BALANCE

A loaded word.

A life raft and an anchor.

A heavy load and a sinker.

An enemy and a friend.

There is often a challenge in everything to find a balance that allows us sanity to chug along. There’s a struggle to balance my social time and my work time. To balance my rest and my productivity. Specific to this blog, I struggle to balance my genre of posts–style & sound.

I’ve shared this with folks on the email list, but most of my posts are centered more on sound, than style. I wrestled with this a bit, wondering why my gravity was being pulled in one direction more than the other. I’m not sure I have the full answer yet, but I have found much solace in identifying with style much more broadly than as an off-kilter of fashion. To reiterate an already illuminating point with a musical reference, the blog may be reimagined more accurately with an alternate sub-heading: “sound & colour.”

The video I created above along side some amazing folks like Telsha Anderson (Mother of Truce), Nia Moss, and Ivy Coco Maurice, forced me to merge my desire to tell a tale through video, and create visuals to open a fashion show. Even then, though not explicit, I was beginning to see style as a whole entity and not just a genre of fashion. 

Style is the way our life is coloured. It’s the ways in which we differ, or the ways in which our visual representations give us away. One element of this, is fashion. So expect a more free-flowing exploration of what it means to incorporate style more wholistically in this space, should be fun.

 

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CANVAS

"Again I Say" - the 3rd film in our series, Frames of Emotion, looking at God, Art, and the Inner Life This series is being created to visually showcase some of the emotions we are highlighting at this year's Canvas Conference: Inscape. Produced by Humble Beast Records in partnership with Western Seminary, Portland OR the canvasconference.com

There are few things that get me visibly excited. Good conversation & good art are high on the list for a visible display of excitement, so needless to say, CANVAS 2017 did me in. CANVAS is for...

“Hip Hop Heads. Hipsters. Yuckies. Yippies. Athletes. Coffee Drinkers.  Non-Coffee Drinkers (kind of). The kid sitting alone in the High School lunchroom.  Star Wars fans.  Star Trek fans. People on Facebook.  People on Twitter. Anyone who has used the internet and/or watched TV. Food Truck Owners. Acapella Groups. Librarians. Parents. Sons. Daughters. Artists. Theologians. Creatives. Christians. Disciples. You.”
— Humble Beast

I spent many years wrestling with faith & theory, art & real life practice. I was unsure how to find spaces asking the questions I asked. Grounded in faith, yet fully aware of my political and personal climate. Yes, the personal is political. There were many times I’d given up on the church, and I was fine with that for a time. However, I ultimately knew something was off and there were things I needed to reconcile in my relation to the church, and to God.

There were many elements of this conference that made strides in my heart towards my perspective of the church, faith, theory and art. However, what rang most soundly by the end of the weekend, was CANVAS answered years of prayers that went unanswered.

I can't fully tell this story now as it's still being written, however I’ve let go of my personal art for the past year to focus on my spirit. The CANVAS conference actually marked my year since officially making this move emotionally and physically. Throughout the year, many new questions arose, challenges, and good healthy growth towards being both a better artist and person of faith. CANVAS was such an incredible space to think and reflect through these ideas.

“We create because the creator created us to create.”
— Humble Beast
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CANVAS creates space for artists and thinkers often dismissed. It's for people of faith who might be shunned by other artists that don't believe, or people of faith who simply don’t desire an understanding of artists. There was a particular talk that keeps finishing my thoughts, it introduced a new term for me, the “bruised artist.” At first I meditated on term as it may relate to others I know. But as it sank in, I began to resonate with that identity myself. 

Aaron Ivey described the bruised artist as a person who creates, often feeling the woes of life another may be apt to ignore. They feel misunderstood or hurt or angry, because these emotion are not seen as a plea for better. They are the ignored, ignored. 

So often when we are creative thinkers our hearts hurt deeply because our minds are so vivid. How can the church heal this? Do they even care? At the core of every talk was a deep desire for us to care about and understand the nuances of walking out our lives in art and faith. There's distrust in the church from artists often times for good reason, but the most meaningful work often blossoms from our need to heal. Where needs the most healing, is also where I find my work. This is my best life, the one that calls me without hailing.©

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It's sent straight to your inbox immediately following each new post. Sign up below, yeah?