On Art, Language, and God: A Conversation with Nathan Bennett Adams (Part 2)

Last time, I shared the beginning of my conversation with my friend Nathan Bennett Adams about his perspective as an artist and poet who follows Christ. If you missed Part 1, be sure to check it out here to read about how Nate’s relationship with God expanded his interests and to see his thoughts on photorealism, human creativity, and how human creativity reflects the reality of who God is. We pick up in Part 2 with the rest of Nate’s thoughts on this topic:

Olivia: […] What does creating art, whether through words or visuals, teach you about God as Creator? Or, what things about Him does creating art help you reflect on? 

Nathan: This is a word that I picked up a while ago. I think ‘aesthetic’ is understudied. I think the fact that we live in a world, not even just pregnant with beauty, but overflowing with beauty needs to remind us that God is interested in stuff that’s gratuitous.

And the other thing I’ve been freakin’ out about is: God within His creative right… There’s a couple times I’ve just taken a walk and you see certain things like the shape of certain tree leaves. No joke—was at some random spot just seeing some fish go by. The tail of this fish was identical to a leaf of a tree. I’m already thinking about what I just shared with you: “within God’s creative right, He can” and then I just completed that sentence. Within God’s creative right, He can repurpose. He can take something He’s “sketched,” spoken into existence—“I’m gonna repurpose that [leaf] and put it on the tail of a fish.” And it’s like identical. I’m not kidding! And then this is why as an artist that metaphor helps me know I’ve drawn the fish tail well, if I can pluck off this branch and just take it to my desk: “Yeah, that’s a funky fin. I wanna use that. I’ll just draw this leaf.”

So this declares to me, to come back to a very specific answer to your question, that God is layered. He layers reality. There are so many intricate details that the poet side of me observes a lot. And a poem that I wrote a while ago is that—it’s very short—but it’s, “I want to poem like a scientist,” because scientists look at the small details. They have to go way in to see something. And the poet has a role that he or she is going way into something in reality, and they’re tinkering; they’re poking around; they’re trying certain things out. So my poet eyes look upon reality and metaphor, and then my artist side would want to then put it back out or draw it. It’s not accidental.

And I’ve been having fun with that question: “It is not an accident that _____.” And those are really good lunch conversation starters. It’s not an accident that—whatever. It’s not an accident that we have taste buds. Or it’s not an accident that food gives us joy. And I’m like, back to gratuitous, we could have been a primate, we could have been an animal that all we do is eat—for what? Energy. And think of how many people treat food that way: “I just need to eat for lunch, because I need to get back to work.”  And I’m like, wow, in that we have shown maybe a disordering of how we interact with reality, that maybe I’m not looking at work correctly, I’m not looking at body correctly, and I’m not looking at food correctly. And all of a sudden, I take a couple moments, and I see in Colossians that we can eat to the glory of Yahweh? That’s tying back to His creativeness, that He can layer reality in a way that [in] everything we have an option to participate in pointing back to Yahweh. And then that’s worship?? Are you kidding me?? That is so dope! It declares His realness.

Another thing, too, it just shows He’s a good storyteller. He’s a mastermind, right. So any kind of mastermind, we exalt. We kinda naturally see, “Wow, that was really clever; that was intentional; wow, that was really good design,” when you think of someone who’s invented something. And I wonder if we’ve gotten lazy or assumptive with Yahweh in those ways. And this is something I’ve been really careful with too because, “Nate, you’re an artist, you’re a poet, of course you do that. Of course you go on a walk, and you see a flower, and blah-blah-blah.” And ever since I was a Christian, I was so bothered by that type of response. Because my story did have such a contrast, that [people would say], “Of course you see God that way, because He saved you from blah-blah-blah.” And I’m like, don’t rob yourself of that! If we all have sinned . . . grace covers us and shapes us and reshapes us.

