Monthly Archives: October 2008

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Strength.

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

I highly doubt I’ll be going to see the film Religulous – for the same reason I’ll probably never read The God Delusion – I do a good enough job coming up with doubt on my own and don’t need the help of any overly prideful intellectuals (and certainly not any stand up comics – have I mentioned my total distaste for stand up comics?)  Anyway, I get the point.  Religion is the opiate of the masses.  Sure.  Sure it is.  That’s why I just spent the whole day amongst some of the most service-hearted people I’ve ever encountered, and they didn’t seem stoned at all on dogma or blind-obedience – except maybe obedience to Christ’s call to love the world.  So if you’re going to attack the church, that’s fine, just don’t do so on the premise that nothing good has ever come out of organized religion.  If that’s your argument, prepare to be made a fool.  

Anyway, in this horrible place where I go each week to be brainwashed into loving my neighbor, they’ve begun a sermon series on Deuteronomy which the pastor insists will not be boring.  Furthermore, for people who strive to be like Christ, Deuteronomy is a necessary study since Jesus loved Deuteronomy and quoted it more than any other Old Testament text.  So there is this passage which I suspect we’ll return to with frequency which reads, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.” (Deuteronomy 6:5)  I tend to focus on the more abstract elements of that passage – my heart and my soul.  But what does it mean to love God with all my strength?  That is a physical, measurable thing, and I never really think about what it means.  But today I got a taste.  Because last night I didn’t sleep well, and today I have a cold, and I had committed my entire day to manning a table at a volunteer fair at Black Hawk Church.  This meant an early morning, a long drive, and almost non-stop physical and social engagement on a very shallow reserve of energy.  Today I loved God with my strength, a lot of it, if not all of it, which was an easier proportion to reach considering that I didn’t have much strength to begin with.  

So what if I gave God every ounce of my strength on a healthy, well-rested day when I had so much more strength to give?  What if I went to bed at night exhausted, as I no doubt will tonight, because I had depleted the oxygen in ever fiber of my muscles, every neuron of my brain, every cell in my body, from the exertion of loving God and my neighbor so completely?  And what if I didn’t stop there?  What if I trained my body to have more strength, adopted a healthier diet, pruned away anything toxic in my life, so as to cultivate MORE strength which I could turn around and use for love?  I would actually be a healthier person for it.

I know it’s all theoretical at this point, but when I imagine the upward trajectory of this kind of living, when I imagine the entire church moving and growing in this direction of strength (to say nothing of the dimensions of heart and soul) I have a really hard time seeing the church as the dangerous downward pull that Bill Maher claims it is.  I’m not talking about the mistakes we have made and still make which lead division, I’m talking about what is possible, if we really live like Christ, who gave every ounce of his strength.  Literally.  Every last drop. 

 

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My friend Alex wrote a few pretty amazing words on the whole absurdity of defending our faith, which might be interesting to read as a parallel to this.  You can point out all of the ways that I don’t quite live up to Jesus’ standard of living our faith instead of defending it, even right here in this post!  :)

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On recording a song.

Saturday, October 4th, 2008

Apparently when I’m sick of hearing my own voice, the only viable solution is to hear more and more and more of my voice.  And then some more.

Barf!

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An open defense of the line.

Friday, October 3rd, 2008

I’ve begun working on a joint storytelling project with a friend of mine, which is a good thing for so many reasons. Somewhere on the list of those reasons is that it has given me the opportunity not only to practice my cartooning, but to practice writing about it, writing about my creative process in general. For instance, today I got the chance to defend an aesthetic decision I had made concerning the lines I was using in the project (defending them not to my friend, but to her professor, who coincidentally was one of my senior year professors!) Here’s a taste of what I was sticking up for:

Hi Molly,

I wanted to reply to your message… Considering I’m not technically a student of Lane’s at this point I guess it was some bonus feedback, which I have taken into consideration but will now, kindly, justify my choice to use a uniform line throughout the drawings. (To be honest, my only regret at this point is the hard-black shadows, since I am now envisioning that I will be adding color, I’d like to make the shadows more subtle (a shade of gray) but if I decide to go that route I can go back and change that with a bit of white out and no one will be the wiser.)

Anyway, Lane is certainly not the first to encourage line variation in my drawing (I had Samerjan for four semesters!) and I like to think that I’ve experimented with that a fair amount in my years as a drawer (as in one who draws, not a chest for storage) and continue to experiment with it. I understand the philosophy behind line variation and agree with it, if the artist chooses to draw in that style. Sometimes I choose to draw in that style. But that is where I’ll put my foot down–I think it is completely a matter of style. That is, I don’t think that a person who draws, comics or otherwise, is required to incorporate variation of line weight into their drawing. A person is not required to use color, they are not required to use shading, they are not required to use lines, even. I have had different teachers advise in all different ways about the correct way to draw and I’ve taken something away from each of them, but what I learned ultimately is that there is no one right way to draw, that an artist must experiment and find a style that feels right to them, or that works right for the particular project, their particular vision (it may change daily).

That’s not to say that anything goes. I think a person who draws must be deliberate and very conscious when they are making decisions about their lines. Sometimes this is a matter of instinct, sometimes it’s a pattern that we’ve settled into, or the result of trial-and-error, and sometimes it is an active choice which comes from careful planning and serious consideration (both of the vision of the project as well as the personal, aesthetic inclinations that the artist has developed through years of experimentation, emulation, revision, learning, practice, etc).

So when I sat down to work on this page I looked at my tools (currently I’ve been favoring a simple PaperMate Flair felt tip pen) and I looked at what I knew about myself (limits of time, unsteady hand, an urge to be react against current aesthetic cartooning conventions) and I looked at what I wanted my contribution to the story to feel like (quiet, calm, still, steadily-paced) and ultimately what I wanted the page to look like (and here I’ll be honest, don’t laugh, but one of my main influences is Marc Brown who does the Arthur books and cartoon… very uniform line weight and simple colors). So it was an entirely conscious decision on my part to do the first page in the linear style that I did, and unless your grade depends on it I don’t think that I will change this page.

I know that was a long-winded response to some constructive criticism that wasn’t even coming directly from you, but I felt like addressing it, and defending my visual decision (and not making you think that I would leave it as as because I’m lazy, but because I actually have an opinion on it). You can share this with Lane if you’d like, and actually, I think I may post this in my blog in some form because it’s been a good exercise in talking about my art, which I have gotten out of the habit of doing since finishing art school.

Meanwhile, I can’t wait to see the next installment when you finish it. Hope you have some good times between now and the next time we talk. Soon!

Bea

I cut out a few parts of that email before I posted it here, if you can believe it was actually longer (Molly and I have granted each other full permission to be as wordy as we feel like) and I couldn’t tell if it was nerdy to leave in the part where I said, “I think I’ll post this in my blog,” but here, we’re an open book in some respects. And maybe one day you’ll be opening our book!

Just one last moment of clarification… this wasn’t in response to criticism from my collaborator who has, so far, approved of my contribution (as I have of hers!) Nor does it mean that I won’t welcome criticism, from her, her professor, or anyone. I’ve taken my share of criticism, and generally respond in a way that is positive. But for some reason I am feeling stubborn about the issue of line weight, probably because it’s been the most frequently criticized part of my work (whether I’m using a uniform line or varied line, I can’t seem to win) and I feel like by now I’ve earned the right to say a few words in my defense.

I don’t take myself too seriously, I swear!

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