Betty Spackman is a multi-media installation artist, painter, author, speaker, and educator who has worked and exhibited internationally for over thirty years. She has a background in theatre, animation, performance and video art, and won a National Film Award. She has written and illustrated art-related books, including A Profound Weakness: Christians and Kitsch, which is about images of faith in popular culture. She is also co-founder of the Fort Gallery in Fort Langley, British Columbia, Canada.
In this interview, Betty shares with us some of her thoughts on the importance of art in general, common misconceptions that are held about it, what it means to be creative (and she thinks we all are), as well as some ideas on how Christians can meaningfully assist in helping the arts to flourish. Also—and this is important—Betty believes in the power of kindness and hospitality, and you’ll hear it come through in the interview.
To learn more About Betty Spackman, you can visit her website, http://www.bettyspackman.com/
You can also watch a short film about one of her installation pieces that was exhibited at a British Columbia art gallery some years back. The work speaks about the meat we consume and where and how it comes to our plate. We highly recommend it. The film is called Found Wanting.
Radix: Just to start us off, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
Betty Spackman: I became a Christian and was subsequently brought into an evangelical community when I was a teenager in the sixties. At that time, they were not supporting the arts much. Well, I can’t generalize too much, but I think I can say that there wasn’t much support. I didn’t have role models or encouragement to follow my God-given talents. However, in 1970, I met the Dutch art historian Hans Rookmaaker at Regent College in Vancouver. He was the first person I heard speak about art and God with intelligence and excitement in the same sentence. That initial meeting has contributed to many lifelong connections with Europe. I taught in the Netherlands at the Christian Artists Seminar for twenty-five years or more and collaborated with various European artists, and so on. But before all that, I spent fifteen years or so just trying to figure out if I was allowed to be an artist. It wasn’t that my church community was telling me that I couldn’t create art, although there were certainly Christian voices telling some people not to make art. For me, though, it was a matter of not knowing if making art was what God wanted me to do or if I should be in some kind of ministry; and so it was a long struggle to sort that out. But I got to the place where I realized that being an artist—being who I am—wasn’t just a choice; it was a responsibility.
My life took a few different turns. I initially quit my first round of university to join a Christian theater company, but then I ended up going back to university to finish a Bachelor of Fine Arts and then a master’s degree in art. And my art practice over the last thirty or forty years has included showing work internationally, doing multimedia installation work, painting, video editing, and a variety of other things. To support myself while I was making art, I taught. Teaching has turned out to be a big passion in my life, supporting young artists—especially artists of faith—who are struggling with similar issues to the ones I had.
Radix: Because the topic of art is so important—and I don’t think that most of us know enough about it—I wonder if I could ask you a large question: what is art, and why is it important?
BS: I think asking “What is art?” is like asking “What is science?” The question is so broad that a response requires generalities. Generalities never work as definitions, and definitions themselves are problematic. We name things and then we try to define and defend the names we give them, and we divide and compartmentalize our creative explorations and intellectual pursuits into categories. So, someone might say science is rational and art is creative. But it’s not true. There are many rational artists and there are many creative scientists. Similarly, there are many very uncreative artists. One definition of art that I found online is that “art is an expression or application of human creative skill and imagination.” That’s a good blanket definition. And yet, it is just so open.
This definition lands us in the difficult debate about high art, low art, fine art, and craft. Perhaps we say a painting is “art” because it’s imaginative. However, a pot or a pen can be very imaginative. Those who prioritize imagination conclude that utilitarian objects are less important. Others, in our product-oriented culture reversely conclude that painting is less important because it serves no practical purpose.
What I will say though is that all too often, art is seen as a mere accessory, a frivolous luxury for the affluent and intellectual elite. Yet that is a very Western viewpoint. Indigenous cultures, for example, have respected “art” for centuries, though they didn’t name it as such. Creativity and the connection of art and spirituality were essential to their communities; storytelling, totems, costumes, and dances were all part of their daily spiritual life. Art as such was integral, not decorative. Unfortunately, Christians have often made art, especially visual art, mere decoration. What is interesting now is how science is recognizing that creativity is essential, even essential to science itself. So there is a new enthusiasm about the arts in general.
Radix: What are some common misunderstandings about art that should be cleared up?
