I love to travel. This past weekend brought my wife and I to beautiful Banff, a place we’ve been many times and seem to enjoy more each visit, becoming more comfortable there. This was a relaxing trip, not an adventure trip, and yielded far less photos than my average excursion. Rome, for instance, gave me hundreds of shots to wade through. Banff, that jewel of the Canadian Rockies, that worldwide ski destination soaked with the majesty of nature, yielded only a handful. All of them were tiny, on my iPod, and none of those were of the mountains.
It seems that every time I visit a place, I take less photos there. Every time I take less photos, I spend more time enjoying the place. When I returned home I realized how few I’d taken and how little I’d have to show my kids from our journey. I started to wonder why. On the surface, there’s the obvious fact that I’ve photographed much of this place before. I have many of pictures on mountains and Banff streets and giant stuffed moose and shops (and my wife and I in front of Mountains and moose and shops) resting on my hard drives, waiting to be viewed. There is a feeling that once you’ve been somewhere a few times, there is no need to take the same picture of the same place again. That’s a big part of the reason I didn’t even bring my ‘good’ camera on this trip. But it’s not all of it. There are two more reasons, both having to do with surrogate experience.
The camera, like any art form, acts as a mediator. When I put the viewfinder to my eye, I am no longer experiencing the mountain. I am composing the mountain, fitting it into my field of view. Making it serve my shot. Capturing it. I have put a layer between myself and the mountain. The layer that says I want to make use of it somehow. I am somehow removed from the experience, even while I am there, by my desire to capture it. When I return home, I want to invite people into that experience (one that I ironically did not even fully have, being behind the camera). I want to show them a photo and bring them right then and there. But with each passing trip, there is the growing knowledge of the futility in this. I’ve shown too many amazing photos to blank stares, and in those stares seen a vastly diminished sense of wonder, pale and placid when held up next to my own living experience of the place. I’ve realized that art is no substitute for the real thing.
Banff street art
Take this photo, for instance. It is a beautiful image, if I do say so myself, of some street art I discovered in Banff. The image does look a lot like what I saw that day, but the context is missing. Gone is that flash of surprise I felt as my wife and I cut across a back alley to get where we were going faster, trying to avoid the -20 degree outdoors as much as possible. The unassuming shortcut just threw this image at me, out of nowhere. Someone saw this cloud-shaped erosion of wall and decided to add felt raindrops, for no reason (I assume) other than making this little secret space more beautiful (or maybe they wore away the wall, too, but I’ll hang on to my blissful ignorance). It was the discovery of this little beauty that made it so special for me. It was not someone taking me round the corner to say “get a load of this!” But that is really what art, displayed on a wall or inserted into a blog post, does. It asks for our attention and we look expecting to see something of beauty and importance. So enjoy the photo, but know that it is no satisfactory surrogate experience.
Of course, I shot the photo anyways, because an artist’s gotta’ try.
All of this has me wondering about our role as artists in the world. As we look on this old world with new eyes and try to share what we see, we try and lend our eyes through our work. We try and offer up a surrogate experience, I think. We don’t always quite get there. The gap we sense can be frustrating. I wonder if that ‘gap’ is similar to any ‘understanding gap’ where two different viewpoints are trying to understand one another? I wonder if that feeling is not so much about art as about all communication in general? I wonder if it is the same feeling old testament prophets had when their people would just walk on by, not ‘getting’ their message and not changing their lives accordingly? I wonder if you’ve felt that disconnect?
More than anything, I suppose this has just got me wondering. I wonder what you think?
Have you had a surrogate experience through art? Have you offered a surrogate experience through art? Have you experienced the ‘gap’ between that experience in reality, and that experience conveyed through a work of art? How do we as artists bridge that gap for people? How do we bridge that gap as viewers?
This is going to be a strange post. I want to throw an idea out and I want to hear your thoughts on it. I’m going to tell you to touch art. I know, I know, you’re not supposed to. But I think you should. Here’s why.
My favorite way to spend a day off is to visit a gallery and give myself time to wander. It’s even better when my wife comes along. I love to experience art with someone, watching and learning from their reactions to the work. If I miss something, she often catches it. She pulls me back into pieces I breeze by. I’m fascinated by our different tastes, and where those tastes overlap tells me that beauty is not always subjective, “in the eye of the beholder”. Sometimes our trips bring a real revelation as we chat about what we see. That happened yesterday on Jasper ave near 124th street.
