Resources by Angela Hummel

The idea of Art Theology raises the question(s): what is art and what is theology? We live within this incredible moment of decolonization where people are interrogating the ideas of the academy and its gatekeepers. Inspired by the decolonizing work so many are engaged in, Art Theology seeks to create something new.  There are wonderful conversations going on. Beyond what art is, who decides what “great art” is?  Who is a “great artist”? Where should “great art” be held?  And who is privileged to view it? The old gatekeepers of “art” were many of the same gatekeepers of the academy. The academy, built by free white men who created the method of research.  We teach college students to write research papers that argue a thesis.  If they want to succeed in the academy, they have to learn to write this way:      arguing      judging      defining      using propositions      being technical      always reaching for “objective truth” I wanted a method built on and towards connection rather than argument. I have learned that the first step is to remove judgement. Get rid of the word great and tell me what it is to make art. I often engage my students in peer reviews, whether they are writing a research paper or making art. Before they meet with their partners, I ask them to write out their feedback by first summarizing the piece, then describing strengths of the piece, and finally offering questions or suggestion, (they only offer suggestions if they are sure they have understood their peer's intent in the piece). The thing they have to be sure of—and that I review in their feedback before they share it with each other—is that they remove all judgement.  They struggle at first wanting to write, “I like your conclusion” or “This is great…” I invite them to remove like and great and say something more. This encourages them to go back and look more closely, read more closely, in order to reimagine the sentence to something like: “Your thesis is so clear from the very beginning of your paper through to the end. You keep returning to the thesis like a spiral throughout, it is this clear throughline reaching into the conclusion. When you restate your thesis in your conclusion it really it holds the paper in a very satisfying way.”  Removing judgement not only helps them read more closely, it removes the fear that they often feel going into peer review. Once judgement is removed, we are free to make new things.  Our focus shifts toward making art in order to engage in visual-thinking that creates new theological insights and understandings.  What is theology really?  The exploration of ideas and understandings of God? Knowledge of God? But, I do not just know things in my mind—I know them in my body. I also know them through making.  Art Theology uses visual-thinking, seeing, and making to explore questions and ideas about God.  In the abstracting grace series I created for the Wabash Center, I made my way into new questions and ideas about grace through painting and poetry. For example, in making, Is it like air? as I painted I somatically realized I had been unconsciously carrying an idea that grace was arbitrarily given. I didn’t know why Mary had been “full of grace” and I wasn’t.  I reviewed what the academy had taught me about grace and saw that it was all bound up with sin and the idea of gift. Which made me wonder, if it is a gift how is it given? As I dipped my paintbrush into the white acrylic and made a swooping line I thought, maybe it is like air…all around us, all the time, and it is us who decide how we breathe it in.  This insight had me revisiting Duns Scotus’ idea of the will and how it is the will that makes us human, not our intellect. Scotus said our will is where our capacity to love resides. This is the greatest gift we have been given, and it is all around us. We choose how mindfully we breathe. Through making art theology, a new rich understanding of grace came into being.  A new understanding that discursive reasoning alone could not, and had not, given me. 

Who or what is God? Words can only say so much about who God is or what God isn’t. Thankfully our thinking isn’t limited to words. Through Art Theology -- using the creative languages of the arts -- we can form new ideas, questions, and perceptions about God. Let the words go and think in color. Thinking back to the very first ideas of God you ever had, what color comes to mind? Gray... Gray was the color of the beard of the old man in the sky, the first image I had of God the Father. Gray was the color of the clouds he sat on. In painting this first idea, I used cold, dark, black grays illustrating the vast remoteness of this idea of God. I began incorporating yellows and whites and softening places within the gray, creating warmth in the painting. As I did so I recalled my childhood struggle to comprehend how this cold, dark, mysterious God also made me and loved me unconditionally. [caption id="attachment_247214" align="alignnone" width="467"] The Cloud of Unknowing Angela L. Hummel 11x14 Acrylic on Wood[/caption]   My concept of God changed when I was introduced to the idea of Jesus and the idea of God’s personal love. The gray remains but softens even more and I introduce an abstract brown line. God’s love expressed through Jesus felt so intimate and personal that I have at times a sense of knowing the nook of his neck, of having rested my head upon that shoulder line. Yet, I could not tell you what his eyes or nose look like. In some ways I do not know him at all. In other ways, that personal love of God is the most real thing in my experience. [caption id="attachment_247215" align="alignnone" width="390"] Personal Love Angela L. Hummel 11x14 Acrylic on Wood[/caption]   Stepping back and looking at the first two paintings I felt a new question arising. I was physically uncomfortable as I reflected on how masculinely gendered my ideas of God had been. No matter what we think and understand theologically about God language, we carry these memories in our bodies. I felt myself reaching for new colors and lines: purples, blues, gold, and undulating lines. This next painting incorporates my reflections on Shekinah. Both women and men are made in the image of God. The divine feminine reveals a love that conceives, gestates, labors, births, nurtures, and sustains. [caption id="attachment_247216" align="alignnone" width="467"] Shekinah Angela L. Hummel 11x14 Acrylic on Wood[/caption]   God is love. This love is mysterious, personal, intimate, boundaried, male, female, non-binary, fluid like water, beyond our comprehension. How can we reflect the love of God and learn to love in this dynamic way? Regardless of bodily function, all of us can learn to love more deeply by reflecting on how love conceives, gestates, labors, births, and sustains. The Christian focus on moral theology has led to judgmentalism that has caused some people to reject religion. Why don’t we devote as much attention to Christian love -- what this love is and how we live it? We need new ways of exploring this vast idea. We need Art Theology. Art Theology has helped me to move away from a monologic pedagogy into a dialogic way of teaching. When my students paint the colors and lines of their thinking about God they move into new ideas, questions, and dialogue that discursive reasoning alone could not take us into. The understandings that we have arrived at through this method have transformed my classroom into a dynamic place of collaboration where together we have learned to see God as truly other, for who God is, not constrained by our previous limited definitions and arguments.                                                                              Angela L. Hummel