Art show and live painting at Downtown Presbyterian

This Friday during the South Main Trolley Art Tour, I will be showing some works at Downtown Presbyterian Church and doing a live painting.

Friday 6p-9p
Downtown Presbyterian
525 South Main St.
(next to Ernestine and Hazel's)
parking is going to be trickier with the music festival, but you should be able to find a free spot in the South Main area.

On a related note, I was concerned about whether or not this Friday would be a good art night what with the music festival and all, but I picked up the current issue of the Memphis Flyer. There is a lot of good art openings happening tonight. I think it will be an excellent night, but i would advise you to try to detour around the Beale and Union area of downtown. That's going to be very congested.

Now if i could just make up my mind about what I'm going to paint tomorrow night.

See you there,
Fudge

Downtown Presbyterian - Memphis, TN

Downtown Presbyterian Church is currently located at 525 South Main St. I believe they are in the process of moving to another space in that area. I think this is very unfortunate considering that they are so visible in their current space and can take part in the monthly art openings. That is how I found out about them. I think it is a great way for them to participate in that area, be a part of the community, and build awareness of their church. They are already using the space to display artwork. The current space was a retail store front. It makes for a unique (although small)  space. I think it'll be a shame if they have to move. 

Memphis is such a small town. The pastor Richard Rieves is related to Loyd and Deeann Rieves. Deeann has had 2 art shows at my church. Andreana Brown is also on staff there and I know her from when she worked at Hope where I go to church. I havent been to one of Downtown Pres.'s services but I want to check it out some time soon. 

Above are photos from Haiti that are on display currently with other art work. How cute is the top photo of the little kid. 

Hope Chapel in Austin, TX is looking to hire an Arts Pastor

I have to say that this looks pretty cool. Too bad it's part-time and in Austin, TX. Maybe you or someone you know would be interested.

Job Description and Tasks:
The Arts Pastor will develop the arts ministry of Hope Chapel by facilitating the work of the volunteer leaders of the HopeArts Pastoral Team. The Arts Pastor will be focused on arts ministry and not other ministry needs within Hope Chapel.

The Arts Pastor is a member of Hope Chapel’s regular staff serving as liaison between the Hope Arts Pastoral Team and the Senior Pastor. The Arts Pastor reports to the Senior Pastor and is subject to the same management rules and guidelines as other staff.

Because Hope Chapel and HopeArts are in a time of transition, we feel that the Arts Pastor should be formally evaluated at the end of 3 months and 6 months to determine how well the Arts Pastor is working to further the mission of HopeArts.

The Arts Pastor is expected to spend a minimum of 8 hours per week in the position.
Hope Chapel is currently offering a stipend of $600 per month for this task. Our hope is to eventually grow this into a full-time position.

This role includes the following tasks:
• Shepherding
• Know and pray for the artists and the HopeArts Pastoral Team
• Encourage artists at all levels in their work and faith
• Shepherd the Arts Team
• Encourage and develop artist groups
• Participate in community gatherings
• Work to connect artists to the life of the Hope congregation, and vice versa
• Administration
• Attend staff meetings periodically
• Manage the arts budget, in consensus with the Arts Team
• Coordinate and support the work of the Arts Team
• Oversee the work of arts interns
• Function as the contact person and face of the ministry to new artists and people outside of Hope Chapel
• Connect the arts ministry to the work of the church staff

Qualifications/Experience:
We are open to hiring someone whose desire is to become a full-time Arts Pastor, but that is not a prerequisite for the job at this time. We do expect candidates who, if they do not already have all the skills below, can grow into them.

Qualifications desired:
• A sense of calling by God into this ministry at this time, both by the candidate and by the leaders of HopeArts and Hope Chapel
• A recognized servant’s heart and dedication to this ministry through a history of service with artists, preferably in a Christian setting.
• Cultural and artistic literacy and a personal understanding of the challenges of making art
• An undergraduate degree, preferably in the arts
• Some college-level work in theology and/or biblical studies or equivalent
• Strong communication skills (reading, writing, public speaking)
• Skills appropriate to the shepherding and administrative tasks above
• Emotionally healthy, well-integrated into family and/or community
• Competency in Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint

contact Geno Hildebrandt at genohild@gmail.com
http://www.hope.org/
http://www.hopearts.org/

Dirt - creative conference in Little Rock

Huh, fall must be conference season. I just saw this and thought it was worth sharing since it is so close to the Memphis area:

Dirt Promo from dirt conference on Vimeo.

http://dirtconference.com/

Nov. 10-11 at New Life Church in Little Rock
registration looks like a good deal 99 to 120 depending on when you sign up
Memphis own Brian Pitre from The Life Church of Memphis is giving a presentation

I like their "about" statement:

Dirt is a non-typical creative church conference held at New Life Church in Little Rock, Arkansas.

