Makers & Mystics

Edward Knippers is a visual artist whose large-scale body of work spans 50 years of practice and explores various genres, including figurative, expressionism, abstraction, and cubism.   His work has been displayed in museums, galleries, and private collections worldwide and centers on the human body.  His paintings often depict scenes from biblical narratives and invite us to consider the goodness, brokenness, mystery, and glory of embodiment, urging us to grapple with the temptation to avoid, sexualize, downplay, or disparage the human form.  Image Journal said of Edward Knippers that he is "without a doubt, one of the founding fathers of contemporary efforts to explore the relationship between Christian faith and the creation of outstanding new visual art.” Alongside garnering numerous awards and accolades, Ed’s work has been the subject of much controversy.  It has been banned, defaced, and even mutilated. The nudity, sometimes violent or disfigured forms within his paintings, have left some viewers offended at his imaginative handling of the biblical narratives.  I had the honor of interviewing Edward live at Gordon Conwell’s Embodied Faith Symposium in Charlotte NC.  In our talk, I ask Ed about the role of embodiment within his work, how he has handled his critics and what advice he would give to this generation of emerging artists. 

Melbourne-based visual artist and electronic musician Mike Lane creates under the name Chalom, a name spoken to him in a dream. His practice consists of visually expressing dreams and meditations, with mostly found materials, embedded bible pages, penciled notes, and spray paint.  Beyond the haphazard backgrounds of his paintings, brushes or tools are rarely used in the making, just hands and fingers employing scrawly texts, scribbles, and vaguely figurative forms. CHALOM’s prolific work is a deeply spiritual practice, and he loves to write blessings and prophecies, hidden under the paintings for the viewer to experience as mysteries and positive energetic flow, intended to shift the atmosphere in the spaces where the works are hung. In this episode, Chalom talks with Stephen Roach about his creative process and the deeply-felt spiritual underpinnings behind his visual art.

In this episode, podcast host Stephen Roach takes listeners on a journey into the world of ecstatic poetry. Drawing from the wisdom of Trappist Monk, Thomas Merton and author/scholar Michael Edwards, Stephen highlights poetry as mankind’s first language. He tells us, the meaning of a poem is not found in what a poem is about, but rather what effect the poem has on it’s hearer. Through reciting several of his own poems, Stephen reveals poetry and the poetic encounter as a doorway to wonder.

“Claiming your own voice - your own perspective, your own experience, your own intuition, your own prophetic call to the world - is essential for art making.” - Shannon K. Evans. In this episode, author Shannon K. Evans talks with Stephen Roach about her book, The Mystics Would Like A Word. Drawing from the life stories of six revolutionary women-mystics, Shannon's book helps readers overcome imposter syndrome and find their authentic voice.

Stephanie J. Spencer is a visual artist, author, nature-lover and an Enneagram coach who is not afraid of hard questions. She loves moving towards the struggles of the human experience to help people find new ways forward. Stephanie has spent years coaching individuals and teams from around the country, from major universities to local churches, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses. Time and again, she has seen the power of the Enneagram, imagery, and questions to open pathways for growth and transformation.  In our conversation, Stephanie and I discuss the Enneagram as a tool to help artists become more self aware and understand their own temperaments and motivations. Drawing from her book, Out of The Box and Into the Wild, Stephanie and I talk about discovering wonder in nature and how the natural world can serve as a metaphor for our own internal landscapes.  You can find links to Stephanie’s work as well as an unedited version of this conversation in the show notes and at patreon.com/makersandmystics