My wife made a tiny, fast comment. She told me that she likes work that invites her to touch it. Not that she does, of course, as touching the work is almost always forbidden. But she wants to when the work is good. It is work with layers, work that literally pulls her into itself. Often it is work with texture, employing gels or wax or mixed media collage. Work, she says, that makes her want to feel its surface and discover how it was made. There is something beautifully uninhibited and child-like about that response.
Do our "don't touch" rules about art keep us out of an experience?
I try to hide my cringing forward lurches, designed to pull her back from the canvas. I am an obsessive rule-follower, she will tell you. Taking my kids to a gallery, as much as I love it, sometimes fills me with more stress than pleasure as I think to myself over and again, “don’t touch!”, their eyes getting within inches of a piece. Especially when that piece is a Renoir or a Warhol.
But why not touch? Why this ironclad rule? Sure, I understand the motivation. We want to preserve work for future generations to enjoy. The oils in our skin can ruin a piece. I get this. But I wonder if preservation is always the top aim, or if preservation for future enjoyment sometimes eats away at potential enjoyment now. Are we stopping ourselves from experiencing part of art with this rule? Is touch not a vital sense, a potentially potent part of our experience of art? When my wife wants to reach out and feel a work because it speaks so loudly to her, does this not compliment the work and its creator. Don’t artists long for viewers to engage with their work? Touch is a sure form of engagement. I wonder, on a larger scale, does this “untouchable rule” contribute to the distance a large portion of society feels from “the fine arts”? Does the prohibition to touch artwork contribute on some level to an separation from it? Some of you may know better than I if these rules were always in place, or when they came into being. And what was the driving motive?
As we are looking to create an art space in the near future, one goal is engagement. We don’t want people to simply look at the work and pass by, we want them to interact with it. Sure, this happens mentally. It happens in relationship and conversation, but could it also happen literally? What if we curated a show where viewers were encouraged to touch every work? How would their perception of the work, and of the gallery itself, change?
Taking it further, what if we had a “touch, don’t look” gallery? Artists are invited to create work that will be experienced only through touch. “Viewers” are blindfolded, or sent into a pitch-dark room. They are rendered “blind” and must experience the work through other senses. How would this change our experience of art? How would it impact the artists involved?
Earlier this year I took the family to another art show, this one by sculptor Brian Jungen at the AGA. A sign at the entrance encouraged us to not only take photos (something forbidden in every other exhibit space), but to share those photos publicly online. Before I even saw the work, I felt encouraged to engage with it. I took photos. The kids posed with the massive plastic dinosaur skeletons, sometimes standing within the ‘bones’. They were still not supposed to touch, as far as I know, but even the change in attitude made us all relax and enjoy the work on a different level. I wonder if this invitation could be cultivated intentionally in all art shows? I wonder how that sort of invitation would change our approach to fine art?
This post offers more questions than answers, because what I am wrestling with here is not an answer, but a question. Should touch play a greater role in our experience of the arts, and particularly visual art?
I debated writing this post. Steve Jobs passed away Wednesday after a long battle with cancer. It made me sad. It was sobering. But that didn’t mean I had to comment about it here.
I questioned whether or not the iLoveArtists blog is really the place to pay my respects to Steve Jobs. To do so almost feels like a political move, revealing my card-carrying status in the Mac party. I’ve always tried to remain non-partisan in my stance to technology when it comes to this site, as I know some of you reading are not Mac people, and like it that way, thank you very much. Add to this hesitation the fact that Steve Jobs was not a god, and could all too easily become a god’s sorry replacement; an idol.
Steve Jobs was just a man, destined to die some time or other as we all are, no more or less important in the eyes of his Maker than you or I.
But still, if I’m honest, his death means something to me. It means something deep down. It feels important. In the same way I cannot fully explain the significance of Jack Layton’s eerily similar passing just a month or so ago, hearing Jobs had passed struck a dark, minor chord somewhere down in my spirit. It’s a chord I cannot get out of my head, and so I must sing it out here.
Why does it matter, this passing one businessman? Why does it matter to me, a Christian passionate about art, faith, hope and love?
There are a few reasons, and I’d like to unpack them (for my benefit, if not for yours).
