“Not a formless sublime exceeding and annihilating the beautiful, but an endless display of beauty, surpassing the beautiful as the ever more beautiful.”  – David Bentley Hart

Sola Scriptura permeates the portion of protestant faith I have grown up within. It is a term which tends toward an epistemology that raises the written word above everything else, after all John 1:1 tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” It is powerful, the word—both the spoken word that made everything that was made and the Word through whom life and light was given to “all mankind [as] the light [that] shines in the darkness” that cannot be overcome. But within that same tradition, the word is often eviscerated.

The artist Makoto Fujimura was recently commissioned to illuminate the four Gospels in commemoration of the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible. It is the first time the Bible has been illumined in centuries with gold and silver leaf, verdigris, vermilion and azurite. Far different from the bibles I have owned—starkly black and white, pages diaphanous, perhaps the binding is leather but the gilt is suspect. Similarly, the early Reformers white washed church walls, eradicated icons and images and alter pieces and simplified architecture all to convincingly enunciate the great importance of sola scriptura—the word. They did this because there were abuses—great abuses and tragedies where the word was undervalued, beautiful as it was, but unknown. Maybe all they did was necessity. I do believe the Protestant Reformation has done much good for the Church; after all, it is much closer to the concept of the priesthood of all believers, now, then when under the exclusive domain of the papacy. But it was a reactionary movement, nonetheless, and like many reactions it conceivably went too far to value only, as Jerram Barrs says, that which exhibits “bare simplicity, barrenness, and even ugliness” as if these things were “somehow considered more pleasing to God”—more spiritual, even.

It did not help that along with the Protestant Reformation strutted the Enlightenment, both at times made bedfellows. One can almost hear the likes of Voltaire, Hegel, Kant, Hume and Rousseau singing along with Rabbit of Winnie the Pooh fame,

Never trust your tummies, tails, or toes
You can’t learn a thing from any of those
Here’s another fact I must disclose
From the mighty pen true wisdom flows.
(“If It Says So”, Winnie the Pooh)

In so much we have the proliferation of reason—that abstract portion which constructs texts on texts. In Christian circles we call these Systematic Theologies. I am no anti-intellectual, but know enough of philosophy from Plato to Descartes to Derrida to know where reason alone takes its travelers. I know enough to assert that an epistemology which assumes we are merely “minds on a stick” (James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom) as opposed to tummies, tails, toes, minds, ears, noses and eyes (amongst other things) is deficient. After all, we are called to know what surpasses even knowledge. (Ephesian 3) And the only way I know to accomplish this is incarnationally.

This is the evisceration: that the Word is not truly flesh, full of grace and truth (John 1:4) and “the [very] image of the invisible God.” (Colossians 1:15) Rather that it is just a word flattened into 2-Dimensional space—made just an excerpt, an abstraction of text. When C. S. Lewis wrote of human nature, he called it amphibious; that is, we exist simultaneously as physical and spiritual beings like a salamander lives in water and on land. But somehow the spiritual is not just coexistent along with the physical; it is intertwined with it and accessed by means of it. Martin Luther wrote of God that He cannot be seen directly, but He can be seen through the “face or mask” of creation, (Martin Luther, Commentary on Galations) which is echoed when Ravi Zacharias mentions, “we make a cardinal mistake if we look only at the [external of a thing]. We cannot stop like secularists do by looking at something; we’ve got to look through it and beyond it.” We must consider the physical and spiritual, visible and invisible, material and immaterial, as a surface folding in on itself which creates a continuous, unseen interior that is not incomprehensible because of its concealment but knowable through its tactile surface exposed for all to perceive. It is much like the Orthodox Christian concept of Icon, which is defined by their tradition as a window into the unseen world “where the visible and invisible embrace each other from a fire that no longer destroys but rather lights up the divine face for humanity,” (Jean-Luc Marion) and the Incarnation creates this economy in which material reveals the immaterial and transcendent.

This is the very reason why Romans 1 can emphatically assert:

Since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. (Romans 1:19-20)

Nature itself bids testament to the unseen. Psalms, Job, the prophets all tell of God’s greatness, power, beauty, justice, goodness, truth and mercy, and creation is often the evidence for it. Imagine the power of the sea even when pacified, even at low tide—the pounding surf, the unremitting sound of waves, amplified in the tempest, and at times devastatingly destructive. Nevertheless, it is a place of peace and relaxation, of bounty and of infinite, creative diversity. There is a Buddhist saying which states that every stone has a sermon to disclose. Yes, every stone and grain of sand, every krill and whale, too, point back to God, themselves icons. Imagine a place of praise no longer contained within the four walls of a church building but extended into the world; this temple as large as the cosmos and all of its contents sacraments. It is equally full of wonder, this place, which is always fresh because of the creative pervasiveness redolent from dappled and variegated things like shells, bejeweled and spun in delicate Fibonaccis, to the expedition into that ever telescoping realm of atomic, subatomic, fermion, quark, lepton, Higgs boson.