And one of the things that G. K. Chesterton says is that the mathematician—he will go mad. Why? Because he is trying to logically explain everything. And he’s like, “Consider the poet.” The poet is actually looking at a problem or a conflict and looking to explore it. And then he uses a very simple example right after that: that a mathematician would want to put heaven in his mind—he’d want to put it in his mind—and then with that, his head will explode; the poet wants to just put his head in the heavens. I was like, “That is so good!” Think of the posture difference. – And one thing that needs to be clarified (because when you quote somebody, if you don’t clarify, you’d be like, “Wow, Nate doesn’t like math,” or “He doesn’t like logical thinking or reasoning”):  that’s just a good example of prioritizing or emphasizing.

So that has helped me, has really become a sown-in piece of fabric in my creed of “I want to see God big.” I want Him to break through my boxes when I’m tempted to put Him in a box. He shows that His reality is actually really big, and it’s really worthy of exploring. And I’m not talking about just His nature, I’m talking about His love, His graciousness, His patience—oh my gosh is He patient—He’s slow to anger. The other thing about what I have seen in being creative and Yahweh, is I’ve seen how it’s an invitation to kind of partake in His divine nature. So that really strong commission that we see in 1 Peter. Like ohhh snap. Those are ways in which I see specifically God’s creativity. And he spoke things into existence, man.

That’s why I think, going back to ‘we’re not perfect,’ therefore we’re not God, therefore when I go to replicate reality, I need to keep that close. And that helps me out a lot. So art has shown me and reminded me of how much I am not perfect. Reality is broken. And when I talk about the whole ‘you’re not perfect’—pursuing that when I draw is a good reminder of that. I’m not discrediting photorealism artists. The amount of skill that goes into it is bananas. So I don’t want to be misunderstood there too. That’s just as beautiful. They’re doing their best to replicate reality as true as it is. That’s a good commission or pursuit. If that’s your stylistic pursuit, amen for that, pursue that. But let’s start here where, because you’re imperfect, [you] accept your imperfect lines.

And so what I do is I force people to use just a pen, no pencil, so you have to accept your imperfect lines. That is something I did, so I saw the benefits of that. There’s no middle ground. You did it. You did your best, so you pursued it, and you messed up. You learn from your mistake, instead of a pencil [where] you can erase it. An athlete can never go back and erase it. So it’s kind of like that. So I wanted to share that because, an artist who declares reality is not right (there’s something that still needs to be redeemed, it’s not correct yet, it’s not perfect)—I think that’s good. I think that’s necessary.

So there’s a lot of times when uncomfortable images or words can be used edifyingly. It can be edifying. And I totally agree with Schaeffer, ‘cause he talked about that a lot. Flannery O’Connor did that a lot. She had pretty heavy stories and pretty heavy endings that weren’t resolved. I get it, we do have a story that ends in redemption, amen. We do have that. But I think, in ways, sometimes a reality snippet in that small line is that “This doesn’t feel redeemed yet. I do still feel like this is still bumpy roads at best right now. I don’t see the smooth road yet.” So I really appreciate when artists, filmmakers, storytellers, I can see sometimes illustrators, have a lot of creative license where they can do some really powerful stuff. Do you remember that quote by C. S. Lewis of the fear that we would become heads on sticks?

Olivia: I don’t think so…

Nathan: That we would basically become minds only without the heart, soul, strength? We would only become mind. And it looks pretty graphic, right? Because you’re just drawing a head on this stick. And I drew it, and I was like, “That’s really powerful!” So then I’ve kept that as a metaphor for me, that if I can illustrate certain things that I’ve been saying, like what if I drew a person without a mouth? They’re mouthless. Kinda like that Matrix scene where Neo was being forced to close his mouth—when we don’t value our words, if we become mouthless, what kind of world would we live in? And so I’ve thought about that, like ways in which I can depict reality or ideas, and it may be grotesque. So, you know a jellyfish has a heart but no mind?

Olivia: Oh wow.

Nathan: I drew one time a body of a man and a jellyfish just on his head. And I was like, this is a dilemma, that I think sometimes manhood has gotten into—that we’ve operated just without thinking. And I wrote another side to it too: but if you put in the other perspective, where it’s just mind and no heart there’s a dilemma here too. If you’re just heart and no mind, there’s another dilemma as well. So I think, again, that’s why I bring it back to—you don’t always have to illustrate something “beautiful.”   