We don't know about you, but just when we feel like we're on top of our game, we go to a conference that brings our confidence down to sub-zero temperatures. We leave feeling old school and defeated. We realize that's not their intention...but we see all this cool stuff that other churches are doing and we ask ourselves : How can we do that?

Especially on the budget we have right now! We know how you feel about conferences. We feel the same way. We realize that you don't want to attend another conference where you leave, yet again, with that "I suck" feeling.

We get it. Enough is enough. What if we told you you could look under the hoods of these churches that are breaking the mold:

Lifechurch.tv
Church of the Highlands
Seacoast Church
New Life Church
Healing Place Church
The Life Church of Memphis
C3 Church
Bayside Community Church
Celebration Church, TX
Newspring Church

And left saying, "I can do that!" What if we could show you how? What if we could pull back the curtain and show you what you can do? And then gave you attainable goals and the tools and personal connections to get it accomplished.

Dirt. Something from nothing.

Story Chicago - church creatives should check this out

Man, it's events like this that I wish I could attend. But alas, I'd have to do it on my own time and dime because I just volunteer at my church. Those of you who are church staff folk should certainly consider checking this out. I'd go just to hear DON MILLER speak and attend BRAD ABARE, Founder of ChurchMarketingSucks.com, workshop. Oh, this event looks so cool! Hmm, Chicago... that's only 8.5 hrs and 534 mi. but it would cost me 4 vacation days to attend since its in the middle of the week. :(

Donald Miller and Michael Hyatt - Exclusive Interview on Story from Story Chicago on Vimeo.

historytellers.org/about

STORY CHICAGO

October 28 and 29, 2009
The Paramount Theater
Aurora, IL

STORY is a first-of-its-kind experience for communicators on Wednesday, October 28, at the beautiful Paramount Theater near Chicago. Over 1,500 church leaders, pastors, teachers, artists, and authors are coming to learn from some of the most effective communicators of the Gospel – the greatest story ever told.

Bring your creative team to hear from six master communicators in this theatrical conference experience. You’ll be entertained. You’ll be enlightened. You’ll never communicate the same way again.

Go deeper in STORY. Register for a follow-up day of workshops on October 29 with some of the leading filmmakers, scholars, designers and thought leaders in ministry. You’ll be guided through a creative journey where you can ask hard questions and learn the latest breakthroughs in communication. Space is limited.

Art Installation for Pentecost

So what can happen when you let loose a small group of artists in your church. They burn the place down! Well, metaphorically at least. What a cool installation for illustrating Acts 2:1-4

"On the day of Pentecost all the Lord’s followers were together in one place. Suddenly there was a noise from heaven like the sound of a mighty wind! It filled the house where they were meeting. Then they saw what looked like fiery tongues moving in all directions, and a tongue came and settled on each person there."

Above is an art installation from Redeemer Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, IN.

Art Gallery at Lifelink Church in Memphis

I made a quick visit to Lifelink last Sunday. Here are some views of their art gallery. I really liked the space. It feels very formal and it is just outside the sanctuary. They are doing a great job.

Lifelink Church
1015 S Cooper St, Memphis, TN 38104

Map of churches with visual arts programs

View Artsy Churches in a larger map

This is something that I started to put together for myself. I'm thinking about a little visual arts and worship road trip. It would be so inspiring to visit some of the churches and arts programs that I've learned about over the years. What a great opportunity to learn from others and add to my own ministry when i return! Also, I thought you might enjoy a listing of churches. Maybe you're an artist and you're looking to get plugged in or inspired too. Please leave a comment or reply if you know of a church with a visual arts ministry, ei, live worship painting, a gallery space, artists small group, artists outreach program, etc. and I'll add it to the map.

More art ministries in Memphis churches

Momentum @ Lifelink Church, 1015 S Cooper St, Memphis, TN

We are a group of artists including painters, photographers, sculptors and dancers in the Lifelink church community. Our goal is to encourage and inspire each other in our artistic endeavors, personally, spiritually and professionally. We do this by creating avenues to showcase our work, forums to discuss and opportunities to view other artists on display. Saturday workdays are offered periodically for those who want to meet at the church to work on their art with other artists.

Sounds really interesting. They are definitely located in a very arts rich area of town. I'd think that they have a very high number of artists in attendance. I wonder what sort of things they are planning for this group. There are very few details listed on their web site. I might have to check them out one Sunday morning. It would be cool to hear what another art ministry is doing.

