Thumbs Up: Arts, Faith, and Alberta

(If your not familiar with Alberta Streets Last Thursday Arts Festival check out this short clip:  Alberta Arts Video)

Have you ever thought of where the gesture “thumbs up” originated? Your thumb is a unique digit on your hand, so maybe it’s from sign language.  We’ll have to Wikipedia it to find our for sure. Wherever it came from, it sure does feel good to get them, especially from people you’ve just met.

On April 25^th, I had a chance to reflect on some great “thumbs up” moments as I presented a portion of our New Wine Intern “Created to Create” conference workshop. I spoke of an experience I recently participated in with a diverse group of fifteen others as we gained exposure of Portland’s Alberta Streets Last Thursday Arts festival. I had been struggling with coming up with an idea of how to create exposure to different perspectives on art, faith, and racial reconciliation. It was in my cultural anthropology class at Multnomah Biblical Seminary that I started learning of the gentrification and displacement of the African-American community in the Alberta Arts district. During the 1990’s, the city of Portland along with private investors poured money into an extensive urban renewal “face lift” in Alberta’s crime infused area. As property values in the area skyrocketed, many of Alberta’s long-lived African-Americas were displaced because of unaffordable increases in housing rental costs.

The neighborhoods around Alberta Street look a lot different than they did fifteen years ago. Now, the community is predominantly a mixture of young hipster white middle class Portlanders and what remains of the traditional African community. On the last Thursday of every month, Alberta Street opens its sidewalks to experimental art venders and performers. The hipsters and hippies come out in droves to hang out for this uniquely Portland block party. To create space for exposure for this New Wine Immersion event, I decided to look at the aspects of restoration and beauty as well as observation and participation as it related to arts, faith, and racial reconciliation.

When our group first arrived to Alberta Street I unpacked how the night was going to unfold. Then I began to pass out bright purple latex gloves and black garbage bags to everyone. With looks of confusion on their faces, I explained that, as a matter of our faith, we were going to participate in the beautification of the Alberta neighborhood. Neighborhood clean up, or restoration, is an artistic act of worship. Artistic expression often times puts a greater emphasis on scarcity, or an individual’s creation of a uniquely original work. It seems that God’s involvement in the creative restoration and beautification of what was once damaged in creation, points us to places where our artistic expression can move into areas of collaboration and participation in this process.

We divided our beautification efforts between Alberta Street, where the Arts festival takes place, and the surrounding neighborhood residential streets. Not too long after we began, I noticed the group really getting into the project. We were having a great time interacting with each other, when we began noticing the neighbors paying closer attention to us. Folks on Alberta were giving us “thumbs up” and shouting thank-you’s wherever we walked. As we started moving off Alberta and deeper into the less admired parts of the neighborhood, residents began to come out of their houses and meet us on the street as we were picking up garbage.

One woman came up to me and said, “Thank you so much! No one ever does this sort of thing, especially not around this side of Alberta. Everybody forgets about us down here.” As our trash bags became full we took in a gorgeous sunset and deposited our restoration waste into a nearby dumpster.

We finished off the night with some observation of the art work being displayed by the various venders as we asked ourselves questions like, “What makes good art?” and “What is the artist trying to communicate through their work?” As we entered a time of reflective dialogue in our group, I began to ask myself how the church at large can best integrated the arts into the proclamation of the gospel in both word and deed. I’m still wrestling with this question. I’m starting to realize that I’ll probably be living in this tension for a long time. I’m just glad I have some of those “thumbs up” moments of reflection to soak in while I’m wrestling.

I’m interested in hearing how you are engaging creatively through the arts in the holistic expression of the gospel. In what ways has the church done this well or perhaps not so well? Where do we go from here?