Olivia: So you kind of touched on this already, but is there anything else you’d like to say about how we can worship God through art?

Nathan:  One thing that I would tie to that theologically is a study I did on what is worship. ‘Cause I think we all know, but sometimes we associate it with just music. “Worship was good today. I didn’t really dig the message.” There’s something there, that our words are forming something—and just pay attention to that. We should at least talk about that.

Worship is closely tied, Old Testamently to the fear of Yahweh. And I think that’s really crucial to keep that close—that the fear of Yahweh leads to worship. And I came up with a line of thought that what you fear is what you worship, what you worship is what you love. We are designed for worship. I think that’s probably the first start with answering your question. We’re designed to glorify Yahweh. It’s within our fabric; it’s within our DNA. So then, we see this, sometimes loudly, when it’s not directed to Yahweh. We worship still, because we’re made to, but other things than Yahweh.

And, yeah, I think I see it in the way I do art, like if I start being bothered or craving praise by my art, and I’m noticing—“why do I do my art? Why do I ‘art’ anything? Is it out of worship?” I can say “yes” all I want, but maybe in the middle of doing it I notice I’m having a lot of cravings, then I notice that back here I’m really not believing I’m doing it—or living out of “I’m doing this unto Yahweh.” And I can’t tell you how many times it has happened in the middle of a commission, and the lines aren’t working, or I keep messing up at a certain spot. And I’ll say this out loud: “Am I doing this unto Yahweh’s glory?” That usually is a definitive moment where beforehand I’m getting bothered and I’m not worshipping. Joy is very close to worship too theologically.

But I would think that, yeah if you’re worshipping Yahweh, it’s not just something you should do, or even like called to do. I’m saying like designed. You were made to. It is like you can’t help but do it. You’re gonna worship all the time. That’s what’s even scarier. That’s why it’s a tough pill. It’s like: you’re gonna worship—that’s a sentence—and it should be Yahweh. And I’m noticing now that matters a whole bunch.

To be continued….

Stay tuned for Part 3, where we talk about art in relation to gospel conversations and Nate gives some advice for those interested in developing their art skills.

To follow Nathan on his artistic journey, find him on Instagram @nathan.b.adams

On Art, Language, and God: A Conversation with Nathan Bennett Adams (Part 1)

So far in the Conversations series here on An Iris Awaits, we’ve looked at the topics of mission, Bible word studies, ethics, and human trafficking. Today, I’m excited to delve into another group of topics that might not seem all that related at first until you really start thinking about it—which is exactly what a conversation with Nathan Bennett Adams will help you do.

I met Nate in college when we took a class together that involved meeting weekly in our professor’s home (Matt Benson’s, actually, who was featured in the first Conversations post) and traveling to study at L’Abri in England over spring break (when the below photo of us was taken). Nate’s enthusiasm, intellect, and spoken word poetry inspired me during that time to consider things in different ways and to actually express the excitement I felt about the things of God. After college, Nate continued sharing his poetry and speaking about language in venues such as TEDx. He married Anna, another graduate of our school, and together they moved to Italy to serve at Saints Bible Institute for a couple of years before moving back to Tennessee. Nate has spent the last several years honing his talents in the visual arts, and one of his commissioned pieces is featured in the header of this very blog!

A few weeks ago, Nate and I had a chance to catch up over the phone. As an athlete, poet, and artist, Nate brings a unique perspective to the table, and I welcome you to listen in on our conversation regarding language, art, God’s character, and how we relate to Him. Unlike previous Conversations posts, where the conversation has happened through writing, this post is an edited transcription of a vocal conversation.

Olivia: Okay, so first off, how did you become interested in spoken word and visual art?  

Nathan:  It starts at my salvation for me. So I was saved later in life, like 21/22 when it happened. Yahweh pulled me out of a lot of muck, a lot of gross and . . . not-life. He pulled me from death to life. And what ties very closely to my desire for poetry—and then spoken word—is my learning disability.

