Susan Isaacs on IAM and Encounter

It's February, the month of IAM's Encounter '09. Hopefully you caught the early bird registration and now are curiously surfing the Web for any hint of what to expect. But, maybe you're on the fence about going. The economy's gone south and you're not sure it's worth the time and money. Asphalt Eden caught up with Susan Isaacs, one of the art conference's presenters, who gave us the inside scoop on how IAM has shaped her career and spiritual journey and what she hopes others will get out of the conference.

Just to give you a little background info, Susan Isaacs is kind of the Christian equivalent of Tina Fey -- smart, funny, and a wee bit cynical. She has appeared on Seinfeld and My Name Is Earl, and is friends with Arrested Development's Tony Hale. She is a regular contributor to Burnside Writers Collective, and her book Angry Conversations with God: A Snarky but Authentic Spiritual Memoir, which doesn't come out til March, has already gotten rave reviews.


Asphalt Eden: How did you get involved with IAM?
Susan Isaacs: I lived in New York City from 1998 to the end of 2003. I met Mako at the IAM Encounter in 1999, when I was attending Redeemer; and then when I started attending the Village Church. I knew Mako as a fellow churchgoer, and also as the leader of IAM. My first IAM conference was in February 1999!

Asphalt Eden: How has IAM shaped your career and spiritual life?
Susan Isaacs: I was impressed with that first conference in February 1999. It wasn't just a Jesusy conference with art thrown in; it was a legitimate forum to discuss art from a spiritual perspective. I remember they were showing slides of an artist's work. One of the pieces showed a nude couple, standing a la American Gothic. The projectionist passed it very quickly and Mako asked them to go back. Everybody laughed, but then we really looked at the painting: unglamorous, raw, honest, vulnerable. The moment made us examine not only the piece but our own thoughts about nudity and what we've done to it in our culture. I was very impressed with the way Mako handled the moment, but also the the whole conference itself.

Mako is a visual artist, so much of the 1999 conference was about visual art. But I attended (and performed at) the IAM Encounter in February 2006, after I had moved back to Los Angeles. I was workshopping a solo show (that later become my book). By then IAM had broadened its scope to include film, literature, acting performance, and music. And some really heavy hitter thinkers as well: Miroslav Wolf, Dana Goia and Nancy Pearcey. It was terrific! But art didn't take a back seat to faith or vice versa. IAM set such a high bar in terms of artistic quality and thought. It created open, inviting forum to bridge the worlds of art and faith.

I've attended several "Christian art" conferences in my day. Sometimes the artistic quality is lacking in the name of loving everyone. (Nothing wrong with that, it's important to encourage people wherever they're at artistically!) But those events aren't so challenging, they're more like your old school talent shows. Other conferences put artistic quality far ahead of anything else, and they became a kind of parade, like they're trying to be the Oscars or something, and Jesus is put in a corner. IAM is worshipful, respectful, and challenging. IAM sets a high bar in terms of quality, but it doens't shove Jesus into a corner either. I love the balance of IAM.

Asphalt Eden: What will you be presenting on at Encounter?
Susan Isaacs: My memoir is coming out in March. Angry Conversations With God started with ideas put forth in the book, The Sacred Romance -- that our relationship with God is like a marriage. At the time I read it I thought, "Well in that case God and I need to go to marriage counseling!" It's a spiritual memoir, so every chapter deals with a specific period in my life, and then God and I talk about it in counseling. Some of the sessions sound like: "What were you THINKING, God? And God answers, "What were YOU thinking?!" But of course we work through it all.

I'm going to present something between a talk and a solo show at IAM; kind of like Eddie Izzard's shows. My book actually began as a solo show which I began working on in 2004. I was right in the middle of a crisis of faith, so I was working on the show as a way to work through my crisis. When I presented material at IAM in 2006, I was still in the crisis of the Second Act. :) A couple years later (after I lived through that crisis) I finished the book, so I've come full circle and am adapting it back into a show.

Asphalt Eden: Why should someone attend Encounter?
Susan Isaacs: Personally, I got as much out of meeting other artists as I did from the content of the encounter itself. I mean, there'll be so much on hand, you won't be able to digest it all ... kind of like binge eating on Thanksgiving. Yes the exhibitions are fantastic, and so are the lectures and performances. But the energy in the rooms and the fellow artists are just as important as the content. You'll get into a conversation with someone in the hall, you'll go out for coffee or a meal and make new friends. You'll discover people out there just like you.

We often get bogged down, especially if our art is a solo venture like painting or writing. But the opportunity to connect with others can help us go back to our work in a new way. Those new friendships and experiences will challenge and encourage you as you go back out into the world and make your way as a Christian and an artist.