Podcast Episodes

Lisa Smith 0:59

Hello, welcome to the Be.Make.Do. Podcast, where we explore what it takes to live out your call in the arts with spiritual wholeness and creative freedom. I'm your host, Lisa Smith here with my producer Dan ABH. Hello, everyone. And as always, it's our passion to encourage you to become who you were created to be, make what you were created to make and do what you were created to do.

So I'm going to introduce our special guests in just a second. But I want to tell you that this summer, what we're doing is exploring some of the questions that came out of this Wise Hearted series that we've been playing with. That's all about the artist call of Bezalel in Exodus and it links to the discussion guide that is available on our website: www.soulmakers.org, if you'd like to go deeper with some of those questions. But that's what we're going to do. We're going to dive right on in to some of these heavy questions about what we're allowed to make as Christians in the arts. And I know from conversations over time, not everybody struggles with these things. But I know that it is something that is prevalent with a lot of people and if it is something that you struggle with, it can be paralyzing. Really, and this links back to our conversation in the episode, Idols and Altars in the Wise Hearted one series, which you can listen to on our podcast channel or on our website.

So for this series, we thought it would be good for us to just go ahead and have some good old conversation around these questions and give our perspectives as well as bring in some people we know have really spent time addressing the issues because we believe we can really get to the root of this and get some confidence and some clarity so that we can have that kind of freedom. So in the conversation, I've got Producer Dan here with me. And in addition to producing the podcast, I just want to kind of introduce him as an artist as well. He is an accomplished musician, and plays in two award winning bands, as well as many other kinds of artistic and musical projects, as well as being a developer of community and a mentor to young musicians. So he's very much in the world of music and art in the East Coast scene, I suppose.

Our special guest today with us is Karen Swenholt. So hi, Karen, you finally get to say hi. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for inviting me. Of course. Karen is a figurative sculptor who lives in works in Northern Virginia. And Karen is actually the artist in residence at Convergence, which we mentioned Convergence sometimes on the podcast. I don't think we've ever really gone into what it is, but it's a community of faith that soul|makers and the Be.Make.Do. podcast was really born out of a group of Christians and contemplatives in the area.

So Karen has been artist in residence at Convergence, where she for a long time had very large scale, incredible sculptures outside on our lawn. We've since moved things inside but she also has her studio here.

So her work can be found in lots of different places in public and private collections, including the home of Bono of U2, and is in the permanent collection of the Vladimir Romanov palace in St. Petersburg, Russia, all kinds of different places around the country and the world. And we'll put a link to her website in the show notes so that you can see more of Karen's work and learn more about her.

But in addition to all of that, she is a very good friend, and I think a prophetic person as well as an incredible artist. We've had this conversation about the freedom of the artist and the importance of it so many times. She's been a mentor to me, and really helped me shape my thinking around this. So I thought, and actually, I think, Dan, you're the one that said, "We've got to get Karen in to talk about this, because she has such wisdom, I think in this area." Not to puff you up too much Kare, no pressure. But yeah, we're big fans of yours.

Lisa Smith 5:26

Yeah, we love you.

But this, this theme of freeing the artist is something that we learned from you. And we've even made it a hashtag that we sometimes use: #FreetheArtist. Because it's so so important. Yeah. So I want to outline this conversation just a little bit. And then we're just going to kind of dive in. And Karen can share some thoughts on the subject, and maybe how we can get free of the things that sort of hold us back.

And we were talking about the the title and focus of the conversation, I had sort of said, like, what are we allowed to make as Christians, and Karen is talking about getting free from condemnation. And that I think, is a much more pinpoint description of what we're talking about. And this goes to all different disciplines and categories of art making.

So I know I for first encountered this as an actor when I was in high school, just around like "Am I allowed to say bad words?", or even there was a line I was supposed to say, which was "Oh, my God." And my mom made it very clear that I was not going to say that, it needed to be changed to 'Oh, my gosh.' But I had to go to the director, and we had to have that conversation. And so very, very quickly, there was this, like, there are lines that I can't cross, I'm not sure which which lines are they and when it bumps up against the artistic lines from the other direction. It started to cause me anxiety. And then after I graduated from school, and I moved to LA, then there's all these questions about nudity and subject matter. And, again, language like, it caused so much anxiety for me that it really actually did become an impediment for me in pursuing an acting career in a in Hollywood, because it was more than I knew how to navigate at that time. And I know that that translates into a lot of different art making arenas.