“A Heart for Others” Interactive Exhibit

Local Memphis artist Chris Reed was very inspired by his mission trips with Hope Church to Quito, Ecuador. He developed such a passion for mission work that he has even gone on trips on his own. On one such journey, he stayed a night – against his better judgment – in a shack. To bring that life-changing experience to Cordova, Chris Reed is building a full-scale model of a third world country shack in the middle of the lobby at Hope Church. This 8 ft. x 8 ft. shack will be constructed of building materials such as tin roofing, plywood, and other found supplies. Blue masking tape will be used to mark off on the floor surrounding the shack to the average square footage footprint of a typical Cordova home. Reed hopes that his interactive piece will touch viewers as deeply as his actual experiences in missions have changed him.

“I want the my representation to be as faithful to a real shack as possible so that living conditions really hit home to the viewer,” stated Reed.

In addition to the shack, Reed has also constructed two large photography displays. One measuring 15 ft. wide by 9 ft. tall and the other is 12 ft. wide by 9 ft. tall. Each display is a collage of imagery, statistics, information, and actual photographs from Hope Church’s outreach and missions groups: Global Outreach, Urban Missions, Oasis of Hope, and Tapestry. Church volunteers and staff will also be on hand to answer viewers’ questions, give out education materials, and take sign-ups. The exhibit will be open for one weekend.

When:
Saturday February 28th at 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm
and Sunday March 1st 8:00 am to 12:30 pm
The exhibit is open Saturday at 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm and again on Sunday 8:00 am to 12:30 pm. Viewers are invited to attend worship services available during those times.

Where:
Hope Church
8500 Walnut Grove Rd, Cordova, TN 38018
www.hopepres.com

Interesting lecture on the role of the artist

I'm totally diggin' this lecture on the artist stereotype and artist's responsibility by Sam Andreades at the 2007 IAM Conference. He also makes a strong argument about where artistic genius comes from. It's worth listening to.

http://internationalartsmovement.org/podcasts/2007conference/episodes/224-faith-lecture-the-artist-stereotype

"The artist queries the last privacies of our existence and tells us to change our life"
— George Steiner

Cool bits from lecture:
The artist is made to influence others. Artists desire increased exposure and increased influence. The greater the influence, the greater the responsibility. Speaking for those who cannot speak, is taking responsibility for them. Art as a gift of influence, a responsibility to speak truth and change lives.

Want to incorporate fine art into the worship experience? How about adding 11ft x 24ft mural

When was the last time you saw a huge mural in a new church? I cant even imagine working on something that huge. I wish I had a link to a photo of it but I cant find one.

"Imagine the Divine" -Submitted by: Judy and Adrienne Stein

York artists Judy and Adrienne Stein, a mother/daughter team, worked to complete an 11’x24’ mural to be installed at the front of the sanctuary at York Christian & Missionary Alliance Church on Rathton Rd. It will be unveiled and dedicated during the worship celebration service on Sunday January 4, 2009 at 10:15 AM. The large-scale mural was completed over a span of months from the time of its inception to the time of its execution and final installation.

The mural is part of an ongoing effort of this congregation to incorporate fine art into their worship experience. The place where we worship a magnificent and redeeming God should provoke an air or reverence upon entering….it should be constructed with our best materials and our finest craftsmanship. It is disheartening to observe the absence of art in the American Protestant Church. Traveling through Europe is an eye-opener to the contrast between the lavish art-filled Catholic churches of the old world and today’s minimalistic American Protestant churches. Attitudes of practicality undervalue the role of art in enriching worship. In the days of the opulent churches, the finest artisans were commissioned to create impressive architectural structures and fill them with paintings and sculptures. Since the Catholic Church was then the cornerstone of society and culture, it had the necessary wealth to embellish on the aesthetic worship experience. These richly appointed cathedrals seem out of balance with their often impoverished working class constituency. But has the pendulum swung too far in the other direction?

York Alliance church seeks to draw into the beauty and goodness of God as a community, and to use all possible creative venues to do so. They see this mural as part of an exciting “renaissance” that is taking place; a transition back to art in the church as an integral part of worship, not just among their own body of believers, but in the church universally. On occasion, Adrienne has been called upon to do live illustrations during the sermon, depicting the scene from her easel at the front of the church.

The mural project evolved from a brainstorm for a short-term banner to be painted on paper and hung at the front of the church for the Easter 2008 service. Large scale paper banners are used as a regular worship tool. As ideas for the banner became more elaborate, the idea was proposed to spend more time on the planning and more money on the materials, making this “banner” into a large-scale painting on canvas to be framed and permanently installed.