This is the world the artist attempts to preserve and enlarge; he does so through his vocation regardless of his faith, but that is beyond the scope of this essay. Suffice it to say, the artist works at the nexus of the physical and spiritual creating and identifying icons whether to God, or to an unknown god resident in the Aeropagus, but always inescapably to the Transcendent. Artists work incarnationally; in so much it is a form of cognition often revealing what could not otherwise be known or qualified. The art historian, curator, author and Christian Daniel Siedell calls the practice and consumption of art a form of “non-rational knowledge”, but he just echoes Thomas Aquinas. It can make visible the invisible. It can teach us things that the rational scientia find difficult, or mysterious or down-right impossible, to affirm and believe. The scripture attests to this fact in its structure. There is but one didactic sermon  I am aware of in all of scripture, the great majority of which is song, poetry and story. And even so, the scripture emboldens us to look outside of it.

My favorite example is Psalm 34:8, “Taste and know that the Lord is good.” It is my favorite kind of sermon, one found in the delight of food. Far from being an extravagance (or more likely because of its extravagance), good food (the culinary arts) is a means to participate in the goodness of God. It is a goodness that cannot be known in any other way; it is a pervasive goodness, the kind to be enjoyed and remembered at every meal (for as often as you eat and drink). It is to be known in a satisfying cheese burger as well as foie gras micuit strait from a street vendor in Sarlat, in a glass of Spanish, spiced lemonade, or a cup of coffee or in a bottle of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti “La Tâche.” With each sip or bite, with every hmmm, we lift up our voices in praise acknowledging God’s goodness.

Never doubt it is a goodness expressed through artistry. I would never take a bite from an onion as if it were an apple, but sliced with a bit of garlic, salt, olive oil and carrots and the scent becomes splendid; add to it apple cider vinegar, jalapeños and a blend of spices and you’ll have escabeche (for fish, chicken or pork); one of my favorite meals. Much of beauty is latent, like this, in need of cultivation, exploration, experimentation and craftsmanship to fully render. And though I can praise at every level of artistry, I find that some burgers are more effusive with it, as they are more lavishly exemplary of God’s unmatched goodness.

There is so much more that can be said of food as icon. The corollary between it and Christ as bread and wine or, as the Gospel of John points out, living water and living bread, which quenches all thirst and satisfies all hunger. Good and satisfying food is anticipatory of our ultimate satisfaction at the wedding feast in heaven, but even its lack speaks, too. For hunger pangs are our regular reminder of our great need—our thirst for God.

The psalmist directs our attention also to the category of the sublime—that Romantic era word for greatness beyond all possibility of calculation or measurement, like the psalmist describes:

You answer us in righteousness, with awe-inspiring works, God of our salvation, the hope of all the ends of the earth and the distant seas; You establish the mountains by Your power, robed with strength; You silence the roar of the seas, the roar of their waves, and the tumult of the nations. Those who live far away are awed by Your signs; You make east and west shout for joy. (Psalm 65:5-8)

So it is, when I look at the photography of Ansel Adams or Richard Hoesel or Frans Lanting, I see sublimity. There is power in Ansel Adam’s images; consider “Canyon de Chelly”, “Monolith, The Face of Half Dome”, “Winter Sunrise, from Lone Pine” or “Tetons and the Snake River”. Each celebrates God’s awe-inspiring works, intentionally or not; they speak of majesty. Ansel describes Yosemite Valley as “always sunrise, glitter of green and golden wonder in a vast edifice of stone and space.” The valley captured his imagination, and it needed to be shared. With his heavy large format, Korona View, camera and magazine of 8 x 10 glass slides he ascended mountain sides and often perched precariously between rock-face and abyss to capture these incredible images. But as anyone who has snapped a picture knows there is a knack to translating the three-dimensional onto photographic paper. It only begins with ISO, shutter speed and aperture. For Ansel it was knowledge of filters, light, lenses, papers and enlargers, dark room technique but most of all an imagination in order to visualize the final artifact. Half Dome had a story to tell that day in 1927, just as the psalmist says, “Day after day they pour out speech” (Psalm 19:2), and Ansel Adams listened, heard it and had the capacity to translate it for all to see. When I sit to listen to his or another’s retelling I wish to mingle with its splendor; I am raptured and left stirred with a deep longing “to find the place where all the beauty came from.” (C. S. Lewis, Till We Have Faces)

