Exodus 35.35 

He has filled them with skill to do all kinds of work as engravers, designers, embroiderers in blue, purple and scarlet yarn and fine linen, and weavers—all of them skilled workers and designers.

The Christian faith is a huge and integral part of my life. But growing up I never had that sense of connection with people, and to church like I do now. It was lonely. It was difficult. It was hard.

I am blessed and lucky to now have found that love and connection I sought soo long to have. But the religion of christianity and the brokenness of humanity within the church has often conflicted with my love for art and beauty. So often in my past would I say that the greatest reflection of love I have ever received was from the secular world. For me, the secular world held such a higher opinion of me than that of the church. It’s strange huh? Industries that are known for their cut throat nature had a better reflection of love for me than that of the church.

For the longest of times. It was hard. It was lonely. There was no-one around in my world that carved out a similar path so there was no guiding path for me to follow than that of the tiny lamp provided to me.

A lot of my past photos which seemed somewhat innocuous now was so contentious when it was released that I was called many things by people who thought me villain. I think the pitfalls of church-bred christians is that they experience a lot of the extremities of humanity. They have been exposed to the absolute good and the absolute malice of the moral spectrum. So when anything that is a little bit skewed away from what they think is normal appears then this is a signal flare for a greater trouble. Because, of course, if they see humans reaching good, or they see vindication and salvation on a daily basis, then the transverse of that is also possible. The possibility of a normal person falling pray to the extremities is just as likely for them.

Which is silly right? The world isn’t like that. The world isn’t one big war. It isn’t binary made up of 1s or 0s.

So for many christians, I was that person. Friends have been told by many pastors to not be befriended with. News of me travelled further and faster than me and churches denied this as gossip because they thought it was necessary, because of course pastors are above gossip.

The reason why I am telling you this is because if I let it, if I let the brokenness of humanity win, I would have let my art go. I would have let my creativity die. I did let it die for a while. I did let it affect me for a bit but thankfully I didn’t let it ruin me for longer than it should. It took me a long time to realise how beautiful the church is and its flaws, its broken people, is just part of its inherent beauty.

I don’t want that to happen to you. At least I don’t want you to feel like you are journeying through this alone. I get it. I get how absolutely sucky christians can get and the loneliness it feels knowing that you are loved by heaven yet hated by the church. I get that angst of you wanting to just scream out and say that it shouldn’t be like this.

I get the inner confusion of not understanding that if church is a reflection of love then why do you feel so unwanted. I get the tearing of your inner self because you want to appease the people that would never love you the way you should have been loved in the first place. I get the pain of knowing you just want to beautify the world, yet the church consistently tell you that it is making you ugly.

I don’t know what your walk with faith is like. I don’t know what journey with art you are going through. I don’t know how much I could really help. But we are all after some sort of connection. Some sort of possibility for us to be understood. Some sort of outward tie to humanity. We, as artists, are lucky and blessed for our ties in turn have a possibility of beautifying the world.

If I can, if I am able to, I would like to have coffee with you, zoom with you (if you aren’t in Christchurch) and see if I can at least edify you. If you let me, I would like to share with you my complete testimony. You don’t even need to be a christian, hey you can be a different religion, I would still love to see how I can encourage you.

Just know that your creativity, your way of seeing the universe is a God given gift. It’s not a burden.

Cherish it.

Grow it.

Steward it.

But most of all.

Enjoy it.

It is a privilege in life that we get to be artists.

So just know that you are not alone.

The entire reason why I do what I do is because I want to meet people like you. For what is our role as creatives than to simply beautify the world. We aren’t limited by a simple canvas. Just by simply being kind, making someone smile can we claim ourselves as an artist.

You are loved.

your friend,
Allen.