And I know we've talked here and specifically about visual artists as well. So that's, I mean, that's where we are. Are there things, are there limitations to what we can make, and not make as Christians? You know, actually, I just I wanted to point this out, too, because you always get on me, Dan, that I don't talk about music enough. But like, even in the church world over the last 20 years, there was a progression of like, you cannot use specific instruments, in some churches is still like you can't like using guitars is wrong or using drums is wrong or certain, like there are all of these kinds of hangups or limitations that can be imposed. So, let's, let's talk about that. What are these limitations within these religious circles around artmaking? And why is that problematic? Or is it a good thing? Should we be more concerned with those challenges? What do you think? Karen, what do you think?

Karen Swenholt 8:40

If you're asking me I will tell you a little, I guess a little analogy that occurred to me before you even asked me to do this. And it's kind of crucial to the discussions, this silly picture.

Picture of a pasture. Two different people, a secular artist and a Christian artist are both to design a dance. Both dancers have their own beautiful field dotted with wildflowers. The difference between the secular artist's rehearsal field and the Christian's, is that the Christian's field is filled with cow pies.

Cow pies are large, large piles of excrement that can be 12 to 14 inches wide. You can see them across the field. I I lived on a farm for a little while and I I experienced these cow pies are in the field but you don't always see them because grass starts to grow through them so you have to be very vigilant. They're not all apparent.

So we've got the Christian artist in the cow pie field doing their rehearsals and we've got the secular artist in the daisy field. Who is going to do the better dance? There is no question: the one that does not have to be vigilant. The one that doesn't have to worry about stepping in it.

What are the cow pies in all these different fields? For dancers, "what do I wear when I dance?" We can go on forever. What instrument am I allowed to play? As an artist, can I do people (subject matter)? Can I do art that God doesn't initiate? Or art that my church never requested? Art that never even entered their minds... and never will... unless I introduce it.

Can I do secular work?

There are all these ways that the Christian, their heart condemns them with this confusion. But it's not God who puts these questions and doubts in our mind. Because there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. What puts these things in our minds? It's the culture of the church. And we cannot confuse the culture of the church with the Bible. We cannot confuse the culture of the church with God himself.

Because he's kinder. He's more merciful. He is love, and we are not. And He says that when you're free in Christ, you're free indeed. So we are free to express ourselves in real life. But each person who goes to their studio, and has a doubt about "am I allowed to do this? Am I allowed to do that?" "Is this, oh my, can I..."

When your studio is filled with cow pies, you're not going to be able to invite God into it.

Right now, the secular artists are acing us out. But with God, we should be and can be doing the best work out there. Because we have this extraterrestrial connection, we have something bigger than man, wiser than man, infinitely creative. The "guy" who made the zebra and the giraffe and the rhino, we got that guy cooking with us in the studio, if our condemnation has been dealt with. So, how do we deal with the condemnation?

Lisa Smith 12:58

Yeah, okay, so we're gonna go to the how, but I just want to kind of explore that a little bit, too, because somebody might say that well, but the the caution, the doubt, or the self examination is a good thing, you know, like in a religious context, like to be aware of, "Is this inside the will of God or not?", you know, those those kinds of things. And, and you're talking about not having to worry about those cow pies. But what you're not, you're not saying like, don't care, it doesn't matter, you know, just like follow your own in like that, in order to be able, what we're kind of advocating for is a really deep discipleship of the artist as a person, then you're able to be free to follow those impulses and instincts because it's within this deeply rooted faith.

Lisa Smith 14:12

The difference is and the importance is that it's, I think what I hear you saying is, it's not really possible to create art. Like this is extremely problematic for an artist when there are all these landmines around, be careful, be careful, be careful, be careful, because it's not possible to create much great artwork with those limitations, like it just doesn't work that way. So we have to find a way to be faithful and secure in our faithfulness as Christians without being constantly afraid we're going to step in it, as you said, right. Is that right?

Karen Swenholt 14:53

Right. I don't think our problem is with God. I think our problem is with the Enemy of our soul, I think our problem is with condemnation. Because once that condemnation comes in, there's a wall that jumps up between us and God. So in my opinion, I'll tell you what I did. How's that? I'll tell you a little story. I knew a brilliant artist who did extremely original, challenging work. He graduated from VCU, and his teacher who was a Christian, told him he needed to go to a theological seminary. I met him at Wesley. He was very confused. He was very, he even began to doubt his own faith, and he is now a dental assistant. The teacher thought he was too powerful. And he needed to have know everything before he started doing art, because he didn't want him like preaching from that podium of his art. He didn't want him preaching something that was wrong.

