By David Williamson.
My wife and I cherish some marvelous art treasures, product of two exceptional artists, both from the United States and known internationally. Their work and that of a third artist have prompted me to reflect on the capacity of human work to create beauty, and the empowering Christ gives us for that calling. And that in turn helps me see the beauty created by other workers, and by God the worker himself.
Brenda Kingery is a painter who cherishes her history in Oklahoma and her Chickasaw roots. Brenda’s husband Tom and I worked together at Laity Lodge, a retreat center in south-central Texas. Brenda’s paintings and sketches cover an interesting range of objects, from large oil paintings with profound Biblical themes. We have a painting of the infant Moses in a reed basket floating among the bull rushes of a river in Egypt, and two small sketches of women’s faces with distinctive Chickasaw features, painted in a Japanese-influenced style.
In our living room is a large painting that Brenda did of the outer coats of three shepherds, worn on a cold winter evening on a hillside near Bethlehem – shepherds who might have visited Jesus on the first Christmas evening. The beautiful cloys of the paining highlight the colors of our living room – vibrant colors and a biblical theme with Chickasaw-Oklahoma-Japan influences. A much-cherished possession!
We also cherish the pottery of Warren Mackenzie, who taught in his shop/classroom at the University of Minnesota for years: earthenware baking pots and serving trays, as well as mugs, masterly formed out of local clay and fired in ovens to make them useable for homes like ours. He has a casual, laid-back approach to his artistic masterpieces and would often leave them in an open shed in the front lawn of his home for people to browse and purchase.
Writing this brought another world-class artist to mind. Henry Charles Smith, for years the associate conductor of the Minnesota Orchestra and before that a horn player for the famed Philadelphia Orchestra. Each Christmas evening, he would play “O Holy Night” on his euphonium at the church where I was on the pastoral staff: purse, sure, gently beautiful. Henry was also an artist in full command of his medium, offering its distinctive sound to Christmas Eve worshippers.
Each of these artists used their art to gracefully and grace-fully provide pleasure to consumers like my wife and me. They have helped me give thanks and praise to God for the reflection of God’s own beauty and the simplicity and specialness of our relationship with God.
So too the primitive artwork of our grandchildren displayed in my little office: a paper-mâché soda bottle clown, illustrative drawings for early family Christmas cards, and one of my dad’s wood carvings – central to our family’s Christmas table.
Perhaps best of all is a simple photo of our granddaughter and me walking through the woods of northern Minnesota, and the natural beauty of the wilderness, made by the greatest artist of all.
Each piece is a cherished reminder of the grace and beauty of God, a stimulus for worship. Individually and together they remind me of N. T. Wright’s “Echoes of a Voice”: God’s voice, God’s creativity and beauty articulated in Wright’s book Simply Christian. They are reminders to pay attention to God’s creativity and beauty, indeed his “voice,” as he master artist. They are reminders that it is God who provides the sill for good work, for good art, and who calls me to develop my own very rough art in thanks and praise to God the master artist.
The Green Room 