Fuller Theological Seminary: Where God and the Arts Meet

THE DAILY AMERICA
By Chandra Johnson, Deseret News

CALIFORNIA---In 1956, a teenage Richard Muow committed a major violation against his Evangelical faith: He snuck off to a movie theater to see John Huston’s “Moby Dick.” As the president of Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, California, in the early 1990s, Muow continued to see a chasm dividing the faith world and Hollywood with the release of films like 1988’s “The Last Temptation of Christ.” Through continued collaboration with industry professionals, Muow spearheaded Fuller’s Theology and the Arts program, which looks to link entertainment and ministry and is now in its 14th year. [link]

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The Race to Find New Art Collectors

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
By Kelly Crow

Korean collector Hong-gyu Shin bid on a $142 million Francis Bacon, but lost Nicholas Hunt/Patrick McMullan

In early May, Christie's invited a group of 18 new collectors from China to visit New York. The auction house threw the guests a lavish dinenr at its Rockefellor Center ballroom, escorted them on guided tours through the Museum of Moden Art and arranged VIP tickets to a local art fair. Christie's efforts paid off: During its May 13 contemporary art ales, members of the grip placed bids on at least half the top 10 priciest pieces in what became an historic $745 million auction. [link]

A quarter of all art-auction sales were made to first-time buyers this year. An inside look at Sotheby's and Christie's global quest to identify and recruit them.

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First Lady Michelle Obama Pushes for Arts in Schools

THE LOS ANGELES TIMES
By Randy Lewis

First Lady Michelle Obama gave the keynote speech at a Grammy Museum event to salute teachers who use music in innovative ways as part of their lessons at Club Nokia in Los Angeles. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times)

CALIFORNIA---First Lady Michelle Obama took to an entertainment-industry pulpit in Los Angeles to stump for expanding the role of arts in education, saying that 6 million children in the U.S. have no exposure to any form of arts in school. Speaking before an audience of several hundred including L.A. Mayor Eric Garcetti and California Sen. Holly Mitchell (D-Los Angeles), Mrs. Obama stressed that music and other forms of art often connect with students and enhance their interest in core subjects such as math, science and history. [link]

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Drawing The Offerings Of The Five Senses: Tibetan Buddhist Art Workshop With Carmen Mensink

USC-US CHINA INSTITUTE

After becoming a practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism, Carmen Mensink
got hooked by the ancient tradition and craft of Tibetan thangka painting.

CALIFORNIA---The Offerings of the Five Senses are the “entrance” of a thangka, as these offerings are depicted in front of the Buddha: a mirror (to see); a musical instrument (to hear); incense or perfume (to smell); some fruit (to taste) and a silken scarf (to touch). Thangkas are scroll paintings of the Tibetan Buddhist tradition that illuminate the teachings of enlightened beings and serve as an aid to spiritual development.  They overflow with symbolism and contain figures created in harmony with the guidelines of Buddhist scriptures. [link]

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In Brooklyn, a Trove of Hebrew Books From Centuries Past

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Allan Kozinn

A page from Maimonides’s Mishneh Torah from 1574.Credit The Chabad-Lubavitch Library

NEW YORK---The Chabad-Lubavitch movement, a Hasidic group known for its outreach to Jewish communities around the world, has amassed one of the largest collections of rare Jewish manuscripts and books anywhere – on the order of 250,000 items, including some that go back to the 11th century or earlier. The exhibition is open Sundays through Thursdays, noon through 5 p.m., and Fridays, noon through 2 p.m. at Chabad’s headquarters, 770 Eastern Parkway in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It will run through at least February. [link]

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NYC Pledges $23 Million to Arts Education in 2015

HYPERALLERGIC
By Alix Taylor

NEW YORK---New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Schools Chancellor Carmen Fariña announced on Tuesday their plan to put $23 million toward hiring 120 new arts teachers and boosting arts resources in public schools across the city. The plan uses additional money from this year’s budget to guarantee the growth of arts programs in 2015. The announcement at the Bronx Museum of the Arts came after City Comptroller Scott Stringer released a report finding that 28 percent of city schools fail to employ even one full-time arts teacher. Fariña, who’s long been an advocate for arts education, sees the plan to bolster the arts at under-served middle and high schools as important to academic development. “The arts in many, many ways, particularly in middle school, make kids come to school,” she told the assembled press on Tuesday. [link]

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Westminster Christian Academy Hires Director of Fine Arts

