Give Quiche a Chance

Change of Blog

2008-06-01T08:46:00.000-07:00

Hi Guys. I've set up a new blog with reflections on art and Christian faith. I'll still add to this one from time to time but please note my new blogging home is now www.beyondairguitar.blogspot.com - or follow the link to the right. Cheers. Al

The Best Things Come To Those Who Wait... and Wait

2008-05-26T06:52:00.001-07:00

So what do you do when you’re stranded at the airport, five hours to go, two coffees down, twitchy and more than a little bit sleep deprived? In my defence, the airline decided to switch terminals somewhere in the middle of last night. “Did you not receive an email from us this morning, Mr. Gordon?” asks an even more sleep deprived-looking attendant at Heathrow check-in. I glance at my watch and politely reply I didn’t get chance to go online before I left the house at 5.30 this morning. (Which poor BA minion was charged in the depths of the night to hurriedly attempt contact with a plane full of slumbering passengers?). So yes, I have missed my flight to Budapest and am now stranded, joining the ranks of flightless passengers who seem to have become a common sight at Terminal 5. Yes, did I mention that, it’s terminal 5!

Despite the frustrations there are at least some advantages to missing a flight in such a helpless manner:

1. An unexpected and quite sincere apology from BA staff who mixed up the terminals.

2. Free coffee. A little too much free coffee actuallyy.

3. A little time to catch up on some reading, stop, rest and pray. After a difficult week I admit I wasn’t quite ready for another full on conference and the free half-day afforded here comes at just the right time.

What to do then but read, wait, write this blog entry and hope there’s room on the next flight. For we Londoners, doing nothing for five hours is a rare experience and one that really should be relished rather than rejected. The chance to stop, reflect and pray should frankly come more often and be initiated rather than enforced. This little experience comes at a timely point for me and needed reminder that life should not be run at a rush hour pace. It just shouldn’t take a missed flight for me to learn these lessons.

Sunset Over Yosemite Valley (After Church and Ward)

2008-05-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

Oil and ballpoint pen on canvas

God’s Sovereignty and Our Responsibility.

2008-05-21T14:38:00.000-07:00

In honesty, there have been a few disappointments these last few weeks that have made what is normally a real joy in ministry something quite hard. Anyone familiar with the UCCF Arts calendar will know that the annual arts conference is on the horizon for July. For various reasons it’s been a real slog to get off the ground this year and I’ve felt quite frustrated at times.

The team have been absolutely brilliant and no one has dropped the ball in what’s felt like a really intense game. I really thank God for such a committed and enthusiastic arts planning team. Like so many difficulties in ministry most of the worries have come down to funding. Why is this so often the case?!

After six years with art students and UCCF I hope I’m learning to hold things a bit more lightly but I’d admit to feeling the pressure. Paul writes that of Christ’s sovereignty with such passionate conviction that “all things work for the good of those who love him”. How often has this proved to be the case and how often do I need to learn the lesson again. He also instructs the Colossians to “work with all your hearts as working for the Lord and not for men”. I find this convergence between God’s sovereignty and our responsibility a real mystery. When do you know when to stop fighting? How do you deal with disappointments knowing God is working for His purposes even when you can’t see it? When should faith really be blind?

All prayers would be very appreciated!

Who is the real Alastair Gordon?

2008-05-19T09:52:00.001-07:00

Thanks to Dave Trench for emailing this link to me... and I thought my secret identity all these years was still safe, darn it!

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Hope and Optimism.

2008-05-19T08:05:00.000-07:00

I’ve been doing some thinking recently with the students at the University of the Arts about the difference between hope and optimism. It’s been an ongoing discussion in response to their lecture series on modes of Modernity and the utopian idea for the perfect city. Here’s what we’ve been thinking.

The first thing to say is that hope is not the same as optimism. Optimism isn’t really rooted in anything real or substantial. It’s an ideal based more on heresy and opinion than on anything really substantial or credible.

I’m optimistic that Scotland will win the 6 Nations next time but, to be honest, that’s not really going to happen. I’m optimistic that the new Indiana Jones film will live up to the hype but I’ve no real way of knowing until I see it. Hope is rooted in something beyond mere preferences and personal expectations. Hope is rooted in something a little more credible. Something that seems quite possible or likely to happen. Hope is based on something credible. Something real. Not on blind faith or subjective opinions.

