2007 Drama Awards

This is me and my old roommate Allison at the Drama Awards last night. It's the APU version of the Oscars, complete with little golden statues called "Phillies" (after the founder of the Theater Program, Phil Nash.)

This is me and my friend Katie. She is an awesome, hysterical girl who was nominated for a few awards (though she sadly didn't walk away with any). She, along with one of my old Alphies, will be my neighbors next year. Yay!!!!

This is me and my buddy Tom, a.k.a. "Tommy Magic." He's a very talented amateur magician on the Drama Ministry Team, who came up with Allison and the rest of the team to perform at our church over Spring Break. As you can see, I'm one of his biggest fans (don't get any ideas...).

Hearing

Sometimes I come away from a conversation feeling listened to, but not heard. There's this vague sense of frustration that my words are not penetrating, that there's some invisible fog, either in my brain or theirs, that is preventing our mutual understanding. My usual response is to say the same thing over and over again, just in different words, but it's usually about as successful as trying to open a safe by guessing random combinations.

It makes me wonder how people feel when they walk away from me.

It makes me wonder how God feels when He tries to talk to me.

It makes me wonder if there are different levels to all the senses. You can glance over an art piece, or you can dive in and really see it. You can rush through a meal, or you can sit and really taste it. We rush through our lives trying to pack in as much pleasure as possible, yet hurry and impatience seem to kill so much of the real thing. Somewhere, there must be a special demon in charge of Hurry.

The box of See's candy....

...is gone now.

Muera la Modernism! Viva las Amigas!

My old roommate and dear friend Allison and I are sitting at my kitchen table, a mostly-eaten box of See's candy in between us, doing homework. Well, we just resumed doing our homework after the question, "What is the point of abstract art?" turned into a 30-minute conversation about art and theology. We made some exciting new connections that I want to record before I go back to my homework and forget about them.

I was explaining some of the different kinds of abstraction and what they're about, and somehow we got into the term "modernism" and its different definitions in the theology and art worlds. The modern art movement marked a huge change in the way people thought about "art." It became more individualized and self-focused. The ideas of art as self-expression and art-for-art's-sake were introduced. Art became less connected other disciplines (history, mythology, the Bible, etc.) and became all about the next new thing. I went off on a rampage about how the modern art scene is so elitist and commercialized, that only rich, educated people can make it or understand it, and the definition of a true artist is someone who devotes their entire life to making whatever the heck they want (otherwise they're a "sell-out") yet happens to obtain fame and fortune along the way. I revisited my pet theory that all art should be like a good children's book--appreciable by almost anyone on the surface, but with lots of depth available for those with the knowledge and desire to look.

Then Allison talked about modernist theology, which she explained as the idea that it is possible to discover what the Bible "really means" by using tools of objective, literary exegesis to discover the author's intent, the context of the time, etc. etc. The core concept is that there is one "true" interpretation that can be reached if you know all the facts and are completely unbiased. Now, here comes the juicy stuff. She thought for a moment, and then said that really, that's a very elitist way of looking at the Bible, that only those with the right education really know the truth about God. (In fact, that's pretty contrary to Jesus' teaching--he usually wasn't too happy with the educated.) Meaning no blasphemy, but maybe we should look at it more like a good children's book....

But the fun doesn't stop! She read me this quote by this modernist scholar, Charles Hodge, who said: "The Bible is to the theologian as nature is to the man of science. It is his storehouse of facts; and his method of ascertaining what the Bible teaches is the same as that which the natural philosopher adopts to ascertain what nature teaches." And I thought, hey now! No one who has watched a sunrise, or seen the ocean, or hiked along the Grand Canyon could say that scientific facts are all that nature has to teach us. As true and necessary and valid as most of science is, it is not the only way of looking at things! A scientist, a poet, and a child would describe a rose very differently; does that make one or the other wrong? Can all their view points be true at the same time?

It seemed to me to be an example worth exploring about how God can be so many different things at once, or rather, seen in so many different ways at once. It's a slippery slope, and in the "post-modern" age, which is characterized, in both theology and art, by an abundance of different points of view, it's easy to fall into pluralism. But at the same time, God is so much bigger that the vision of any one person. How do we, in a culture of elitism and specialization, be open to seeing God in new ways while still separating the truth from the lies?

See's Candy is very inspiring.

She caves!

It's true! I've held out as long as I can. I don't have a MySpace, I never update my Facebook profile, I haven't had an IM conversation since sophomore year of high school--I don't even like text messaging! But I've just had so much stinkin' fun reading about the adventures of my big bro, his beautiful, dishwashing* wife, and their wonderful, amazing, intelligent, adorable, incredible daughters that I thought, hey, maybe if I take 10 minutes now and then to type a little something, I can tell my grandchildren in 50 years that "back in my day, we had to use blogs to communicate across the country, and we liked it!"
So here I am, projecting myself into cyberspace. It is the week before finals here at Azusa Pacific University, and as an Art major, this is the busiest time of the year for me. I don't have a single test to study for, only about 12 different projects that need to be finished all at the same time! So really, I have no business being here, typing this. Whatever. College is supposed to be about losing sleep, right? I never procrastinate when it comes to procrastinating.
In other news, I sold my first piece of artwork today! Somebody actually gave me REAL MONEY for my art! Like, she handed me a check and said, "You give me those two little pieces of papers that you scribbled and wrote stuff on, which I will frame and put on my wall, and I will give you this little piece of paper that I scribbled and wrote stuff on, which you will take to a bank and exchange for actual cash, which you can use to buy nice things like food and gas and more paper and pens to scribble and write with!"
At least, that was the gist of it.
Needless to say, I am pretty stoked. Especially because the Barking Dog, a beautiful coffee shop in beautiful Sonoma, is interested in displaying similar scribblings there this summer, which would be absolutely amazing!
In other news, for anyone who might be reading this who doesn't know it already, I chopped off all my hair! Well, not all of it, but almost a foot of it. I donated it to Wigs for Kids, so somebody is walking around out there with a Meagan on their head! It's a pretty big change for me, but I love it, and, judging from the sheer volume of comments I've gotten, other people do too. (All except my Grandma, who wailed "Your beautiful hair! Wicked child, what have you done with it?" But she loves me anyways.) I'll try to remember to post a picture, but I'm really bad at stuff like that. Sigh. This will probably be one of those boring blogs that are all text. Visual suicide!
Speaking of suicide, I had better get busy on my projects. Only 2 more weeks of school!

(End of ACT 1. To be or not to be continued....)