Fives and Threes

At our Laity Lodge retreat I gave each of the speakers the same assignment:

What are FIVE things you wish you had been told when you first started off as an artist and what are THREE practices that keep you healthy and sane as an artist?

Here is how two of our speakers, Sandra Organ-Soliz and Charlie Peacock, answered this double question. I'll post Ginger Geyer's answers in a subsequent post.

SANDRA ORGAN-SOLIS

Five things I wish I had been told when I first started out as a ballet dancer:

1. That I would be misunderstood by both black and white communities.

2. That hard work will not always be rewarded; and concomitantly that diplomacy and cooperation are essential, that being a team player is non-negotiable.

3. That it would be incredibly important to learn how to take correction well.

4. That I should be prepared to reassess my artistic life and try other things along the way.

5. That losing dancers in your company (to other companies or other opportunities or "greener pastures") would be heartbreaking, that it would be wounding.

Three practices that have kept my healthy and sane along the way:

1. Prayer and small group life (I've been in one for thirty years non-stop).

2. Taking a sabbath--daily ones, weekly ones, monthly ones.

3. Exposing myself to other pursuits and interests outside of my artistic work.

Finally, Sandra involved specific "movements" with each of her five points and at the end invited us to move with her. Here is a small video of that experiment and I'll be surprised if I'm not sued or de-friended on Facebook by the people who show up in this video. But hey. It was an experiment. You guys look awesome. And there's something to be said for dancing like there's no tomorrow. And, yes, the dance makes better sense in its original context.

CHARLIE PEACOCK

Five things I wish I had been told when I first started out as a musician:

1. That all of life is grace. That there is nothing that I could do to make God love me more. To the extent that I have not appreciated grace, any instance of it becomes creativity and imagination killers.

2. That your senses, mind, imagination and body need to always be learning, absorbing, taking in.

3. That the word "Christian" would someday be associated in the entertainment industry more with a genre than with the person of Christ.

4. That there are many ways of knowing and being known.

5. That even among the best of people ... financial success, awards, consistent presence in the media, and work with recognizable brands and names means more than a quiet faithful life. Even the best of people, that is, give in to the temptation to desire the former over the latter.

Three practices that have kept my healthy and sane along the way:

1. God: having a conversational relationship with God.

2. People: hearing my wife regularly say to me when I'm in the thick of a music project, "You need to remember that there are more people in the world than just you and your artistic making."

3. Place: learning, accepting and even embracing the way in which the places of my life have shaped me and continue to shape me rather than wishing to escape them.

Last question Charlie asks himself consistently: Who am I becoming while I'm doing all this making?

Finally, here are two videos from Charlie's performance on the Friday evening of our retreat: one that includes music from his forthcoming album and one that involves an improv collaboration with Kenyon Adams on Charlie's more famous song.

Our Laity Lodge retreat: in images

A cellist's shoes

I feel like a broken record every time I write up a report of our time at Laity Lodge. It usually involves three recurring adjectives: beautiful, wonderful and how-soon-can-we-go-back? Our retreat was rich. I come away again grateful for the generous hospitality of the staff and leadership of LL.

I'll be posting a few entries in which I include summaries of things that were said and done. Charlie Peacock, Sandra Organ-Solis and Ginger Geyer each tackled my assignment to share with us their "Fives and Threes." What were five things they wish they had been told when they first started off as artists and what are three practices that keep them sane and healthy as they go along. In addition to sharing the fact that they've been making art for over three decades, all three of them gave voice to longings that many of us as artists know acutely, even painfully well.

For now, though, let me leave you with a few salient images and videos from our experience over the past four days.

To start off with: a fantastic improvisation between Charlie Peacock, Elizabeth Larson and Steuart Pincombe (parts two and three of the redoubtable musical group Credo).

Untitled from David Taylor on Vimeo.

Our fearless leader, Steven Purcell.

Listening.

I led a panel on Friday night that was really fun.

Panelists Jeff Guy and Jessie Nilo

Panelists Jay Walker and Maria Fee

Andi Ashworth reads a psalm.

Listening.

Paul Ranheim leads us in worship.

We sent upon the Frio River a "regatta" of bark-and-leaf boats made by Robert Feuge.

Launching near.

Launching far.

Adrift on the river.

Kenyon Adams, Tre Cool.

Steuart Pincombe on a baroque cello (circa 1727).

Elizabeth Ann Larson on violin.

