Field Notes: David James

Tell us about your early years. What was the place of faith in your life growing up?

I’m the youngest of three siblings. My brother is five years older than me, and my sister is six years older. We grew up in a Christian home in various locations on Auckland’s North Shore. Faith has always been a part of my world. In the 70’s, Mum and Dad were part of the Holy Spirit movement, so they were often leading meetings at home. Mum’s quite prophetic, and they’re both pastoral. There were always spiritual activities happening.

My parents were involved in Murray’s Bay Baptist Church when I was young. They had always had a desire to be in Christian ministry, and prior to having children they had gone to Baptist Bible college. Their life took a few different turns, and when I was about ten, my father, who was a marketing executive for an agency in Auckland, with my mother moved into ministry. So we went from North Shore, Auckland, to Hutt Valley. My Dad took on a small church called Epuni Baptist Church. My teenage years were marked with being raised in that kind of space. We went from white middle class, pretty well-off socio-economically, into a whole new environment. That was quite a transition for my family. As a 10-11 year-old, you don’t really recognise what those kinds of moves are like, but looking back now, it really opened me up to—I don’t want to sound trite or anything—but the reality of humanity outside of a bubble of white space. It was a good move on many levels.

I had some moments as a young person where I really connected with the Lord. But in my teenage years, I started going downhill really in terms of faith, and it just became a bit of a religious duty—going to church, and then being the pastor’s kid—those expectations of what it looks like to be a certain thing. I thoroughly resisted it, and went my own way. At that point, the biggest thing that happened to me was that I got involved in surf culture. And that was what took over my life from about 14 years old onwards. Lots of time at the beach, travelling, hanging out with mates, doing that kind of thing.

Did you draw, doodle, sketch as a young fellow?

I have memories of just sitting there drawing and doodling. Drawing was always a key thing; I don’t remember painting. With my own practice now drawing is a key aspect. I used to love Richard Scarry books—picture books. Little figures and stories—here’s a town and here’s the baker and here’s the postman. I was just fascinated by them—I think it was the level of detail and the stories that could be imagined. That was an early formative memory.

Tell me about that the transition from being resistant to faith to what came next.

I finished my Fifth Form year [Year 11], and Mum and Dad took on roles at Rotorua Baptist Church. Part of the decision around that for them was to try and get me out of the space that I was in as a teenager. They felt like I was pretty embedded in the culture I was in. So, we moved to Rotorua. I tried with all my might to be able to stay rebellious and naughty. But I was pretty much on my own quite a lot, surfing on my own; and it was then that I just became really gripped again by the presence of the Lord, and my own personal state. It was one of those years where there was quite a transition; even in my personality I think that that began to happen. My brother was travelling overseas, and when he came back he was like: What’s up with David? He seems so quiet and calm and brighter.

I went to Rotorua Boys High School, and I’d never studied art, other than your Third and Fourth Form compulsory subjects. But that year there was just something in me that wanted to do art. This is a pattern that I’ve seen happen in my life: each time I’ve progressed and kind of moved back into a good space with the Lord, the arts thing comes up simultaneously, which is quite strange. I ended up winning the top art award at school. And so that was it. From that point, I thought: This is it. This is what I’m doing. So, I left school and went to Waiariki Polytechnic to do one of the foundation arts courses.

How were your parents through that time?

I think they were worried with where I was at in Wellington. When we got to Rotorua, I jumped straight into a pretty rough crowd again, but there wasn’t the same connection that I had with the crew in Wellington. So it just fell away. And I think they started to see that there was this drawing happening. They’re pretty hands-off really; we’d just have conversations and talk when it came up. They were pretty wise parents, I think: they didn’t put a whole lot of tight religious boundaries around me, but gave me quite a lot of room to explore. So, after I was going through that process, I became more involved with the church and worship teams and things like that.

What happened next with your art?

The next big step was moving to Nelson to study art in 1996. That was precipitated by a dream, which was kind of a bizarre thing. At that time, I knew I wanted to study somewhere. So, I was wanting to have a look at different options. I remember around that time having a dream. In the dream, I was sitting down, and like there was a booklet in front of me and I opened it up. There was an image on the booklet. I woke up in the morning—didn’t remember it at all until I was sitting at our dining table some weeks later at my parents’ house. I put out all of these different prospectuses of these places that I might go and apply for. Picked one up, and the whole dream came flooding back. That image was the logo for Nelson Polytechnic, which is now NMIT. So, I’m like, oh my gosh; you know, God was there. I didn’t apply anywhere else, I just applied for that one, and got straight in. So, I felt really led to come to Nelson, and I majored in painting and drawing.