So I was diagnosed with a learning disability at a very early age, and schooling, all things learning, all things reading and memorizing and spelling . . . all intellectually learning was just brutally difficult. And I just kind of separated, and I was an athlete, and I was a very good one, so I was like, “There’s something I could invest my energy into” and that was soccer, right? Sports came very easy to me. I enjoyed them; I enjoyed the very acute trial and error, risk and reward, and then the quick learning that happens in sports.

So this whole trial-and-error-system, gets-saved, strong-athlete side of me, and then God shows me that thinking about Him is like the basis—not just thinking about Him intellectually, like stroking your beard with a pipe in the corner (there’s room for that), but I think there is this space that I had a reason to then think hard. I had a reason to philosophize. I had a reason to think about, “Oh my gosh, all things are connected?!—to Yahweh?! Like there’s a source to all of this? And that just got me boosted! I just had a reason to study now. I had a reason to think or consider things.

It all started with theological stuff and slowly started spreading in some of my own personal history, so I saw how much—I never read a book! Like, Olivia, I read what I needed to, but then when Yahweh took over, I saw things worthy of learning; I’m learning about His world. That’s a completely different paradigm.

And I just started getting excited about words, and then one day I think I was going through some YouTube videos, and I came across spoken word. And I’ve always liked hip-hop, so this is like another connecting piece to spoken word. Yeah, hip-hop has always been fascinating to me. Even rhyme, right, that someone like Shakespeare writes a play; it’s in rhythm; there’s a cadence to it; there’s a story being told, and we’re getting the rhythm. It’s not much communication of like, “Hey pay attention, I’m gonna explain something to you: there’s a thing called rhyme, and it’s coming.” You don’t have to do that; we get it. And that’s really cool.

And my dad was the first one to encourage me to start writing poetry, and it was because I showed him a spoken word piece that was connected to a girl’s testimony. And my dad just said, “You should write your story.” And then the first poem I ever wrote was an extremely long—oh my gosh it needed editing!—but a poem, it was a spoken word piece that I just wrote my whole story. And hanging out with me, if you ever catch me around a fire or a 1-on-1, I wanna be authentic and genuine and real, so my first story was pretty raw. That started there. Spoken word and poetry was probably my first pursuit in these two art forms.

And drawing was always around. I drew occasionally because my dad was a landscape architect. I liked being creative, and again, remember, the intellect world was not what I passed my time with. So drawing occasionally, sports for sure. Drawing was kind of around, it just kinda just stayed around, but I never took it seriously. I was decent, but I never studied it. I only took three classes my whole life, one in middle school, one in high school, one in college, and they’re all basically Intro to Drawing. It wasn’t really serious. And then, segue. . . 

Italy was probably when I started taking drawing really seriously, and it’s when I saw the street artists—their use of color, the looseness. It wasn’t tight. And when I say tight, I’ll define that real quick: I think sometimes we have the perception that drawings need to be a real illustration of reality, and what that’s called is photorealism. And I think there’s a real significant conversation that needs to happen around that topic, because most people say, “I can’t draw,” and they’re thinking about photorealism. I’ve had a couple times when I taught, people would ask, “Hey, I just don’t like my drawing…” So then, I’m noticing that there’s something that’s pretty rhythmic about people and drawing and how they relate to it. And it’s like, “It doesn’t look good. I don’t like it. It doesn’t look like…it. It doesn’t look like it.”

And I kept on observing and read a couple books, and the more and more I kept the sketch books, I started noticing that an artist who’s doing a visual work—you’re supposed to replicate reality, not like bring it out of reality and put it back on a piece of paper. So you’re supposed to just replicate it; you’re supposed to be similar to it; you’re not creating reality.  And I think that’s a really big philosophical change, ‘cause then your drawings, if you’ve seen some of mine, there are times when like a one-line drawing exercise is really handsome. It looks really good. And why? Because you get it as the audience, I get it as the drawer/renderer, it communicates successfully. And I’m like, wow, why is that sometimes more successful than someone who tries their best to do an apple as real as possible, and then everyone steps back, and they’re like, “This looks like garbage,” or “I don’t like it,” or “It doesn’t look good.”