Erosion
First, and perhaps most “surface” is that like Layton’s passing earlier, this death feels as close as I may come to Kennedy or Lennon in my own generation. Those older than me may laugh at this, but I feel we have few public heroes in our time. There are few people who loudly and clearly embody ideals. My generation seems to embrace ideals only from the comfortable distance afforded by irony. People like Steve Jobs fully embody the ideals they espouse. Take them or leave them you know where they stand. I feel too few are willing to put themselves on that line. Too few are willing to gush idealist platitudes, and to be labeled that dirty word, ‘sincere’. Every passing of these idealists feels like an eating away at our collective ability to hold pure ideals at all. In mourning Steve and Jack, I think I am mourning that erosion. In the closing of his famous Stanford address of 2005, Steve Jobs quoted the Whole Earth Catalog by imploring listeners to “Stay Hungy. Stay foolish”. That sounds awfully ideal, and awfully close to gospel truth to me.
The Importance of How
The second reason I’m writing a post about Steve Jobs has more to do with the Mac products he’s made. I’ll become one of the aforementioned stand-takers here and tell you that I think Mac products are a lot better than the alternatives. Before you turn me off, please listen to my why, because I’ve put a lot of thought into it.
I’ll sum it up with two sentences;
It is not only important what a product does, but how it does it.
Steve Jobs transformed out tools into toys, and in doing so, let us play at work.
Firstly, the question of how. If you’ve ever tried to justify to a System Administrator or an IT Guy (read:tech geek) why you need a Mac, you’ll understand that on paper, the choice doesn’t make a lot of sense. Macs, like aesthetic beauty, love, or extra cheese, are a hard thing to justify. PC’s that do the same things (and usually more) are widely available at the same (and almost always lower) price. As a pure pros-and-cons-on-paper decision, the type a machine would make, Macs lose. But I am not a machine. Things like “look and feel” and the hows of technology mean a great deal to me. I want my tools to be beautiful. If I am to spend so much time with them, why should they not bring enjoyment to me? I know there are plenty of places to read email, but I like that swoosh sound that tells me that little paper airplane is soaring from its sender. I like the fact that my keyboard lights up from behind at night, and the little apple glows on the back of my machine. I like the fact that my new Airport Extreme Base Station doesn’t have 7 lights to tell me what’s up with my wireless, but one reassuring green light that turns amber when things go sour. I like the fact that even when things screw up (and yep, they do), I get a playful little beach ball to tell me so. It lets me know that somebody, quite often Jobs himself I’m sure, put some effort into the how. I’m willing to pay for that.
It’s a rare thing when someone who actually knows how to make things function gets the importance of form. If Apple products were all surface, I wouldn’t be able to use them. But if they were ugly, I wouldn’t enjoy using them. But Steve Jobs seemed to get that balance right. Things have to work well, but they also had to work well, well. It’s really hard to convince some people, especially tech people it seems, why that matters. It sure does matter though. It Matters! The more technology becomes a part of everyday living, the more these intangibles matter. You only need food and water and shelter and sleep to live. But you need so much more to truly live. Quality of life matters as much as life itself. It’s not just what gets done, but how it gets done. Thanks for reminding us of that, relentlessly, Steve.
Tools Into Toys
I created media (design, websites, videos) on PC’s before I did it on Macs (technically not true, if you go back to the Apple II of my elementary school). But here’s the rub. I never enjoyed my tools. They were simply tools, and sometimes tools I had to really wrestle with. And then I bought my first new Mac.
Still my favourite Apple model of all time, my long-neck, floating screen, alien like iMac introduced me to making music on Garageband. For months I enjoyed just watching icons bounce around, shrinking and growing windows, dragging loops back and forth, listening to massive sample libraries of instruments and toying with my digital photos in iPhoto, swooshing emails back and forth and stringing together iMovies and iDVDs. For the first time (and this sounds cheesy, I know), I actually liked the tool itself, not just what I could do with it. I think I liked it because, even while at work, it let me play. There are little toys hidden everywhere in my MacBook Pro and my iPod Touch, my two current Apple staples.
I watched Steve Jobs introducing the Macintosh back in 1984 on YouTube last night, and you can tell that from early on, before computers could do much at all, he was having fun, and he wanted us to have fun too. We spend a lot of time with our tools, so why not make them more like toys? Why must adults stop playing? This speaks of Joy and Abundance (albeit in little ways) to me and these things are Gospel things. These things are Kingdom things. These things Matter!
And now, a word from my sanity.
