The Heart Grows

You can quote me :) "The only true failure is quitting." jolabreeze For some reason, our human society uses primarily quantitative measurement for success and not qualitative. Failure usually means that numbers are bad (low or high depending on what is bad). I think, in part, people do this because it is easier. Easier does not mean better it just means... less effort. Also, people do it because they believe it to be objective. We all know that objectivity is the voice of reason and god. Objectivity says that if two boys love the same girl then we should cut the girl in half so each boy can have a piece. (sure this is oversimplification but this blog is about success and failure and not about subjectivity and objectivity) I think we need to (at least begin to) redefine success and failure. How many artists have never had a showing but create beautiful pieces? How many authors have seen only rejection because their work cannot be marketed well not because it isn't well c...

I have been involved in archaeology around Atlantic Canada since 1993. Though I don't have anything beyond an undergrad I have logged a lot of field time and when I started, was the youngest crew chief in the region. I have worked in the lab, participated in four excavations, and a crap load of surveys. Lately I have been delving into the photographic recording of the archeaological process and artifacts. I have also started to figure out what it means to be an advocate for archeaology and the generations before us. "If you don't learn from the past, you are doomed to repeat it." Regardless of mistakes or successes, if we don't learn and grow then we will simply become stagnant.

I know this io9 article is about shelters for the apocalypse . But I think it is a beginning for shelters for homeless people here and now. Wouldn’t that be a great exhibit. A group of artists design personal shelters. Do two copies. Sell one to raise money. Give one away to a homeless person. Even do it as an instillation piece. No more cops giving a guy a hard time but now he is art and can live there. Okay, if you haven't read the article, go back and read it now. Or at least skim it. Ready? Lets continue. Sure, there are implications and complications. How does this solve the problem? How do we as artist make sure we are not simply using someone who has no home? These are the questions we need to wrestle with. We need to be torn and broken. I think that questing process makes us better artists. This quest is active. We don't get so bogged in the question that we become inactive. The thing is, this shelter art could be a start of something. Who knows where it would go? Isn...

When did “The Church” become like “Big Oil?” You know what I mean. We say things like, “I wish ‘The Church’ would get its act together and get on with the Jesus stuff,” and “‘the Church’ needs to feed the hungry and help the poor,” or “‘The Church’ is not doing what it is supposed to.” We have turned taken the term “the Church” and put it on the same level as “big oil.” Are they both big faceless corporations bent on keeping the status quo? In the eyes of we railers against the bs bastion, it is now “the Church,” the monolith that does nothing, the corporation of christian culture, the mega marketed st*rbucks Mega-Church. The Mega-Church sounds like a Power Rangers villain. Sure, everyone wants to slag the mega-church. How can a gathering of over a thousand people be church?How can it be community? How can you connect? Its not what the early church did. I’ve travelled a bit and have attended a prominent mega-church for a time. I am sure you know it. The pastor was relieved from duty ...

I have been on 6 short term missions trips; helped set up 6 more; have 10 to 20 friends that are either currently longterm in the field or have been (and I miss them all). Added together, the time overseas is more then a year. I live for it and would like to live in one of these countries. Right now, it is not what I am to do. I’m to stay in North America and encourage people to see, feel, act—to love. Today, I am thinking that short term is anything less then 2 years. To begin this blog, I want to first put a few things on the table: all believers are part of one Body (Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12); believers are to love one another and that shows our true colours (John 13:35); there is a chain of mission that is important—there are people that send and people that go and we are all important (Romans 10: 14-17). Here it is, short term missions is about connection, vision, and experience (i think all of these are part of love). First, the short term effort needs to be connected into lon...

I am writing this blog for the purposes of encouraging and teaching. It is primarily aimed at Believers and Followers of Jesus. Let's face it, there will also be some ranting going on. I read a lot. I watch movies and TV. I would rather watch a good hard R film then ever watch High School Musical or any other POS that goes on the big screen that is more money then art. I like beer and pipe tobacco. I definitely love my brothers and sisters in the Body, but like all family, we do have difficulties. Above all I love Jesus and endeavour to follow Him and be in Him and do all things through Him. Fact 1. God is amazing and all powerful . He made the universe. Let's not argue about how He did it (over what appears to be Billions of years or in six days) we will simply say He did it. Fact 2. God is intimate and personal . The creator of the universe wants to spend time with us. Fact 3. Humans are finite and personal . People suck. People who love Jesus suck. We just happen to love Jes...

Re-reading the last few posts I realize they are on the heavy side of life and art. What can I say? I do have a strong sense of responsibility and an above average sense of global scope that is not tempered by too much cynicism. I think people can make a difference and affect change. I think that more people working together to affect change have exponentially more ability then the individual. I really admire guys like Chihuly who encourage teams of artists to work together to accomplish something. It is a rare thing to have artists working together. To work well, everyone needs to be humble. One of the few other places you see artist working together is on the movie set and sometimes on the TV lot. The horror stories form these places are when an actor goes all diva or a studio exec forces a vision based on money and not on truth, beauty, and art. Personally, I would always rather work as a team then as the lone ranger. It may not be easier but it is ultimately better.

There seems to be a stream of rationale through the artist community that art is for art sake, that destruction is as creative as creation, and that we may express anything as long as it can be draped in the creative. Too often, this feels like we, the artist, abdicating responsibility. Art should not be self-centered. The point is for the piece to be viewed and experienced by others. Could one say that self-centered art is not art because, by its nature, art is other-centered? No one walks through this life without responsibility. No one walks truly alone. We are not islands to ourselves but a community or at the very least a community of communities. There are more then 6 Billion of us on this blue marble hurtling through space. There are those who have no one to speak for them; women and children trafficked as slaves for drudgery and sexual exploitation; victims of genocide like the Karen people in Burma; the disenfranchised trapped on the streets of any major city in North America...