BS: I have a story that I tell sometimes when I am asked that question. The parents of a potential art student, at one of the Christian universities where I taught, were worried about their son entering the art program. They asked me, “Aren’t the arts just all drugs and gays and lesbians?”
Radix: [Laughter]
BS: I sipped my tea a little slower and prayed. And then, because the mother was a nurse, I asked her, “When someone is in pain and we hear them cry out in pain, what is our response? The answer is simple: try and help find out what’s wrong.” I went on to suggest that when someone paints their pain, or sings it, or dances it, our response should not be to ignore or condemn it because it’s not pretty or is outside of our worldview. We should find out what it is, and then respond in a meaningful way to the person who made it. The arts are really a place of opportunity to both express and to listen to the grief of the world, and Christians need to be there to do both. I’m glad to report that their son is now teaching in that art department.
But there are many misunderstandings. One is the idea that art is a door to sexual promiscuity. Anything related to the body has been problematic for the Protestant church especially, and the arts are very much about feeling and touching and expressing oneself with the body. There is a fear that uncontrolled feelings can lead to sin.
We seem to forget the prophets, who were asked to do all manner of “performance art” rather than just speak a message from God. We can also forget that Jesus was a man in a body, and was tempted, had pain, and bled real blood. There are of course temptations because we are physical humans in the world. I will also say here that I don’t believe in the idea of there being a Christian world and a secular world; there is one world. The arts is an area where the temptations are perhaps just seen more easily.
Plus, the arts are often seen as being related to celebrity, which for some is connected to vanity. When I was in my twenties, there was often the message from the pulpit to send young artists to Bible school so that they wouldn’t get corrupted. There are always dangers of pride and arrogance to deal with. That shouldn’t make us reject the gift of art but drive us to a closer walk with God.
There is also the idea that the arts are really hobbies, that they are a waste of time or childish or even feminine in the worst sense. The Protestant work ethic and religious patriarchy have trouble with those things. This is partly because we don’t really know how to play. I was speaking at a conference in Alberta that was about the importance of play in business and education. One speaker talked about the importance of leisure—going to a concert, sitting under a tree, and how so many scientific discoveries were made during those supposed “unnecessary” activities when we aren’t actively trying to produce something.
Einstein once said that if you want your children to be intelligent, read them fairytales. And if you want your children to be more intelligent, read them more fairytales. So we need to be better educated.
Radix: So good.
BS: I’d say if you want to help your pastors to be good preachers, take them to a play or go to a concert or a circus with them. In general, we need to teach each other how to be freer without fear.
Radix: Are you hopeful that things are getting better?
BS: Yes. I’m hopeful because there are so many young people who are finding their way to straddle both communities—both their faith communities and the world of the arts. They are brave enough to do what they feel called by God to do. They are also, increasingly, finding Christian support. So, yes, I am hopeful.
Radix: Wonderful. Can I ask what makes an artist unique?
BS: Besides being poor and criticized?
Radix: [Laughter]
BS: I was asked to speak at a conference at Biola University several years ago that was centered around the book Wired to Create by Scott Barry Kaufmann and Carolyn Gregoire. They investigate the psychological attributes common to artistic personalities, showing that there really are certain proclivities artists possess that have sometimes resulted in the stereotypes, such as that artists are lazy or crazy; basically, that artists are out of sync with normal social thinking and behavior.
I remember a story that Rookmaaker told about a Dutch painter, who after five years of painting presented his piece to the elders of the church to get their blessing, as it were. Their response was something like, well, that’s very nice, but when do you work?
Radix: Horrors.
BS: I have heard similar stories. The problem is with assumptions of value. If what the artist is doing doesn’t fit in with what is valued in a particular society, then what they are doing isn’t considered worthwhile. The artist is seen as a mad dreamer who plays but does not work, at least not “real work.”
The other problem is that artists can be seen in the other extreme, as mystical, prophetic geniuses who are connected to God or the Universe and we don’t understand them because they exist in a more altered state of awareness than the rest of us. Both these things are exaggerated and misguided conclusions.
The reality is that artists are unique, but so are farmers and mathematicians and plumbers.
We have all been given creative gifts to be used for different purposes. What we need is to celebrate our various differences in how we perceive the world. We all see in different ways, and we all have different gifts. Thus we need the scientist and the artist to make the Body of Christ whole. When all the members are included in the seeing, then we can see in 360 degrees and have 20/20 sight.
