and place a finger in the hole in Jesus' torso. With gritty naturalism, the disciples in the painting have characteristically common appearances, yet their reactions to the reality of the situation, enhanced by the natural, but dramatic and very stark lighting, highlights the incredible and incredulous experience with which we, as viewers, are able to connect.

As one who is overwhelmed with the possibility and reality of trying to create an image of God, I was especially struck by Caravaggio's Doubting Thomas. At first glance I was slightly repulsed by the realistic and very direct image of Thomas poking his finger so deeply into Jesus' side. Had it been me, I truly believe I would have been just as doubtful as Thomas, yet when faced with Christ in person, I believe I would have been both very embarrassed and anxious to accept Christ's resurrection. Yet in Caravaggio's painting, Thomas follows through on his forceful exclamations. He doesn't just touch Jesus' side, he probes and observes and gets very close. In particular Caravaggio, as with many of his paintings, caught my eye with Doubting Thomas. I love and appreciate, though still shy away from, the direct and intense reality of Jesus. Caravaggio captures both Thomas' and Jesus' humanity through the former's doubt and the latter's flesh. And this humanity, more than an understanding of God's spiritual holiness and 'otherness' as God, is what I need reminded of each day.

Regardless of my likes and dislikes of Caravaggio, I think it is important to also critique and highlight to Biblical truth (or heresy) found in The Incredulity of Saint Thomas. In one sense, I think that yes, Caravaggio's representation of Christ is true. Although we often choose to ignore or cannot grasp the equal amount of humanness as godliness in Christ, Caravaggio very much embraces this reality. Christ, just like those around Him in the painting, is a human being with human organs, hair, digits, emotions, and feelings. And though most humans do not glow in the light with such clean skin and beautiful fabric the way that Jesus does in The Incredulity of Saint Thomas, I commend the concurrent (maybe purposefully maybe not) of Christ's perfection inherent and connected with His humanity.

The Human Body

Our world is a bizarre juxtaposition of both simple and complex. As technology and new inventions refine and streamline our lives, there is an equal amount of confusion and complication intertwined within the simplification. The same may be said for the human body. As we consider the significance of the human body in our world today, in 2010, we encounter an intertwined existence of the oversimplified and complex. Our view and use of the human body has narrowed, and through this narrowing of perspectives we are confronted with confusion and difficulty as to how to respond.

The human body in our world today has become (1) oversexualized to such an extent that we no longer inhabit a holistic sexual identity. The human body is a tool and representation of sex, yet it has lost its overall sexual identity that is inherent in who we are as created beings of God. Moreover, the human body in our world today is (2) underutilized in its creative and dynamic possibilities. So often we become accustomed to walking to class, walking between offices, sitting at a desk for hours on end. The human body is a sustained combination of straight lines and predictable movements. Yet, maybe its because I'm a dancer or because I love yoga, but through these mediums, and so many others, I encounter the strange and outrageous and backward and beautiful and surprising ways in which our bodies can move. The human body has become reduced and stripped down to a few bare ideas and images. However, in the face of this distillation there is a hope that the magnificent complexity of our bodies and identities as created beings of Christ may be rediscovered and embraced.