Honestly, it was the most beautiful three years of studying. It was like a privilege every day, getting up and exploring different creative skills and ideas and understanding and learning. It was just like I was diving into this pure crystal-clear water and loving every single minute. I found it a real privilege. It was almost like a kind of discipling with the Lord. There’s a scripture in Proverbs that talks about wisdom: that wisdom was by the Father’s side when they were making creation. That’s what it felt like: “Man … you know, I can’t do anything wrong … If I’m with God, and he’s opening up all these ideas.” And you follow this beautiful thing: it’s like you just get to know more about him, and about yourself. It was an overwhelming time—an amazing, amazing time.

I remember telling one of my tutors that I had the original vision of what we’re doing now. I just remember saying to her that I had this dream to create a space at some point where faith, creativity, and arts connect and come together. I could sense a need for that. Those were the seeds of some of the things that are slowly manifesting after 20-something years.

When it comes to your creative process and your life with God, how do they relate?

There’s a few layers. My practice is really connected with words—a lot of my actual making comes initially from words. My workbook’s got diagrams and words and sketches… those words are coming from my personal connection and communion with the Lord, really. There’s a kind of a prayer space of unearthing that’s often quite prophetic, unearthing things that God’s talking about and how that connects with me. The words create images in my mind, and then I start to explore how that might look. It’s taking the intangible and making it a little bit tangible. I’ll make a whole lot of work related to those ideas and those thoughts, trying to capture those feelings.

Last year, I was doing a lot of portrait drawings of this same image of a girl. She was quite staunch, and not really happy. I did three or four of these kinds of drawings. Then one day, I walked into the studio, and suddenly I realised, I’ve been drawing Hagar over and over again. As soon as that connection is made, I participate with it in a deeper way. Sometimes it’s like the work is actually speaking back to me. There’s quite a prayer, communion, and fellowship kind of process in that conversation between the physicality of the work, the initial ideas, and the process of making.

It sounds like this interaction between the art-making craft, the skills you have, and the way of engaging with the world is shot through with prayer?

Yeah, definitely, it’s a conscious kind of engagement. The process of the drawing, it’s very slow. These drawings take a long time because they’re quite sensitive and built up with many layers. And so, in that space, there’s a beautiful quietness that happens. You can be locked into it for two hours, you know, just making tonal variations and adjustments. There’s a very conscious type of connection with God at that moment. The more unconscious stuff is the kind of resonance that happens when things that have been unseen [emerge]. You only begin to see at different times, and sometimes [only] once the work is hanging out of the studio and you begin to read and understand what’s coming through the work.

Tell us a little bit about Atelier. Why does it exist? How did it come about?

I think it has sat like a seed for many, many years, since I was a student. The journey that my wife and I were on was more about church leadership. We were both pastoring a church. That came to an end about 2017, when we stepped out of church leadership. Nina was already quite a successful real estate agent, so she continued in that; but for me, the whole direction that life had taken to that point burnt down completely. Our family, our future direction, and all of those things, in pretty much a six-month period just imploded. That led us into a whole different, very difficult path, to walk.

But it was out of the ashes of all of that I was out one day and I heard the Lord, say, “Atelier.” Sometimes when God speaks, you just get one word. But sometimes, you get a whole universe that comes with it. Straightaway, I understood the vision that he was talking about. It had three parts: the gallery, the studio, and what we originally called church, but it’s probably more community. That’s the part we’ve been really, really trying to work out, and have come to a greater understanding now after almost six years. It’s been the biggest process of unpacking stuff within this space.

When my wife and I were in church leadership, we were really invested in the whole marketplace space of the church as well. So, a lot of these things dovetail together. I knew that Atelier, the gallery aspect, was to really connect with culture. It was meant to engage with culture; it was a space where we prioritise artists who have faith to be able to bring those conversations. It wasn’t for the church. The space was to be engaging with culture. So that emerged alongside the studio. The community part is what we’re seeing more clearly now as a collective, focused on artists of faith.