I know this is all subjective. I know I’m gushing. And I know other products from other companies can be (and are) both fun and beautiful. I know Apple will continue to pursue the ideals Steve Jobs set forth (or at least, I hope they will). But I also know that Steve Jobs was an idealist who cared about beauty and fun, and it’s at least partly because of him that we have the great tools we have. I am sad he is gone.
One more man has passed
Finally, and this cannot be missed, Steve was a person, with a wife and children, and that is the saddest part. Today I’d guess they care little about the digital revolution or i-anyhing. Today I’d bet they care most about the fact that dad and husband is missing. Let us not forget that Christ cares about this, too. Jack Layton was a man with a family and friends. Steve Jobs was a man with a family and friends. Before anyone is an icon, he or she is a person. A child of God and a wearer of numerous other hats left empty and fallen to the floor with his or her passing.
It is a good thing, taking this time to remember and to mourn. To “sit shiva” online I suppose. Life goes on. We cycle forwards. But we must also pause because some things are important.
I briefly mentioned Steve Jobs’ 2005 Stanford address. I embed here in hopes that you’ll take 15 minutes from your day to watch it, in its entirety. It’s well worth your time.
Do you have any thoughts to add? Feel free to comment below.
This past weekend, Bridge Songs: ?rogress took place on Alberta Avenue, and took over many of our lives. Mine included.
Wednesday and Thursday last week were given to our feature exhibition at the Stollery Gallery, as Edward Van Vliet and the artists installed work. Thursday was also a day for renting (a lot of) equipment for the performances, setting it all up in our venue, sound checking and trying to squeeze in some practice time. Our Event Space Gallery was set up that night, and it was absolutely chock-full of art.
Friday, Jennifer worked like a mad woman to complete the ambiance for the space, working right up to performance time while weaving in and out of practicing performers. When 7 o’clock rolled around and people trickled in through the doors, the space looked great, but we sure didn’t feel ready. It’s too soon! Too soon!
With not one full dress rehearsal to our credit, we had to begin. The show must go on. This is the kind of unpreparedness yielded by the fusion of a dozen busy lives creating an event like this in their “free” time. But begin we did, and that night, for about 50 guests, we performed Bridge Songs: ?rogress for the first time. It went alright, but I knew it could have gone better. We all knew. I went home wishing I’d had more time to prepare, wishing more people had come out (we’d hoped for 100 that night), wishing I hadn’t made so many mistakes, wishing myself into an uneasy sleep (or lack thereof).
Saturday was a different story entirely.
We were still tight for practice time, but had at least had a full “practice” the night before. The exhibition at the Stollery was together and people were enjoying it. We knew our stuff now. Joe Gurba was reading poetry. A burgeoning crowd grew outside the sanctuary doors, wanting in. More time, more time! Ok, open the doors!
As we waited backstage for the first film (John Osborne’s Genesis) to end, we could hear the energy of the crowd. We could feel the electricity that precedes a great show. We all knew this final performance would be our best. And in that confidence we began.
Song after song, we nailed it. Mistakes were smoothed over or made to sound intentional. Even my cracking voice mid-scream miraculously landed on a note that fit just right. Our final song was supposed to be sung by Jeanne Williams, but she lost her voice. Daniel Mantai took over and I doubt anyone but us knew. Joe’s poetry glued our narrative together, playing right off of Jordan Majeau’s “Soul City” story arc. It was a beautiful night, enjoyed by near 150 people, many from outside of the Urban Bridge and City Centre communities. As we closed with Jaimie Clements preview from The Avenue Movie, then the song Hope there was a tangible sense of that “hope” in the room. Many from the Alberta Ave community were there, with hopes of their own. I’m sure they’ve asked many times, “is this progress?” I hope they got a sense that, through the steps forwards and back, it is.
By the Numbers
Our hope was to have 200 people enjoy Bridge Songs. When you add it all up, we likely exceeded that by a bit. About 50 on Friday, about 150 on Saturday and over 20 for Sunday’s workshop takes us right about where we wanted to be. It’s nice to see the event growing little by little. It’s nice to know it’s being enjoyed far beyond the little group of us creating it.
Those people not only supported the project with their presence, but financially. Everything we took in those two nights is to be donated to the Nina Haggerty Centre for The Arts and a home for abandoned seniors in Mexico. In total, just over $1500 was raised. I’m pretty proud of that, and offer up a big thank you to every who bought a CD, bought some food or just donated to our causes. Because of you, Nina Haggerty Centre will be able to buy a touchscreen drawing tablet that will enable some of their clients to create digital art works previously impossible because of their physical limitations. Because of you the project in Mexico will continue to grow into a reality. It’s nice to know we have reached beyond ourselves and our communities, both across the street and across the world.
