‘Tis The Season

The bike pictured above is a Jamis Satellite Sport, brand spanking new… this bike was given to me, yes I said given.

It all started about 4 months ago, I was talking with a friend at home community about how inactive I had been since getting married.  We talked about practical ways to get exercise on a regular basis and cycling was the most obvious means, especially living in Portland, bike city, USA.

My friend at home community told me it was one of his joys in life to help people live healthier and more active lives.  Over the following months my friend pooled some money from people in our community and this bike was purchased for me.  I can’t even begin to tell you guys how crazy this is to Kendra and I.  The people who attend our home community are not rich, they are young married couples, college students and the like.

This envelope contained the checks that were used to purchase the bike.  Kendra and I plan to keep it as a reminder that we are loved, and that we are part of a community of amazing, selfless people.

We are hoping to save up some money to purchase a bike for Kendra, too.  We both want to be more active and live a healthier lifestyle.

Things I’ve Learned From Other People

There are very few blogs that I subscribe to, the few that I do keep an eye on are either close friends or artists/professionals that I admire.  Every so often one of these people posts an article that is timely and poignant to me.  I often read said article and think, “hm, that was a good read, I should think about that more.”  I then proceed to go about my day and forget completely about what I read and it’s effect on me.

I decided today to use my blog as a place to process the things I learn from other people. Keep in mind that these are just my thoughts, my way of processing, if you will.  I don’t know if anything posted under this category will be concrete, but I hope others will relate with me or be inspired by the words that inspire me.

All that being said, Today I read a blog post from Donald Miller that really got me thinking.  The article was called “The Single Most Powerful Question You Can Ask”  It’s a pretty wordy title if you ask me, but the article was brief and to the point, which I like.

The question Donald was referring to was “What If?”  He says in his article, “J.R.R. Tolkien once asked the question What if there existed a place called Middle Earth, and What if Middle Earth were under threat? Every good story begins with some form of this question, and so does every life.”  The idea is that great stories stem from this question and we can chose to live a great story by challenging ourselves with the same question.

This is the question that I believe lead me to start pursuing a fine arts education, it has the power to radically change our lives.  For a really long time I felt like I could do nothing without God magically appearing to me in a burst of light or speaking to me in some really deep audible voice from a cloud in the sky at night… sounds silly but I’m pretty sure I’m not the only one who has felt this way.  The truth is that God has given us life to live and liberty in that life to take risks, to fail, succeed, rejoice…

I think a lot of people settle in to their lives, work a 9 to 5 and give up on the things that stir their heart.

What if they didn’t?

Lent Recap

Easter Dinner, St. Johns, Portland, OR

“Therefore, my dear Sir, I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths whence your life wells forth; at its source you will find the answer to the question weather you must create.  Accept it as it sounds, without enquiring too closely into every word.  Perhaps it will turn out that you are called to be an artist.  Then take your fate upon yourself and bear it, its burden and its greatness, without ever asking for that reward which might come from without.”

-Rainier Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

The beard has come off.  It is now 1:28 AM on April 5th and I am sitting in front of my computer pondering the past 40 days and thinking seriously about my future.  Yesterday was Easter and it marked the end of Lent.  I can say with all honesty that this has been the first time that I have ever approached Lent with purpose and it feels great to be on the other side of the season.  I feel like so much has happened in just a short amount of time.  I feel like I have learned a lot about who I am as an artist, I say artist rather than photographer because it seems these days that anyone with a couple hundred dollars for a camera and a pirated copy of Photoshop is a photographer.

