Grand Rapids Christians in the Visual Arts
Eric's notes on the Blessing of the hands
We are delighted to be welcomed to hold our monthly meetings for the Grand Rapids affiliate of Christians in the Visual Arts at Hope Reformed Church. We thank God for this new home for our group. We call ourselves GR CIVA and we invite Christian artists or those interested in art to join us here at Hope on the last Monday of the month at 7 pm and on our website: www.grciva.ning.com. We are a loose affiliation of artists and there are no dues or requirements. All are welcome!
This group was formed in 2001 with the name MANNA when Jim Fissel, Pete Gordon, Carolyn Rock and Laurie Nelson met on the plane back from Dallas after a CIVA conference. Eric Nykamp is our current leader.
During the meeting when we hung this show, Eric shared some thoughts with us and then we had a ‘blessing of the hands’.
As Christians, we are called by God to live as lights in a dark world – a world that does not even seem to notice anymore that it is in darkness. Light, it seems, has become irrelevant. The definition of the good life has changed from who we are, to what we have or are associated with. The darkness has been re-imagined to be an intriguing world. The world revealed by the light has been stereotyped as sentimental and inapplicable to those accustomed to the excitement of the dark.
As artists, we are called by God to responsibly handle one of the more curious gifts given out by God. Whereas many children find joy in creating, as we mature, society discourages many people from pursuing their creative gifts into adulthood. Those who do, find themselves embracing their own inner sense of playfulness, wonder, and expressivity that may at times give them great pleasure, and at other times, a sense of isolation. Our creative voice becomes our private aesthetic language with which some of us preach, teach, and pray. Many of us create works or art which aesthetically companion those walking in our dark world, reminding them of the light of life.
To be a Christian and an artist is to balance these twin callings – to be light bearers in a dark world while being faithful in learning to use a sometimes mysterious and unwieldy gift with increasing elegance and skill. We each speak an aesthetic language, and many of us speak with divergent visual accents. We speak with these visual languages at times in the community of light-bearers, hoping to touch some, and at other times take this language of the eyes to add our visual voice to the babble of competing ideas in the dark places of our greater communities, hoping to touch some.
We are called to be faithful, humble, loved by God, and to be servants of the weak and powerless, to be kind to those whom society has rejected, to take our visual language not only to the places where that language is understood, spoken and rewarded but also to those places where the visual is forgotten, misunderstood, or seen as irrelevant. We are called to be aesthetically generous to our neighbors, challenged to find ways to honor God with our aesthetic “first fruits”, to tithe from our gifts to benefit others. We are asked to serve “the least of these” with our art, and to be “like children” in the ways children try to please us with their own creations of crayons, finger-paint, and popsicle sticks. We are called to stay involved in our church communities, even when these people hurt us as artists. We are not to run away and hide our talents, our light, under a basket or stone the moment our feelings are hurt once again. We are called to be a different kind of artist in this world, not only in the content of our art, but similarly in our character.
We are called to speak visually to those around us who share our faith, who share our love of art, and even to those who share neither our faith nor our love of art. We are called to the poor, the helpless, and the strangers among us. We are called to love with the language of art, the speech of our mouths, and the service of our hands. We are called to do this in spite of the financial storms that whirl about us and have captured so much of our attention and anxiety.
And when these storms hit us, may we be mindful that we have a God who never leaves us. He walks with us even when we do not feel Him near us. May we be the tangible representatives of God’s love to each other as we are each other creative companions on this sometimes lonely road. May we encourage each other to press on, to continue the race, and to persevere.
May we each have a sense of God’s presence as we create.
May we sense Him smiling on us as we prepare to work.
May we feel the joy of creating when we begin to get sparks of ideas that light our imagination while we work.
May we have moments in God’s presence when we lose track of time and are enfolded in the rapture of creation.
May we have a sense of God’s peace when we stand back from a finished work of art and feel contented.
May we remember to thank God for these times.
May we remember God, and not just think of ourselves.
May we remember God.
We anointed the hands of the person next to us in the circle with a finger dipped in water and made the sign of the cross in each their palms with the words:
“May God bless you, as you go and create.”
This group was formed in 2001 with the name MANNA when Jim Fissel, Pete Gordon, Carolyn Rock and Laurie Nelson met on the plane back from Dallas after a CIVA conference. Eric Nykamp is our current leader.
During the meeting when we hung this show, Eric shared some thoughts with us and then we had a ‘blessing of the hands’.
As Christians, we are called by God to live as lights in a dark world – a world that does not even seem to notice anymore that it is in darkness. Light, it seems, has become irrelevant. The definition of the good life has changed from who we are, to what we have or are associated with. The darkness has been re-imagined to be an intriguing world. The world revealed by the light has been stereotyped as sentimental and inapplicable to those accustomed to the excitement of the dark.
As artists, we are called by God to responsibly handle one of the more curious gifts given out by God. Whereas many children find joy in creating, as we mature, society discourages many people from pursuing their creative gifts into adulthood. Those who do, find themselves embracing their own inner sense of playfulness, wonder, and expressivity that may at times give them great pleasure, and at other times, a sense of isolation. Our creative voice becomes our private aesthetic language with which some of us preach, teach, and pray. Many of us create works or art which aesthetically companion those walking in our dark world, reminding them of the light of life.
To be a Christian and an artist is to balance these twin callings – to be light bearers in a dark world while being faithful in learning to use a sometimes mysterious and unwieldy gift with increasing elegance and skill. We each speak an aesthetic language, and many of us speak with divergent visual accents. We speak with these visual languages at times in the community of light-bearers, hoping to touch some, and at other times take this language of the eyes to add our visual voice to the babble of competing ideas in the dark places of our greater communities, hoping to touch some.
We are called to be faithful, humble, loved by God, and to be servants of the weak and powerless, to be kind to those whom society has rejected, to take our visual language not only to the places where that language is understood, spoken and rewarded but also to those places where the visual is forgotten, misunderstood, or seen as irrelevant. We are called to be aesthetically generous to our neighbors, challenged to find ways to honor God with our aesthetic “first fruits”, to tithe from our gifts to benefit others. We are asked to serve “the least of these” with our art, and to be “like children” in the ways children try to please us with their own creations of crayons, finger-paint, and popsicle sticks. We are called to stay involved in our church communities, even when these people hurt us as artists. We are not to run away and hide our talents, our light, under a basket or stone the moment our feelings are hurt once again. We are called to be a different kind of artist in this world, not only in the content of our art, but similarly in our character.
We are called to speak visually to those around us who share our faith, who share our love of art, and even to those who share neither our faith nor our love of art. We are called to the poor, the helpless, and the strangers among us. We are called to love with the language of art, the speech of our mouths, and the service of our hands. We are called to do this in spite of the financial storms that whirl about us and have captured so much of our attention and anxiety.
And when these storms hit us, may we be mindful that we have a God who never leaves us. He walks with us even when we do not feel Him near us. May we be the tangible representatives of God’s love to each other as we are each other creative companions on this sometimes lonely road. May we encourage each other to press on, to continue the race, and to persevere.
May we each have a sense of God’s presence as we create.
May we sense Him smiling on us as we prepare to work.
May we feel the joy of creating when we begin to get sparks of ideas that light our imagination while we work.
May we have moments in God’s presence when we lose track of time and are enfolded in the rapture of creation.
May we have a sense of God’s peace when we stand back from a finished work of art and feel contented.
May we remember to thank God for these times.
May we remember God, and not just think of ourselves.
May we remember God.
We anointed the hands of the person next to us in the circle with a finger dipped in water and made the sign of the cross in each their palms with the words:
“May God bless you, as you go and create.”
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