Etching "Eagle" - black ink on yellowish paper - ca. 100x45 cm

" I just came back from an international gathering of christian oriented artists in Brussels (May 18-20,2007).
The event... was titled 'Imagine! ...the potentials! Dream, imagine and inspire!' and hosted by the agile, 'Europeanized Americans' Jim and Anne Mills (founders of Creative Arts Europe and fostering the arts under youths dating back to 1976). About 120 participants from 12 different nations represented a vast array of artistic disciplines.



Steve Turner

The happening was specifically designed 'out of the box', as yes, there was one key-note speaker invited, the journalist and writer Steve Turner but even his role was merely to speak and trigger off (alongside of other talk-session moderators) an improvisational, on-the-spot exchange between the international and divers participants.
Surrounding the gathering sessions (smaller groups of special interests; themes could be selected and joined on personal interest) where conference features like the Media Room (where cd's and dvd's where showed of participating artists) and a Dream Cafe. Introductions at the start and closings of the days where spiced up with little concerts and dance pieces.
Enjoying the event unfolding, and experiencing its occuring quality levels, make me feel sad for a moment, that this an priviliged opportunity was 'wasted' from a media broadcasting point of view, in not having been covered by some journalists of art interest. It's the kind of kicking happening that would make a great media reportage. As for instance, filming the event format, the moderated discussion from the hall's audience with the twelf-person strong panel of senior artists on the stage in front, created a highly unique momentum. An all too rare sort of 'creative infested' conference dynamics as only artists are capable of! A missed chance really, as it would have produced some captivating sort of TV-reportage, definitely! Well, I personally gonna give it some more thoughts on how to hit a homerun with the media in respect to this kind of well-sized opportunity to help show-case christian-type of art power for the future to a wider audience."

Check out some showcasings of participating artists! Imagine! Blogspot.
Find the Imagine! Blogspot at www.creativeartseurope.typepad.com/imaginethis

More infos on coming events, check out: www.creativeartseurope.org

The movie 'Constantine' with actor Keanu Reeves (2005), I found deeply touching because of this all too rare 'metaphor' about the human struggle for the Blessing in the sight of Unyielding Transcendent.

Wikipedia notes that this film is loosely based on the Hellblazer comic books. A contemporary horror comic book series published continuously since January 1988. Its central character is the streetwise magician John Constantine.

About the historic figure of Constantine I one can read, that he is generally considered the first christian roman emperor.
Under his political rule the ongoing (political) clash - between prosecuted early christianity and the traditional rule of age-old pagan worldviews became settled in favor of a new-key christian cultural dominance.

As much as some people consider the clash between good and evil forces, or between objective Truth and objective Lie, a mere captivating dramatic story, at best a loose metaphor about life (no more than so-called, fleeting philosophic rethorics in the end, cowardly refusing to take a real stand and its consequences), I myself do find the factual reality of supernatural, unseen dimensions in life unmistakable.

Seeing this movie reminds me of what I personally believe to be a fact: that human existence is part of a higher teleological unfolding throughout history as the biblewriters testify to that view and life commitment too.

The unmistakable metaphoric power (it's more than mere story!) released through this film, reminds me (and in a way helped comforting me) in keeping courage, in dealing with an ever complicating globalizing raging, age-old world. Reminds me of the reality of our age-old Babylonian confusions as humans. The true core-themes that deeply matter for the our rational inclinations, and which philosophers denote as the final questions that urge an authoritative 'answer' from us, lest we lose ourselves and our rational... sanity. The unsettling questions of 'objective Truth or Lie' and 'Life and Death'. It's in the end the ultimate questionnaire we can't and shouldn't refuse to tackle... the quest for the true Origins of Man and Life, of the objective value and (superhuman) grounds of human individual Identity.

