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I’m working on a *cino-related project with people who are interested in the possibility of designing a school or institute for Christians in the arts. As we’ve been talking with other artists in New York, The Northwest and here in Chicago, we’re starting to realize that our project involves some new or uncommon ideas about pedagogy. It would seem logical to give Christian artists more classes on what it means to be a Christian artist in the history of art. But what Christian artists need is not more theory about Christian art, but practice in Christian art-making.

But maybe artists are not the only ones who need this. Maybe we wouldn’t have such a gap between “artists” and other people if our education system included more of the types of learning and discovery that artists rely on for their craft. As I’m thinking about my own education and why school was both exciting and frustrating, I think it might have to do with the fact that our education system deals too much in theory and not enough in gymnasium type learning. Even the practices that are supposed to evaluate our learning (writing papers, taking tests) are theory-based in our school system. So then you get people coming out of college who don’t know how to balance a budget or start their own business or live out their Christian theories outside of a Christian college. I understand that some of these things just have to be learned after college, but I wonder if schools are actually preparing people to learn these things properly. Most schools tend to move people toward a certain well-defined professional field but do not have enough focus on teaching the stamina and faith that is necessary for pursuing a dream (which sometimes has no precedent in the current economic system) past its ten failures all the way to ultimate success. This process of going after something invisible is something artists have learned to do, but I would think it’s important for others to learn this process already in schools too. What are some projects or characteristics of our current school system that do teach people this “artistic” way of living?

Thanks for that grant, but I’m still not satisfied. Are students really apathetic, or are they just passionate about the wrong things? I think, for example, many teenagers are passionate about ‘getting laid’ as often as possible. I don’t think that’s the sort of thing you’re trying to cultivate.

I’m no expert on teenage culture, in fact I have almost no contact with teenagers, but from what little i have seen, it also seems to me that lots of teenagers are passionate in their quest to lack passion. There seems to be a burning desire for non-desire, because getting too excited about anything isn’t cool. Unless you’re a material girl and the subject is shoes and handbags.

So, when you’re asking students to be passionate about literature and films, aren’t you asking them to give up their passionate quest for coolness?

Not so long ago I was a high-school teenager very much like the ones you’re talking about. And I’ve done a decent amount of thinking about this sort of thing because beyond being an Art/Philosophy double major at a Christian college, I have also been a camp counselor the past two summers at a summer camp for 3-9 graders. During that time I was given the greatest complement I believe I have ever received. One of my fellow counselors, someone whose opinion I respect very much, said that I was the most passionate person he has ever met. This has stuck with me since; and the more I look at my life, the more I see it.

From looking around, (at mine and other colleges, high-schools, etc) I see an alarming trend of apathy: people (especially students) who just don’t care about what happens. They don’t really think that they will get anywhere in life so they live life going through the motions without actually becoming passionate or putting themselves into what they are doing. One of my art professors told us about one of his colleagues at another institution: simply stated, he saw a drastic difference between students from the Christian institution that he used to teach at compared to the students at the secular institution he is now at. He noticed that while the students at his current secular university are technically and theoretically more skilled they lack the passion, the enthusiasm, which his Christian students had. While capable of producing much better work than his former students these students simply slacked off and produced lackluster work. He concluded that, from the student?s attitudes, they had simply given up. They had nothing driving them to succeed.

What has always drawn me to the arts was their ability to let me respond. I have always loved learning but what keeps me constantly learning and searching is not the love of learning. It is what I can do with it. When I learn I put that knowledge to use and can respond through my art and through papers and such. I have always despised research papers on their own, but when I can respond, put my own insights to use, I enjoy it. What really makes me keep going, in education and in life, is that I can respond. I think that Art/Artistic Education gave me a venue where what I said was not simply subject to a grade, but rather, it transcended grades and became involved in a dialog with those around me. It gave me a chance to reply to the world around me, without the pressures of purely objective evaluation. Though it can be harder to evaluate, as Norbert emphasized, I believe that it is the best way to get a student passionate about what they are working on. An artistic/gymnasium approach to education involves this sort of response style learning where craft and polish are emphasized.