So originally you were talking about that being a bit more of a church, but over the years, that has become something closer to a community?

Yeah, it was quite a shift. In 2018 we were still holding a Sunday meeting of worship. We went through all sorts of different iterations. But nothing was ever feeling right. So, it’s taken five years to get to the point where I can say: “No, we’re not about leading a local church.” That’s not the focus now. The focus is actually what we’re doing through Atelier ministries. And the kind of churchy community side is what’s building through Atelier Collective—a network of Christian artists, which is expressed through gatherings like Majesty.

So your journey has now led you to think, “actually, I can do particular things differently and still be outworking that pastoral call in some respects”?

Exactly. As I said, when I started to connect with the Lord again, the arts thing came up. The exact same thing happened in 2017. Because for 20-something years, we were growing in church ministry, and my participation in the arts completely dived. I was also working in education at that particular time. But when everything tapered off, the picture that I had was like the makeup of my identity. If you see it like someone knitting: there was a thread that was dropped along the line; but the Lord wanted to pick up that art thread and knit it back into the fabric of my identity. That’s exactly what happened at the end of 2017. That was also precipitated by some travel over into Europe and looking around and seeing artworks where creativity, architecture, history, the church—all of these things—were combining. It just totally opened up my mind to see there’s far more than the box that I was thinking of.

What would you say around the church’s engagement with the arts?

There are definitely frustrations about knowing how to position artists in the church. Often it’s about them being a “tool” for the church, rather than empowering the artist to do the thing that they were called to do. It was a very difficult thing for me to marry. There were ideas that were being explored in the academic world, or in the arts industry, which were interesting ideas, and then you have to sort of dumb them down, or just leave them, to be able to come into the church and talk about those things. There was no real connection between those two spaces. It was all a little fragmented.

Could you name one person or one instance or one book that has been pivotal in your experience of holding your Christian faith and artistic vocation together? What’s been helpful for you in that space?

I don’t know if there was one book or one person. I think it was over a period of five or six years of different encounters, and actually just getting really frickin’ broken, to tell the truth. That’s the formation part of this, I think—what I’ve seen from the Lord is that he’s so creative, just like an artwork that I might be making, you know? It gets to a point, and it has to be disrupted somehow for it to create some new life. I can look back over this last five years, and it’s been pretty hard on a number of levels relationally—the church side, even the artistic side—where it’s like, if I was clay, it was mushed right down to being absolutely nothing and useless. I had to be able to allow God to reshape and reform from that point. With an artist’s lens, it’s a vital creative part of our process to do that. To see the Lord doing that in your life, it’s pretty hard. It has, a “season” to it, a period of time, and you can’t get out of it. You just have to go for that ride. So there was no one particular thing. It was crawling and crying. And realising all of your own weaknesses and crutches—and all of those things that you do to try and hold yourself together and be something—and then having it crash all over again. The period of time was intensely crushing. For quite a while. That sounds really awful, doesn’t it?

Well, yeah, but great to put it through that artistic lens. You said, “if I was clay.” I mean… you are clay.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Have you created a body of work out of this experience, or is it just that it informs your way of being?

Yeah, all my work over the last five years responds to it. Even though they’re about different things like the Hagar story [Genesis 16], the Jeremiah potter story [Jeremiah 18]—all of those threads are embedded within all of that work. But you can also go and look at specific pieces in it. They’re always autobiographical, even though the key message might be something else. There’s still an autobiography within there that’s actually me. And that’s where I am at, at that time.

How would you frame the relationship between your life with Christ and your art practice?

Honestly, I think it’s so intertwined. It’s like an ongoing conversation with him. That’s probably one of the key things: I don’t ever feel disconnected from him. I’ve never felt far away from him. I consistently feel a closeness. 1 Corinthians 2:10-11, it says, “The Spirit teaches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? And in the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” I see myself like an underwater diver, you know, looking for these deep things of God, through his Spirit. You know, it’s like, how much of God do we not know?