(We got to listen to music that ranged from the baroque era to the contemporary. So fine. More to come later.)

We ate, oh, did we eat.

A mind-bogglingly tasty dish; sorta made me think of something from Titus Andronicus but more ethical and much better tasting.

Karl Digerness leading us in worship Sunday morning.

The merry band of retreatants.

... and then there was this tasty bit of improvised music.

The Conditions for the "Successful" Formation of Worship Art: Part II

Three things before I write part two of this entry (see part one here).

One, I love this photograph of Boris Karloff on the set of Son of Frankenstein (1939). It's so perfect. As a lover of tea and toast and of the craft of acting, it makes my heart happy to see them integrated here.

Two, I'm in Kansas City at the moment, participating in an arts festival that my friend Brian Williams along with a fabulous team has concocted. I'm excited to be here and to see what God is up to in Jayhawk country. Or is that Wildcat country? Hm, I best stay neutral and call it Wizard of Oz country.

Three, our wonderful Laity Lodge retreat is only two weeks away and there is still room to sign up if you want to join a very special gathering of folks who love artists and want to shepherd them well. Check it out here. And here. And here to register and to find out all about Laity Lodge.

NB: I use the terms "liturgical art" and "worship art" in this entry in an interchangeable fashion and mean exactly the same thing by them.

The Conditions: Part II

5. Repetition. How often does a work of art occur during a service? This question is more relevant to occasional art than to permanent art. In churches that make use of the liturgical calendar, this might include the repetition of certain kinds of art at the same times of the year, as with, for example, art that depicts the Advent of Christ. How often might dance or drama happen in the service? Weekly? Monthly? Randomly? And how much of the service does it occupy? How often do un-familiar art media get used by the congregation—media that stretches their understanding and experience of art and of its many-faceted service to corporate worship?

6. Its relation to the rest of the worship service. In what way is the liturgical art related to the other parts of the liturgy? An Iconostasis’ purpose, for example, might be perfectly obvious to a congregation, while the dance-like procession and recession of priests may be clear to another congregation. If they are not clear, the risk is a thoughtless routinizing of worship.

Is it theologically clear in a Pentecostal church why dancers with ribbon sticks dance off to the side of the stage? Is the architectural shape of a “meeting house” or of a Byzantine cathedral clearly understood? Is it clear to Baptists why they sing hymns here, here and here in the service, but not here? Is the art perceived in an isolated way, as simply something that is done at X point in the service but whose relation to the rest of the service is undefined or “inconsequential”?

7. Explication. Does the pastor offer any kind of commentary about the art that is done throughout the liturgy? How often does the pastor offer such commentary? Do other church leaders play a role here? Often? Seldom? Never? Do they seek to help the congregation make meaningful connections between the visual art that surrounds them—architecture, paintings, stained glass, banners, furniture arrangement—and the logic of the liturgy as a whole? Do church leaders help make connections between this art and the rest of their lives?

8. Its culture. Does the art that occurs regularly in the service reinforce the existing culture of the church? Does it in any way stretch the church’s culture? Does it stretch them not simply artistically but spiritually, ethically, missionally? Does it challenge or subvert the culture? Or is this a role that more occasional art performs, say in the form of a photographic exhibit of global Christians or the “poor and needy”? In what ways does the art reform or refresh elements of the worship service?

This is a long list of questions, I recognize. Yet they are the kinds of question that are needed to discern the way in which a given practice of liturgical art actually habituates a congregation. The positive point is this: the more intentionally, intensively and integratively a given piece of liturgical art is used by a congregation, the more chance it has to shape that congregation—spiritually, morally, theologically, relationally, etc.

Put otherwise: while a single experience of worship art might be negligible, what is not negligible is a continuous experience of the same kind of worship art over a long period of time.

My award-winning photograph

Movement 1: Amen de la Création, "Luz Ascendente"

"If I knew how to take a good photograph, I'd do it every time."

-- Robert Doisneau

Not since 8th grade when I played the lead role in the musical Androcles and the Lion have I been this excited about an outcome of work I created. Maybe I should include a few arts festival, film festivals, conferences and plays that I either directed or wrote while in Austin. But still. None of these won me an "award." And while it wasn't National Geographic or Annie Leibovitz jurying the work (tho' we didn't win easily), I'm psyched. My photograph won Olivier Messiaen's sixth movement, "Amen du Jugement," from his work for two pianos, Visions de l’Amen, in Duke Divinity School's photography contest.

