If you haven’t heard by now on my social media feeds, late last year I launched my first concert photography exhibit in downtown Pleasanton, California at Inklings Coffee & Tea. I couldn’t be more excited. And while the pandemic threw a monkey wrench into my plans and made the exhibit inaccessible for awhile, it reopened this spring and has been available for viewing all summer. And now, I want to share a little more about how I curated the images chosen for the exhibit, and what inspired me to put it all together.
The Theme
When I first started thinking about putting together an exhibit of my work, I knew from the beginning that I wanted to show my work around a theme, rather than just show off my best or favorite shots. There had to be something tying all the images together besides the fact I created them.
The theme and title I ended up settling on is “Tell Me All Your Thoughts On God…”, which is taken from the chorus of the catchy rock hit “Counting Blue Cars” by the band Dishwalla. If you were alive in the mid-90’s, you probably have the song stuck in your head now (sorry!) The trailing ellipses in the title are important, because the second half of the lyric is “…’cause I’d really like to meet her”, and it’s sung from the perspective of a child who is willing to ask questions without fear of sounding ignorant or offending someone. It’s that kind of humility and bravery to ask big questions and - critically - the willingness to listen respectfully to one another that I wanted to encourage in this exhibit.
The images were selected for the exhibit because the artists depicted have likewise shown a desire to ask deep questions or express a viewpoint about God or religion in one form or another through their music. Ever since my days at Calvin College where the incomparable Ken Heffner encouraged us students to engage deeply and critically with the artists we listened to, I’ve been fascinated by artists who have something meaningful to say through their music about the human condition and our relationship to the divine. Anyone can write a love song, or a party anthem - the radio is full them! - but what really grabs me is the artists who grapple with complicated questions that demand difficult and sometimes uncomfortable consideration.
Raising Money For A Worthy Cause
I also knew that I wanted the exhibit to serve a greater purpose rather than be a vanity project, or a means to make a few bucks on the side. For awhile now I’ve wanted to find a way to use my art for a greater good. And so I knew that this exhibit would be a great opportunity to raise money for a non-profit, and I had just the non-profit in mind: Blood:Water.
Blood:Water is a 501(c)(3) charity based in Nashville, TN that was founded in 2004 by the GRAMMY® Award-winning rock band Jars of Clay and Jena Lee Nardella. It was created because the guys in the band had their eyes opened to the challenges facing millions of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa related to water security, sanitation, hygiene and HIV/AIDS, and they wanted to find a way to use their platform to bring meaningful change. Their approach is different from many other similar charities. Rather than simply trying to quickly drill as many wells as possible (which often leads to long term sustainability issues), their goal is to identify excellent local partners who have the necessary local knowledge but need equipping in whatever form that may take. Their solutions are tailored to the communities they serve, and are designed to be sustainable long term. I’m proud of their work and have supported them personally for many years, and I’m excited to introduce them to more people through this exhibit.
To help raise money for Blood:Water, I’m asking everyone who visits to make a donation on behalf of the exhibit as a sort of “tip jar”. No amount is too great or too small. And as an added incentive to give generously, I’m offering the chance to take a framed print home at the end of the show to anyone who donates at least $80 to Blood:Water. Why $80? Because as Blood:Water is fond of saying, $40 is enough to provide clean water and sanitation to someone in Sub-Saharan Africa for life. So I figure, why not go beyond the minimum and ask for enough to support at least two people?
For more details on donating and claiming a framed print from the show, please contact me.
Putting It All Together
Curating a show around a theme meant that I couldn’t just pick my favorite images, or the most impressive images from my portfolio. I had to first identify which artists in my archive had songs that fit the theme, and then narrow that list down to those for whom I had images worthy of displaying in an exhibit. I spent many months researching lyrics and the meaning behind songs, while going through my image library and producing test prints. Sometimes I had great images but the songs were lacking, and sometimes it was the other way around.
But eventually, the set of images began to take shape, and soon I began to find connections between various images and lyrics. Monsters of Folk (featuring Conor Oberst, M. Ward and Jim James) would ask God “why do we suffer?”, and John Mark McMillan offered an empathetic response. LANY and Lecrae both reflected on their pasts and their upbringing. Twenty One Pilots and Sufjan Stevens both explored how sleep relates to faith. And on and on. I made an effort to group these connected images together in the display.
Other topics explored in the exhibit include: doubt, wonder, absence, encouragement, grief, praise, and struggle.
Artists featured include: Twenty One Pilots, Coldplay, Arcade Fire, Sufjan Stevens, Bon Iver, David Byrne of Talking Heads, NEEDTOBREATHE, John Mark McMillan, Monsters of Folk/Conor Oberst, Francis & The Lights, Julien Baker, Johnnyswim, Switchfoot, Colony House, Lecrae, LANY, Cold War Kids, Counting Crows, Jars of Clay, MuteMath, and more.
There’s also a Spotify playlist I’ve curated with songs featured in the exhibit, along with a few extras: https://sptfy.com/tellmeallyourthoughtsongod
The Location: Inklings Coffee & Tea
Inklings Coffee & Tea is an amazing coffee shop in the heart of downtown Pleasanton, California. Opened in 2016, its mission is to “seek the good of the city”, and it accomplishes this by providing a space for people to gather over Stumptown coffee and locally-sourced food, and for many local non-profits and charitable organizations to host events and interact with the community they serve. Inklings features a large event space in the back that can accommodate groups of up to 120 people which routinely hosts everything from concerts to artist markets, book clubs to church services, and private events to high school students catching up on school work. It’s in this event space that I’ve installed the exhibit, and it’s open to the public during normal business hours as long as the room hasn’t been rented out.
The exhibit is on display indefinitely, but I don’t expect it to remain forever. So if you’re in the neighborhood, I’d love for you to check it out! And if you enjoy it, please consider making a donation to Blood:Water through my donation page. It’d mean a lot to me if you did!