So that got me excited philosophically, that I think the artist’s role, one of their roles, is to replicate reality, to address looking upon reality. And it doesn’t need to be photorealism, because you’re dealing with perfection at that point. And a lot of artists talk about this, but people talk about this too, so I’m like, “wow, there’s a lot of cross-over here”: to pursue to be perfect is an endless goal, it’s gonna be only a dud. And we all understand that philosophically, but when someone gets to a piece of paper, and they draw it, they actually see the conflict of it a lot. So.

Drawing started in Italy, and I just started keeping a sketchbook, and right around that time, there’s a whole bunch of materials on YouTube I found and then two books I found that emphasize this point: Loosen up. And then I studied a lot that a lot of greats did these one-line exercises. Put it down. Render it quick. Give yourself 30 seconds. And then I saw some of these street artists again, so it was kinda like a lot of dominos happened that encouraged me, and I was like, “Oh my gosh, that’s right, I did want to be a landscape architect!” So I just sketched a lot of buildings and studied urban sketching.

So Italy was primitive for that block in drawing and illustrating, and then poetry, spoken word—that was really serious, I mean I thought I was gonna be a traveling speaker, which I kind of did. I did that after my TEDx. A lot of people asked me to start (universities) guest lecturing, and then Italy happened, so kinda all put that on pause, but yeah, that’s a full answer to how that started.

Olivia: Yeah. That’s so cool. All right, so what does creating art, whether through words or visuals, teach you about God as Creator? Or, what things about Him does creating art help you reflect on? 

Nathan: I think I would start off by saying that this is a question that all humans should wrestle with. Because if we are all creative, and this is something I’ve had to learn how to defend because people sometimes can get very stubborn of like, “I’m not creative.” And what they’re trying to say semantically is, “I’m not an artist,” and if they’re wanting to make that distinction, that’s fine. But to say that they’re not creative is to deny a very core [part of their humanity]. In their semantics they’re not doing a good job of identifying it—but every human is creative. Every human is creative.

And it’s funny, because even when I say that, I’ve had people who are like “Mmm…?” ‘cause then they’re doing the artist thing, they’re doing the replication, [and thinking] “I’m not an artist.” And I’m like, “If you got dressed today, you put together some color combinations however you wanted to, but you put them together. If you made cereal, if you put toast in . . . there’s things in which you’re deducing, you’re grabbing materials, and you’re making something. That is what a creative person does—grabs materials that already exist, receives them or forms them into something. I’m like, “That’s creative.” That’s a very basic premise.

So, yeah, the creativeness of what this declares about Yahweh, man . . . it’s vast. I think that’s my first inclination, is that within His infinite mind . . . and it’s good, right. It’s that big and wide, when He goes to create it’s within His right to have a lot of details and intricacies. And let me give you an example. I’ve recently been blown away by this. I’ve been like freakin’ out. So I’m doing a little garden here. We have pots; this is a cute little apartment, we have a little balcony. And one thing I’ve been shocked by, and impressed, and it’s led me to meditate and ponder more is how colors within our natural world start with green a lot of the times. It starts at green, then it blossoms to a color.

And that’s been fascinating to me, because green kind of gets a poo-pooed posture. People are like, “Yeah, I mean green’s like, whatever. It’s cute; it’s good for balance.” And I’m like, yeah, that’s true; that’s all true. But do all colors—earth’s colors—start at green?  Does it kinda spread off from there? That is very true in vegetables. A tomato starts green and then it can head towards a yellow, which is like a cherry, grape tomato. Jalapenos, same thing. Starts at green, and if you leave it longer on the stem, it will go to a purple, and then sometimes to a red. So I’m kinda freaking out, like God is hilarious—so creative.

To be continued…

In Part 2, we’ll keep discussing what art teaches us about God and ourselves. To follow Nathan on his artistic journey, find him on Instagram @nathan.b.adams