Maybe I was the weird artsy kid, Dan, but I always longed for connections in high school, and college for that matter, and being involved with other people that cared about me and what I was saying was what coolness was about.

(Sorry about the long post… I tried to keep it brief, really.)

Hi Grant,

Thanks for your thoughts!

In England art is seen as a ‘non-vocational’ course or subject. Not very enlightening perhaps, but it does show the value, or lack of it, ascribed to art and arts courses. The ‘scientific’ education is seen to prepare students for the world of work more thoroughly.

A few years ago, I completed the thesis for my Master of Philosophy in art education, (year7-11) for which I argued not for an artistic education, but a narrative-based one. Simply put, the research tag line was ‘art isn’t created in a vacuum, so shouldn’t be taught in one.’

The so-called scientific or vocational education that we all received, was supposedly the domain of verifiable, measurable knowledge. A narrative education on the other hand is based on the creation of context, ergo meaning, for the taught subject. There were two thrusts to this, one was a personal narrative (identity) and the other cultural narrative (activity).

Personal narrative works in such a way so that the student knows their place within the christian tradition or story. Whilst in-dwelling this story, they are able to critique the historical cultural narrative, judging the artwork as something which augments or erodes their own story. In narrative terms if something erodes the tradition ie undermines it, you could talk along the lines of plot conflict etc. Redemption would be seen as plot resolution.

Art in its context, as opposed to scientific isolation of the subject for study, reveals a dialogue with other artifacts such as poetry, music and literature. From this we can glean the visual or cultural metaphors utilised to make apparent the values, mores or worldview if you like of any cultural movement, be it Impressionism, or in the terms of my thesis, Symbolism (sometimes called Synthetism) espoused by Gauguin, Mallarme, Debussy and the likes, oh and not forgetting Baudelaire!

This context allows the christian student to understand the cultural dynamic behind opposing or complimentary worldviews. This does away with, I think the concern over theory versus practice, as the student is weighing up repeatedly the practice of others and the aesthetic code they used to indwell their values/views. The hope is that they will see the aesthetic codes used by previous generations of christian artists and bring them alive in new and exciting ways for their generation and thus develop new ways, genres even of say painting.

My assessors, of course, weren’t happy with my conclusions. Both allied themselves with the scientific approach to educating students and were appalled at my ‘extravagant claims’ for education!! Both were christians!

Peacefully Yours,

Geoff

I worked at an art store for five years. In that time I talked with a lot of students, professors, and, of course, with our store manager. Almost invariably the problem was not that students were getting too much theory but that they were getting none at all. It was entirely practice. The focus was on feeling; technique was something of a dirty word. To my managers way of thinking, students had a ton of passion, or at least in the art world it was fashionable to have a lot of fiery passion, but they were utterly inept at expressing themselves. They had attached their wagon to their emotions; it was a wild ride but it didn’t go anywhere. In short, their art was boring, unoriginal, and lacked creativity. Ironically, in manager’s experience, the most interesting, original, and creative artwork was done by those who were most thoroughly schooled in technique.

All this is to say that perhaps overemphasis on theory is a problem for Christian art in particular.

I want to respond to geoff from UK. But I just wanted to say first that I think teenagers cannot be caricatured in such a way that they only are passionate about sex. Though, when I suggested that maybe school keeps students’ passions outside the classroom, sexuality is specifically what I was thinking of. There is definitely a link between sexuality and this thing we’re calling passion. It is desire, longing. There is something “sexual” about this. Or maybe, better put, there is something passionate that is expressed in our sexuality. I think the idea of passion has been getting further and further reduced to something like “sexuality”. A relevant aside: recently, I was reading lots of books on microbiology and physiology and I found descriptions of the cell, how it absorbs other particles into itself, to be strangely sexual. The function of the cell, which is the basis of human biological life, is characterized by a desire to take what is outside itself into itself. Indeed, this motion has very real connections to such things as sex and eating. It is the very motion of life itself. And I think desire is this kind of foundational feeling. And if it is so foundational, it should be felt as we are learning in the classroom.

Hi Anton,

I can’t say that I think too much theory is a problem in Christian art education, because I don’t know of a place in England, or Europe for that matter, where Christians are taught art from a christian perspective.

Most christian artists I know have been through a non-christian art college! Most faculties are seduced by the postmodern evasion of a commitment to anything and a rejection of Christianity in particular. I run a group for artist in Bristol and I don’t know of a christian who has expressed their faith to their tutors, that has not been summarily dismissed as holding naive and arrogant assumptions about life and reality!

Many students are left to their own devices to create ‘original and authentic’ works of art or installations. One was told not to expect any help from her tutor, as this would mean that her work was not origina,l but woud be contaminated by thoughts which were not her own. This seems to me to be an excuse for an easy life! So there is little theoretical content from this point of view and they certainly don’t get any theoretical or practical training from attending church.

Either way, they don’t receive an education of any kind, but postmodernism in my local art college reveals a lack of commitment to education and the students.

This leads to a banal art, that has little or no cultural dynamic, i.e. it doesn’t engage with contemporary culture in a meaningful way and is simply a product of self-expression without the tools produced by an aesthetic/artisitic education. [b:587b6c39d4]Christian art colleges should be the focus of a new mission field needing church patronage.[/b:587b6c39d4] But because we see little worth in this for the evangelistic activity of saving souls, we don’t adequately fund it. Not that I’m saying art’s only worth is evangelistic, as I don’t think that! Simply put, we think of mission in very narrow terms and don’t see it in an wholistic, cultural way.

Geoff

I want to respond to geoff from UK. But I just wanted to say first that I think teenagers cannot be caricatured in such a way that they only are passionate about sex. Though, when I suggested that maybe school keeps students’ passions outside the classroom, sexuality is specifically what I was thinking of. There is definitely a link between sexuality and this thing we’re calling passion. It is desire, longing. There is something “sexual” about this. Or maybe, better put, there is something passionate that is expressed in our sexuality. I think the idea of passion has been getting further and further reduced to something like “sexuality”. A relevant aside: recently, I was reading lots of books on microbiology and physiology and I found descriptions of the cell, how it absorbs other particles into itself, to be strangely sexual. The function of the cell, which is the basis of human biological life, is characterized by a desire to take what is outside itself into itself. Indeed, this motion has very real connections to such things as sex and eating. It is the very motion of life itself. And I think desire is this kind of foundational feeling. And if it is so foundational, it should be felt as we are learning in the classroom.

I think the problem Grant is that passion now only seems to have a sexual connotation, but I noticed looking through my Young’s Concordance that passion is used three times in the scriptures (twice in Acts and once in James) and they are all using the word in the context of ‘suffering’. There is also a French description or metaphor of orgasm, if I can mention stuff like that on such hallowed pages, as [i:6d1a64766f]petit mort[/i:6d1a64766f], the little death, but that is just an aside.

When studying for my first degree, I was attracted to art history because the senior lecturer had such a [i:6d1a64766f]passion[/i:6d1a64766f] for his subject, it was infectious. I think in the educational context that is a very positive characteristic for a lecturer to have about their subject and it is communicated to the students so strongly, that it inspires them in their work. We should be able to do this with the things we teach, but as Christians we should also be able to point the artist to the notion of suffering. Not only the passion of the Christ, but the passion of the disciple.

Peace and Passion,

Yeah, passion is suffering. But I think what I’m looking for in education is desire and that’s what I mean when I say passion. Desire, i.e. ambition, to be a part of something great. Though we typically see “passion” in artists, I think the great scientists have it as well and it should therefore be taught that way. Part of what I was trying to suggest with my tidbit about studying the cell is that I always met science with an attitude of indifference in high school but what has happened now is that science has been put in some kind of framework for me so that it has become exciting again and I have become passionate about it.

Aaron Reppmann has written an article that is highly relevant to this discussion and explains better than me what I’m trying to get at, I think. I haven’t read all of it yet, but you can find it at http://www.dordt.edu/publications/pro_rege/. The article is called “the Truth of Love and the Love of Truth: A Christian Plato-Scholar Stops to Look at What He’s Doing, and Why”