This section of our website will showcase best practice in this respect and provide links to works of Christian actively engaged in culture making.
An important new book in this respect is Mike Goheen and Craig Bartholomew’s Living at the Crossroads: An Introduction to Christian Worldview (Baker Academic, 2008). [ http://www.biblicaltheology.ca/newsite/]
GERT SWART: SOUTH AFRICAN SCULPTOR
Gert Swart is an outstanding South African sculptor who has a long friendship with Craig Bartholomew. For more on Gert’s work see www.gertswart.com
ROBERT SCOTT: I AM A CABINETMAKER
Recently, Robert Scott stunned people with an exhibition titled, I AM A CABINETMAKER held at the Tatham Art Gallery, South Africa. He unashamedly subtitled the exhibition, " I was a long time in learning these things" (Daniel Defoe in Robinson Crusoe).
Rob Scott's's protracted learning curve has included being an agriculturist, a stint as a cowboy in Texas, becoming a Tool and Die Maker, a self-taught Cabinetmaker, the refurbishing a WW11 Catalina Flying Boat into a luxury passenger carrier. He is currently working as a Senior Restorer for KZN's Provincial Museum Services, South Africa.
Rob can be contacted at the following e-mail address: giswart@absamail.co.za
Tony Wilson's text on Rob's work below.
'The new order claims to rationalise and modernise production and human endeavour. In reality it is a return to the barbarism of the beginnings of the industrial revolution, with the important difference this time round that the barbarism is unchecked by any opposing ethical consideration or principal.'
From 'Against the defeat of the world' by John Berger, Bloomsbury 2002..
There is no doubt that this exhibition represents the work of a master craftsman. What is remarkable though, is that as well as displaying breathtaking skill in manufacture, the work shown here is of the very highest design quality.
Clearly the forms arise, in part at least, from a central concern with function, coupled with a profound understanding of the potential and limitations of wood. The work could therefore possibly be dismissed as simply 'modernist' - just a continuation of the designers working from within the Bauhaus tradition. However, the complex shaping of the wood and the subtle geometry of the forms also have strong resonances with traditional European furniture of the 18th Century. So the work is entirely contemporaryy and yet strangely timeless.
Complexity arising from a preoccupation with the resolution of structural forces is also a strong design concern, similarly evident in some of Antonio Gaudi's best furniture. Yet here there is none of Gaudi's formal extravagances, sensuous though this work is. Again, the exploitation of 'industrial' material like plywood and the use of complex bending and laminating techniques are reminiscent of the furniture of the best 20th Century Scandinavian designers, such as Alvar Aalto, Hans Wegner and the like. Yet those designers were always concerned with the requirements of mass production, a preoccupation which tended to constrain their designs and which is entirely absent from this furniture. On the contrary, this designer/craftsman has claimed the freedom to pursue ideas to their logical conclusion, no matter how fiendishly difficult is the construction of the resulting junctions.
Rob Scott's work exhibits a rigorous pursuit of economy - but it is an economy of means, rather than economy directed towards the end of monetary profit. The choice of often humble woods, from renewable sources, and the way in which the components of a chair or table are bent or shaped and joined so as to eliminate redundant material, without compromising strength and durability, are characterists of his work. The result in the best pieces is a seamless integration of form with purpose, in which the smallest details of construction seem to embody the essence of the whole piece.
At a time when our lives are increasingly directed and shaped by an economic system requiring accelerating rates of consumption of mass-produced commodities, it's almost shocking to encounter everyday objects of such extraordinary quality. The passionate exploration of the potential of apparently simple materials, utilising the logic arising from the techniques employed in shaping and joining them, coupled with a single-minded dedication to detail have resulted in great beauty and warmth.
Yet, Rob Scott's work seems to me to represent much more than the production of beautiful objects. It stands as a protest - a fundamental rejection of the'new economic order', and a refusal to bow to the tyranny of the all powerful 'market'. We are all the richer for the opportunity to learn from his example.
ERNA BUBER DE VILLIERS
Some years ago Gideon Strauss (CPJ, Washington DC), Elaine Botha and Craig Bartholomew were instrumental in developing the Christian Worldview Network (CWN) in South Africa. Many of the relationships formed then remain in tact and there is considerable interest in Paideia in South Africa. For years the CWN published a magazine intitially entitled "Many-to-Many" and later changed to "The Big Picture." Erna Buber de Villiers has maintained a site with much of this material on it and we are glad to link her site to ours as a sign of renewd connections and relationships.
ZAK BENJAMIN
Zak Benjamin is a major artist in South Africa and a committed Christian. With Gert Swart he produced several of the paintings for the covers of the Scripture and Hermeneutics Series. His website can be found at www.zakbenjamin.com
Inaugural Lecture
Craig Bartholomew's Inaugural Lecture ... read more here