The curiosity and the wonder and awe around those spaces is probably one of the biggest things that inspires me. I would call it looking for the deep. Some people will call it wonder or inspiration, but that feeling of “oh, wow, there’s something really deep here.” I think that’s what happened to me when I was going around Europe. There was something really, really deep that was happening in that space. I think it was the same feeling when I was out surfing… dusk is coming and there’s that feeling. People call it wonder… it’s the same feeling. For me, an artist is actually a way of being. I thrive in those deep places. That’s where there’s a real knowing between the Lord and myself. Even in that time of crushing and breaking: I resisted it forever, but once there was an acceptance, being able to find Immanuel in that very low space, I realised that the depth of God is right in there as well; and that eventually there’ll be some fruit from that.

What are some of the big challenges on this journey of being an artist and educator and a gallery director?

It is a challenge, being in these different spaces. Obviously, there’s a thread that runs through them all, which is quite a beautiful thing. I love being in the space of teaching my students. I love that dynamic. I love the discussion with the diversity of people who come into the arts, including the ones who are really broken, the ones who have got high mental health needs, the ones who are pierced and purple and tattooed. I love that diversity, because there’s humanity right there in front of you. I really connect with that. Having to do all the assessment and stuff … that’s a little bit lame.

But out of that, it’s a really nice balance to be curating space in the gallery. So, obviously: different hats. With curating a space, I’m thinking about how people come into a particular experience to be able to encounter it, where they’re engaged with the artwork or the ideas. That’s far more curatorial, in the sense that I want people to leave from the space feeling something or thinking about something or experiencing something.

Then as an artist: all of that flows from the core part of my way of being in the world as a creative, as an artist. This informs all of those other practices. The biggest challenge is balancing all of those parts together. But actually the reality is that the balance is never perfect, and it’s more finding the rhythms of the month or the year, with all of those aspects coming together in the way that they should.

You’ve recently moved from your previous place to Trafalgar Street. Has it been good? How does your gallery interact with Nelson?

The move to the new space has been a really, really positive move. It’s shifted from just off the main beat to one of the key areas of Nelson—Trafalgar Street. So, we get a whole lot more people coming in, just walking up off the street. But in fact, the space feels quite different as well. In some ways, our last building was a little bit more imposing—it was large and dark. And at that point, we were still thinking of holding [church] meetings and different gatherings. So, this space is now more of an expression of the part of the journey that we’re in now. The rooms are beautiful. Lots of light. People tend to stay up here for quite a while. So, once you’ve come up, it’s like you’ve entered a different space. It feels like home. People sit and they look and they converse and so… yeah, it feels like it’s been a positive step for us, moving into here.

So you gather artists of faith for the gallery. Are you hopeful? What are you excited about when it comes to the space?

This ties back into what we’re doing with Majesty as well. I really believe that there’s going to be a strong flourishing of the arts. Even outside of Christian artists, I think that in the world and as a culture, the priority of the arts is going to become more and more clear. I think we’re going to understand ourselves better through creativity, and understand the world better through creativity. Which is why I think this is such an important conversation now.

But what we don’t really have with artists of faith is a solid infrastructure at the moment, like an ecosystem, the fullness of the ecosystem. What I’ve seen as part of our role is to be able to present artists of faith who are who are really doing quality work, and being able to provide support for them. It’s very isolating for them, because there’s not many of them. So, we’re wanting to be able to link all the different strata of artists who are in different spaces, whether they are just getting into study or whether they’ve come out of study. To develop that full ecosystem is one thing that I’m really conscious of: to see it thrive and fulfil the role that it is meant to have within society; to really challenge and reflect and nurture and nourish culture. I think all of these are really key. And I think we’re going to see something, something new of the Lord, through this process as well. I think that’s pretty exciting.

You’ve talked about that kind of developing the ecosystem. What are some of the needs? Would you be able to name any other particular things?

I think a necessary part of this ecosystem is developing these kinds of spaces. One of my dreams is that one day we’ll have an Art and Faith Research Centre, where artists and writers can be solely focussed on developing and building that body of knowledge, and getting that out further, and empowering those who are coming up underneath it. I’ve also got a dream that there would be specific education in this space, whether it’s a one, two, three-year programme, who knows. It’s not just about doing it ‘for the church’, but it’s actually embedding all of the concerns that we’ve been talking about: your own personal journey, formation and discipleship, but also a very savvy awareness of what it looks like for artists to be professional and working in the industry. So, all of those kinds of crossovers.

