3//THREE//AUSTRALIA - First Australians

Part of this post is taken from a June 16 letter.

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First Australians is an organization in Brisbane that provides consulting and resources for Aboriginal people that are wanting to start their own businesses or be further represented in the community. The Aboriginal people groups of Australia are a group that face many of the same difficulties that Native Americans encounter as displaced people groups. The thing you may find surprising, however, is that aboriginal people here in Australia did not gain citizenship until 1972. For about 100 years prior to that, the Australian government was trying to assimilate this race into the Caucasian one, literally diluting the aboriginal coloring and features out of their race. It only takes four generations to do this as the aboriginal coloring and features are extremely recessive.



Monique is a woman that works with First Australians. She is a white woman in appearance. Bridget is also an aboriginal woman, however, she is quite dark. Both of these women come from backgrounds where only one parent is aboriginal. It is a startling reality that there are almost no full-race aboriginals anymore due to this governmental process that has occurred in Australia's history. (I want to encourage you to read any information you might find by google searching "The Stolen Generation". Also, "Rabbit Proof Fence" is an excellent movie to get a better picture of what this policy did to a people)

The meeting with Bridget and Monique was arranged because our team was interested learning more about the art of the aboriginal people. The organization works closely with aboriginal artists and so they agreed to meet with a team of American's interested in cultural arts. The team today spent about an hour and a half with these two women learning about specific elements relating to art of the aboriginal cultures but we dove deeply into the history and struggles of this people group. The conversation and time spent were exceedingly meaningful and insightful.

Leanne joined us. As she is very intent on the realities of a social gospel, we spoke about racial reconciliation and how to further pursue that. Bridget invited Leanne into thinking about this together which was very cool for Leanne. Today's meeting with these two women was extremely significant to starting a relationship with them. But we just went to talk to them about art, right?

Today was just an example to us of what the arts in a context could potentially be. As a team, we were pretty excited we were able to be a part of connecting these two groups together in a very safe and non-threatening way. We were also just really overwhelmed with the gift of speaking with these two women who gave us some thoroughly insightful pieces of information with which to understand the culture we're in and the place that produced these works of art which are the stories of people that Jesus loves.

After that meeting, Bridget invited us to come to an opening the next evening of 5 aboriginal men who had worked with large canvases to create native images valuable to each "tribe" represented. Great exhibit.

Also, we found out one of the women who had been in my bookmaking class that week was actually quite a well known aboriginal artist and was featured in the catalogue of National Aboriginal artists Bridget had at the organization.

Bridget has a great vision for a traveling exhibit that would combine pieces both from the Aboriginal people group and the African American people group that focus on responses to their respective oppression both currently and historically. It would be a very powerful exhibit.

Derek (one of the team mates) works at a the new fine art facility here and has begun looking into the possibility of bringing that here to start it's tour. There are numerous galleries in America that would be thrilled about hosting such an exhibit. We loved the vision and as she was explaining it, I started crying. It really moved me. We'd love to see this happen. And I'd love to work with Bridget.

Our time with Bridget and Monique was really good from a creative standpoint. But it was extremely valuable from a personal one as well.

pictures from the exhibit.

2//TWO//AUSTRALIA - Traffic Boxes

One of the coolest things about Brisbane is this thing they do with Traffic Boxes. You know the metal boxes that are at every stop light in the world. Anthony Lister is an Australian artist that cares, I think at least, about community art. I love community art. Just stuff out in the community that people can sit on, lean on, touch. The stuff that's a part of life and gets worn away like we do. Art that's not on a wall somewhere with a security guard looking over your shoulder, "I'm sorry. You're too close. The painting can feel you breathing on it and it doesn't care for that too much. The paintings here, they would prefer not to be breathed on" Community art doesn't care - "come you poor, weak and weary. Sleep on me tonight. Spit and pee on me if you have to, but I'm here and, well, I can't go anywhere"

So Anthony Lister pushed for this. I got to meet Anthony on Friday night. He rents studio space at a place called Juggler's Cafe and Peter Breen was kind enough to show us around. Peter is a guy who, I don't know, just like him a lot. He has a passion for artists and the arts and I just love what he's doing with that. I would encourage you to visit his site. Next year the team hopes to spend some more time with him. The space they have is incredible. Anyway, Anthony was working late, preparing for a show in NYC.

