This piece illustrates Noah’s obedience to God as He spares only Noah, his family, and a pair of each species through the flood. Noah’s faith is proven not in vain when God’s promise of never destroying the earth again with a flood is displayed by a rainbow. The tree beneath the rainbow represents Noah’s family and God keeping His promise to the coming generations.
Amanda Nichols seen during the reception for her BFA exhibit at UofL.
written by Julie Gross
The great thing about finishing an art degree is that you get to show the public the results of all your hard earned efforts. Sojourner Amanda Nichols finished the Bachelor of Fine Arts (BFA) program for Fall 2011 at the University of Louisville. She is part of the BFA Thesis Exhibition that is currently on view at the Hite Art Institute galleries located in Schneider Hall. She was also given the William Fischer Outstanding Student Award for 2-D Studio Art which is a senior project grant given to BFA candidates to complete their senior show.
Amanda paints beautiful ruins. She concentrates on the cracks and peels that naturally happen to surfaces over time and magnifies this deterioration in her large-scale paintings. Amanda cleverly employs the trompe l’oeil (deceive the eye) technique leaving the viewer curious as to if the cracks are real or not. They are and they aren’t. Although her overall composition is an illusion of decay, the paint is built up in such a way that it only adds to the realistic imagery. In her statement she says, “I am exploring the purpose of paint which alters our perception of a surface, and the temporality of paint which is subject to decay like all things in nature.” Initially, the UofL Art Department faculty wanted her to paint her creations directly onto the wall for the exhibit, but being as though she only had about a week’s time frame, she choose to show her original canvases instead. However, it leaves her with an idea to explore in the future.
Congratulations Amanda!
The Fall 2011 BFA Thesis Exhibition is at the Hite Art Institute Galleries in Schneider Hall on the Belknap Campus/UofL and will be on view Dec. 1st through the 21st. It is free and open to the public.
“The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time.” – Genesis 6:5
Evil had so entered the lives of men that not just the thoughts, but even the prelude to the thought was wicked. Our sin nature is so saturated in our being that it’s impossible for us to live without always fighting it.
Thank the Lord for his grace and grievance towards us, for the pain that his heart feels (6:6) when we go against his desires.
Inspired by Genesis 5
God created individuals like Adam and Eve and you and me, but God’s creation also includes his plans for how individuals all relate to one another from generation to generation. God is sovereign over everything from the genes in our DNA to our family lineages all the way back to the beginning of time.
Based on Genesis 4:1-26
“What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.” – Ecclesiastes 1:9
“God is doing everything so that Cain can repent. Why? Sin is man curved in on himself. Sin is always choosing yourself over God and others, placing yourself at the center. Sin determines that even when you do good things – even when you help the poor, enter into friendships, go to church, try to obey the Ten Commandments – it’s always about you. Sin determines that you relate to God and other people only in such a way and only to the degree that it furthers your agenda – doing things the way you think they should be done, giving you the self-image you want. As soon as a relationship with God or other people becomes costly, we’re out of it. Why? Because even when it looks like we’re serving God and other people, we’re really serving ourselves. That’s how insidious sin is.
“Repentence gets to root of that. It means you get out of yourself. You get out of the center. You get the favor of God and you begin to heal the blindness and hardness and the pride that sin brings into your life. Therefore, there is nothing more important than repentence. Nothing.
“Look what Cain does. He is weeping, ‘My punishment is more than I can bear!’ There is a kind of sorrow, a kind of weeping, that is just as self-absorbed as the sin you are crying about. Cain is sorry for the consequences of the sin, but not for the sin itself.” – Tim Keller
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.” – Genesis 3:6-7
With their backs to each other, hiding their nakedness with fig leaves from themselves, each other and God, the piece tries to capture the moment after Adam and Eve take the forbidden fruit, represented here by an apple.
“To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’
“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.”
- Genesis 3:17-18
This image pairs a traditional farm tool against the image of thorns to symbolize the cursed nature of work and our relationship to the land. Though work was created as a gift from God, after sin entered the world, work became fraught with struggle.
“When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.” – Genesis 3:6
The scene of Adam and Eve together with the snake and the forbidden fruit is one of the most pervasive images through western art. This makes sense given that it marks one of the biggest turning points in human history.
MAKE ARTWORK FOR THE SERMON NOTES COVER
During the Genesis series, we’ll be making a new image each week for the cover. If you’re interested in making one of the images, write mwinters@sojournchurch.com and send a couple sample images of your work.
By Mark Skelton
A few years ago I happily discovered a Blog entitled Diary of an Arts Pastor: A diary of ruminations and happenings of an arts pastor who never wanted to be a pastor and never thought he could be an artist. This titled resonated with me. I found David Taylor’s thought-provoking blog entries about the intersection of Christianity and the arts to be inspiring. He also had an insane beard! I shared the blog with my wife, and we both found ourselves checking it daily so as to read his latest entry. I remember reading through old blog posts and thinking, “This guy needs to write a book.” Apparently I was not alone in my thinking, and while he did not write a book, he did compile/edit a book and then contribute to it.
For the Beauty of the Church: Casting a Vision for the Arts, is the product of a symposium that Taylor put together back in 2008. Several of the speakers (Andy Crouch, Eugene Peterson, Lauren Winner and Jeremy Begbie) from the event with various backgrounds contribute chapters to Taylor’s book. Taylor and his counterparts seek to show that the arts and artists are needed in the Church.
It has been my experience in reading books about theology and art that the focus tends to be more on the support of these and/or the relationship between the two, rather than a more practical “how to.” For the Beauty of the Church is different in that it shows us how to engage the arts and shepherd artists in the local church. Taylor gives us clear vision and direction for creating art programs within the church and making the arts a normal part of church life. All the basics are covered: Andy Crouch speaks about the gospel and creating culture, John Witvliet addresses art serving corporate worship, Eugene Peterson shares how he has learned from artists as a pastor, Barbara Nicolosi writes on the shepherding of artists, and Jeremy Begbie casts a hopeful vision for the future. These chapters work together to provide an excellent variety of ideas and suggestions for cultivating art in the church.
No matter what your background is— artist, pastor, church member, art lover, I would recommend giving this book a read.
Very few images have been made throughout history trying to imagine Adam and Eve before their encounter with the serpent and the forbidden fruit. I don’t believe Christians spend enough time trying to imagine Eden, or heaven. This image is an opportunity to imagine what life could be like without the entrance of sin into God’s creation.
Sojourn Visual Arts is an arts group growing out of the ministry of Sojourn Community Church in Louisville, KY.
We want to equip the artists within our local church with the knowledge, skills, materials, and opportunities needed to create artwork that will express their faith, serve the church, and renew culture.
© Copyright 2008-2012 Sojourn Visual Arts, a ministry of Sojourn Community Church