So, I think there’s a lot to build at the moment. And then it’s a question of timing, of how all of that might happen, or come together. But there’s some different needs. The biggest desperate need is that artists of faith find a place to connect. Some of them won’t be able to find it in their churches, others will. But the most kind of pressing need is a space where they go, “Oh, okay, these are people that I get and who get me.” If we can fulfil that part of this process at the moment, and nurture that, and give some resourcing, and ideas, and connection, and prayer, and all of those things—you know: feed the soil, the plants grow. That’s the kind of idea there.

A number of times you have, implicitly at least, referenced the arts as almost a way of seeing the world. Speak to that for just a minute.

I’ve just come around to that language. I think part of the journey of an artist is that you’re trying to position yourself, you’re trying to understand who you are, and understand your practice. It’s all so connected, because God is the Creator—the first thing that he did was want to share and create and bring something into existence. So I think we, as humanity, have that innate desire within us, whether it’s creating a conversation, artwork, a song, a great idea for a new invention—the creativity is so entwined and embedded within all of us. But we’ve positioned it and siloed it into such specific things. In some ways, we’re all artists, and the more we are able to connect and align with our own kind of focus, and work with it, the better.

I’ve seen some of your own work and it’s pretty compelling. It’s got a lot to do with the human form.

Before 2018, I’d never drawn the human form as a finished artwork. I had done some figure drawing classes, but it was more for the discipline of drawing and so on. But with the meltdown that we had, there was something about the humanity of the stories that we encountered. So that became the key focus that was informing me: working with the figure. For the majority of the time, the figure is in a vulnerable position. There’s transparency. Often the figures are nude, and there’s an openness and vulnerability that the figures have.

I’m a bit out of fashion, because there’s not many contemporary artists who are working in a figurative drawing approach. I’m trying to follow the hints that the Holy Spirit is talking to me about with this direction.

But I also think that the use of the figure is probably one of the most powerful ways of talking about the human condition. You can talk about the human condition through abstraction and different modalities; but obviously with the figure (and often life size), it connects on a very emotive level. We’ve had people come in and look at a work, and they begin to weep, because they feel the particular emotion or thought that’s with the work. That’s really powerful to me, because that’s where I find Jesus, in that type of humanity, rather than the more glossy version. There’s definitely a very emotive, sensitive connection to the resilience and the fragility of humanity. And that’s exactly what Jesus came down into.

What’s come to mind is these words: “prophet of hope and prophet of tears.” There seems to be a sense in which the prophets engaged as agents of hope. But they’re also agents of grief and tears. And in what you were talking about, there seems to be both of those things in play: solidarity with the pain of the world, yet shot through with hope.

Yeah, exactly. That’s what I strive for. And I think it’s a really fine line to try and find that, because sometimes I do work and it feels “Aghh … that’s gone too sentimental.” Or it’s more: “This is too much about me.” And then there are others that sit more in that universal space of connecting those things.

Is there a particular tradition, or artist, that your work references?

Yep, definitely. I often reference classical figure drawing and painting seen throughout art history. Michelangelo’s sculptures, particularly his unfinished works resonate deeply. Some of the Early-Renaissance painters, in terms of the storytelling and work with the figure. ,. Then, a number of contemporary drawers as well.

Lastly, what sustains you as an artist? What keeps you?

For me, it’s definitely the authentic relationships in community, and being around others who are connected and in the same space. You can just talk with some people for hours because the ideas and the threads are kind of overlapping and building, and then you’ve got something beautiful happening.

Understanding my own rhythms and practices—that’s been a big thing to sustain me. Sometimes I could find myself working against what should just be allowed to be let go of, and so that’s a continual journey to understand that. Because sometimes I’m in a real flow of making, and then other times, I might not make much for a month, or a couple of months. It’s just being okay with those flows—I find the acceptance of that sustaining. As I said before, I think one of the other key things is looking for those spaces of the deep, the wonder; and I really need it—because if I find I’m just doing admin all the time, or assessing, and there’s nothing that lifts me up a little bit …. Yeah, so: I’m definitely sustained, and I thrive, from those moments.

Website: www.davidjames.nz
Instagram: @davidjamesartist

ATELIER Studio|Gallery: www.atelier.org.nz
ATELIER Instagram: @atelierstudiogallery
MAJESTY annual gathering: www.atelier.org.nz/majesty

(Images supplied by David James)