The response of the psalmist to such moving splendor is oftenest, praise in the shape of music: “Praise the Lord with the lyre; make music to Him with a ten stringed harp. Sing a new song to Him; play skillfully on the strings, with a joyful shout.” (Psalm 33:2-3) A new song, the anonymous author writes. Why must it be a new song? The theologian, David Bentley Hart postulates it is out of music’s innate ability to represent the polyphony of being, specifically the infinite music of the divine Being “whose beauty and variety can never be exhausted” (David Bentley Hart, The Beauty of the Infinite). Take Bach’s Art of Fugue which is an exploration in depth of the contrapuntal possibilities inherent in a single musical subject. Each of the 14 fugues develops from a single, deceptively simple, musical theme.

A very good friend of mine, Roger Lowther, is a Julliard trained organist who is intimately familiar with the works of Bach. One evening he was explaining his love for this collection of music which ends mysteriously with the “unfinished fugue,” Contrapunctus XIV. Early musicologists surmised that Bach had died before its completion; modern scholarship has its own and different theories, but Roger told me he believed it to be intentionally left so. The idea behind the Art of Fugue is the richness of variety possible in a lone musical theme. By Contrapunctus XIV, it becomes evident that this theme’s contours cannot be exhausted; it could progress, infinitely building and extending itself. So the composer prematurely ends it as a statement of this disclosure. Unfinished it is arresting; for to perceive the infinite one must be yanked from time. If this feels like an unnatural terminus it is because the listener has left the familiar for the unfamiliar, or as Lewis tells us in The Last Battle, “The dream is ended: this is the morning”, and temporarily we have awakened to the morning whilst in the midst of a dream.

But regardless of where Bach chose to end the Art of Fugue, it would have been left unfinished even if musically resolved. For, there is an infinite reserve in the notes A, B, C, D, E, F, & G, even if further constrained by one simple theme. We see this in the Jazz scales, which open up endless provisions of improvisation such that each performance of Brubeck’s Take Five is marvelously unique. Then there is the joke that all Rock ’n Roll is achievable with just four Barre chords; humorous as it is, it smacks of the possibility contained even within the most modest of sets. After all, aren’t these just repetitions unbounded by imagination? Consider the possibilities of color variation from just three hues: red, yellow and blue. God’s imagination conceived of an eight-legged octopus, a bipedal man, a horned narwhale, and a creepy gulper eel all from 4 amino acids. What the musician achieves is an echo rumbling with the resonance of the infinite God, himself an ever renewing song. It is a modest set, yet the variety intrinsic to it reveals emphatically the truly boundlessness of a God whom, himself, has no limits.

To this point we have over looked the most ancient of the arts—poetry. Or have we forgotten that the word poet derives from the Greek, meaning “maker” or “creator.” Thus God in his act of creation penned poetry when he uttered “Let there be light.” Imagine figurative language doing more than just implying something else metaphorically but becoming the figure and form of the word, itself. Imagine it having life and breath. “For we are God’s workmanship” (Ephesians 2:10 a) made in the “image” and “likeness” of God. We are his poema the Greek says; we are God’s poems and as such we are tangible symbols of the Creator—we are body and spirit like he is, we are little creators, we are vested with authority. But consider also that God is known through every face and fingerprint, every personality and aptitude. He is both Achilles & Odysseus as he is also Paris; he is both the lion and the lamb, and no less one than the other.

Imagine God created everything in like manner. Imagine that instead of stumbling on “wine and vine” as apt figures of speech, God created them to allegorize himself even when he said in Genesis, “Let the land produce vegetation.” Imagine bread, likewise—lamps, doorways, lambs, lions all created to anticipate the person of God, to give us insight and understanding into his nature and being and not just in the “wow” of it all. And all we must do is look to see God all around us.

