As part of my thesis research I went back through stuff I’ve written on the creative process and Christianity in the past. This is from the Art and Faith School of Theology class I took at Vintage in 2007. I made a few clarifying edits, but mostly this is the original text:

Since I often find it easier to put down my thoughts in type after thinking them over for a while, I wanted to continue the discussion we had tonight in an alternate medium.  The “data dump” exercise for me was a chance to get some thoughts about the nature of art out of my head that have been annoying me for the last couple weeks.  In the fairness of full disclosure I have a hard time considering myself an artist sometimes.  The project we worked on last week with the boards was difficult for me.  I had no problem gluing things together on my board and creating something, that was easy, what I found difficult was the ascribing of meaning to what I created.  I took “synthetic pulp” as my title and found it very fitting.  What “art” I do create has little meaning beyond the face value of what it is, there isn’t some allegorical meaning laying beneath the surface.  Because of this, the artistic merit of the end product has very little importance to me.  I work in photography because what you see is what you get.  Photographs evoke emotions but you don’t have to explain them for the most part, there is no meaning other than what you see.  When we start forcing our art to have meaning–synthesizing it–or make a statement, we place artificial importance on what other people think of it and how they receive it.  It suddenly becomes important for the final product to be “good” and for people to understand it.  For me, I create for an audience of two, me and God.

We talked about struggling to bring ourselves to work on our art even when we sometimes don’t want to because we aren’t happy with how it has turned out in the past or because we feel we lack the proper skills and abilities.  God doesn’t care.  We talked about the L’Engle quote about how we have to wade through our petty prayer requests for a new car or a new house or more money or whatever before we can spend time just listening to God and then how we often have to work though periods of “bad art” before we create something worthy of God’s attention.  God gives us a compulsion to be creative beings because he takes joy not just in our end product but in the physical work we put into it.  I think he takes great pride in even our crappy stick figure sketches.  I think, to God at least, a finger painting by a pre-schooler has just as much value as the Sistine Chapel.  That said, the beauty and power of great art from the human perspective is that it gives us a glimpse of Heaven will one day be like. But even the greatest pinnacles of human achievement in art pale in comparison to what one day awaits us. When we get frustrated with our art not turning out how we picture it in our head it is really an expression of the brokenness of creation.

I think  inside of our soul we still have a little remnant of a collective memory of what Creation was like Pre-Fall and we desperately want to be able to create art in that space again.  We wish we could all sit down and play beautiful music and paint beautiful paintings and write beautiful sonnets we can be proud of when we present them to God but instead we have to accept that we can’t be perfect and our art will sometimes suck. I was watching Bob Ross (he of “happy tree” fame) the other day on PBS and he was talking about how he didn’t want to teach people a proper way to paint but rather he wanted to just get them excited about painting on their own.  He talked about the time he spent living in Alaska and how he thought God must have really enjoyed creating Alaska and how much he (Bob) enjoyed painting landscapes resembling Alaska because of that reason.  He didn’t paint to showcase his skill as an artist but rather about reflecting the glory of God.  I think God has called us to this as artists.  He hasn’t called all of us to be DaVinci’s or Michaelangelo’s, He has called us to reflect his Being in our work.  I believe God smiles every time I write bad poetry or clumsily play my guitar while singing off key or take poorly exposed photos, because I am trying to put into some comprehensible form a tiny portion of the beauty of His Art, His Creation.  I don’t think we should feel like we have to struggle through periods of bad art before we feel like we have an end product that will be pleasing to God, He is happy that we are just trying.

Seeing as how it’s 2:30am it would probably be a good idea to be in bed, but seeing as how it is so hot in our house still, that is pretty much a useless effort.  So instead I’m sitting here watching The Decemberists on Austin City Limits.  I recorded it about a month ago on Tivo and have it saved permanently.  I would love to see them in concert someday.  I guess there are at least three good things to come out of Portland, Powell’s Bookstore, The Decemberists, and Little People, Big World.  That’s about the most kind words you’ll ever here from a Washingtonian about the state of Oregon.  Until they at least ditch the 55mph speed limit, their staying on the sneeds list.