Karen Swenholt 16:11

I just did a piece, I'm embarrassed to say, predicated on a complete misunderstanding of an aspect of the scripture. But that misunderstanding, powered the love in the piece. So the piece was much stronger from my confusion, and God corrected me. But that, like poetry, I pulled out of the Bible to fuel my emotion, to make the peace, communicate, God works all things for good for those who love God and are called according to His purposes.

Karen Swenholt 16:47

So I'm going off on a little bit of a tangent. So I'm telling you about this guy in VCU, who becomes the dentist. U2 were told by their pastors to put down their instruments and if God wanted them to do it, though, they'd be called back to it that would be given back to them. They just stopped going to that church as far as I understand. And they kept doing their music. And I had my little experience with this kind of thing. I had a friend who it was in a more southern part of Virginia, she wore a little doily on her head, she'd never worn pants, I don't think in her life. She was like a mother figure to me. Regardless of her, she, she really knew God and loved Him. But she came out of a culture, a Christian culture. And when she found out that I did nudes, she told me to burn them. Wow. And now how many people have well, this is people my age, threw away their record collections? When they got came to God.

Lisa Smith 17:55

Dan is having a heart attack over here, right now.

Karen Swenholt 17:57

There's this culture. What we have to do before we throw away our record collection, before we burn our paintings, we need to go to God ourselves. I suggest that we coming from our world coming from maybe our bigger world. I mean, I already had an art education, when I was told to destroy these pieces. So it wasn't easy for me to go and burn them. My stakes were much higher than Joyce's. Joyce just looked into her little bag of, of Christianity, and pulled out the first answer and gave it to me, not because she didn't love me, but because it's what she knew. You cannot be vigilant, you cannot be careful enough of the cultural Christianity. The culture changes. The goods and the bads and the yes and the nos. They change generation to generation. So we need to go back to the Word.

Karen Swenholt 18:00

Karen, could you give us an example of like how you did that for yourself? Like how you went into the Bible to figure out how to get over being vigilant in your artwork.

Karen Swenholt 19:16

On this issue of nudity. Okay, here it is. How does God use nudity? What does God do with nudity? Because when you're writing, you're making word pictures in people's minds. So when he has Adam and Eve naked in garden, there are two nude people in my mind. I'm a little girl and I'm reading about Adam and Eve in the garden. Oh my word. And it was disturbing to me because nudity is dirty. But yet, what is God illustrating? Like He's talking about their innocence. Their nudity is their innocence. So I, I pondered that. It was one of the first like mysteries I kind of thought about that had to do with God, like how's that innocent? So the first example he uses of nudity, the first time you crack the thing open, I'm sorry, the Bible open at the beginning, you run into Adam and Eve. They were actually in more, they were less innocent clothed than they were naked.

Karen Swenholt 20:32

Okay, so here's a picture that He makes, puts it in our mind, we even see a man and a woman together, which verges on pornography in the wider culture. In the Christian culture, we have a man and a woman naked together, right? But God uses it. What's the difference? There isn't like lust undergirding it. There's an allegory, of unfaithful of Jerusalem. And in this allegory, he paints a word picture of a treasured mature female beauty. When he paints this picture, you will see it, it's really shocking.

Karen Swenholt 21:15

"Then I passed by and saw you kicking about in your blood. And as you lay there in your blood, I said to you live. I made you grow like a plant of the field, you grew up and developed and became the most beautiful of jewels, which we all are. Your breasts were formed and your hair grew, you who were naked and bare. Later, I passed by and when I looked at you and saw that you were old enough for love, I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness. I gave you my solemn oath and entered into a covenant with you declares the Sovereign LORD, and you became mine. (Ezekiel 16:6-8)

Karen Swenholt 21:57

In our mind's eye, we can't help but see, really a child, a naked girl child, but she's, like a jewel, she's treasured. She's honored, she's loved. Our attention is even drawn to her breasts. And you might say that God covers her in the narrative. You know, he takes the garment and covers her, but he reveals her in graphic detail first.

Karen Swenholt 22:28

So God didn't have to talk about Jerusalem like this. But He did. And if He can do it, I can do it. I know that sounds a little arrogant, but you look in the Bible to see the precedent. How does God handle the subject? The last one, it's a picture of nakedness as an expression of shame. "Therefore, I'm going to gather all your lovers with whom you found pleasure, those you loved as well as those you hated, I will gather them against you, from all over from all around, and we'll strip you in front of them, and they will see your nakedness." That's a really graphic image. It doesn't feel sexual again, because the spirit of lust isn't behind it.

