I’m so thankful for Rebecca Reynolds. She’s one of the few Christian writers who really hit the nail on the head for me at the moment—emotionally, honestly, intellectually, and faithfully. And this letter to Mister Rogers is a good example of why.
I don’t know whether I ever saw the original TV series, but I did see the recent movie with Tom Hanks in it and was deeply moved by it. And Rebecca’s letter only adds to that. What a timely message.
When McCahon declared, ‘I will need words,’ in a 1961 letter to poet John Caselberg, he was saying he needed them for something. He wanted his paintings to speak: to cut through, to communicate, to be clear in a new way about human fears and hopes and about how to love authentically. And he saw that painted words were a way to approach spiritual realities and urgencies that resisted conventional picturing.
Justin Paton, McCahon Country
I’m a little bit late posting this, because I started this blog on 22 April last year, but I’m happy to say I’ve been painting, and blogging here, for a year.
Once the painter was making signs and symbols for people to live by: now he makes things to hang on walls at exhibitions.
Colin McCahon in McCahon Country by Justin Paton
Conversations about art and faith can often (understandably) be quite metaphorical and abstract, and sometimes this frustrates me. So, I really appreciate Marlita Hill’s podcast, The Kingdom Art Life, which gives a solid biblical and theological grounding to the discussion, and is highly practical.
Marlita is a great communicator—quiet, clear, insightful, and funny—and, as a professional dancer and mature Christian, she’s lived this stuff out; it’s not theory. Her perspective and message (which is about harmonising faith, art, and a “secular” art career) are quite unique, I think.
Highly recommended.
