Guest post by Julie Robertson (photo at right): We received a massive blessing from God last week— he allowed my husband Eric and I to attend the IAM Conference in New York City! Due to short notice, we were not certain if we would be able to attend… but then funds started coming in from unusual places. We knew then that God was telling us to go! Paul Nethercott met us there, and it was a blessing to be able to connect with him over the weekend.
IAM (International Arts Movement) is an organization that encourages artists worldwide to change their world through faith and their chosen art field. The conference was held March 4-6 at Cooper Hall in the exciting Greenwich Village area of New York City. We attended seminars by prominent musicians, fine artists, sculptors, designers, writers, and illustrators. Studio Re:'s collaboration, the film Jitensha, was selected from a number of other entries to screen at the Conference. It was encouraging to see the positive reaction and thoughtful questions that people were asking Paul after the showing.
We were encouraged to go out and explore New York City. For those of you who have been/lived there, you know that just being in this city is an
inspiration… it is so busy, exciting, artistic, diverse… and (just like Alicia Keys sings) you truly feel that “there’s nothing you can’t do.” We attended several art shows of a caliber beyond anything that we could possibly see in our current home of Oklahoma.
Eric (photo at right is Eric at Grand Central Station) learned valuable information about music from Jacob Marshall, lead singer of the successful band “MAE.” Among the other fantastic friends we made were Makoto Fujimura (in photo beside his painting), a world-renowned Japanese artist and founder of IAM; Dave and Corey Fuller, who are involved with IAM in Oklahoma City; Kiwa, a Japanese exchange student studying fine art near Boston, and so many others!
The thing that sticks out most in my mind is what Mr. Fujimura said about making our art an expression of Love. We all know the famous description of love in I Corinthians 13, but how many of us artists think of applying these characteristics to our work? How many of us make art that is not envious, boastful, proud, rude, self-seeking, or delighting in evil, but rejoicing with the truth? So much of modern art is purposefully intended to shock, aggravate, horrify, or otherwise celebrate evil. How wonderful it would be if we artists would all use our energy to create art that points people to life in Christ instead of hopelessness and death.
It was also great to see so many successful, prestigious artists who are Christians... something that sometimes I don't think exists. We don't have to stay caged in our small little ambitions that only reach a few people in our immediate area. We can truly make a huge impact on the whole world, like many of these people are already doing. That was what I will always remember from this conference.
That, and the 99c pizza by the slice.
4 comments:
Great to hear your report on the conference from a different perspective! I'm glad you got to be there.
Mama
Wow! This sounds like such a neat experience! Praise God for His provision!
I am looking forward to watching the film soon, I was at IAM last year a truly wonderful gathering of people. Thanks for this post
Hey! This is crazy and random that I found you guys on this..But I believe I met and talked with your husband VERY briefly a couple of times at the Japanese church in Oklahoma City.
I'm very interested in doing missions in Tokyo, and also very interested in art and design. Would love to talk with you guys some more and maintain a connection and share resources. I was pretty suprised to be randomly searching the internet for missions in Japan and to have found some people that I have seen! Wow! Would love to get in touch with you guys, found your husband on facebook and saw that we had mutual friends and sent a message. Feel free to reply on my blog. Thank you!
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