I suppose now that Lent is over I can share just what my purpose was for participating in the season.  It started about 4 months ago, the weather in Portland was uncommonly beautiful considering what time of year it was.  I was walking around the Buckman neighborhood in southeast Portland and was thinking about photography.  I love photography, I love to shoot, I love to observe, and I love to share.  It is something that I discovered was a passion of mine when I was in Scotland a couple years ago.  As I wandered around I started thinking about my education.  As I shared on day 12, the Theological education I received doesn’t have much real-world application.  I thought to myself, “I should go to school for photography, take it seriously, see where it takes  my family and I.”  I immediately dismissed these thoughts.  You see, I am terrified of failure and I think it’s easier to dismiss something as a passing fancy than to engage the challenge that it represents and truly live a great story.  A couple days later those “passing fancies” returned and I decided for maybe the first time, to engage a challenge that frightened me.  I talked with Kendra about my thoughts and she was supportive and we have been on the journey of processing this decision ever since.

Then there was Lent… I considered Lent for several weeks before the season began.  I have always thought about Lent, always thought it would be a good thing for me to participate in.  I have honestly never had the determination or follow-through to engage God during the entire 40 days.  Again, fear of failure usually leads me to not try, not trying is failure by default.  Again, a challenge…  When Ash Wednesday rolled around I had wrestled good and long with myself about not just Lent but about my education and weather or not I could even be an “artist”.  This was when I decided to shoot 40 days of photography with purpose.  I felt like it would be a good way to examine my heart toward art and creation while at the same time remembering the death of Christ and the redemption in which I live.  Art, redemption, rhythm…

The past 40 days have been trying at times, as an artist I feel like the photos I take are an extension of who I am.  There is a narrative in each image weather it is apparent or not, there is always a story.  Any time you expose a part of who you are to the world at large, even if it is a community of friends online, it takes vulnerability.  As Rilke says in the quote above, the need to create comes from a deep place within and I’m beginning to realize that not a lot of people ever tap into that place.  I can see also how so many people are attempting to do so.  The exploration of creativity is beautiful and revealing, I would recommend that you try it out yourself… If you do this, be prepared to make yourself vulnerable, be prepared to be uncomfortable and to share things that at times you don’t even know you’re sharing.

What is the end result of my exploration, you might be asking…  I have decided that I do want to learn more about art, about the creative process and about photography in particular.  I can’t say that I have made a solid decision yet.  I am considering The Art Institute of Portland and also Pacific Northwest College of Art.  PNCA seems to be more geared toward fine art and nurturing the creative process whereas The Art Institute is geared toward building a portfolio through your educational experience and getting a job afterward.  Both have pros and cons.  I am hoping to connect with a local photographer through the summer season and I will start taking general education classes at Portland Community College in the fall, I just feel like this will be a good step for me, to have forward motion will be healthy.

Of all the photos I posted, these are my favorites:

Sauvie Island, Portland, OR

Free Geek Art Show, Portland, OR

Witte Family Photos, Jacksonville, OR

La Sirenita, Portland, OR

Broken Sylo, Sauvie Island, Portland, OR

This music has inspired me through this process:

Thrice – Beggars

The Dear Hunter – Act III – Life And Death

The Album Leaf – A Chorus of Storytellers

Coheed And Cambria – Year of the Black Rainbow

Thanks so much to everyone that has been reading and keeping up with this experiment of mine.  Thank you for your feedback, for your encouragement, and if we happened to have a conversation during this process, thank you for being my sounding board.  If nothing else comes of this, the process has been more than worth it and I hope that I have in some way inspired even one person to look inside themselves and explore the artist within.

Grace, peace and justice.

Lent Day 35

Ashland, OR

So, I’m still playing a bit of catch-up.  I wanted to share a couple photos and some thoughts from the Sunday that I spent in Medford.  The photos in this post were taken with my cell phone, hence their lower quality.  I took this shot from the top of some huge boulders on a hill in Ashland.  My friend Joey who I mentioned in the day 33 post first showed me this place several years ago when we were in school together.  We used to make the short 20 minute hike up the hills of Ashland on a fairly regular basis.  We would pack picnic food and hang out on the rocks, in the sun, praying and reading Psalms and sometimes we would bring other friends with us.

