POP-MENNONITE

Don Swartzentruber

Reproduced here are selected paintings of Don Swartzentruber along with excerpts from his annotations. All the paintings, and more, with full annotations, can be found at www.swartzentruber.com.

Pop Tart. Andy Warhol noted, “When I got my first television set, I stopped caring so much about having close relationships.” Entertainment has become a staple food in the cognitive diet of today’s popular culture. . . .The young boy is vulnerable as he happily eats and adds his own waste to Mickey’s toilet. He is feasting on foolishness, as entertainment nourishes his developing worldview.

The Last Veiled Feminist. . . . The chair provides the security of tradition. The phallic desires of men cut at her clothing, tempting her to abandon the dress that camouflages her femininity. Her liberated friends discard their conservative garb, striding toward modernity and worldliness. The praying man symbolizes the much-debated role of headship. . . . My Mennonite ancestors embraced this esoteric symbol with great conviction. . . .

Just As I Am. The painting ushers a repentant boy down the aisle of youthful transgressions.

Excommunication. . . . At a time when my identity was forming, I witnessed the excommunication of my father. In this intimate black and white painting, I wanted the congregation to sustain a voyeuristic ambiance. The church is a carnival, with father and me as the spectacle—a sideshow for an otherwise dry and uneventful assemblage. . . .

The Conscientious Objector. . . . The protagonist, torn between masculine instincts and pacifistic ideals that elude ephemeral justice, brandishes a pitchfork (Matt. 5:44; 6:14). Will he relinquish his violent instincts. . . ? The ethical debate becomes even more complicated when the physical threat is immediate and personal. The sexual deviant behind the bush displays no redeeming behavior and has already violated the woman. Was good will meant to extend to such depravity? . . .

The Mission Field. . . .The advantage that Mennonite evangelism has in North America is that it does not regard forfeiting mainstream American culture as a substantial loss. . . .

Mennonite Jesus. Contracted . . . by a Mennonite publishing company to illustrate Sunday school material, I was unsettled by a request in regard to the depiction of Jesus. Requiring illustrations of him with short hair and no mustache was not for historical accuracy, but rather because the editorial staff regarded the mustache as a military symbol. . . . This Mennonite publisher is certainly not alone in altering the historical Christ. . . . for the sake of clarifying some philosophical arguments. . . . The setting of this painting is a Stonehenge of hay bales. The composition gives voice to the verse “the stones will cry out.” The black flamed candles suggest that God’s mystical presence prevails, even when the Son of God is caricatured.

—Don Michael Swartzentruber, Winona Lake, Indiana, designs carnivalesque images that manifest from interests in theology, cultural issues, and the surreal. He has taught and lectured on the arts for the past ten years. He received an M.F.A. in Visual Art from Vermont College of Norwich University and exhibits nationally. The recipient of numerous grants and awards for his instruction and studio practice, he creates his enigmatic iconography in the historical Billy Sunday community of Winona Lake, where he lives with his wife and two sons.