A piece of modern religious art exploring the challenges faced in pursuing a life of faith and education.
This piece was created as the final senior thesis for the Technology, Arts, and Media Engineering Program at the University of Colorado, Boulder in the spring of 2020.
Call to Truth is 5’ x 3’ Cherry wood relief with aluminum inlays and pyrographic designs. It weighs 120 lbs and took seven months to craft.
My education at the University of Colorado, Boulder grew me not only in practical skills such as technology design and coding but also increased my intellectual capacity through a private pursuit of politics and philosophy. Though I spent the day time in labs, I spent the evenings at lectures and in my purple armchair reading or discussing books a collection of other interested students. More important than the increases in technical or philosophical command, was the increased understanding of my need for faith and faith itself . My learnings brought me to a cornerstone moment: to convert to Catholicism. It is through this profound shift of personhood I sought to fulfil my final program requirements.
Through Call to Truth, I wanted to tell the story of this journey from utility, to thought, and finally, to soul. Depicted in the imagery are the dangers we all face if we attempt to increase ourselves in an intellectual and spiritual capacity. The message, thus, lies in the three characters and their relationship to the natural forces, others, and themselves. Crafted for other students who will be embarking on the same journey yearly, the piece will hang in Drogo’s Coffee Bar, a popular student hang-out.
Contents
Contextual Motivations
Process Documentation and Details
Wood
Metal
Machine
Burn
Gold
Completion
Written Imagery
Contextual Motivations
A few weeks before joining the Roman Catholic Church I visited the Smithsonian Museum of Art where I encountered “The Adoration of St. Joan of Arc”. This experience showed me two things: one, that after four years of building digitally, I needed to make something with my hands that lived in the physical world as a testimony to my time at CU, and secondly, that St. Joan had then been given to me as my confirmation saint. Over the next few months I took Joan as my confirmation name and brooded on the possible ways to make this “TAM enough” for my department overlords.
An important aspect to the motivation of this piece was the materiality. It was vital for me to create something that lived in the world that I could point to, not simply another digital database or mobile application which could disappear and reappear with a click. For this reason, I chose to work with cherry wood and aluminum to mimic the style and mediums I saw through Fosdick. Cherry wood is a simple natural source; however, it will age and change color as time passes, mimicking to the developing nature of the depicted characters. Aluminum, although a less simple, is a symbol of man’s history of making and changing simple resources into complex materials. In both cases, we are dependent upon them fulfil our basic need to creation. It was a detachment from these physical materials that motivated my hunger to work with them.
Process Documentation
Wood
Idea Forge, Main Campus
Small inserts of wood called “biscuits” were inserted into the cave-like pockets of the panels so as to ensure a tight fit during the glue up, as well as to decrease the likelihood of warping with humility and temperature changes over time.
Metal
Idea Forge, Main Campus
Machine
Creative LAbs, ENVD East campus
Using Rhino modeling software and CNC Machining, I created the inlay space for the matching aluminum pieces as well as routered the sides of the relief.
Pre-Burn Preparation
Grove St, Home (AKA start of Covid-19 quarantine)
I would not consider myself an artist, especially one who does figure drawing, so this could be considered a baptism by fire. It was in this process that I experienced the greatest challenge in the form of fear of failure. This fear of insufficiency is one we must all overcome; thankfully, this piece gave me an opportunity to practice choosing a mindset of sufficiency over and over again.
Burn
Grove st, Home
This is the first significant work I have done with pyrography and it does not lend itself to be forgiving of mistakes. This phase was the most anxiety filled one, as and miscalculation of temperature, form, or execution could result in a permanently damaged relief.
Gold
grove st, Home (also a state of panic)
Completion
A state of Bliss, 3am
After over a year of carrying this piece in thought and work it was uncanny to arrive at the time and place where my concepts and labors had become manifest. Here was a story, a narrative laced with my own past joys and sorrows, yet also speaking prophesy of my future: what I am, what I am called to, and what will become .
I hope it will do the same for others.
Written Imagery
All of the imagery operates under a single thesis: we are given ownership of our own lives yet asked to submit to the will of God. We are given authority over our own ships and yet asked to submit to the direction of the wind. It is in an act of freedom that we acknowledge our weakness and at the same time take on grand challenges with the partnership and empowerment of Christ.
Feeble Dis-Ownership
This character is plagued with chaos due to the inability to see their own responsibility to captain the ship. The boat is filled with other voices suggesting navigation patterns disadvantageous to the principle character. This “captain” is weak sighted, and submissive to gestures of others without being present to themselves and their direct involvement with God. On this ship, the challenge is to overcome the influencing voices and to not only to recognize one’s own authority, but to consciously choose to hold that responsibility.
Cartesian Autonomy
This Captain, unlike the first, has taken ownership of his own vessel. However, he believes that the only propulsion he can receive is the kind that he can know perfectly understand in his mind. Though he believes he can do this, it is arrogance and reliance on pure reason (a strictly human trait) which detaches him from all possibility of making meaningful or intentional progress. He “trusts no one”, making him the sole living person on the ship; yet his commitment to knowledge detached from faith has undermined his ability to trust himself. Ultimately, this leads to an outward appearance of control and command but an inward sense of loss, meaninglessness, and stagnation.
The Weight of the Call
Finally, she appears. The captain of faith who has learned how to take ownership and direction of the vessel and still submit to the voice and direction of God. She lives in both authority and obedience. When she sees the authority granted in captaining a ship and the vast nautical miles of ocean spread out for her, there is a great weight and pious fear (mysterium tremendum et fascinans). The uncharted territory is her responsibility to navigate. The deepest storms are hers to weather, and the greatest gusts and highest waves to ride. In those future moments she sees the giant she is called to be and the glory of God united to all of it. The story foretold is more than she could have imagined for herself, and consequently, will also require more of her than she ever imagined giving. It is a peaceful reverence laced with aw and trepidation to know this story is a worthy voyage. To see this, is the Call to Truth.
It is now hers to respond to.