Karen Swenholt 23:15

This is the level my precedent. My God uses this imagery to make a point. Yeah. Do you understand the freedom we have? I mean, that blows my mind. And when you take all the little Christian culture, yes and nos out of it, the power we have of expression, with, partnered with a create a communicative Living God through the Holy Spirit. We should be blowing the world away right now. Yeah. Instead, we're dancing between the cow pies. And being brought up short. Like really you were, Lisa. And so we can this is just one example of one little area that I looked at. Every discipline has its areas where they have to work it out. Every soul has their area to work out. If I had some kind of trauma, about nudity, it may not be God may have moved me into still lifes. But um, it's it's about us as individuals, we're precious jewels, we're individual. God's light shines through us. And why is this important?

Karen Swenholt 24:46

Why is it important that we be free? I think it's important we be free because the fingerprint, the face, the individuality, we're individual, completely unique stones, living stones, jewels through which He lights. Now, when we make our art, we are leaving evidence in our time of a living God, because we're not doing it alone, if we have a condemnation free studio space. And He can speak to us and we can speak back, we can dialogue with him through our art form, because it is a language, whatever art form you have, you know, it's a language. Yeah. So so we leave this evidence of God's existence, through the thoughts we have, that a person who doesn't know Him would never, it would never enter their mind. And we get to breathe, we're part of God breathing into our culture, His goodness, His truth, His personality, His beauty. So I think the individual is more important than we think. And that individual story, free, an individual free to express who I am with God's light shining through, we are precious by definition.

Lisa Smith 26:24

Yeah. I could listen to just talk about these kinds of things all day. And it always harkens back to a conversation, we had out in Leesburg in a huge field up on a hill and just, you know, just this vision, this, it was very expanding for me to think about art making in this way. And I think some of the, this idea of our work to be leaving evidence is also really freeing. To me, I think that's such a helpful category, because that can look so many different ways. And it doesn't have to be a complete picture of anything. It's, it's, it's a clue. It's a scent, it's an image, it's a, you know, a feeling. It's, you know, they're all it. It's evidence, like you said if something larger, which I think is really helpful, because going back to what you were talking about earlier, about the student at Wesley, who they didn't want him to be preaching a false narrative through his work. But what we do as artists is not preaching.

Lisa Smith 27:37

I think that's part of the confusion is our work is to leave evidence. And God puts the whole thing together in a person's life. But we're not that's not necessarily what we're tasked with, as a rule, what artists are tasked with. And so just like you said, kind of going down the wrong path actually lead you to something bigger, a beautiful, more beautiful with a piece of artwork. Like again, we don't have to be vigilant, we don't have to be afraid. Because we're just we're we are consciously making ourselves conduits for God to work through us to leave evidence, as you said, it's it is much more freeing and I, I, it sounds clear, but I think it is something that you have to individually take time, like you said, to really work it out for yourself. I don't think it's okay, as a Christian in the arts, to leave these things unresolved. I do think it's a "should". You have to work these things out. It's not good enough to say, "Oh, I don't know what I think or how I feel about this. I don't know what God's like". The answers are there. So it's, it's worth it, to get to the bottom of it, so that you can not have to be vigilant.

Dan ABH 29:06

Anything like this, unexamined, can stop you in your tracks. And condemnation isn't just unpleasant. Condemnation, builds walls between us and God, as artists and as human beings. So our art becomes a wall between us and God.

Dan ABH 29:32

So, I have this thing about no. Like every no that you say to yourself, for every no that you listened to and every like you shouldn't is limiting what you can do. You know, God doesn't want you to limit what you can do in your art and craft. I just don't believe that. I hear these stories, you know, from a lot of people that grew up in the church, and I'm sort of spoiled here with you guys, because I never went through that. But the stories I hear about how the church and other organizations have told people what type and kind of art that you can and can't make. It's just so ridiculous to me. And I just don't believe in these restrictions of the gift that God has given you to be restricted. So there's no way there's just my opinion, there's no way that God wants you to limit what you can do. Because if you limit what you can do specially in your art, then you can't make this evidence that Karen, that that you're talking about. And if you do make art with these restrictions, then I just believe that it's not good.

Karen Swenholt 30:39

God permits vision into the fantastic. "I looked, I saw a windstorm coming out of the north and immense cloud with flashing lightning and surrounded by brilliant light, the center of the fire looked like glowing metal. And in the fire was what looked like four living creatures," et cetera. Surrealism, fine with God. Take it all the way out there. He takes it all the way out. And He's poetic in His self description, this flashing lightning and dark clouds. I think it's in Psalm 80, or 81. This image of God coming to, no 91 I think, might be 80. But anyway, He's coming to rescue this person. And He's this, who's thought of God as surrounded by darkness? This light surrounded by darkness, but God is giving us this imagery is taking us everywhere. God anoints the mundane for understanding.