Radix: The Theology of the Body, right? And it requires humility on everybody’s part. Too often we give lip service to wanting to appreciate diversity but then privilege our own perspectives and viewpoints.
BS: Right. And in the Protestant community, we have prioritized words. This is something that I brought out in my book A Profound Weakness: Christianity and Kitsch. We Protestants are afraid of images and statues and people kissing icons because we assume that it’s idolatry. But I’ll often tell people who are concerned about this: when you see a grandparent gently holding a photograph of their grandchild, and then maybe kissing it, are we worried that they are somehow practicing idolatry? Are they worshiping the photograph? Of course not. They are kissing what the photo reminds them of and expressing love for the child, not the image of the child.
Radix: A really good point. Okay, so you have already touched on this next question a bit, but I have heard of artists as being “border-stalkers.” This is what Makoto Fujimura called them, as I recall. I understand him to be saying that artists are different in the way that they’re able to travel ideologically outside of the typically understood borders.
BS: Yes. It is a big part of being an artist. And as we’ve talked about before, when artists go beyond the sequestered areas on accepted norms of a particular community or faith group or even art group, it’s risky. They can lose friends and support. They can get criticized or condemned. Someone once described being on the cutting edge this way to me: the edge of the knife doing the cutting gets dirty.
Radix: Brilliant. Right!
BS: Right? Because the dirt—that stuff that might be considered “unholy” or politically correct—is not wanted. Similarly, breaking through border crossings is dangerous. Christians in the secular art world are often not accepted in that community because they are Christian, and Christian artists are not often accepted in the Christian community either, because they are artists. So we live in this kind of no man’s land, which is where I have lived for most of my life. And yet, with that said, I can truly say that my experience provides me with a better perspective of both camps. Also, Jesus stepped outside of boundaries too.
Too many people feel that hanging onto and protecting so-called established truth is the important thing to do. When really, what we are doing is hanging onto a certain vision that we have invented and then are too afraid to transgress. Then we think that questioning somehow destroys faith, so we are afraid to ask questions. But God invites our questions. God calls us to seek, to actually travel outside the edges of our safe places and learn. This is one of the artists’ main gifts to culture: to have reckless courage.
Radix: I like that: the gift of reckless courage.
BS: But it is a gift that has a high cost. We often get rejected from the very places in which we need to have a sense of belonging. And yet, we are to be obedient. The Holy Spirit led Jesus into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan. He had to come to an understanding of who he was in God. So if we walk into life we’re going to bleed, our feet are going to need washing, we’re going to get dirty. But it’s this living of life that not just threatens but challenges us. Jesus said that he came to give us abundant life, so, artist or no artist, life will have to be done by stepping out of the boat with Peter and leaning on the arm of God to get us through.
Radix: I think it’s fair to say, and I know you agree, that since we are all created in the image of God, we are all, by nature, creative. I wonder what you might say to the everyday person who isn’t necessarily an artist—you know, they have the regular job, whatever—but still wants to be creative. They want to express beauty in some way. What would you tell them?
BS: This is a really good question and perhaps there are some general ways everybody can be more attentive to their imaginations and desire for creativity. But there are as many answers to that question as there are individuals. This is one of the reasons that I am so keen on mentoring. Standardized learning just doesn’t always help. For one person, starting to be creative might be going for a walk in the forest and finding beautiful leaves or stones to draw. For another, it might be reading a certain book, or hearing a story, or telling a story—maybe a painful story. For still another, it might be just watching how their children play. What I will say concretely is, the first step is just to give oneself permission to begin without having to be good enough. Just create something, play. Because if you are afraid to, say, draw because it won’t be good enough, then you are missing out on some fun and on discoveries.
There are a lot of good books that talk about faith and art, and also a lot of lectures and online classes to take, often for free. But I’ll say again that there aren’t enough mentors and supporters and encouragers or enough connections with other artists to play with. However, there are increasingly various initiatives being developed to provide mentoring to artists. So that is encouraging.