Messiaen's work is comprised of seven movements, beginning with "Amen of Creation" and ending with "Amen of the Consummation." Seven winning photographs were chosen corresponding to each movement. One of these was chosen as grand prize winner. (That person, Kate Roberts, gets a round trip to the UK for Holy Week 2012, with a total value of $1900--tre cool.) All seven photographs will be professionally printed and mounted for exhibition both in the Great Hall at King’s College, Cambridge and in the Corpus Playroom theater on Maundy Thursday of Holy Week at Cambridge this coming April.

Movement 5: Amen des anges, des saints, du chant des oiseaux, "Avian flight"

The contest is part of a really cool collaboration between Duke and Cambridge. As Jeremy Begbie explains:

"The Duke-Cambridge Collaboration began in Holy Week 2010, when a group of scholars from Duke met with a group from Cambridge at King’s College, Cambridge, to collaborate on a research project centering on artistic engagements with the Passion story. The Consultation ran alongside King’s College’s Easter Festival of Music and Services, and a Duke-led concert was incorporated into the week’s events. A similar collaboration will take place during Holy Week 2012, including the Maundy Thursday performance of Visions de l’Amen that will provide the context for the Illuminating Messiaen exhibition."

Since the competition was open to all current students, alumni, faculty and staff at DDS, potentially, I figure, this would have involved 6,000 people (excluding the dead of course). So I didn't get my award that easily. And because it was an award, I received $100 worth of Amazon glory. Totally killer.

You can read the details here, including the jury process. That's also where you'll find all winning photographs as well as the batch that earned honorary mention. They're all quite beautiful, so I feel pretty lucky to have won, especially because I only was able to devote two afternoons to the project--a Sunday afternoon outing with Erik Newby as jedi friend and one hour at dusk the following day. I don't normally take photographs at their highest resolution possible, so nothing I'd taken previously was suitable.

So in the immemorial words of Tim Gunn, I had to make my two all-too-brief days work.  I've included a few of the other photographs I submitted. At the bottom of this entry is the winner. If you click on a photograph, you can see it in near-full screen size.

Movement 3: Amen de l’agonie de Jésus, "Solitary Figure"

Because my strongest artistic skill is playwriting and because I've done nothing with it over the past six years, I guess you can say that I've been a little bummed out in the artmaking department. On the encouragement of my wife, the lovely Phaedra Jean, I've adopted photography as my new outlet.

The 20th-century American photographer Edward Weston once said:

"If I have any 'message' worth giving to a beginner it is that there are no short cuts in photography." 

It's good advice for all the arts, of course. In my case it encourages me to keep at it, to keep looking, to keep shooting, to keep asking questions from those who know more than I, to keep taking risks and to keep enjoying the experience. Many thanks to the good people who made this all possible (JSB et al).

Movement 6: Amen du jugement, "Fruit on the wire, 125-foot smokestack"

The Conditions for the "Successful" Formation of Worship Art

Ever wonder whether a particular work of worship art, whether musical or visual or poetic or otherwise, is forming a congregation in the way "that it's supposed to"? Ever wonder what it is forming in them? Is it forming them theologically, spiritually, relationally, emotionally or missionally--or in a combination of these and more besides? How would you determine whether it formed the people rightly or fully? What conditions would need to be considered in order to determine an answer to these questions?

Over the past year I've created a handout in order to explore these questions. I've handed it out at various conference in which I've spoken. I thought I'd go ahead and share it here. This will be part one of two entries. Feel free to use it in your own church setting. Whether it's as a pastoral staff or worship team or arts committee, these are the kinds of questions that are useful to ask in order to assess the complex fashion in which the worship arts form a given congregation.

For what it's worth I use the terms "worship" and "liturgy" to mean exactly the same thing in this entry.

A diagnostic to discern how the worship arts form us 

While the arts in the context of corporate worship form us “in their own way,” they should not form us “on their own terms.” They should always form us on the terms of the worship service; or to use Wolterstorff's language, they should always serve the particular purposes and activities of the liturgy. The logic of art must always be seen to serve the logic of the liturgy.

Beyond this, we can say that the worship arts do not rightly form us in any kind of isolated or automatic way. For right formation to take place, the worship arts need to be intentionally integrated into the larger parts of the church's life, and they must be allowed to form dispositions in the congregation over time.