Karen Swenholt 30:39

Jeremiah 18, at the potter's house, then, so he's watching this potter, I went down to the potter's house, they some work in the wheel. The pot was marred by his hands. So the potter crushes it and forms into another pot shaping it as seemed best. The Lord says, Oh house of Israel can I not do with with you, as this potter does, declares the Lord. Tough, tough stuff. So as we're working, even in a still life, or we're seeing beauty (I call it call and response). If we see a beautiful landscape, and we sing it back to him, either literally with music or with like a painting. That is also all of it, all of it, all of it.

Karen Swenholt 32:46

All of it. However God's made you, however your gift moves you. Do your research, find your freedoms, and clear your pasture land. So you can dance every way the Lord leads you. I'll tell you one other thing that I found out doing art that we're taught in schools to have logical, linear thinking. But the first thing you learn in art, is your painting the whole canvas at the same time, you're working the whole piece at the same time, you're pulling from everywhere. And you can't do that if you've got all these walls up, all these rooms you can't go in, you can't pull from everywhere. There might be something behind a wall. That's two walls away that you need for this piece that the Lord wants you to have for this piece. But you fallen into your cultural Christian habits, and you can't get there. We're responsible. And I'm not saying we don't listen to Him. I'm saying we make it very important to listen.

Lisa Smith 34:05

Yeah, I think what has kind of clarified for me in listening to you talk too is this. We're talking about freedom. It's not about rearranging theological furniture, you know, we're not talking about that at all. What we're talking about is the full freedom to explore that. Get inside of it, taste it, see the colors, try to understand it from an infinite amount of possibilities. And all the examples you've shown show that, that crystal clearly to me like God is not afraid to pull out some crazy imagery or some really challenging imagery or really violent imagery or really, you know, all of those things God is using because they connect with something in us to get a point across to invite us to something to get us to touch reality to confuse us, so that we're not so complacent anymore.

Lisa Smith 35:18

And so, like, you've talked about that freedom, that as Christians, we have full access to any and all images to use within the service of this Christian worldview. It's not we're not messing with the core at all. But it's, you know, we have to see even even if maybe some people like the lady in the pew, or maybe the person in the pulpit doesn't understand or isn't comfortable with that plane, we have to get comfortable with understanding what we're doing. And like you said, the responsibility that we have as artists to do it, because there are things that we need, and that our culture needs that if we don't, the evidence is not there. It just isn't.

Karen Swenholt 36:13

There, there's a scripture, all that is good, all this lovely. All that is true, something I'm paraphrasing, think on these things. But these examples I gave you, especially the one of the woman where shame, nudity is used to illustrate shame. God is telling us that story. Right? So that's the Scripture, but it has to be read in context of the whole book, right? These answers are there for us. And we, we need to find them and, and, and be free. He really, really wants us to be free. We'll have so much fun.

Lisa Smith 37:09

Yeah. I think this is a great, this is such a great conversation. And I, I really do hope and I know it's your prayer to that for people listening that it will touch in the right places to unlock that and get permission to, to figure it out, and get free and understand how important it is that we do. And I just I think this is such a such an important and also helpful and practical way to think about it. That we really, really need to be to be sharing. So I'm really grateful for you taking your time Karen to share with us on the podcast. And I'm excited to be able to share with our audience. Because we just have we all have such a heart for freeing the artist. That's that's where it came from is these conversations with you: free the artists. So thank you so much, Karen, for talking with us today. We really appreciate it.

Karen Swenholt 38:05

Thank you. I really appreciate the opportunity because this is like in me and it's got to come out.

Lisa Smith 38:10

Well, thank you so much so much rich stuff in this to really take away and chew on and I'm sure we'll have other conversations, and hopefully have conversations with people in our audience as well. I mean, we'd love to hear from you too. If you have questions or thoughts on this. Definitely send us an email or post something on our Instagram social media. We'd love to keep this conversation going and and hear if there are other questions that we can address together too. Right, Dan?

Dan ABH 38:38

Right Of course. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks for listening to Be.Make.Do, a soul|makers podcast. If you want to go deeper, be sure to visit soulmakers.org and download a free wise hearted ones study guide with questions for personal reflection or discussion with a group plus word studies and more.