It’s also important for people to know that creativity is not just about being a singer or writer or painter; it’s about a person with imagination who is curious and filled with wonder. Perhaps it will take the form of giving a dinner party and making it special, or building a sandcastle with some kids, or tidying up the lunchroom at work and making it more pleasant. Maybe it will be doing a blog about your garden or creating a book club. We don’t have to do traditional artwork to be creative.
So I guess one suggestion I could give as a general overall possibility for everyone would be to make something to give away. Perhaps it’s a cake or a birdhouse or a get-well card, or a song or poem—anything that requires your care and energy. Fixing somebody’s car, even. Just do it the best you can. Marilynne Robinson said that to do something with excellence is an act of generosity. And don’t give—whatever it is—with expectations of praise or criticism. Those things might come, but they are not your prime concern or motivation. Just make something and give it in order to express kindness. For me, this is what art is all about. To truly be creative is to give life. Jesus said, I’ve come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. And I think the abundant life is a creative life.
Radix: I love that idea of simply making something for someone.
BS: Yeah, just random acts of kindness, right? I hate to say it, but there are so many people outside Christianity that are really doing these things better than many of us are. As Christians we need to, we need to realize the importance of simple kindnesses in this world that is fraught with hatred. Personally, I am moved to tears if I hear anything that is kind that somebody has done or see something good on the news or whatever. It’s just so important right now to be kind to one another. And gift-giving is only one thing to do, because we’re talking about a creative gesture that pulls us out of our comfort zone. It is a sacrifice at some level.
Radix: To switch gears a little, I’d love for you to talk about the concept of artist as prophet. I know it’s a big topic.
BS: A big can of worms.
Radix: [Laughter]
BS: I am not a scholar or an art historian or theologian, and this question is one that has been investigated much more thoroughly than I could ever begin to do. I just come back to the problem of words. “Prophetic” begs for definition and context. Is it meant as giving divine messages, predicting the future, or saying or doing things before they happen elsewhere? To make it an attribute of artists may be because of this last thing, as artists imagine things that do not exist and are able to express or show them somehow. Sci-fi springs to mind in this regard, suggesting the impossible that later becomes a reality. I think though, when it comes to artists, that because of their imagination, they can speak to the future. Just look at science fiction. I think of “Beam me up, Scotty” and other such futuristic technologies that are, today, becoming a reality, or at least entering into the realm of possibility.
With all that said, I do believe that the artist can reveal the heart of God in unique ways, and that gives us a responsibility. We can be vessels of wonder and light, through sound and image and movement and story, though often we are not conscious of it directly. However, if we are living a life that is submitted to the Creator and being willing vessels, we can be revealers. Artists should get credit for the fact that by their very nature, they are more open to thinking outside the box, to going past the status quo, to dreaming and to imagining.
Especially in a world that believes less in a Creator God, sometimes artists are seen as being sources of revelatory truth. So, we extol them as the wise guru, genius, or prophet, and end up, as Scripture warns, leaning on the arms of flesh. But the reality is that we can’t hold ourselves or each other up by our own strength and wisdom. I think the brokenness and hate in the world right now attests to that. So the clever, forward-thinking artist might point to the future, but we cannot depend on anyone but God to lead us there. The Holy Spirit can speak to us in many voices in any walk of life. But whoever the voice is, we all need to know that they are just the messenger. Scripture tells us a child will lead us and it is childlike faith that will lead us forward. Perhaps what we can learn from artists is to be more childlike.
I’d also like to mention that most of the messages given by the Old Testament prophets were to bring people to repentance. Too often, I think we have come to believe in a God of retribution. For those of us who believe in a loving Creator, how can we call a contemporary world to change? How do we tell the truth in love? How do we protest in love? How do we show the world what’s wrong, but bring hope at the same time? Scripture says that God’s kindness is intended to lead us to repentance (Romans 2:4). We often hear the term “prophet of doom.” I would pray, as an artist, to be a prophet of hope.
Radix: Oh … grand.
BS: That my kindness would be a call to change in myself as well as others; would be what I strive for in myself, to be a willing and available instrument. To be authentic as an artist and at the same time submitted to the call of God to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness—not being self-righteous, but selfless. If this is what it means to be a messenger of God, what it means to be a prophet, then it’s a high calling, indeed.
Radix: Beautifully stated. I also love the idea of losing oneself in the beauty of holiness.
