I’m A J.J. Abrams Geek

“Mystery is the catalyst for imagination.”

“Mystery is more important than knowledge.”

“No community is best served when only the elite have control.”

I am a big J.J. Abrams fan. For those of you who are un-initiated, he is the creator behind Lost, Alias (my all-time favorite tv show), Mission Impossible III and the new rebooted Star Trek. He’s also coming out with a new movie called Super 8 this weekend. While this talk was given several years ago, interestingly enough, he gives us a glimpse of where this movie comes from. No doubt, he knows how to tell a story and communicate truth about mystery: about relationships, emotion, action, memory and all the things that stir our hearts. He knows that it isn’t the big explosions that make a great movie. Instead, it is the investment we make in the characters beforehand that makes us care about the explosion that creates a compelling story. I heard him give this TED talk a while back and was fascinated. He is discussing what it is about mystery that speaks to us and how he goes about his creative process – which all of us can do. Of course if you’ve read my blog at all for any length of time, you know that where art collides with a heart is one of the Intersections I love to explore. How artists create is absolutely fascinating for me and this TED talk is one of the best.

Why I Love Art- it connects

(The Why I Love Art series, pt. 6)

Have you ever watched an episode of Behind The Actor’s Studio? It’s an interview where artists talk about their art and how they got to where they are today. If you’ve seen the show at all, you know there are three recurring themes among most of the actors who appear on the show – they come from a broken home, they have at least one tattoo and they’ve struggled with an addictive/destructive behavior. Interesting that, like Munch whom I wrote about earlier, for some reason creatives tend to be pain-filled and self-destructive.

I find this video fascinating  and illustrates what I love about artists. Artists identify their pain and articulate it for the rest of us. One reason I enjoy the show is that actors, of all people, are in touch with the condition of their heart. It’s part of their job to know what’s going on in there and to be able to channel it to touch the rest of us. They want to move us emotionally, connecting us with a character or a theme, so that we engage with their message. At their core, actors, like other artists are just communicators. They are dying to tell us something. Sometimes literally.

This video is the first of 5 parts and is about 10 minutes long. It really gets going at about the 2 minute mark and if you have time, I recommend watching it in its entirety.  In it Angelina Jolie describes her early years and how she became, not just an actress or celebrity, but an artist. Um, not surprisingly, it’s a shocking and tumultuous path.

As a Christ-follower, I’m interested in the condition of the human heart and soul and how we carry truth to those places. And is she ever in touch with those places. While AJ may say things that are quite mind-blowing for those of us out in the ‘burbs’, her brutal honesty and utter comfort with her pain and past is amazing to see. She is clearly a talented and charismatic communicator. By the way, this is just before the Brangelina hullaballo and just before she seemingly took on über-celebrity, not-quite-human status. Here she is just an Academy award-winning actress with a fascinating past. Interestingly enough, later in the interview she describes how she found her first son (who is all that she has at this point) in Cambodia.

I watch this and realize that so many people live in such a different world from me. Yet I want to connect with them right where they are. Not being stunningly beautiful or a famous movie star, I walked away from this video wondering how can I communicate the truth from inside my soul in a way that others understand and find compelling?

Artists have a clue about the answer to this question, and it’s one of the reasons I love art.

Why I Love Art – it’s beautiful

The Dessert - Harmony in Red by Henri Matisse

(Why I Love Art series, pt 5)

I, biology major that I was, took a modern art class in college. To this day I couldn’t tell you why I did, as I’m about as non-artistic, i.e. linear a thinker as you will find. I was definitely out of my element and more than a bit argumentative. (Jackson Pollack and splatter art? If a 3 year old can do it, is it high art? Discuss.) I found it fascinating however,  and one of the most enjoyable classes I’ve ever taken. I loved learning about how modern artists, those who came along after the invention of photography, were freed from the requirement of rendering pictures that were realistic. They didn’t have to capture a moment the way it actually was. They could begin to play with it. They were freed to express what ever it was they wanted to, pretty much in any way they wanted to. Art became about saying something, not just about capturing an accurate visual picture of someone or something.

Therefore we got impressionism, pointillism, dadaism, cubism, etc. All are bendings of reality. And can we be honest for a moment…sometimes modern art is ugly. Not all ugly art is bad art, but sometimes artists of minimal talent get by on shock value, rather than ability.

Maybe here is where I show my lack of artistic expertise, but I think it’s ok for art to be beautiful. Not that it has to be, but when it is… it’s just beautiful.

I love the work of Henri Matisse, a French artist from the early 20th century. He used color and shapes to create art that makes the observer smile and want to engage his work. Above is The Dessert – Harmony in Red. It works for me. I want to look at this painting. I like how it makes me feel. I like how it looks. Because Matisse created something that is easy for me to look at, he has my attention. What artist or communicator doesn’t want that?

Most people who view art aren’t artists. They don’t have the technical vocabulary or education to deconstruct a work. They just know what they like and what speaks to them.

Maybe the lesson for modern communicators, and that is what artists are, is that one’s message doesn’t have to offend to captivate. Shock has its place, but it ultimately can’t compensate for lack of talent.  At the end of the day, isn’t art about engaging with an audience?