How would we discern whether any given work of liturgical art formed a congregation rightly, that is, according to the purposes for which it was created and to the context in which it is employed? Bearing in mind that we can never fully quantify the work of the Spirit and that our formation often happens unevenly, eight factors can be considered significant here.

 1. Its context. I have in mind here two kinds of context: spatial and chronological. Spatially: Where in the sanctuary does, for instance, visual art occur? Does it occur on all sides? Is it concentrated in any one space? Do different kinds of visual art occur in different spaces, and are these different spaces invested with different meanings?

Chronologically: At what point in the order of service might the visual art become especially useful? Do banners process? Does an ornate wooden cross recess? Is an icon paraded around the congregation for worshipers to kiss? Does a stained glass window or a group of photographs await the congregants as they leave the building? Is the space left “artistically bare” on purpose?

 2. Its use. I can imagine, for starters, four kinds of uses for liturgical art: didactic, performative, “service” and contemplative. If the stained glass windows along the nave of the church are intended to instruct the congregation, what kind of instruction is intended? If a dance is performed prior to the Eucharist, what performative value is sought here—as a celebrative act or a prayerful one or an act intended to symbolize the movement of the people before God?

Some kinds of music are called “service music,” whose purpose is musically to enhance different parts of the service. In an Anglican church I once attended in Vancouver, the music director ended the evening service with around five minutes of music, played either on the piano or the organ. The congregation was expected to sit and listen. The purpose was not to attend to the music as such but rather to create a contemplative space within which a person might prayerfully absorb the contents of the entire service.

 3. Its content. Is the art traditional or contemporary? Is it, say, a William Cowper hymn or a Chris Tomlin psalm? Is it a familiar song or an unfamiliar one, and how often is the congregation exposed to unfamiliar content? Is the song sung in the indigenous tongue or a foreign tongue—English, Latin, Swahili, Spanish? Is the music aesthetically difficult, as with the compositions of Orlando Gibbons, or is it aesthetically simple, as with the modern hymns of Keith and Kristyn Getty?

 4. The participants. Who is doing the art and how is the congregation intended to perceive those who do the art? In the case of a choir, is the choir adult, of one or both genders, of children, or of a combination of these? Is the choir perceived as “doing the work of worship” on behalf of the congregation? Are they perceived as “servants” or “leaders” of the worship? How do they dress? What symbolic meaning is vested in that dress? Is that meaning clearly understood by the congregation? Are artists the performers and the congregation the spectators? Is the congregation perceived to be a constant participant in the worship, as might be the case in certain African-American churches where dancing and clapping are seen as integral to proper worship?

Church planting, Dallas, Texas, March 6-8: A video

Below is what I had to say in a little promo video for the Anglican 1000 Church Planting Summit. I'm super excited to be a part of this gathering. I think it'll be fantastic, not just because I'll be sharing the stage with Scot McKnight, David Breen, Archbishop Robert Duncan and David Roseberry, but because I'll get to meet a whole bunch of folks that I don't normally cross paths with here at Duke University: church planters. (Usually folks around here "get appointed" to a church.) I have the greatest respect and admiration for folks who plant a new church. What a courageous bunch.

A year ago November I spoke to a group of church planters in Chicago (see here and here). This past May I gave a lecture at Regent College's pastors conference (see here and here). In my talk at the Summit I'll be crafting a combination of these two talks and making full use of the audience for my illustrations. This will be a full-body contact talk. So get ready. It'll be a lot of fun, and hopefully I'll be able to share a few things that will serve the real and fundamental needs of church planters.

Register for the conference here.

This event will be taking place immediately after our totally awesome Laity Lodge retreat.

And, yes, I wholeheartedly believe the 1976 Dallas Cowboys were and always will be America's Team.

Charlie Peacock: the piano man who is definitely not a muppet but who will be speaking at our retreat

"All Art House programs promote community, life, and world engagement, helping students become more and more interested in the same things that Jesus is interested in." -- Charlie and Andi


I first met Charlie in the summer of 2003. His book, New Way to be Human, was just published and he was two years away from releasing his jazz cum improvisational music CD titled Love Press Ex-Curio. We had invited him to be our guest performing artist at the 2003 HopeArts Festival.  In this role he led a songwriter's workshop, performed on a Saturday night, along with a virtuosic but a little kooky bass player, and then I interviewed him Sunday morning during the worship service.

