Trinity Sermons trinity@iglobal.net

September 17, 2000

Title:   Spiritual Lessons Learned in the Studio - Ed Knippers, artist

Text:
      In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path” Proverbs 3:6
      Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4

 In the world today, art is suspect, particularly in the mind of the conservative Christian community. This is not surprising since shock and sensation seem to have become the purpose of many contemporary artists. Considering how difficult it is to shock any of us today, such a criterion for art making forces the avant guard, called by some, the bleeding edge, to be outrageous in the extreme. Add to that the fact that Christians among people of faith seem to be on the short list for attack and ridicule in the studios of America, and there is an understandable reason for the mind not to pause too long after hearing the word art before pornography and blasphemy pops into the head. Christians and the ideal of holy living are under attack on many fronts in our contemporary life and the Arts Establishment seems to be more often than not in the enemy camp.

 And yet I have found the studio in the middle of such an art world to be, at time, holy ground. Our Lord has taught me much there about Himself and how He relates to His universe. I would like to share with you a few of these lessons.

(1)         An early mentor of min in the arts was Leon Vetrano. He finally confronted me one day about art being a total commitment of ones life. I had to tell Him of my prior commitment to Christ. He took it well and said that it would be wonderful to see the whole Bible painted by me - something that I could only not envision at the time but found repugnant because of all the poor Sunday School examples that came to mind. And yet he was being prophetic. Later, before his untimely death, he too became a Christian.

 Presented as it was to me by Mr. Vetrano, a choice must be made between my consuming passion for art and the Lordship of Christ. Where would I find my identity? In art with perhaps a Christian veneer that would most likely fade over time, or in Christ with the real possibility that there would be no art. Early on I had to give up art. If I had not, I could have only continued guiltily making art, wondering what God really wanted me to do. Or I could turn by back on my faith and make art my god. Both were losing propositions.

 My struggle over the question of art helped teach me that you can know God’s will for your life if you desire it above all else and are willing to do it. If you want to know His will as only one of several options from which to choose, your search for His will most likely will remain a murky little game you can play for the rest of your life. As someone had said, “Art makes a lousy god.” So does anything else but God. It was only when our Lord gave back my art as a call, a vocation, that I could truly be free to give it all my energy and strength for His Glory—it was only then that I could truly become an artist.

(2) The Nature of the Incarnation
 
 (a) The spiritual is not superimposed upon the world. In our incarnational world it is more often act than feeling. Most often we experience the spiritual as part and parcel of the stuff of life. This reality is born out in the studio. I assume that art is spiritual by its nature in the same way that water by its nature is wet. Yet any of this innate spirituality that is to be found in the paintings is part and parcel with the paint and therefore art of painting.

 (b) Not all spirituality is equal. To carry the water analogy further, in the same way that you can die in the presence of most of the water in the world, much of the worlds spirituality will prove deadly. This has further taught me that the only spirituality that is worth pursuing is solid and powerful not the fussy and weak spirituality of Romanticism. God’s working in the world is light into darkness, but that light is a laser than can cut and heal. Too often we think of it as only “this little light of mine” with the emphasis on the “mine.”

 (c) Light, of course, is incarnate in paint on a canvas. In life and in the art of painting, without light you cannot see. But light is transparent. The only way that I know that light is in this room is that I can see you. The only way that many in world will know that there is a God is that they will see us in His light. How strong will that light be where we stand - how clearly will they be able to see us in the light of God? I have discovered that the only still point in a painting is the source of light, everything else is in motion either getting closer to or farther from the light source. Too many of us are willing to live on the edge of darkness. We fear the laser light’s ability to cut, forgetting that through cutting the laser of God’s truth heals and purifies. Through our acts and decisions in the world, like the objects and shapes in a painting, we are either moving closer to or further away from the source of the light. In paintings objects sometimes appear transcendent because of the light the artist has painted. Paintinghas taught me that if we stand close to the source of His light we will also appear to be transcendent and the world will be able to see that we are the saints of God. We will partake in His Incarnation.

 (d) Painting has also taught me that matter, the substance of incarnation, is inconvenient, it’s messy. I have many clothes to prove it. But since God could have created the world anyway He wanted, the reality of matter can tell us about the mind of God. Through it, He reminds us of our limitation. We are Not God! “It is He who has made us and not we ourselves.”

 Through the messy matter of the physical world he continues our lessons in humility by making us from dirt not gold. Yet with His creative power He transforms that dirt into creatures capable of love and action and beauty. In something of the same but very limited way I take the dirt that is my paint and create paintings that just might have beauty and importance. There are those in our world and even in our Christian community that hold that dirt is somehow evil - that matter is something to be escaped. But through the Incarnation of Christ we have been told in emphatic terms that matter is not the problem, but what we do with is. He has taken upon himself our infirmities and has shown us how to live.