SAINT LOUIS-DISPATCH
By emhill

MISSOURI---Westminster Christian Academy has named current middle school vocal music instructor and chorale director Kathy Eichelberger as director of fine arts, effective August 1, 2014. Eichelberger will utilize her considerable talents and experience to coordinate faculty and programs within the fine arts department at Westminster. “Since we are made in the image of God, we have been made to create,” says Eichelberger. “It is our calling as Christians to create art whether in music, art, drama, or dance that is excellent, honorable, lovely, and praiseworthy. I look forward to continuing to be a part of this creative process at Westminster Christian Academy.” For more information, visit http://www.wcastl.org. [link]

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Gertrude Stein’s Legacy Lives On in Pop-Up Art Salons

THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Marisa Meltzer

NEW YORK---On a Saturday afternoon in Chelsea, a group of a few dozen people milled around the International Print Center New York, drinking Champagne and making small talk about the show New Prints 2014/Winter. But this wasn’t a gallery opening, nor was it an artist’s talk. Rather it was a salon by Gertrude, a new company organizing events to discuss art. “If you do a high-level description of what the art world is, you have the commercial side of the art world, which is about selling art work, and then you have institutions on the other end of the spectrum, with education as the main goal,” said Kenneth Schlenker, 26, the founder of Gertrude. “What we want to offer is something in the middle that’s an educational experience and a social one,” said Mr. Schlenker.  [link]

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Art Museums Foster an Appreciation for Ambiguity

PACIFIC STANDARD MAGAZINE
By Tom Jacobs

Now, new research concludes that, at least in the case of visual art, the actual location where you’re viewing it matters. It finds people are more appreciative of artworks if they see them in a museum, as opposed to a prosaic space like a laboratory computer screen. A research team led by University of Vienna psychologist David Brieber reports viewers tend to respond differently to ambiguity in a museum setting, striving to understand more rather than turning away in frustration. “The museum context promotes that people engage with, and delve into, the ambiguity in artworks and invest more time on resolving it.” “Our results suggest that time and context constitute more than framing dimensions for the experience of art,” the researchers write in the online journal PLoS One. “Context affects the experience of art.”[link]

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What Happens to the Brain During Spiritual Experiences?

ATLANTIC MAGAZINE
By Lynne Blumberg

A devotee in a state of trance is calmed by volunteers at a Buddhist temple in
Nakhon Pathom Province, Thailand. (Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters)

“Everyone philosophizes,” writes neuroscientist Dr. Andrew Newberg in his latest book, The Metaphysical Mind: Probing the Biology of Philosophical Thought. Since everyday and spiritual concerns are variations of the same thinking processes, Newberg thinks it’s essential to examine how people experience spirituality in order to fully understand how their brains work. Newberg is a pioneer in the field of neurotheology, the neurological study of religious and spiritual experiences. Newberg suggests in his new book that mystical experiences are described as blissful or ecstatic because they share many of the same neural pathways in the parietal and frontal lobes that are involved in sexual arousal. To take his scans, Newburg uses functional magnetic resonance (fMRI), and single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT) imaging. [link]

Image shows how when practitioners surrender their will, such as when they speak in tongues or function as a medium, activity decreases in their frontal lobes and increases in their thalamus, the tiny brain structure that regulates the flow of incoming sensory information to many parts of the brain.

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Jewish Educator, Jody Hirsh Uses Art to Stoke Fire of Jewish Spirituality

JOURNAL-SENTINEL
By Annysa Johnson

Jody Hirsh speaks to audience members following a recent performance of
Milwaukee Repertory Theater’s “The History of Invulnerability,” to which Hirsh was a consultant.

WISCONSIN---Jody Hirsh pulls a copy of the Tanakh, the Hebrew Bible, from a shelf in his overstuffed office. He turns to the Book of Jeremiah and recites what may be his favorite passage in scripture. In it, the prophet laments that he cannot help but speak the name of the Lord, though it causes him "constant disgrace and contempt." Hirsh can relate. A Jewish educator, award-winning playwright and musician, Hirsh sees artists as the "prophets of our day." And like Jeremiah, he said, the urge to create, to speak, to be heard, burns — to quote Jeremiah — "like a raging fire" in the heart and bones, regardless of the consequences. "I think that is the artistic impulse," said Hirsh, who employs the arts extensively in his role as Judaic educator at the Harry & Rose Samson Family Jewish Community Center in Whitefish Bay. "It's the fire in your bones that has to come out." [link]

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