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Arts

Funny, a Labyrinth in the Middle of the City

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So we are up in Seattle for this pest control meeting. I flew up after Youth 2011 & Erin flew in a few days early to check out the town. We are pretty much doing the tourist things in our short time here but one thing I never expected was on the outside of the ‘experiential music project’ and down the hill a bit from the space needle is a huge labyrinth painted onto the cement.

Not sure why it was placed there. They do have a lot of public art in the city. Maybe that is reasoning enough. It had a different vibe than the ones we had in all the Youth 2011 events because this was more like a playground piece with parents and kids racing through the lines.

I suppose everyone encounters a labyrinth with their own experience. It just seemed funny to me.

shalom
-gavin

http://youthworkercircuit.com | http://gavoweb.com

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Youth 2011 and Claiming Space

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Last week Kevin & I spent the week alongside my nephew & Josh Vegors putting together the ‘Sacred Space’ for Youth 2011 in Purdue. So what was this ‘Sacred Space?’ Well, it was a contemplative prayer & arts space that we set up that the youth could experience God on their own, where they were, and express that however they felt it.

The thing with crafting contemplative space is that you give up control. In a contemporary worship environment you can control the flow or the highs and lows of emotion through the time. When we do these contemplative spaces you set the stage, but whatever dance that happens after that is out of your control.

I was completely and beautifully reminded of this in this one moment at our Youth 2011 Sacred Space. Josh who was helping out started to take pieces of the artwork that the youth created and placing them in the hallway in a display type manner. Not part of my original plan but it is what he was led to do so we went with it. Hours later I was coming out of the sacred space room and I see this girl sitting on one of the chairs in the hallway. She looks distressed enough that it gave me some cause for concern. So I was just about to walk up to her and ask her if she was okay when I realized that she was actually visually meditating on the art pieces and probably in prayer. So I backed off.

To my surprise even more. She, just then, fell from her chair to her knees and proceeded to hold that prayer posture for some five to eight minutes. It was crazy. This was the freaking hallway.. There was not anything sacred about this hallway, until now. This youth broke some of my ideas of the space we set up in a contained room and took the sacred into the hallway and claimed it as something special.

I think it is neat that teens are wild and uncontrollable. God probably thinks they take after him.

Claiming Space as Sacred
Claiming Space as Sacred

 

ReDiscover Wonder

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I am constantly amazed by the human imaginative capacity. It really is remarkable. I’m floored almost equally how we squash that imagination capacity for those things are ‘real’ ‘achievable’ ‘sustainable’ ‘practical’ and so on. Why?

What I find captivating in this is not just the art creations, those are unbelievably remarkable. But that it took some crisis to have to challenge the norm to go deeper into the self and reflect upon the world to imagine a whole new way. Once that way was visualize it was then another endeavor to make something that had never before been seen or done become a something.

Do we give ourselves a chance to imagine what is before us and what can be? If we don’t, and do not care either, do the rest of society a favor and just get out of the way of those who do. Those are the people who will creatively re-imagine the many practical and sustainable systems that are no longer practical or sustainable. We need to rediscover wonder again..

why a Fear of Artists?

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Last night I watched a Frontline episode that was really fascinating. It was chronicle of Ai Weiwei a Chinese artist who has the government fearing his persona.

Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.

He’s an artist, who has some anti-government views and a social media following because of his art and now branded self. And is the subject of scrutiny of his own government..

It had me wondering.

If the Chinese government is fearful of an artist.. Why do we diminish the value of art in our own culture? If it can strike the fear into one of the largest governments in the world then the artist has some power and influence.. But yet, we in America push our arts to the side of our education system as having little value alongside of math or other more tangible (less abstract) type disciplines.

Why does a power institution fear the artist? Yet we don’t even value them at all? or is our devaluing our subversive method of diminishing the artist because our institutions fear them as well?

Maybe there is reason for fears.. in Egypt, some of the figureheads of the revolt were writers.. So the pen is mightier than the sword?..

Waking Up Our Young People

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Ken Robinson first caught my radar some years back when TED started putting their talks online. Mitch Joel suggested Ken’s talk. I’ve used his talk in many teaching environments for youth, adults & other educations.

This RSA video is a great fusion of the visual with the oratory. It is also a different talk than what Ken gave at his TED talk, which was great to digest. The video is just over 10 mins long, but totally worth it!

Definite tip of the hat for this video to Mark Riddle.

How are we engaging the soulful creative character that is within the young people? It appears we are not doing it very well.