The Faithful Maker — Mark Terry
Mark Terry, a renowned ceramicist and beloved professor at George Fox University reflects on his work and faith. As we sat together and conversed over the many ins and outs, ups and downs, and various twists and turns God offers the artist of faith — a few key points came up that seemed especially crucial to the calling.
“Would you mind going over your artist’s statement, to kick things off?” I had asked Mark while holding out my iPhone as a mock tape recorder. Mark laughed, and asked me, “Which one?” What a question, as Mark then began to describe his two different artist’s statements. A secular artist’s statement and faith-based artist’s statement. This immediately shifted the question from what, to why. As the latter seemed all the more crucial to our conversation and the questions that loomed at large. Mark went on to explain that Christians all have an internal language that the whole establishment seems to get. A faith-integrated speech is coded in a majority of Church, and its use can be off putting to those who don’t share the same world view.
“I think it’s wrong for Christians to impose their language, and ignorant of me to believe people won’t understand who I am without it.”
Mark talking about his work as a maker means something when people bring with them prior knowledge of creation and the act of creating. And even further, most believers are keen toward the idea of incarnational prayer. Mark intones that with a woodfire conference, or any other space that has no religious affiliation, it’s that sort of terminology that might put people off. But for those of us who are Christians, Mark believes faithful words and expressions are meaningful and important variables in his identity. So, when Mark talks about himself outside of spaces implicating faith-integration, he talks about the process, the degree in which he seeks the truth in art. Mark goes on in these situations to express the release of control which allows the elements and the power of fire to glaze and create things that are guided, but born from the flame without any dominating will or foresight. Mark expresses that the artist learns to read flame, the sounds and nuances of fire. They can smell the difference between oxidation and reduction. All of these sensory experiences translate to gifts from the fire instead of mastery of his craft. Mark engages in and allow himself to be a part of the process — instead of having the arrogance that he can control both those variables. Mark talks about things that will engage anyone’s imagination in his secular artist statement. However, he reflects that every time he makes a simple tea bowl — simply partaking in the act of creating — he begins to dance with the Creator.
“I am becoming that of, and like unto, and akin with God — which speaks to all makers and followers.”
From this point in the conversation, I went on to push at some of the themes that couldn’t help but surface. “Do you feel like you’ve made work that was ever separate in that same way?” I was wondering about his separateness in his artist statements, if this split also rose up in his art. “Do you have work that is very prayerful and then work that is just for the sake of the work? Or do you find that those things are always intertwining?” Mark took a long pause, to ponder the question at hand.
“I think that the challenge of the faithful maker is to transcend that.”
Mark believes it can be easy to fall into thoughtlessness and make work without being thoughtful about it. Which is what he thinks one of the major differences between craft and art is. If someone makes a mug, and it’s just like all the mugs before it — he thinks there’s a danger of falling into that routine and trap. But for the most part Mark believes that even the most routine and simple forms can still be a simple act of creation, and he tries to tap into that in his work. Mark laments that there are always going to be distractions. But when he goes back into the making, the making continues to draw him in. Consciously and unconsciously he can’t help but be close to the maker when he recognizes what he’s doing is sacred.
We went on to the next question. Which I had pulled from one of our class conversations pertaining to creative genius. “What’s a significant moment in your career when you felt like the Holy Spirit was really working through you. A moment of revelation when you experienced a communion with God in your work?” I asked Mark.
“For me, that is really subtle and probably inexplicable.”
For Mark — although he recognizes and longs for charismatic and transcendent experiences — he gets going at the work, and then feels subtle satisfaction that he is doing what he was made to do. And it’s this subtle satisfaction that makes him loose track of time and suddenly… it’s three in the morning.Mark then recounts his moment of seeing God’s work at hand.
“One moment, many years ago, in one of the first faculty shows when I first showed one of my figurative torsos at George, I was very frightened to do that, because I don’t think of them as nude, but a lot of other people do. There’s a lot of negative energy around sexuality and sensuality. Sensualizing the human figure, and objectifying the human figure. When I arrived at the show, I found a fellow artist and staff member standing in front of one of my pieces weeping. I never got to speak with them about what that moment was, but I knew something about my piece had brought them to tears. And that’s an insight into a moment, although you might have never known it while you were doing the work, you must have been dancing with the spirit if it was powerful enough to create and emotional response from somebody.”
From there, we went on to speak about faith integration in a reversal of roles. “I know your faith — in the way you talk — has obviously impacted your craft, but how much of your craft do you feel like has lent to teaching you about your faith and God?” Mark laughed as I asked the question, pleased at the change in verbiage. “Absolutely.” He grinned, leaning forward to relay many a lesson. However, one instance really stuck out to me.
Mark goes on to say, that if the clay has a bubble, and the potter didn’t do a proper job of wedging and they were set it down to do the work, it wouldn’t center. No amount of energy would make it center because there’s a void in it, there’s a vacuum where there ought to be substance. It’s out of balance, they could center it a little bit, but then it would wobble its way out. After a while it would show up and throw things off. Mark relays that it’s an incredible illustration of what it looks like when we don’t get our stuff together before we try to help others out. Mark relents that there is also the fact that there’s nobody that’s perfect and we all have that stuff — so it’s not an excuse to quit building. “So, what do you do?” He asked me.
“You stop and pull out the pen tool, you poke the bubble, take it to the wedging board again, and you do the kneading process again, in all those things you recognize you have to move forward by doing the basics. And when you do that, you have the ability to create incredible beauty. Then the power of the wheel lends itself to the creation process, instead of throwing you out of whack. That’s a simple lesson. Example of failed fire, illumination of arrogance in a failed process. Lessons in humility that the craft teaches you all the time.”
To close our time together, I asked Mark about calling, and his advice for those struggling with the call to artistry. I’ll close this post with the most powerful quotes from this segment.
“…this goes back to the first story of human existence with The Great Being creating. The power of creation is the most powerful thing that we have.”
“When you’re called to make you will never be satisfied with anything else you do.”