Hope seems to have something to do with the future. We don’t hope for things in the past. Rather, we expect a better future. The future, it seems, is always a better one. Therefore, hope is always positive. We don’t hope for things to get worse! We only hope for things to get better. Ridley Scott’s film, Blade Runner, is not a hope for a brighter future. It is not a hope for Utopia, rather it is an expectation or prediction for worse things: for Distopia – a Modernist twist on the ideal of Utopia.

Hope and expectation are different things. We hope for the good. We expect the bad. My granny always used to say, “Hope for the sunshine, Al, but pack your Mac just in case!”

In order to give us something better to look forward to in the future, the fact we all hope for something tells us that something is wrong with now.

Woody Allen sums it up like this:

“Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon.”

Cheerful guy! He should have been Scottish.

When we hope, we only ever hope for good things. We don’t hope that England will loose in the cricket. We don’t hope for war or for ill health. Hope is only for good things. And the nature of hoping for good things tells us that there is something about the now that is unsatisfactory.

The idea that everything is not as it should be is not exclusive to Modernity. You don’t need to be a Modernist philosopher to recognise the world is messed up. It’s also something that the bible affirms. In the book of Romans, the apostle Paul writes of the world (or to use his language creation)

“The creation waits in eager expectation… The creation was subjected to frustration, not by it’s own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from it’s bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God”
Romans 8:20,21 (NIV)

Later Paul even describes the creation as groaning under the weight of decay and evil.

The bible affirms that the world is messed up. It recognises social injustice. It recognises poverty. It recognises personal struggle and the pain we both inflict on other people and the pain that is inflicted on us. Jesus Christ himself said that he had not come for the sake of the wealthy and the healthy but for the sake of the poor, for the social outcasts, for those who grieve and mourn and suffer.

The biblical expectation for the future paints a picture both of suffering and for redemption. Unlike the modernist vision for the perfect future city, the Christian hope for the city of Zion isn’t based on an ideal or the best intentions of man but on the claims of Christ and his resurrection from the dead. As certain as we are of his death and resurrection so we hope for the great future of a restored earth on his return. This is no mere optimism but a great

Beyond Air Guitar Art

2008-05-17T04:07:00.000-07:00

Deep in the darkest recesses of my parents’ garage I recently came across a much-loved object from my childhood: sandwiched between boxes of old Wonder Stuff records and videotapes (remember those?), I found what to most people would look like an old tennis racket: A very battered tennis racket… but to me this was no ordinary Wilson Raleigh Junior. This had been my axe of power, my wielder of wrath, my chrome-plated flying V with custom pick-ups and leopard skin strap. This was my old air guitar.

If you’ve ever fancied yourself as a bedroom rock-star you too might have spent nights in front of your parents mirror raising an imaginary plectrum of power to the ceiling, strumming down with full rock furry to the sounds of your favourite air guitar hits. Come on, we've all done it.

Air guitar is escapist fantasy at it’s best. All twang and no substance. There’s nothing real about it. Beyond the ability to press the play button on your Sony walkman, air guitar requires absolutely no skill whatsoever. Air Guitar is a pretence: we pretend we’re doing something amazing when really we’re just larking around.

I've been thinking about how sometimes the church acts as though it’s playing the Air Guitar in creative culture.

Sometimes we play air guitar to the creative industries. We see some really cool graphics on a billboard or the cover of an album and we copy it for our mission week publicity. A Christian band like the music of a guys like Coldplay or U2 and copy their sound exchanging but changing the lyrics to be more edifying or more ‘Christian.’ The Christian painter who likes the energy and freedom of Jackson Pollock and apes his style only saying it’s the Holy Spirit who guides his brush, not his subconscious.

In all these ways we play air guitar to what someone else has already made. We echo what everyone else is doing in a bid to be culturally relevant but in so doing, we’re always two steps behind the rest of society, rather than leading the way. The world leads the church rather than the church leading the world. Or, to put it another way, the world becomes the salt and light of the church rather than the church being the salt and light of the world.

Sometimes we play air guitar to God.