Where Do We Grow From Here?
From here, we’ll be doing a lot of soul searching and evaluating. Were the two nights worth the sacrifice required? Was the album a rewarding undertaking? Was the workshop what we had hoped? Without stretching ourselves too far, how do we continue to challenge ourselves, and move beyond ourselves involving the local community to a greater extent. How many people would we like to see attending? And how many participating? What theme should we build Bridge Songs 2012 around? With prayer and discussion and discernment and the wisdom of many, we’re moving forward.
We’d love to hear your feedback about Bridge Songs: ?rogress. We’re more than open to your suggestions. Got a crazy idea you’d like to try next year? That’s how most of this event was born! Leave a comment below, or send us an email at info@iloveartists.ca.
We are pleased as punch to announce Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship, as our presenter for this year’s We Are Artists workshop, closing off the Bridge Songs 2011 weekend.
You can walk into a room and get a sense of its history, its purpose, its role in the life of a community. You can imagine what goes on in that room, like a revealing stroll by the sunlit windows of the Oil City Roadhouse on a morning after. You can picture a family get together in a cozy living room. You can imagine some holy ritual and communion with the Divine in an old church sanctuary.
Our venue, the beautiful sanctuary of St Stephen's/St Faith's
The Parish Church of St Stephen the Martyr (also known as St Faith’s Anglican) is a space that speaks. Walking into the room you feel a sense of awe and wonder. You experience beauty and the feeling of being small, somehow both humbling and uplifting at once. It is with just such humility and uplift that I appreciate this as the context of our upcoming Bridge Songs event. And with great thanks, too.
Our use of the church for this event came through a series of very fortunate events. Serendipity delivered some chance meetings that became intentional conversations that turned into this opportunity to work together with St Stephen’s and St Faith’s. Father John has graciously made the space available to us, and I was delighted to meet Wendy of St Faiths as well. With a warm welcome Wendy informed me that the church is one of only three accoustically perfect churches in the city. Now that is a venue.
I’m still not sure how this all worked out. I mean, I know how on paper, but I also know this. A few weeks ago I was praying, with many others, for a venue. We had lost our original space and I was just hoping for something servicable. But this is more than serviceable. This is a reminder that God is active and living and really cares about our pursuit of Him. He really takes care of us. He really listens. And boy does He provide. As our production team toured the venue yesterday morning we began to see this space come alive. Our imaginations got to work transforming this space for the weekend of June 17-19 with image and sound. It turns out, we won’t have to do much.
Well, it’s been almost a whole month since the last Making Progress and there have been a TON of things going on. Some were good, some not so great. Some took up so much time and energy that even writing a simple update here was a bit tough. But we’re out of the woods now and it’s full steam ahead with exciting things coming together daily. Here’s what’s been up.
The Bad: Venue, Part 1
Around the end of last month, we lost our main venue. We’d hoped to do Bridge Songs: ?rogress in the Cycle Building, but apparently the space is SO cutting edge its not ready for us yet. The space has been put on hold for everyone wanting to use it, while some critical upgrades are completed. This doesn’t only affect us, and people were very kind in trying to fit us in along the Ave. At the time, this wrench in the gears of our planning delayed us a bit and was pretty stressful. It also brought people together to pray and dream and make things happen. In the long run, we hope to be able to use the space again, but we’re pretty happy with where we’ve ended up.
The Good: Venue, Part 2
The Parish Church of St Stephen the Martyr is housed in a beautiful old Anglican sanctuary that we are proud to call our new home for Bridge Songs: ?rogress. The church has graciously opened its doors to our event and with such a beautiful setting we are very, very grateful. This new venue allows us to house art AND music in one large space, making Bridge Songs a true arts explosion across mediums this year. This new venue truly was an answer to our prayers and the beginning a beautiful friendship with another Alberta Avenue organization.
The Music
All of our songs have now been tracked and we’re nearly done mixing, too. We have moved a new set of songs online to reflect the progress, called “Bridge Songs Final Countdown”.