BS: Yes. And it really is important to be used as a vessel for the gifts the Holy Spirit has given us instead of simply applying them to our predetermined ways of “preaching.” What we need is for that creative power to use us. And that requires humility! Not to just be clever or have agendas, but to be open, vulnerable, and flexible. It’s a paradigm shift.
Radix: Do you think that art has the ability to bring people together?
BS: It is the openness of art, the subjectivity, that scares people. But it is that very openness that allows people of different thinking and beliefs to come together in the same room, not confronted with a predetermined definition of truth but with space for questions and conversation. It is what allows people to “enter” a work of art without constraints and discover something—perhaps a new question, perhaps even an answer.
I think our question should not so much be: how can we use art to gather people? Because the arts do that by their very nature. Perhaps it is better to ask how we can be there too; be present with those gathered in cinemas, concert halls, galleries, theatres, fairs, civic celebrations and so on; to be there as creators, but also as fellow audience members. Offering and listening to their ideas and dreams and fears. As artists our goal should not be to attract people but to meet people—on stage or screen or gallery wall—with the purpose of giving them the gifts we have to offer and listening to their ideas and dreams and fears. It is an attitude shift. We shouldn’t prepare an event with the idea of bringing people together in order to then preach to them. Instead, the goal should be to simply meet with people or even better, to bring our people out of the church to an arts event where they can meet artists or meet with one another for conversation about what they have seen.
Really meeting people requires an attitude of humility. I once heard someone talk wisely about the three stages of love. First is fear of the other. Because of fear, we stay a safe distance away and we judge. The second stage is tolerance and benevolence. The speaker said that most Christians get to that stage. And it’s good, but it is still a place of power. You tolerate someone, but still think they are wrong. The third stage, though, is wonderment. And this is where the arts thrive; here is where they do their best job, in this place of wonderment. Because in this place of wonderment, people who are different from each other stand equal before God and can learn from each other. And, in our times right now, with everybody tending to divide into camps and hate those who are on the other side, I think this posture of wonderment is essential. It’s also where the arts truly shine. They can be a safe, open place where people can come to laugh and cry together.
Radix: That is such a meaningful answer. Thank you. Switching gears a little, I’d like to ask you how artists can be “bridgy.” Let me back up: I came from a background that did not especially value the arts—at least the higher forms—so I wasn’t fully educated into knowing just what they were about, and how much they contribute to a full and flourishing human life. But I still know people who have a suspicion of them. Maybe they would call art elitist, even. And I am not saying that art should be just kitsch. But there is this idea of some art being elitist and art being inaccessible. Thoughts?
BS: Right. I don’t think we’ll ever get over that aspect of art, the inaccessibility of it for some. That is a reality. But I have two responses to the question. As for the first, I’d say that it isn’t the task of the artist to make their work accessible to everyone. Compromising quality or complexity or dumbing it down can destroy the work. Some people get jazz, some understand hip-hop, and others are Bach or Beethoven fans. But with music, one is expected to mainly feel something. There is not the pressure that visual art has to actually “be about” something, or to “mean” something. Marks and images since the first hieroglyphs or drawings on cave walls have been related to language, to messages, to communication, and we still tend to look at artwork that way. We want to be able to read it and if we can’t, we want it translated. But abstract, conceptual and experimental art are not things that can be immediately read. Instead, we are meant to feel them after spending time with them. We can’t expect to just walk into a gallery, pass our eyes over some piece for a couple of seconds, and “get” whatever we are looking at.
Though, I should mention that the other problem people can have is thinking that a piece of visual art is understandable because it’s recognizable. An example might be a realistic landscape that might be thoroughly laced with symbolism, depending on the time and culture. A vase of lilies might not be just some pretty flowers but a symbol of purity or faithfulness. So even realistic images often require further investigation that is just too much work for those who are not interested or have no idea how to approach a work of art.
My point is that art that cannot be put into words can be threatening for some people. Part of that is because we have not been taught to “see” with our feelings the way we have been taught to “feel” with our hearing. Yet we have to remember that even the most abstract lines, colors, and forms do communicate. They register in us in a similar way music does, though we may not even be aware of it. Whether the viewer realizes it or not, they often do feel the difference between an aggressive slash of paint on a canvas or a gentle wash of color. And science, now, has shown that color itself can alter our psyche. One feels very different in a room with beige walls than one with red walls. Hospitals are starting to understand that and make happy spaces for people that are healing.