The bible calls us to work hard in all we do as working for the Lord and not for men. When we create we make for an audience primarily of one: we create for Christ: So we are to sing, dance, sculpt, design, model, write, compose and paint with all our hearts for Jesus, not just the guy who’s writing the cheque. This is our spiritual act of worship – our art!

In Genesis 1 Adam and Eve are commissioned by God with the stewardship of the earth. God tells them to “Fill the Earth and Subdue it”… taking care of all living things and the planet itself. Genesis 1:28

This isn’t just an instruction to do the gardening: this is a biblical mandate to take care of all creation. That means all animals, all humans, all culture. Christians aren’t called to play Air Guitar to culture, we are to be it’s custodians; we are to make culture, pioneer it and define it: move beyond air guitar.

New Painting

2008-05-15T09:30:00.000-07:00

So here we go, hot off the studio wall. This is oil on canvas83cmX52cm. The church commemorates the meeting point of the ancient Iclanders: the yearly 'Alping' gathering was the focul point of the communities' calender. The Apling was an annual festival where all social ceremonies and law speaking would take place. The painting is something of a lamentation for the loss of community and titles, 'Gather We, No More'.

Honeymooners Return

2007-04-30T07:42:00.000-07:00

Nothing can prepare a young man for the sight of his bride walkinng down the aisle to meet him. I've never seen Anna look as beautiful as she did on our wedding day. After all the waiting and preparing and waiting and preparing, the big day finally arrived. How must Christ feel about his bride as he waits for his wedding day? If I felt such a cockatail of emotional ambrosia, I'm can only imagine the tears welling up in Christ's eyes too as he wipes all tears from our eyes. What a day. What a beautiful day.

Anna and I spent two nights in Midhurst before headinng off to Cuba on honeymoon. A much guarded secret and one only Anna knew when we got to the airport. We had an amazing time. Such a priveledge. As well as adding our British Sterling to the socialist regime we spent much time reading, talking, laughing, praying and getting to know each other. Such an interesting country and wonderful way to experience it as honeymooners.

Good to be back? In some ways actually, yes. After all the praying, reading and theorising about married life we now look forward (with a certain amount of terror) to working it all out in practice. We're both still a bit jet-lagged (hence a slightly eratic blog entry perhaps). We'll look forward to seeing friends again and blogging a little more but in the meantime here's a few sneaky snaps.

We All Need A Little Voluptious Panic In Our Lives

2007-03-23T16:23:00.000-07:00

Have you been on Carston Holler’s slide Installation at the Tate Modern yet?

Today, Brian Weaver and I experienced ‘voluptious panic on an otherwise lucid mind’ as we hurtled our way rapidly through the air of the Tate’s turbine hall. I think Holler’s installation is brilliant. The notion of art as entertainment is not a new one but art as indulgent FUN is new and great!

Holler plans is to install more slides around the city, allowing city workers to enjoy a little bit of play in an otherwise monotonous day. As you slide, there’s a moment of panic combined with delight that lifts your thinking beyond the everyday to… well... a temporary natural high. For a moment, you’re not in control of your life which is both terrifying and exciting.

Is there any gospel in Holler’s work? Perhaps there is. The notion of giving over control is thoroughly Christian, the question of course being to whom we give that control over to.

The desire for a temporary high exposes our need for better things. We all look for the next thrill in life. Brian and I found ourselves wanting to go back for a second shot but realising we would never find total satisfaction after the first ride. We’d want the next slide to be bigger, faster, wanting more delight, wanting more panic. This thirst for better experiences echoes our need for total satisfaction - a longing that echoes in the return of Christ and the hope for total satisfaction in heaven.

We realised that the temporary high helps us understand our need for complete enjoyment. It makes us cry, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’ whilst in the meantime, we’re on side with Holler, thinking we all need a little more play in our lives until that great day comes.

Go have a play.

2007-03-22T10:11:00.000-07:00

A few folks have been asking me what I'm making in the studio at the moment. Well, the Vernon Ward paintings are being re-worked, re-imagined and re-interpreted. Here's one in the series. Digital print measuring 1.5mx0.85m

Normal Service Resumed

2007-03-13T18:15:00.000-07:00

Well hello again folks. After an absence of months it’s time to kick-start the blog again. I wonder if anyone is still out there listening?