You can hear the growing list of near-done songs online here …
We’re into our homestretch for marketing the event, and we need all the help we can get. U R Progress is a campaign that makes you the marketers, folks. Word of mouth is the best way to get someone out to an event like this so we are counting on a lot of words from a lot of mouths. Each week for the next four, leading up the event, we will have a “marketing mission” for you to help us out with. The best way to find out what that mission is, as well as generally stay in the loop about Bridge Songs, is to sign up for our brand new Bridge Songs email list. You’ll get one email a week for the next four weeks, chock full of goodies.
The artists have been chosen for ?rogress, the longer exhibit running at The Stollery Gallery. The show, running from June 17 to July 5, will feature work by installation artists Pam Baergen and TJ McLachlan as well as photos from Ben Lemphers.
Submissions continue to roll in for the Event Space Gallery, and if you would like to submit your work there you have until May 31. Find out all the submission details here.
The (re)Design
With posters and advertisements coming out soon, a whole slew of new designs have been created, starting with the website, bridgesongs.ca, and moving right on into the album art. Have a look around at the website and get a feel for the fresh new paint based on a lovely photo by Aaron Vanimere.
The Twitter
We now have a twitter. Daily lyrics from the upcoming album and timely updates on the event are being posted regularly. Follow us @bridgesongsarts.
Phew … so much going on my head is almost spinning. Now that is progress.
I’m referring to the old term “four eyes” that kids like me were called by our equally immature taunters is elementary school. I’m hoping the kids of today are kinder, because my son has just joined the “four eyes” club. Pulling out an old photo of myself with my first pair of specs, I can see how the ridicule was much more deserved in my case than his, so I think he’ll be OK. Still, it is sad to see him wearing that vision-enhancing fashion accessory and realize it’s no accessory at all. Glasses are required for him to function normally in the world. And they will be, likely, for the rest of his life. They’re not coming off.
I'm thankful that I can see more of my kids than this.
My son’s eye doctor encounter brought glasses, and my daughter’s, this very morning, brings surgery. My daughter has one eye that does not track properly with the other. This means that when looking at a distance her eyes get out of sync, and one simply stays put or wanders while the other moves about, bearing the extra work of focusing on what she wants to see. Not only is this ineffective and headache inducing, it just looks plain strange. For these reasons we made the tough choice to put our 5 year old girl under the knife (though I’m assured it is a very small and precise knife).
All of this eye trouble makes one wonder “why us”? Why my kids? We don’t even own a TV, so I’m fairly certain they’re not watching too much. For whatever reason we lost the genetic lottery in the vision department and there’s not a darn thing we can do about it. But instead of griping, I’m going to try to turn this thing on its head and offer some thanks this morning.
It’s not with a false or forced heart that I thank God for these optical interventions. With a very real and humbling sense of fortune, I thank God for the times in which I live. Had my eyes come into some other century, without the miracles of modern medicine, I would be considered blind I am sure. I can do nothing without my glasses, and that pretty much includes walking around. I can’t see 1 foot in front of me without my lenses. Removing my glasses, with my laptop solidly on lap, I cannot see what I’m typing, or even that I have a WordPress window open at all. Without eye doctors and their miracle cures (or a more traditional miracle) I’d be hooped.
Similar miracles have come to my children today. Jack marveled as he looked down the mall just outside the glasses store, realizing that he actually could see things at a distance. Clarity is a privilege, he realized. And heck, his Ray Bans even look awesome. From all reports his first day in the “four eyes club” brought nothing but compliments. Lucie will go forward without as much eye strain and (after things heal up and the white returns to the eyes) without the awkward appearance a lazy eye brings. These things are covered by our healthcare and health plans. These things were incredibly simple to set up. These things are genuine miracles.
So today I am thankful for the miracles we have simply come to accept as fact. As I reflect on the theme of “Progress” that comes along with our Bridge Songs event in June, I cannot shake the fact that without advances in medicine and science, I’d be blind, and my children would be in some deep trouble, too. So I am thankful for progress. I am thankful that I can see my beautiful children, and that they can see me.
The beat goes on for Bridge Songs: ?rogress this week. It’s certainly been keeping me busy (so busy I didn’t get to writing a “progress report” last week at all), and now the work is spreading out to all of our teams and sub teams and sub-sub teams. That’s how progress is made. Literally.
In The Mix
We are getting closer to a final mix for a couple of tracks on the Bridge Songs: ?rogress album, and the task of finishing the recording is now spread out among the songwriters. Over the next week, most parts will be finished recording and the mixing phase will officially kick in. This is a big hurdle to cross in the making of the album, and we’re learning a lot as we go. Also, if I do say so myself, it’s sounding pretty darn good.