Though in the “retro” trend category, I’ve heard rumblings of a return to the nationwide 55mph speed limit to promote fuel savings.  While this is a pretty stupid concept (sorry, I tend to be a little more blunt at this time of night) it did kind of suck to pay $65 dollars today to fill my gas tank.  If I was smart, I’d invest in these guys right now.  I find it hard to imagine that congress, no matter who is in control, can avoid taking some kind of steps to counteract the insane skyrocketing gas prices.  The American (and by extension the world) economy is predicated on cheap fuel.  If this is no longer the reality, I’m less worried/interested in any coming recession as I am in the restructuring of society that will take place as a result of transportation no longer being cheap.  Anyone know at what point train travel becomes more practical than flight?  I remember when I purchased my first HP laptop I drove from Yakima to my house and back again just to pick it up.  I don’t even drive over the hill to San Jose anymore now.

(update: I’m now watching last weeks Arcade Fire performance on Austin City Limits. . . Tivo is great)

Anyway, I took the afternoon off of work today and went down to Vintage for a special condensed new members class.  It was an exciting opportunity to go through the fundamentals of what Vintage stands for as a church and to be able to put pen to paper and actually commit to standing by those values.  We still haven’t had the official commissioning yet but we all signed covenants today dedicating ourselves to the mission of the church.  Between this and the photo show opening tomorrow it’s a pretty exciting time at Vintage for me right now!

Well, it’s finally started to cool down now so I think I’ll take a whack at getting some rest before tomorrow.  This is going to be a busy week!

Well, we made it through the first check in of summer here at Mount Hermon pretty much without a hitch.  I’m hoping things go really well this summer now that I’ve got one summer under my belt.

We did have a bit of an eventful last week though because of a large fire that was burning just about five miles from the camp.  I’ve already blogged about that and the photos are still up over on Flickr.

The last little bit of this update is in some ways the most exciting.  Tomorrow I’m going down to Vintage to put up photos for a show we are having for the next 6 weeks in the coffeehouse.  I’m excited about that since it will be the first ever public show of my photos in large numbers.  I had two photos in a show back at Christmas but this one is going to be just Matt and I.  We both have about 20 shots to put up.

So this was a little bit of a disjointed and scatterbrained update but Coffee Cat closes soon and, frankly, I’m having a little bit of trouble concentrating right now.  Well, on that note, later!

I added a few shots from today at Vintage to Flickr. Take a look! I’ll post in a couple of days about my new Blackberry. There are some photos from that too. Enjoy!

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As I’ve mentioned in the past, most of the photos I take during the service at Vintage are off limits, but since there aren’t any faces in some of the ones I took today I put them up on my Flickr too. This is a pretty good sample of what I do most weeks at Vintage. It’s a lot of moving around trying to find new and interesting perspectives each week. The lighting is always an adventure as in the morning it is often very harsh and bright light coming in through the stained glass windows while in the evening it almost feels like a cave some times. Usually I end up with a good batch of shots though, so I can’t really complain. Sometime I’ll write a post about my thoughts on taking pictures during a service and where I draw the line between when to shoot and when to just sit back and participate. Not right now though, cause it’s 1am and I’m tired.

Bradley Hathaway
Originally uploaded by Jonathan Assink

I haven’t been blogging much about my photo taking work at Vintage Faith and I’d like to change that. Obviously much of what I shoot during the services is private and won’t see much light of day. The work I do on the shows after the evening services however are a far different matter. So from time to time you may see photos of church life turn up, but I hope to start posting my favorite shot from the week here.

I’ve added some old photos to flickr that I didn’t have there before so you can look back on some of the work I’ve done since last fall. The first one I’ll post here though is from this Sunday’s show. Bradley Hathaway is a spoken word poet and song writer with an amazing band out of Arkansas. The lighting situation was really frustrating this week because they put all of the lights on the sides of the stage so most of the band was silhouetted the whole time. But any photographer of worth won’t let a little problem like the lack of light stop them from doing their job! Thus while I don’t have any great shots of Bradley’s face, I do like this profile I got.

More flickr pics, hurray! I went down with a group from Vintage today to the Point Lobos State Reserve outside of Monterey. Pretty cool place, I definitely want to make it back there sometime, hopefully soon.