For various reasons I got rid of my internet access at home but here we are again, t’internet switched back on and now living in Brockley so let’s give quiche a second chance.

So much has happened since we last interfaced but by far the most exciting event is Anna agreeing to marry to me. Hoozah! Four weeks to go to the big day and I expect they’ll be much to blog about on that.

…but in the meantime, sorry to walk out so rudely and looking forward to blogging again.

Inter(inyer)face

2006-06-18T21:33:00.000-07:00

There are some weekend that remind you of everything good about work, faith and creativity. Recently, I had such a weekend.

For the last six months we've been working towards an event for Christians across the creative industries to unite, pray, think and cast a little bit of vision for God's purposes in the Arts. It was a great weekend, exceeding all expectations. Some of you would have been there too and, hopefully, been as encouraged as I was.

We laughed, prayed, sang, played, thought, stayed up late and ate amazing food served up by crazy Italian ladies. We listened hard to what it means to be a wholistic worshipper in an area of society that badly needs the gospel of Christ. For me, one of the key questions to come out of Interface was how we listen to a culture that is increasingly fragmented.

When the apostle Paul stood up in Athens to preach he began with culture and led his audience to Christ. Today, when we stand up in the arts, which audience are we addressing? With so many differant languages in the contemporary arts it is impossible to give a 'one-size-fits-all' approach to engaging for the gospel. It is our task as Christians in the creative arts to be good listeners to the languages God has called us into, recognising that whilst the medium we share the gospel in changes, the message within remains uncompromised and the same.

Thanks to all of you who made it such a great weekend. Thanks Becci for taking the pics here. Thanks Ellis, Pete and Steve for faithful teaching. Thanks to all who performed on the open mic slot and exhibited in the exhibition. Thanks all. We'll do it again!

Give Kitsch A Chance?

2006-05-28T00:07:00.000-07:00

Isn't it amazing how quick we are to be cynical?

This week I was Hungary at the European Leadership Conference. Excellent bible teaching. Fascinating peopel. Lots of pipes, chinos and bizarre facial furniture! One afternoon I got to talking with a Romanian lady about the kitsch landscape artist, Thomas Kincade. Kincade is a bit like the Starbucks of the Art world. He doesn't paint in isolation but employs an army of shop assistants, PR people, lawyers, sub-contracted atists and technicians to help pass on his vision of, as he puts it, 'hope, peace and harmony... salvation to all'.

I've always cringed away from this kind of work. It's so badly painted and Kincade's vision of hope is sentmental at best. He paints visions of a perfected world, the garden of Eden, but set sometime in the 1950s. Each painting is signed off with his signature (containing his own DNA for authenticity) and an appropriate bible verse. This is kitsch art at it's glorious worst. Hope is reduced to sentiment, heaven to fluffy clouds and transcendence to romanticised sunsets. In the absence of evil his paintings offer a false sense of hope. There is nothing to redeem from. His paintings are sentimental, utopian, ultimately hopeless...

... But then I met Ulga who really likes this kind of art. She recognised that the paintings are not great art but they give her "a sense of peace" that inspire her in a difficult world. So I was corrected (once again and long may it continue)... I should be more careful when judging the personal value someone puts on art. Hear me right on this: I still think Kincade's work is not great art. In fact, I think it's shallow, sentimental and should be turned into poetic performance art expressed through the medium of bonfire. I'll place judgement on Kincade as the artist but not on his audience.

In my flat I have a jar painted by my nephew, Jakob who is 10 months old. It might possibly be the worst rendering of pink vomit I have ever seen but it has more value to me than any other piece of art I have. Jakob is not a great artist (yet!!) but his art has tremendous value to me. In the same way, just as Kincade is not a great artist, Ulga finds great value in it.. and that is worthy of celebration.

This is the interesting thing about Kitsch. It tries to be perfect but fails. Those who enjoy it are looking for something perfect. They won't find it in Kincade... but at the very least kitsch art exposes that inner desire in all of us for something good, something perfect, something beautiful.

Kitsch is not the answer but it illustrates the longing.

Art Rocks: Have YOUR Say

2006-05-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

As I try to get my head around this whole blogging thing I'm interested in the kind of minds this blog attracts. Here's a wee question for you to mull over...