Our most complete track so far is “Transpose”, written by Mat Halton. You can hear the most recent mix of the track online right about here (mixed on headphones in the back of a minivan en route to Winnipeg this week).
The first date for submissions, for our Feature Gallery, has now passed (as of April 15th). We got more than we’ll have room for and curator Edward Van Vliet is busy making selections. There are some great works to choose from, so look forward to a wonderful exhibit this year.
I am pleased to report that my quixotic home renovation project, The Gold Wall, is finished. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about, I set out to paint one wall in our new bedroom gold this year. Not finding gold wall paint, I turned to craft paint. A tiny bottle, a tiny brush and patience helped me in my task to paint every little square of our textured wallpaper a shimmering gold. One by one by one. When I started the project I took it as a metaphor for progress; for tackling large journeys one baby step at a time. Having recently completed the project, and in light of some current challenges with other endeavors, I can attest to the deep truth of the Tiny Gold Square metaphor.
the golden brush of accomplishment
There she waits, the final golden square
First, some facts and figures. The wall took me about 3 months of off and on work. That means grabbing an hour here, a half hour there, a couple hours on this evening while watching a movie and so on. I would have gone crazy to do this work in one go. I’d guess at around 20 hours by the time it was done. I suppose I’ve got nothing on Michelangelo. Second, the number of squares painted. They’re tricky to count, because while they do form a grid, and I do know how to multiply, there are features in the wall (like a vent) and some of the squares are cut in half (or worse, in thirds). All told, about 1160 squares were painted by me, by hand, to finish this wall. Eleven HUNDRED and sixty folks. Amazingly, I used just 1 little plastic container of craft paint. It cost me under 3 dollars. If you can’t brag about a feat like this, then what have you got?
I have finished this project deep in the minutia of another. I am producing and recording the Bridge Songs album this year, instrument by instrument, vocal take by vocal take, participant by participant, track by track. We are getting the job done 30 minutes here, and hour of guitar work there, a couple hours for vocals one day and a full day for drums on weekend. Bit by bit. Square by square.
This weekend, the impending weight of this project loomed large casting an ominous shadow over my vision for what we could accomplish. I began to see what was not done and got quite scared. I panicked a bit. I took in the whole. I forgot that a wall full of Tiny Gold Squares was not painted in a day.
I am happy to say that I shared this frustration with my team, and several people stepped up to lend a hand. Sometimes there are just too many “squares” for one person, and that’s when community gets really magical. When each person takes a batch of “squares” and applies their handiwork. I am looking forward to looking over to my right, as I paint my squares, and seeing a row already finished, by some other helper. That is encouraging. That keeps us going. That makes large projects possible. That is progress.
I’ve learned a lot from my Tiny Gold Squares, and as I face more “real” or “practical” projects than my big gold wall, by wall speaks wisdom to me. It shines for me to illuminate the sometimes dark path of a large, intensive work load.
And so today I move forward. Square by square, little by little, day by day, until we are finally done and have the chance to sit back and bask in the glow of our work well done.
Earlier this year I took the family to another art show, 
We are pleased as punch to announce Mark Pierson, author of The Art of Curating Worship, as our presenter for this year’s We Are Artists workshop, closing off the Bridge Songs 2011 weekend.
I’m still not sure how this all worked out. I mean, I know how on paper, but I also know this. A few weeks ago I was praying, with many others, for a venue. We had lost our original space and I was just hoping for something servicable. But this is more than serviceable. This is a reminder that God is active and living and really cares about our pursuit of Him. He really takes care of us. He really listens. And boy does He provide. As our production team toured the venue yesterday morning we began to see this space come alive. Our imaginations got to work transforming this space for the weekend of June 17-19 with image and sound. It turns out, we won’t have to do much.
Well, it’s been almost a whole month since the last Making Progress and there have been a TON of things going on. Some were good, some not so great. Some took up so much time and energy that even writing a simple update here was a bit tough. But we’re out of the woods now and it’s full steam ahead with exciting things coming together daily. Here’s what’s been up.
The beat goes on for Bridge Songs: ?rogress this week. It’s certainly been keeping me busy (so busy I didn’t get to writing a “progress report” last week at all), and now the work is spreading out to all of our teams and sub teams and sub-sub teams. That’s how progress is made. Literally.