And maybe, just maybe, the innate longing for beauty that resides within each one of us is a lingering fingerprint of the ultimate artist and beauty-lover who made us?

Gen. 1:27a So God created man in his own image...

Eccl. 3:11 He has made everything beautiful in its time.

Why I Love Art – it evokes

(Pt. 3 in the Why  I Love Art Series)

Being evoked is different from being provoked in that provoking is pushing, evoking is pulling. It refers to drawing forth something. Bringing it out.

Edvard Munch’s The Scream evokes a response from us, pulling something from inside of us. Loneliness, angst, despair. A rush of emotion so strong we just have to let it out before it consumes us.

Like Nirvana’s Teen Spirit, it’s the perfect marriage of medium and message. The guitar riff, the contorted lyrics, the way the song makes a listener feel – we know instinctively that song is about anger. With The Scream we have the colors, the shapes, the facial expression, the dramatic brush strokes – even without an art degree we know exactly what this is about. It’s about a man having a moment where it all feels like it’s falling apart. And no one seems to care or notice.

We’ve all been there, those moments where life just makes us want to scream and release our pain from the gut. It is why this painting is so iconic. It pulls and evokes a response from us.

At their core, artists of all types – paint, music, drama, writing,  speaking – are communicators. They are trying to say something to us and to pull something from us. A response, an emotion, a thought, interaction, change. Edvard Munch pulls off a masterpiece with this work. No one looks at it and says, “Eh, whatever.” We react. Which is precisely his goal.

It is a shame that Munch never created a painting showing a resolution of this moment: where peace, joy and love overtake the darkness in our souls. This is why Jesus came – to meet us in these moments, walk us through them and bring healing from them.

John 16:33 In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.

Col. 1:27b … Christ in you, the hope of glory.

Why I Love Art – it unsettles

(The Why I Love Art series, pt. 2)

Job 16:16 ”My face is flushed from weeping, And deep darkness is on my eyelids..

Pr. 15:13 A joyful heart makes a cheerful face, But when the heart is sad, the spirit is broken.

Self-portrait with cigarette by Edvard Munch

Some art should make you think, wince even. An artist has something to say and he’s trying to get his point across in a way that grabs your attention and emotions. Sometimes the strategy is to make you feel a bit unsettled.

Edvard Munch, painter of The Scream and perhaps Norway’s most famous artist, unsettles me at times. This is a self-portrait that I saw in person a few months ago. I admit it has haunted me. Here is a man, looking out at us from a deep personal darkness. He’s not happy. I tried to walk away a few times, but my eyes were drawn back to it. Back to him. What is he feeling? Thinking? What are the universal experiences and emotions he is trying to share?

Self-portraits are supposed to do more than just share an image – they are supposed to tell us something about the person. Look at the profile pictures on Facebook. They are often more than just a photo but an impression of the person’s personality. Munch suffered various bouts with mental illness, depression and addiction. Could he be telling something of what it feels like to be trapped inside himself? The surrounding darkness?

Munch did several self-portraits, revealing a common weakness of artists – self-centeredness. But he also did what all great artists do. He channeled his pain, expressing it through his medium, so that we feel it with him. In doing so, he turns his pain into a gift, helping us realize that we aren’t alone. Everyone has probably felt something like this: lonely, haunted and almost begging for someone on the outside to notice and sit with us for a while.

Sometimes it’s good to be unsettled in that it prompts our thoughts and conversations to go places we never would have considered otherwise.

For instance…Am I really looking at the faces of those in my relational circles? Am I really seeing what is underneath the surface and behind the eyes? Am I observant enough to catch the subtle signals that everyone gives off, revealing something of the condition of their heart? And, am I brave enough to enter into it with them by asking how they are doing?

Why I Love Art – it unites

(The Why I Love Art series, pt. 1)

Bridal Voyage in Hardanger by Tiedeman/Gude

Recently I traveled to Oslo and got to visit the amazing National Gallery there. The collection they have is breathtaking, and this painting is one of its prized pieces. Never seen it? It’s called The Bridal Voyage In Hardanger.

This painting affects Norwegians the way a Norman Rockwell affects Americans.  For a Norwegian, it’s more than just a pretty painting, but an embodiment of what it means to be Norwegian and the pride their nationality evokes. They are a rugged outdoorsy kind of people and the visual of that has a uniting effect. I’ve read that some people even re-enact the scene for their weddings!

How does an artist create a picture that becomes more than just something one looks at, but touches the soul?

Here’s one of Rockwell’s Freedom series entitled Freedom From Fear. I look at this and have a similar reaction. It’s obviously from a different time than what I live in, painted during WWII. I’m sure it spoke particularly to the generation in which it was created, but what parent doesn’t want to tuck their kids in at night, knowing they are happy, healthy and all is safe? I can totally relate. This visual unites me in a special way with other Americans and other parents.

Freedom From Fear by Norman Rockwell

This painting is one in a series of four that all capture something of the American spirit. Freedom From Want, Freedom Of Speech and Freedom To Worship are the other three and if you are interested, you should google them.

Americans are wired for freedom. I think Norwegians are wired for nature. Those are big truths with big implications if I want to communicate with people from those places. Knowing what people are wired for and united by is something artists seem to have a knack for, and I admit, I’m fascinated.