09.09.08

Hurricane Gustav

Posted in Miscellanea at 12:21 am by Rondall

It was bound to happen sooner or later. I can’t live in Louisiana without experiencing hurricanes. Last year there may have been a small storm or two associated with hurricanes but this was the first serious experience I’ve had with one.

We ended up being without power for just over two days and without phone/ cable/ internet for five days. There were actually wide spread power outages here. Some people are still without power. The college was without power until Saturday and had an entire week of classes canceled . Administration said in a meeting this morning that they believe this is the longest the college has ever been closed because of a natural disaster.

Our house actually did fine with the storm. We had a lot of small to medium branches down in the yard but nothing hit the house and we didn’t have any damage. Part of our yard flooded the day after Gustav as the bayou behind our house rose a lot. But, again our house was never in danger of flooding. All things considered, our family and house held up well. Things could have been so much worse if Gustav had strengthened rather than weakened over the Gulf of Mexico as they had expected.

09.08.08

The Adventure Ends

Posted in Art, Culture, Indonesia, Miscellanea at 7:45 am by Rondall

Our second to last day in Bali was purely a day of fun and playing. We went to Lembogan Island for some snorkeling and just general playing around. We got a tour of the island which was interesting including the hand woven fabrics. It was nice to have a day of pure relaxation with the friends we had developed over the previous two weeks. Read the rest of this entry »

Time for the Studio

Posted in Art, Culture, Indonesia, Miscellanea at 7:15 am by Rondall

As you can tell, it was a very busy time in Indonesia. Finally, by Wednesday of the second week we were getting ready to spend time in the studio. Several of us went to a large local market to begin scouring for art materials. I was able to find some interesting masks made by anonymous artisans.

One of my favorite photo’s from Indonesia is on the right here. There were scooters and small motorcycles everywhere in Indonesia. This was of particular interest to me because for the last two years I have been riding a Piaggio (the company that owns Vespa). Here in the states motorcycles and scooters are still a vast minority. It fascinated me when I first got the Piaggio that there is a culture of people on motorcycles waving to each other even if they don’t know each other. In indonesia you could never do that. They are every where. There are often literally fifty bikes at an intersection on a busy street. 

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Day Two in Bali

Posted in Art, Culture, Indonesia at 6:19 am by Rondall

You have probably figured out by now that they really kept us running while in Indonesia. Our second day in Bali was no different. We started off the day (after breakfast of course) by going to see a Balinese dance. It was interesting but our Balinese friends with us complained that it was very commercialized and was not nearly the quality of a dance at a Hindu temple. Even as a novice I could see a real difference between the dance we saw that morning, which seemed to at some level just go through the motions, and the dance we had seen the previous night which was filled with passion and sincerity. Read the rest of this entry »

On to Bali!

Posted in Art, Culture, Faith, Indonesia at 4:28 am by Rondall

We arrived in Bali on Monday June 16. We stayed at the Dhyana Pura Beach Resort which is owned by the Protestant Church of Bali. The resort is right on the beach and made for some excellent evening experiences sititng at the beach and watching the sunset.

Monday afternoon was spent with Nyoman Darsane who is a very influential artist in Bali. Not only is he a painter but he is also a dancer, musician and puppeteer. He performed a puppet performance which took a traditional Balinese artistic medium and infused it with Christian meaning. He had puppets which he had specially made to represent Biblical figures rather Read the rest of this entry »

The Last Day in Java

Posted in Art, Culture, Faith, Indonesia at 3:47 am by Rondall

Our last full day in Java began with a worship service at a church in Yogyakarta. It was an interesting worship service. It was passionate and filled with a love for God but in some ways strangely Western. The group was particularly aware of this because we had been talking about contextualization issues all week. But, personally I had a hard time being critical of the church’s heavy reliance on Western structures because they clearly had a profound meaning to this particular church. However, it was a bother to some of our Indonesian companions who felt sad that their culture, at least at this church in Java, had not foudn more indigenous ways of expressing their faith. Read the rest of this entry »

Back at It

Posted in Art, Culture, Indonesia at 2:49 am by Rondall

Life has been crazy and it has been too long since I’ve updated. I have several people who keep asking me for more information about my trip to Indonesia; so, I will try and finish those updates before I move on.

The next day on our trip was Saturday, June 14th. We began the day by attending the worship service at a church in Yogyakarta. by visiting Museum Sonobudoyo. It was quite an experience for me because I had previously only been to American museums and am most familiar with New York museums. So, to see the lax attitude towards conservation was rather alarming. It was interesting to see the great variety of Javanese antiquities at the museum, but odd to have the museum open to the elements. It was also odd to see the multitude of sculptures displayed in the open air given the polluted nature of large metropolitan areas and the damage that pollution causes to stone sculpture. Read the rest of this entry »

07.12.08

Once in Indonesia

Posted in Art, Culture, Indonesia at 3:09 am by Rondall

We stayed at a beautiful resort in the suburbs of Yogyakarta called the Kalyana Resort. The resort is on the side of the volcanic Mt. Merapi. It is a truly stunning setting. Bob Evans, our facilitator, had told us when we were at Fuller that our accomodations would be simple and clean. He was correct but he left out elegant and beautiful. Read the rest of this entry »

07.09.08

The Adventure Began

Posted in Art, Culture, Faith, Indonesia, School at 11:03 am by Rondall

The adventure began after a hectic time at work. Late in the semester Chris Kelly our ceramics professor and a good friend of mine accepted a position as the Art Department Chair at Piedmont College. It was nip and tuck getting our candidates to the College in time to interview before I left for Indonesia. We finally brought in two strong candidates on the Thursday and Friday before I left. I was scheduled to leave on that Sunday. Read the rest of this entry »

07.08.08

Christianity, Contextualization and the Arts

Posted in Art, Culture, Faith, Indonesia, School at 3:02 am by Rondall

So, what was this seminar anyway? Why did I go to Indonesia? First let me provide you a link to the official seminar site.

Now, I will paraphrase. Basically, Nagel Institute (an institute of Calvin College), the CCCU (Council of Christian Colleges and Universities) and the ACAA (Asian Christian Artists Association) organized this trip which took eight professors from Christian colleges in the United States to Indonesia to interact with Christian Asian Artists. It was a rewarding and intense two weeks. We had a ton of activities which I will detail in further posts. Personally, I learned a ton.

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