Quoting Scripture

I'm finishing up the first draft of the section about writing an artist's statement. A quick look online reveals plenty of information about the subject. So I asked myself, what do I have to say that is new? The answer, I remembered, is to focus on the question of how being a Christian involved with the arts is different.

One way the statements I have received over the years at Hope Chapel are different is that many artists quote Scripture. Maybe they would choose to do that no matter where they were exhibiting, or maybe they felt freer to because the venue was a church building. Either way, the quotes often seemed tacked on or forced. Sometimes the artists were using Scripture as a kind of shorthand for a thought. These statements were often very short. Other times the artists seemed to feel that their art and their words alone didn't push the point they wanted to make far enough. These statements were often long and preachy, even without the quote.

I think there are other misguided reasons for quoting Scripture, as well as good reasons. But the bottom line is that people generally like to read stories, not lectures and not undeveloped snippets. The artist's statement needs to be personal, like the art, and not merely borrow someone else's words to satisfy a gallery requirement. Even if the borrowed words are really great ones.