 (e) We are told that God works through all things for good for them that love Him and are called according to His purpose. If this is true, how does He do it? Is it magic? When I paint my pallet is often a confusion of little piles of dirt, potentially deadly chemicals, and heavy metals. Yet I am able to take that seemingly hopeless situation and, by conforming it creatively to my vision, make paintings. This is not an act of magic as I am merely working with the created order. If being finite I can be creative, then our Lord being the infinite Creator must be infinitely creative. Therefore when we give Him the messes we have made of our lives or the tragedies that life has imposed upon us, or the weaknesses and failures of who we are in the world, in His infinite creativity He is not mean and spiteful and cruel. If he were, we would be stuck with Him. After all He is God. The good news is that He is Good and so after He applies His infinite creativity to our situation, good is the inevitable results.

(3)     Our Lord is an ever-present help in the time of trouble. He has proved that countless times in the studio. Painting can be a discouraging and frustrating occupation. I have been known to throw brushes at the painting on which I’m working not being able to see my way out of my artistic dilemma. Backed into the corner, I have prayed. At times instantly the answer would be there. It was as if our Lord was standing beside me on tiptoe waiting for me to ask.

 Once...Nicolas Poussin’s Holy Family of the Steps at the National Gallery...

 Does God paint through me? In some kind of magical sense, no. I don’t blame these things on Him. Whatever is here is my fault. But in the sense that He has made Himself available and constantly aids us in the work that He has given us to do, both generally and specifically in answered prayer, yes, I am His instrument. We each can be.

(4)     He is trustworthy - I thought that I would be teaching full time for the rest of my life. But Jesus had other plans. I can show you the spot where he finally got through to me as I was walking home one day in Wilmore, KY.

 (a) Quit teaching
 (b) built studio
 (c) Diane’s job in Washington
 (d) the figure
  1. Paris
  2. Belanchine’s Prodigal Son with the Roualt sets
 

 I could never have conceived of what I am now doing in Wilmore, KY. The Lord was trustworthy and faithful. A major prayer of mine is for remembrance. For it is through His past faithfulness that He has developed in me instincts that can be trusted in a world of contrary and deadly temptation and influences.

 (a) This has given me an allegiance to Truth, not simply a go-along-get-along philosophy that depends on the latest opinions of those around me, Christians or non-Christians.

 (b) His faithfulness has also taught me not to take myself too seriously. The world does not depend on me but Him. I therefore can “have leisure and know that He is God.” There is room for play. Because He is in control I have the freedom and humility not to need to always be right. I can admit mistakes and failures knowing that since my righteousness is in Him the overall trajectory of my life is in the right direction. He is able to conform to His Glory and Goodness all that I have given Hi. Such give and take is at the heart of picture making. In the studio there is a constant experimentation - trial and error. But this is serious play with the confidence and faith that a good end is possible.

(5) Finally, I see myself as God’s instrument in the world in the way that a brush is my instrument in the studio.

 (a) I have many brushes waiting next to my pallet that can do what needs to be done, but I choose one for the job at hand. This does not cause a brush uprising. I don’t hear any murmuring about not wanting to be brushes any more, “Why couldn’t I have been a pencil or a pen.” “I wish that I hadn’t been made at all.” “I didn’t like that painting, anyway. I’m glad he didn’t me dirty for that.” No, my brushes are faithful. They all wait patiently and are ready at a moment’s notice for whatever I might have in store for them (even throwing them at the canvas). We, too, should be prepared at all times to be used of God taking pleasure in any good that is done by whomever He might choose to do it.

 (b) It takes any number of brushes over a long period of time to complete a painting - to accomplish my will as an artist. Some brushes may be used up before the painting is done. Others will be around for years to come. This makes me realize that our place in the Divine Plan may never be fully understood by us during our lifetime. But being able to be used of God as he accomplishes His Master Plan is astounding - a gift beyond measure!

 (c) And one last observation: brushes can accomplish different jobs at the different stages of their life. There are marks that only an old brush can make which should give us all hope.

 All analogies break down though and it is here that this analogy falls apart. A brush by its nature finds its worth solely in what it does. As Christians we find our worth in whose we are and the immeasurable extent of His love for us. Therefore I am not an artist that happens to be a Christian, but a Christian that has been called to be an artist. My identity must be in Christ.
 
 In all of your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path. Proverbs 3:6
 Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart. Psalm 37:4
 
Ed Knippers
Copyright ã 2000
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

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