Enter the poet. The poet demonstrates the relationship of things. He takes what at first glance appears to be completely other and unifies it. Take for instance these lines from T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains…

Only a poet could see the feline in fog, but once he reveals it, fog forever becomes animated as such. Perhaps this is just an exercise (I do not believe so), but if it is, it exercises the muscles of our own intuition that we might more easily perceive the analogic reality about us—that all things are little metaphors of God. I wish we could all see like Gerard Manley Hopkins:

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.
And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs—
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

Hopkins perceives the warm glow at sunrise as the very manifestation of the Holy Ghost. He sees God descending in the golden light of morning hovering as if over a nest of chicks. The 20th century Thomist philosopher, Jacques Maritain, reminds us that the “intellect sees by conceiving, and conceives only to see.” (Jacques Maritain, Bergsonian Philosophy and Thomism) If it is all Poetry, we do well to understand poetry; we do well to seek poetic knowledge that we might see what is just below the surface though at first it is obscured; for what is there is often the Holy Ghost.

But poetry plays another crucial role. It fuses the object back to the word—affirming sola scriptura. It reminds us that the Word is interstitial tissue knitting objects together, binding them to spirit and memory alike, otherwise they are just objects, or things. According to Maritain, art is connatural as a person is connatural, bridging body and soul. Maritain’s use of connatural is akin to Lewis’ use of amphibious, except even broader extending to all of reality. A poet’s poem becomes for him a special communication and means of knowing the spirit through the formative—ergo all form; such that “the soul is known in the experience of the world and the world is known in the experience of the soul.” (Maritain, Creative Intuition) Maritain posits, in an ontological argument beyond the scope of this article, that participation with beauty engages the whole human being in the “two substances [soul and body] that function as co-principles of the one existent reality.” (Maritain, The Person) The whole being, including its senses, memory, reason, intellect, heart and will, become engaged whether in the production of art or in the aesthetic experience of it. And not just these portions within us, body and soul, but also, as Tolstoy tells us, the greater community of bodies & souls who have and will yet participate along with us in mutual love of the form wherein splendor is revealed

to become conscious of union and mutual brotherly love. Each glad that another feels what he feels; glad of the communion established not only between him and all present (not only between him and the artist or him and God), but also with all now living who will yet share the same impression; and more than that he feels the mysterious gladness of a communion which reaching beyond the grave, unites us with all men of the past who have been moved by the same feelings and with all men of the future who will yet be touched by them. (Tolstoy, What is Art?)

We know, now, that all love, all relationships (between God & man, man & man and man & World), are mediated through Jesus Christ. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Cost of Discipleship). Poetry is formed and formative—shaping our very desires through the mediation of love; “poetry unwittingly gives us a foretaste, a hidden desire for supernatural life.” (Maritain, The Degrees of Knowledge)

Not just poetry but all art accomplishes this feat, but poetry does so via the spoken word (for poetry is a collection of chosen sounds). Aloud, poetry preserves the word as it reinvigorates language by rejuvenating disappearing, unspoken speech—words as well as metaphors—conceives of new ones, and even realizes genuine poetic utterances in everyday vernacular: at the coffee shop and water-cooler (just as a musician hears notes in train whistles and birdsong). As the word first transformed the spiritual into flesh when it was spoken into the void, poetry transcends the “thingness” of flesh that it might return to the spirit world where once there was only void.

Consider this short poem by Emily Dickinson:

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

This simple verse reminds us that even in the absence of things there is no void. Notice how the words “bee” and “revery” are connected through their sounds. First we find the sound “ee” in the final syllable of revery in an imperfect rhyme, but there is also the reverberation of the buzz of the bee in the first stressed syllable—“rev”—and again repeated in the next line as if emulating the Doppler of wing-beats. The bee exists even if it does not exist because it finds itself in revery—in a word; in like manner, “bee” and “prairie” are imperfectly rhymed, also, becoming signs for one another. If the bee can be found in revery, there is a whole prairie there, as well. But the poem goes on to reveal a love for nature one which is known even when it is absent. There is a deep longing to return to bees, foxglove and hyssop; a longing, after reading it, I too share. But it is a desire for more than just bee and prairie. It is a desire for rest; spiritualized, it is a desire for escape into the idyllic. It is a spiritual emotion by which the author, as an embodied soul, and the reader, likewise, come to know each other.

But we have just barely scratched the surface, here. The ancients identified nine muses governing the arts; we have mentioned only a few. We have not yet to comment on painting, sculpture, film, fiction, drama, or comedy, which are each expressive as icons in their own right. There is too much here to flesh out, but needless to say each art form has its own language possessing its own vocabulary and richly communicative—appealing to and speaking through the different senses. