[Roundtable] Newbie

[Jefferis Peterson]

On 3/23/09 2:02 PM, "Sarah Hempel Irani" <hempelstudios at gmail.com> wrote:


> Hello Everyone!

> 

> My name is Sarah and I live in Grove City, Pennsylvania. I come here

> from Frederick, Maryland where I lived for eight years. I grew up a

> child of the Navy, but consider myself from Michigan. I lived there

> for six years with my family and went to college in Hillsdale for

> four. I usually identify myself as a sculptor, but these days I am

> doing more house-keeping and thesis-writing than sculpting! I'm

> finishing up a Master's degree in the Humanities, with a focus on

> Medieval and Renaissance Studies. I am very much interested in art and

> the way that it intersects with religion, especially Christianity. I'm

> constantly grappling with questions of faith and art, wondering my

> place as an artist in the Kingdom.

> 

> It is nice to meet the all of you!

> 

> Blessings,

> Sarah


HI Sarah!

Just wanted to share a story.  I was in my senior year of my M Div program
at Wesley Theological Seminary, and since I was full of my needed credits,
my wife encouraged me to take a course on the Arts in Worship, taught by
Catherine Kapikian (
https://www.wesleyseminary.edu/events/ID.38/event_detail.asp). It turned out
to be one of the best courses I took at seminary. Aside from the fact of the
great pressure to memorize and learn and analyze facts, doctrines, theology,
and the like, the stress of constant reading and study made seminary
challenging if not always enjoyable. Catherine had us keep journals, and
during the course, I got to experiment with art (I had almost been an art
major in college, but they did not teach art, they taught ³feelings²...)
And not only was part of my creativity unleashed, I found it liberating in
the sense that with art, part of the risk of creativity is the necessity of
failed projects... Things that did not turn out in the way you hoped. But
like grace, your projects could fail, but it didn¹t mean you were a failure.
It was actually and act of faith to try to create, whether or not it worked
out. The process was part of the joy.

I¹m probably not saying it really well, but there were few other realms of
learning where such freedom to fail was a necessary part of the learning
process. Creativity can¹t be kept on a leash and can¹t be saved from all
risk.  In the end, I did a painting of the Creation, which was my own but
abstract expressionism like some of Kochuska¹s (sp?)... My parents didn¹t
understand it, so I gave it to Catherine. She still has it.

I¹ve developed since a theology that creativity is part of the image of God
in humanity. In fact the first task given to Adam in the Garden was a
creative act of ³naming the animals.² That was before tilling and even
before reproducing ! :-)

Jeff 
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com


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