Back to the traffic boxes... I tried to take pictures of every traffic box I could. Tons of local artists attacked these things and made them amazing. I'll also include some other public art I found around.

1//ONE//AUSTRALIA - "I Come From A Land Down Under"

If you never got into "Men At Work" - that's too bad. They had one of the best songs of the 80's and it has staying power (They were also not a one-hit-wonder as some might think.

In June I took a small team to Australia in partnership with a missional church in Brisbane. It was the first of what will be many trips and partnerships in conjuction with an organization I started last summer. The organization was started out of my heart for the arts, the realization that there is a disconnect between Jesus' family and society overall in this area and my desire simply to be with creative people, creating places for them to serve, because generally there just aren't any when it comes to faith communities.

Ken and Leanne Baker said "Come! We'll help you see if this works or not" - what wonderful people. And so we came.

For the first few days we trapsed. Trapsed to galleries, trapsed around town, trapsed to the neighborhood center where Ken and Leanne should start paying rent ( http://www.newfarmneighbourhood.org/ ). Good thing it's a community center. And it is a wonderful place. Many of the people that come in and out are people who come in and out of a lot of places. But it always seems to be a hub and it's where we found ourselves a lot.

We taught art classes for a week and were just really glad to see the response. Why this was so cool was because Ken and Leanne (please visit their link to the right) have developed such a great friendship with the center that it was a welcome exchange on both parts. We were able to provide classes for a center that wouldn't have the resources to focus into art instruction, but could certainly find it beneficial for the people that use the center. In addition it connected Ken and Leanne and the center to more people.

Ken and Leanne are extraordinary people and as long as I've known them have been purveyors of a social gospel. The reality that Jesus' Kingdom isn't completely about where you're going when you die, but it's the renewal of life while we're still here that goes beyond the thinking that we're in this just so we can all achieve personal holiness. They have no church building, they live in their community, and function as though they really believe that "church" is more what happens outside of the typical Sunday gathering time than in it. I think you might get an idea of what this looks like in theory, but I feel very few really understand how that functions. (Read "Shaping of Things to Come" to get an idea). Also Adam and Christy Lipscomb spent three months of a summer with the Bakers before planting their church in Grand Rapids, Michigan and are pursuing community in a very similar manner (City Life Wesleyan Church). So this providing of classes and exchange of resources and exploring creativity as a relational connecting was very much in tune with the life of City Wesleyan Church.

I certainly can't cover it all, but following are excerptsand randoms from letters I sent to my prayer teams this summer.

For image sake

Wanderlust

...is one of my favorite words. I think it might be a clinical assessment of what I've got. The condition is growing and, well, I have no intention of curbing this. Over the next few days you'll find posts relating to my travels this summer and into the fall. I'm writing first about Australia. I'll write about Croatia and Bosnia next. I'll end with Austria, Italy and Poland.

Here we go...

I don't know why I'm doing this. I generally have a specific disdain for blogs. People really think other people want to know about stuff... just stuff... and it gives anyone a forum and I think it's a big break in the levy... "Hey everyone, come on in! Publish WHATEVER YOU WANT!!!!" I don't like the lack of filtration. And people who really don't have good ideas at all are gaining a following. People become addicted to posting. They do things specifically to post them later on. They create pretend lives. And then it makes people think they have relationships with people that they don't really have.

It also stresses me out. "Can I keep up with my friend's blogs!?", "Can I post frequently enough? When do I know if I'm posting too much!?" I couldn't even handle the "creating a blog" pressure. I couldn't seem to come up with, at least, an adequate sign-in name that wasn't already occupied. I felt like my mom trying to program our first VCR. It took 15 minutes to come up with something very un-creative. But I'm here.

But this is peer pressure in the early part of this century. This is what "everybody's doing it" looks like at this point in time; it's blogging. This is what "everyone" is doing... atleast the everyone I know... which are largely my college friends.

Actually, I thought a pre-requisite for having a blog was having a kid and I don't, so I didn't think I would have anything pertinent to blog about amongst this group. I've been told not to worry about. I've been advised to blog anyway.

So, all things considered, here we go.