The two set to work looking for inspiration. They spent hours studying art books, looking at great religious art of centuries past – the great works of the Italian Renaissance such as Raphael and Caravaggio as well as the altarpieces of Dutch masters such as Rembrandt. Adrienne designed and painted sketches depicting various biblical scenes to pitch ideas to the pastoral staff. The chosen image illustrates Christ’s defeat of death on the cross as He identifies with our humanity, standing over the churning water in the ‘storms’ of our lives; the Holy Spirit is symbolized by the dove, and God the Father is symbolized by the eternal source of guiding light.

After the choice was made, Adrienne painted a 1/12 scale prototype which was used to project and trace the image onto the 11’x 24’ canvas. With the help of talented people within the church, they solved the anticipated logistical problems then moved forward with their labor of love. The canvas was suspended on a pulley device in the Fellowship Hall annex of the church. As an interior designer and part-time fine artist, Judy was not accustomed to painting this large. Adrienne, who paints full-time in her studio, was also challenged by the constraints of this scale. They painted the 250 square foot acrylic painting in 5 sessions, working together, about 5 to 6 hours in each session. This was just a fraction of the time we estimated. At the beginning of each session, they prayed together, dedicating their work to the Lord. The process resulted in a rich mother/daughter experience.

Judy and Adrienne feel passionately about the connection between beauty and experiencing the Divine. They donated this mural as a gift to bless their church and to inspire churches everywhere to endorse the arts and to raise awareness of the value art in worship. On this topic, they quote the late Pope John Paul II in his famous “Letter to Artists”:

“In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, and as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the invisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful terms that which is in itself ineffable. Art has a unique capacity to take one or other facet of the message and translate it into colours, shapes and sounds which nourish the intuition of those who look or listen. It does so without emptying the message itself of its transcendent value and its aura of mystery. The Church has need especially of those who can do this on the literary and figurative level, using the endless possibilities of images and their symbolic force. Christ himself made extensive use of images in his preaching, fully in keeping with his willingness to become, in the Incarnation, the icon of the unseen God.”

Glade Church has a gallery in their sanctuary

Glade Church is committed to engaging all of the senses in worship. Because we believe that art offers the worshiper a means to creatively explore an encounter with the Holy, our sanctuary houses one of the area's premier fine arts galleries.

http://www.gladeucc.org/finearts.html

I am so jealous. Sure we have a gallery space at The Stirring, but their gallery is in the sanctuary. Second, they have one of those cute little white churches that I've always dreamed of turning into a gallery and studio (need be, I'd live there too. Hey, it could work.) Third, their pastor is a potter and owns Dancing Fiddler Pottery.

ArtReach - using art as an outreach program

ArtReach (adult 16+) Tuesdays 6-8pm - Come and make art for free! No talent required, just come have fun.

ArtReach began 3 years ago when Jack Fox, Associate Pastor of eXchange at Maryland Community Church in Terre Haute realized the power that art had in spiritual developement, relationships, and community building. With the guidence of Kathy Gotshall, it began as a group of 8 or so people began meeting every Wednesday to creatively express various passages from the 23rd Psalm through various art mediums. It long out grew it's original meeting room in their church and moved to a building in Terre Haute's downtown. They expect to out grow that space too.

How cool is that! People just hanging out and creating together. Every week too!

A springtime sermon idea

http://www.freshworship.org/node/456

"Beauty from Ugliness. As we sometimes (so often?) fall under the crushing weight of temptation, who could imagine that something so beautiful could arise from something so ugly? With God all things are possible."

there's a sermon and take home right in there. a couple of big bags of bulbs cant be too much. We hand them out to folks as they leave. walk out video... find one of those stop action films of stuff growing. bingo.

Like the idea? Take it. What songs would you put with it?

Creative churches, Live art and event ideas

I wish I had thought of this. In fact, I may borrow it. Here's some quotes from their blog:

Seeing is Believing – people attended from a wide variety of backgrounds to look at images of God in nature, in ourselves and through Jesus. What seemed to have struck most people was how many different ways there are to look at God and how rich an experience it can be to expose yourself to that variety.

http://beyondchurch.blogspot.com/2008/04/beyond-begins.html

Inspiring videos for artists

I don't know much about Fellowship Bible Church near Nashville, Tn., but I know that they make some amazing videos. Those who are easily moved to tears should not watch all of these at once. The videos Conversations with God, Painting Through the Storm, Unforeseen Harvest, and Journey to Freedom are all arts focused and include interviews with the artists.

Definitely check out the Unforeseen Harvest
http://www.fellowshipnashville.org/content/media/personal_stories.aspx

I've got to check this church out some day.