Additionally, some artwork might not be meant to be read at all, but just simply encountered. That kind of art that doesn’t have a readable message can be especially difficult for Christians because we want art to “tell” the truth, or simply decorate the words. This fear has really slowed down a couple of generations of artists from being equipped to work in the world where God has called them to be, where their gifts and talents could function fully. Visual art is not just to be used to illustrate the church bulletin. Art can be used to comfort and confront, teach and heal.
Radix: Amen.
BS: Back to the elitism thing: I’d say that when it comes to Western culture and the arts, at least for some, the teaching and interpreting of arts has been so loaded with theory that people end up feeling at a loss if they don’t understand what they are looking at. They spend time reading the descriptive statements on the wall instead of encountering the artwork, or just thinking the art is stupid because they can’t understand it.
Somebody who’s loving classical music and suddenly is confronted with a piece of the “experimental” stuff can be jarred by it and hate it at first because it doesn’t flow with their normal matrix of receiving that sound. But back to the earlier statement about the three stages of love and fearing the unknown sound or image, the first stage is judgment. Well, for the person experiencing something they don’t know, the next step would be to learn more about it, to at least tolerate it. But then we should enter into the wonderment stage and accept, even if it is not something we like, that there is a place for that and me in the same world.
Here is another thought: we are given an admonition in the second book of Timothy to be ready to share our faith in and out of season. And in the book of Colossians, we are instructed to let our conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that we may know how to answer everyone. For an artist, that might include taking the time to say, “Oh, let me help you understand where I am coming from.” And not complain as I have heard some Christians in the art world do, who indicate that, “I’m just so persecuted.” We need to stop condemning and criticizing and be open to help. But, of course, there is give and take. It’s an act of kindness to help people find their way through what you are doing as an artist, or any kind of work, whether that is theology, physics, or photography. We have to be hospitable, to be welcoming. It’s an egotistical attitude that reinforces the sense of elitism in the arts, though it can happen in any of the disciplines.
I’ll just lastly say that the arts can express things in ways that aren’t directly and immediately known. We don’t have to have crosses and images of Jesus in what we make. Jesus spoke in parables. Even he didn’t want to tell the whole truth. This is one of the reasons that this Emily Dickinson poem, “Tell all the truth but tell it slant,” is so meaningful for me.
Tell all the truth but tell it slant —
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth’s superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind —
So that’s the freedom and the responsibility. We want people to hear and to see God in us and in what we do, but we can tell the truth “slant.” We can tell it gradually. We can tell it in parables. We can use art.
Radix: I know a perennial topic connected with art is that of funding. Comments?
BS: Well, yes, funding is an ongoing topic in the arts. During some points in history, artists would have patrons. I think that we should approach art like research. An artist, like anyone who’s doing research, needs funding because art-making takes time away from other work that might bring them income. Some of my projects have taken five years or more. I’ll also say that maybe even more than money, artists need space, both to work in and in order to show their work. The sad reality is that some Christian universities and other institutions are paring down on support for art, which is a travesty. The world really needs them.
Radix: If all the pastors were somehow able to fit in a room, and they were all in a receptive state, what would you want to tell them?
BS: That’s the artist’s dream, to be able to talk to all the pastors! Short answer? Don’t be afraid of the arts. But don’t romanticize them either. Also, some pastors are really feeling the pressure to include arts in their church, but the reality is that doing that might not be the ministry of their particular church. In general, I would say to pastors: call all your people to a creative life; ask the artists in your community to help people interact with artistic expressions in the world and outside the church doors. And maybe get your actors to take you to plays, and then talk with them about it. Get your visual artists to take you to see different kinds of artwork, and then talk with them about it. And while you shouldn’t feel obligated to make your church into an art gallery, what a great thing it would be to provide the church as a space for artists to share their work.
Also, have enough faith to be curious and brave. And have enough love to be kind and to practice wonderment.
Radix: What would you want to tell the artist who is reading this?
BS: Pretty much the same thing as to the pastors: go past your comfort zone; be humble; be curious; be kind. Do what you do for God and your neighbor. Oh, and also for your enemy, by the way.
Radix: Absolutely gloriously beautiful. Thank you.