This “ritual” was necessary for us, it was healthy, it was a kind of sabbath in and of itself.  The school we attended was fun, but we were always so busy, always at the church, doing homework or serving in the community in some way.

My friend Joey is one of the most honest, dependable, loyal and true friends that I have, if not the most. Each time I go to the Rogue Valley I look forward to hanging out with him.  No matter how much time passes or what goes down in our lives, when we get together it’s as if no time has passed at all.

We were both really looking forward to this hike and to favorable weather.  What you can’t see in this photo is that it was actually raining pretty hard and that’s why I didn’t take my camera out and just used the phone.  It didn’t matter though, we sat on the rocks discussing life, reminiscing about our college days and drinking some coffee.  I think the reason I love hanging out with Joey so much is the fact that it’s like being with family, I can be completely who I am, no pretense, no mask.

Joey is one of those people that renews my faith in the church, in her ability to be the good news of Christ to others.  It’s been a struggle to not be jaded or cynical about the church as I’ve meandered through my twenties.  It’s been difficult to continue to be open with people as you grow and change because there’s always that fear of rejection.  I think some people just get it, they understand the brokenness and the daily grind of reconciliation with God and engagement in life, the balance of living.  No one is perfect and no one has it all figured out, no one.  This fact make room for grace.

In the wake of my trip to Medford I have been thinking a lot about my friends, about how our lives have gone in different directions and how we have all changed so much.  In light of that, I can see just how much I’ve changed, the man I am today is not the man I was two years ago.  It’s cool and scary to see that clearly and it makes me wonder who I will be in another two years, will that man still be accepted and loved?

Justice toward God and self.

Lent Day 28

Sauvie Island, OR

Saturday was the 28th day of Lent, I say that more for myself than for you.  There have been a couple times on this journey where I have forgot where I was in the whole process.  Which day is what number again?  Yeah, I’m doing a little catch-up because the past few days have been pretty busy but I’ve been having a lot of fun.

Saturday Kendra and I ventured out to Sauvie Island.  I think there’s something significant about the size of the island, largest island in North America or something like that.  Sauvie Island is covered with all kinds of beautiful farm land, parks, nature reserves and quaint little businesses.  A lot of it reminded me of some of the more rural parts of the Oregon coast.  Kendra and I have wanted to visit Sauvie since we moved here and the wait was well worth it, the sun was shining and everything was so beautiful.

I’ve been spending so much time in Portland that I kinda forgot what farm land smelled like.  This was the kind of farm land that smelled like a combination of blooming flowers, fresh cut grass and dirt.  The scent was intoxicating, I think our little trip out to the country was just what we both needed.

I think something about being away from the city sparked my desire to shoot.  I took a lot of photos that day because there was so much interesting stuff to see.  I’ve been feeling like my creative battery has been running low, I haven’t felt motivated or inspired much the last few days.  This is all part of the process I suppose, learning who I am as an artist, as a creator.

Art, no matter what medium, says something about it’s creator, about it’s subject and about the person viewing the art.  This is something I learned recently from fellow photographer Joshua Longbrake. Weather I admit to it or not, a part of me comes out in all of my creative expression.  There is a vulnerability that I share when I create, there is a narrative taking place in each piece of art, each photograph taken.  Then, there is you… the reader, the viewer, the interpreter.  What does art tell you about yourself, how does a certain piece or photograph make you feel?  Don’t just dismiss those feelings, ask yourself why it evokes what it does.

This is one of those photographs… I must have taken 15 shots of this hole in the wall of an old farm silo. I wasn’t sure why it appealed to me, why I felt like I needed to catch in a photo what it was making me feel…  I connected, if only for a moment, with a deep part of myself while creating.  The discovery that I made about myself is mine.  I wont share because it is personal and because I don’t want to influence your interpretations.

Art and creation are universal, if we look close enough and know what questions to ask, we can get to know ourselves and each other on a deeper level.

Justice toward self.