Last year I visited an art gallery where an exhibition by Tomoko Takahashi was just coming down. As part of the exhibition we punters were allowed to take a piece of the art installation away with us. Art for all. Art for keeps. Art for free. Hooray! It took me quite a while to decide on objects that both represented the exhibition and, in some way, expressed who I am as a person. One of the objects I took away was a small piece of granite with a rather attractive concrete lump sticking out of it. Read into that what you will.

All excited, I rushed home where I gave my Tomoko Takahashi original pride of place in the rockery out the back.

So here's the question: Is the rock Art? As I removed the art piece from the gallery and installed it surreptitiously in the back garden, did it retain it's Artistic value? Huh? ...Hmmmm.

I'd be very interested in your thoughts on this. Please please leave a comment to the tune of one of three possibilities.

1. Yes. Of course this is Art. It uplifts me, engages me, inspires me and now I want to go home and write a symphony.

2. No. Of course that's not Art. It's just a rock you silly man. Go grind it into a pathway for your snails.

3. Huh? I don't know. I don't care. Blogs should be kept for more important questions like 'Why do we all buy salad in bags these days?'

Your call. Your answers count. By means of credibility please inspect the photo to the left which features the two receipts from the Serpentine gallery I recieved as I took away the rock.

What do you think people? Cast your views and join the debate.

Tribute to Big Dave... the tallest man in the West.

2006-05-10T15:41:00.000-07:00

This is a special blog entry going out to Big Dave Lord Humungous from your pals Ally and Simeon.

Mate, we know you're out there in the wilds of Sweden somewhere and going to be checking out the blog some time soon. Dave bunked down at the flat here for a couple of nights in Peckham and enriched our lives with his Minnesotan charm, gentle refined wit and genuine heart for asking the tough questions of life. We miss you brother. Have a safe time in Sweden with your non-English speaking family and your dangerous Swedish delecacies. Stay well away from any shark meat!

So to our dear Lord Humungous, thanks for the Suffen Stevens CD. Great choice. You sir are welcome any time you're in the UK. Keep asking the questions and chasing after the Lord. He is there and He is not silent.

Ally and Simeon

Snail Racing

2006-05-10T12:36:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how well snails brush up with a good coat of Acrylic.

As some of you know, over the last year I've developed a bit of a passion for gardening and growing veggies in the back garden (very rock n' roll, I know). This Sunday, a few friends came round to help SJ, Nat and I take control of our garden once again. Simeon got pretty hack-happy with the saw cutting back our hedges and Becci did her bit with the unglamorous job of weeding. Thanks guys. What a great way to spend an afternoon. Really appreciated your help!

As the day unfolded we found ourselves with a lot of snails collected to dispose of somewhere humane but far away from our new seedlings. We must have collected about 30 altogether. Funny little things snails, aren't they? Never really seem phased by anything or particularly stressed out by the rigorous lifestyle of London.

We thought it might be fun to have a race. Simeon picked his favourite looking ones and I chose mine. Difficult to really know what to look for in a racing snail. I went for stealth and strength. The race began and we waited... and waited... then cooked our tea... waited some more... then finally we had a nail biting finish with Simeon's prize mollusk just winning by a nose. It was all very exciting.

So exciting, in fact, we decided to honour the winning snail with a nice lick of paint (see pictured Sammy 1 in all his victorious glory)

Then we thought, why stop at just one? There wasn't much else on that evening so we thought we'd just paint them all... and don't they look splendid? We're now taking commissions for YOUR snails. Come on people. Give them a whole new lease of life. Snails designs come in three primary colours and we offer a cruelty-free-guarantee with the kind of paint we use... but at this stage we have to admit we're not sure as to whether the new look makes them more visible to predators. That would be your guilt to bear.

Snail Painting. Yeah. Give it a go. You'll love it!

By the way, have you ever noticed how the word 'snail' sounds very much like the German word for 'hurry'?

