Lydia Kratz, a member at Our Savior, Birmingham, Ala., doesn’t remember how she got started in art. “I just never stopped,” she says. “I was drawing all the time.”

Now a senior majoring in studio art at Bethany Lutheran College, Mankato, Minn., Kratz is part of a larger initiative that offers real-life experience to student artists while at the same time providing custom liturgical artwork for WELS and Evangelical Lutheran Synod ministries.

This initiative, Art Service, is an apprenticeship program created by artist Jason Jaspersen, who also serves as an art professor at Bethany Lutheran College. The idea, he says, isn’t new; it harkens back to artists in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance who fulfilled commissions and trained artists simultaneously. “I have a two-decade-long career as a liturgical artist in our fellowship. People come to me with projects, more projects than I can do,” he says. “But it doesn’t have to be one artist laboring, torturing themselves alone.”

The solution of involving students in these projects uniquely prepares them for an art career after they graduate. It also allows more to be accomplished and provides a way for artists to work together. “The existence of the Art Service as this sort of shared relay race makes it possible to do things bigger than what one person can do. I’ll tell you, that’s what built cathedrals,” says Jaspersen. “If you let go of the personal sort of bubble of credit and you allow people to bring what they bring—it’s like we’re singing a hymn with our paint together. When those voices blend, a different thing can come up than if you’re just singing a solo.”

While Jaspersen directs the overall projects, each student brings his or her own style to each piece of artwork. “We aren’t making a coloring sheet. It’s not all planned out,” says Kratz. “Artists contribute what they can when they can. Working in a group is really beneficial because where I fail, someone else succeeds, and we can work with each other in that way.”

Started about two years ago, the Art Service is often involved in multiple projects at a time. From sand animation to bronze work to large intricate paintings, members work together in various mediums to create liturgical art that will beautify sanctuaries as well as visually depict distinctly Lutheran concepts. Perhaps its largest commission was the creation of the visual art for the 2024 National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts (see below).

The Art Service is a deceptively simple name that has a deeper meaning. Jaspersen says that worldly artists often are driven to prove themselves and their talent. But the Art Service is different. “We’re using our talents to serve, to be useful to the kingdom. That diffuses a lot of the ego problems. Because if this isn’t mine, if this isn’t about my credit, well, then, yeah, I can cooperate. That’s easy, because we’re doing something bigger. We’re serving.”

As members of the Art Service graduate from Bethany, Jaspersen continues to stay in touch with them, offering support and even collaboration on certain projects. He knows how hard it can be to earn a living as an artist. “It’s a very gutsy thing to get into,” he says. “But for some people, they’re going to do this vocation, whether it makes them money or not. So I want to be a good steward of those gifts in our young people. How can we provide a meaningful place for them in the body of Christ?”

As for Lydia, she’s not planning to stop after she graduates next year. “I like to say my plans are never going to be as good as God’s plans,” she says. “So for right now I keep doing what I’m doing. I work the work that I have, and I pray, and I trust God, and I keep going.”

Pulling back the curtain

The planning committee for the National Conference on Worship, Music, and the Arts commissioned Jason Jaspersen and the Art Service to create visual art for the 2024 conference this past summer. “Each morning service and each evening concert were paired with a unique installation tailored to the message,” says Jaspersen.

Each piece took months of planning and work, starting with research into the themes of each service. One piece, “Tree of Life,” had already been commissioned by Bloomington Living Hope, Bloomington, Minn., but fit with an evening service theme of “Alive in Christ: Raised.” Here a member of the Art Service explains the piece:

Because he lives, we too shall live. The immediate choice for accompanying “Alive in Christ: Raised” was this triumphant 10-foot masterpiece in progress depicting the tree of life. And not just the tree of life from the Garden of Eden—a shoot from the stump of Jesse, an image of Jesus spreading his arms in love, showing that when he was hung on a tree his death meant our life. In the craggy stump slithers an imprisoned snake, and behind the tree a ribbon of text declares, “I AM THE WAY.”

See examples of the Art Service creating artwork for the worship conference at jjjaspersen.com/worship-conference-2024.

Author: FIC
Volume 111, Number 12
Issue: December 2024