The fact is, I first encountered Charlie in the late 1980s. He was much younger then. I was a teenager. This was the time when he co-wrote with folks like Margaret Becker and produced music for The Choir, Twila Paris, Al Green and the just-about-to-be-controversial Amy Grant. (Today he produces work for, oh, small outfits like Switchfoot and The Civil Wars.) It was the heyday for CCM and I drank it down in stacks of cassette tapes. It was also the heyday for rolling up your stonewashed jeans so they fit like a cork screw around your ankles. Charlie was a hero. The fact that he was sitting in a chair across from me in the sanctuary at Hope Chapel was almost too good to be true.

For the record, that was also the summer that Josh Banner met Susanna Childress.

Susanna, aka, Strawberry Angel

Wha?

It was a very good summer, I confess.

What I love and admire about Charlie and his wife, Andi, is their commitment to seek the wellbeing of artists, their whole wellbeing. Never afraid to take risks, they founded Art House America in 1991. For twenty years AHA has invested in the lives of artists with a vision that is so compelling I'm tempted to jealousy, wishing I could do pretty much the same thing.

"Art House America was founded with the vision of nurturing creative artists and anyone looking to explore an artful, faithful life. In addition to promoting the seamless life of Christian discipleship and imaginative living, AHA also provides students with creative nurture, hospitality, and access to sound and exemplary vocational and spiritual counsel. AHA provides mentoring for artists of various art forms, resources that communicate the worth and necessity of all vocations (paid and unpaid)...."

Isn't that good? I think it is. And if one is tempted to think that Charlie and Andi have lived an idyllic life, they will probably be the first to share frankly their many experiences of heartache.

What do they have to offer our Laity Lodge retreat? Years of faithful though not un-costly service, insight into the lives of artists, from Bono to singer-songwriters trying to make a go of their craft (like our favorite Brooke Waggoner), a winsome, unassuming personal aspect, the pursuit of an intelligent approach to art and faith, stories of failure that instead of leading to an embittered cynicism have made them more compassionate to others, and a commitment as a couple to partner together even while respecting each other's distinct calling and gifts.

They'll be a part of our retreat at the Laity Lodge, March 1-4. Why not join us and get an opportunity to know them a bit? See here for all relevant information on the retreat.

Thank God for faithful servants like Charlie and Andi. Thank God for their wisdom and sense of humor. Thank God for the friendship that many of us have received from them. I'm excited to be with them again.

Here is the full meal deal bio note for Charlie.

Charlie Peacock co-founded the independent music company Twenty Ten Music with friend and entrepreneur David Kiersznowski in January 2010.  Peacock serves as producer and Sr. VP of A&R.  Peacock began his artist, songwriting and production career in the early eighties with recordings for A&M, Island, and the Sparrow Label Group. Peacock has played a lead role in creating major hits in three separate decades—most notably Amy Grant's "Every Heartbeat" (1991), Switchfoot's "Dare You to Move" (2002) and The Civil Wars' Grammy-nominated debut album Barton Hollow (2011).  

Charlie is the founder of the label re:think/EMI and former Sr. A&R consultant to Sony/ATV and EMI CMG. Named by Billboard's Encyclopedia of Record Producers as one of the 500 most important record producers in music history, the Grammy Award-winning producer has over 20 Million sales to his credit with a diverse roster of artists ranging from Al Green to Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Switchfoot.  Peacock’s director/producer credits include Any Day Now, Ten Out Of Tenn’s award-winning performance documentary feature, Brooke Waggoner's concert DVD And The World Opened Up, and The Legend Hank Cochran, a documentary tribute in collaboration with BMI and Sony/ATV featuring legendary songwriter Hank Cochran (Patsy Cline, Elvis Presley) and his famous friends: Merle Haggard, Jamey Johnson, Lee Ann Womack, Elvis Costello, Cowboy Jack Clement and others.  

Peacock recently scored original music for the upcoming film Searching For Sonny starring Minka Kelly and the documentary Wrestling for Jesus; and contributed music to Nicole Kidman’s Rabbit Hole, Vampire Diaries, Pretty Little Liars, and the NBC Family Movie Night telefilm franchise soundtracks for The Jensen Project, A Walk In My Shoes, and Change of Plans in association with producer Randy Jackson. Charlie and his wife, Andi Ashworth, are Co-Founders/Executive Directors of Art House America.