2006-05-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

Bank Holiday Mondays, eh?! What better to do than head to Brighton with Anna and the Jervises? I totally recommend a little milk shake place on The Lanes called Shake Away. They'll mix up any flavour milk shake you can concieve of (except quiche unfortunately)

Modernity Will Eat Itself

2006-05-02T22:10:00.000-07:00

Anna and I visited the Becks Futures exhibition at the ICA gallery this weekend. It was a bit like a greatest hits album for the last year of the british contemporary arts scene. A real mixed bag of work but I was surprised at how many of the artists were interested in ideas of language, meaning and communication.

(Simon Popper re-prints James Joyce's 'Ulysses' with the entire text in alphabetical order then piles them up to look like modernist buildings. The meaning of the text is lost as it becomes re-interpreted and catagorised in such a systematic form. The installation is a critique of both modern obsessions with systems and formulas and the post-modern disillusionment with communicating through text that was born out as a result.

Matt Stokes (the winner and now £20,000 richer) films a 'northern soul' dance night in St Salvador's Church. Dundee. Flavia Mailler Medeiros’ film marries together 1970s footage of the cast of Easy Rider with George Bush's inauguration speech distorted just beyond recognition and spoken in the style of an american used car salesman. Sue Tompkins jams her type-writer with bleached out paper then tries to type words of meaning into the faded paper.)

It's refreshing to see contemporary artists using language and text, not in an ironic sense, but with what appears to be a sincere belief that we still have something to say and that art is still a valid vehicle to express it through. Back in the eighties, one critic, Suzi Gablik, wrote, " At this point in history, art finds itself without any coherent set of priorities, without any persuasive models, without any means to evaluate either itself or the goals which it serves. To the postmodernist mind, everything is empty at the center"

Whilst I think it's still true that art is still struggling to find a way of evaluating itself, I was pleasantly shocked to see that there is something more than "emptiness" at the center of many of the Becks artists. We might not know how to say it, or even how to evaluate how we say it but there seems to be a growing understanding that we can at least try to say something!

As a Christian, concerned with articulation of truth notions and meaning, I find this extremely encouraging. Modernity, it appears, hasn't muted the artist entirely. There's still life in the old dogs yet. In the words of a wiser friend, "Modernity - Go eat yourself!"

The Vernon Ward Project

2006-04-25T03:45:00.000-07:00

Guys, I've been working on an art piece for the last four months and decided to turn it into an online experiment. Take a look at the link to the right for 'The Vernon Ward Project'.

Whats it all about? Basically, Vernon Ward was a landscape painter from the late 1940s and 50s. He painted really kitsch stuff. Romantic landscapes, deer in the wood, pretty flowers. That kind of thing. For about eight years he pretty much worked on one thing only - paintings of ducks migrating and returning after the Fall.

I first came across his paintings in a thrift shop in New Cross where the owner tried to convince me that his two rain-stained prints were actually original oils. I bratered him down from £250 to £5.50 for each. Even then, I think I got fleeced! I've been collecting Ward duck prints ever since. So far, I have eight in the collection and growing.

Why am I doing this?! The paintings aren't just awful impressions of ducks, they represent a whole genre of kitsch art that, I think, illustrate our longing for beuatiful, perfect things. They are a window into an idealistic world tthat doesn't really exist anywhere. As I find another print, I find it fascinating how well these pieces of art have been preserved. They have been cherished, loved. How fascinating that something so naff has been loved so well.

So it's a piece of work about obsessions and passion. It's about kitsch ideals and romanticism. It's also about the nature of passion and collection. As each print shows a group of migrating birds leaving and returning, it echoes of the process of collection where, at times, the prints come to you then at other times, you go to then. The working title for this art piece is The Vernon Ward Project: Sometimes they Come to You, Sometimes you Go to Them.

Any thoughts, send on the back of a kitsch landscape postcard to the usual address...

2006-04-24T06:11:00.000-07:00

Heres an idea for some subversive propoganda. Perhaps an idea for Sparks. Move over Thomas Kincade!

NEW BLOG!!

2006-04-23T13:30:00.000-07:00

We're back in the blogging business and my heart is dancing with joy!!

This blogger has had a few technical problems along the way. Sadly, the first blog has to be burned down (maybe we could have a bonfire). Did you know you can jam the system by trying to upload too many images at one time?? Apparently so... So here we go again! Nice to be back online. Heres a picture of some smooth movers just to celebrate.