In all this respects, the movie 'Constantine' delivers to me, a newly cast metaphoric weaving about this complicated mix of human struggle and condition on both bodily, soulish and spiritual-supernatural levels, as we humans all partake in it, some way or another, willingly or forced. Be it on different levels and intensity. And be it, objectively positioned closer to or farther away from what the biblical truth patterns and teachings look like.

Despite my personal view, that this movie is in itself an embodied metaphor of the ongoing Babylonian confusion that pervades humanity until this day, I found the movie deeply suprising and exhorting exactly and paradoxically thanks to its biblical misreadings and twists, as we christians after all often act even more ignorant and misguided, as mere 'modern pagans' do...

For me that covers the axial crux in the movie's metaphor.
I found that depiction of human frailty and courageous, unbending resolve in the face of utter rejection by a Transcendent God (biblically a blasphemy of sorts), utterly exhilarating and mind-inspiring... Why? Because in the shades of this misconception, another underlying metaphor can be discovered. An all too rare visual metaphor depicting and covering the reality of the bloody fighting grounds every sincere christian is confronted with. The harsh human struggle to lay hands on more bestowements of actual relational intimacy and emotive fullfillment when it comes to the weird business of relating to an invisible, yet personal Creator against the background of life's absurdities. A battle of sorts encountered by anyone that faces God's silent mystery grounds (apart from His existing answering 'modes' and 'reasonabilities' too). His darkening 'muteness-of-sorts'. His 'apparent rejection' and 'divine refusals' to be put on the spot, to be charged before any of our human courts, let alone be confined to our silly human ways of containing final reality, religious society, or else our knowledge and authority on Who He should Be and How He should act... His utterly demoralizing and sudden destesting of our proud 'control behaviors' towards the divine realms. It all adds up to that sort of precious 'fight' whenever a human sincerely and honestly engages to reason with the Creator as a created human-with-identity (in the unique and self-conscious, divinely bestowed right!). This is the sort of pivotal, earnest core-metaphor I see Keanu Reeves captivatingly embodying on the screen in this movie 'Constantine', standing up to truely bestowed human identity levels (created in His image as we truely are!) and holding grounds, even beseeching the Ultimate God to speak on our (sin-strikken) behalf.
Fellow christians around me keep dismissing this movie far too prejudiced about it's obvious blasphemic sides, but again, despite that being the case at certain points, I myself nevertheless found myself deeply empowered (as an artist-on-the-job myself) by the strength and integrity of the forged visual metaphors the filmmakers did conceive and grabbed hold on. And as much as I honestly and severly regret the babylonian confusions that made up the groundwork of the movie, I nevertheless count it a blessing-in-disguise to be granted this kind of artistic leadership by non-christians. As in my opinion todays (so-called) christian art scene still appears rather vastly and no less shamefully lingering on the verge of subcultured inbreading. Lacking a spirit of true creative-bold imagination and open mind, as much as it lacks a true resolve to pick up an honest 'fight-till-death' for what truely has truth origins. Western christianity desperately needs a renouncement of their own kind of 'christianized and creative blasphemies' - like the blasphemy of making the Creator 'fit' in our human narrowminded, traditionalized pockets. Or its 'twin' - the blashemy of leading a (so-called) biblical-religious lifestyle before an Omnipotent God that is moreoften befrauded of even the most basic attitudes that defines manhood: intellectual humility and sincere excellence in creativity (imagination!) beyond the shackles of lieful pride, ignorance and fear.

I would have hated a 'neat-bleak christian salvage' of this kind of Theme, as much as I would (of course) equally have detested a deterministic, transcendence renouncing plot of narration!

Like Martin Luther, the protestant-catholic Reformer, wrote in his letter against the cardinal of Magdeburg, I keep crying out (my paraphrasings):

Another movie that made a deep impression on me: 'Life as a house' with actors Kevin Kline and Kristin Scott Thomas (2001).

Wikipedia writes that this film is about the metaphorical and emotional underpinnings of demolishing and reconstructing a house. As such it covers a whole range of classical themes concerning our humanity, our calling for righteous dominion.



September 9th