So I’ve had a great week! I got good news on two fronts. First off, I’m moving into a new house starting this weekend. Mount Hermon has a two bedroom unit that I am going to share with one of the other guys on staff that is way, way nicer than the last two places I’ve been. It actually has carpet! The best things about it though are the kitchen, living space, and washer/dryer. I won’t have to go to the laundry mat any more which makes me very happy. We will also have both a dining room and a living room so I can finally start having bigger get togethers and movie nights. I want to have one of our reg staff meetings there too so I can cook breakfast for everyone. Anyway, maybe tomorrow I can take some pics and throw them up on flickr. The power isn’t on there yet so that is the only real reason I haven’t started moving in there yet.

The other big news I have is from Vintage Faith. I’m in talks right now to become the leader of the photo team, something that came as a little bit of a surprise, but a very welcome one. I’ve been interested for a few weeks now in seeing what form the photo team would take when things started back up this fall and now I get to make the decisions! My hope is to have a two meeting system that gives opportunities both for advanced shooters to be more involved and for real newbies to have fun and learn. I want to have two meetings a month (every two weeks) where one meeting is more of a true meeting for discussing documenting of church events, planning for shows in the coffeehouse, encouraging each other in our craft, and brainstorming different projects to work on. The other meeting would be more of a photo walk where we go to a pre-determined site and shoot for an afternoon. I already have a few sites in mind but I want to talk with people too to see if there aren’t some great sites I haven’t thought of. Potentially the coolest site to go to would be Fort Ord down by Monterey but I think it might be illegal to just walk around the grounds there so I have to look into that one more. If nothing else though, there are plenty of fun sites around Santa Cruz that will work just fine. Anyway, hopefully I’ll be able to post some more thoughts on that in the coming days but for now I’ve gotta wrap up and get going. Later!

Well, it is finally my weekend (I worked today) and I need it bad!  I’ve worked 9 of the last 10 days to finish off the last of our summer camps and I am just about completely exhausted.  I’ve forgotten how much more sleep I need when I’m working 8-5 instead of even 9-6.  Aren’t people supposed to work jobs from 9-5?  Being hourly really bites.  I keep saying I’m going to stop working jobs that are on hourly pay but I keep ending up in them.  Oh well.

I was at Home Depot again tonight and bought a work lamp.  We are doing an art project at Vintage tomorrow where we are going to trace people’s profiles onto canvases and then hang them up in the coffeehouse.  The idea is that the coffeehouse is a place where the church family gathers so we are going to put up family portraits.  It is really fun to now be involved in a project that I can get behind instead of the wacky cotton ball fiasco.  It is fun to keep meeting people too and feel like I’m more a part of the church.  I think to really feel at home in any church I’m attending I’ll need a role other than just parishioner.

There is big news at Vintage too.  I went to an “All-Serve” meeting yesterday night where the staff’s of Vintage Faith and First Presbyterian announced that they will be formally merging the churches come January.  Everyone is very excited on both sides of the table but there are a couple bumps that have to be dealt with.  Most comical I think is all of the Emerging church folk who are now in panic mode thinking Josh and Dan will go all Calvinist on them.  In a lot of ways it really is funny how at home I feel in an Emerging community considering I believe myself to be a Calvinist.  While I do find it very comical, there is a part of me that feels sad people have such a frightened reaction.  To me, being a Calvinist and being an Emerger are not at all incompatible.   My Calvinist side submits to the all-powerful creator of the universe while my Emerging side worships His beauty and mystery.  I didn’t want to push things to far and stumble over my words but I also am excited that Vintage will be joining the bay area presbytery.  I think being part of a denomination (or any form of formal church governing body) is very healthy for a church also.  Not to say that there is anything inherently wrong or bad about non-denominational churches, but more because I think the accountability encouraged by being part of a presbytery (or classis, for us RCA types) is healthy.  We talked about how being part of a denomination brings in a rich history and tradition and deep liturgy the Emerging church movement lacks while Vintage can hopefully bring new life and fervor to a system that has been sagging in recent years.  The VFC/FPC staff talked about how they want this to serve as an example of how an established church can partner with a new “upstart” to better reach the community.  Traditionally on the west side of Santa Cruz churches have floundered and sputtered along until they died, yet Vintage is now poised for near explosive growth.  I’m not a big fan of the numbers game because there are a lot of ways to get people in the door without really making an impact on their lives, but when it’s a God thing and the church is a community that is encouraging people to change how they live and be a source of light and salt, then keep the doors open wide!  How exciting it is to see God move!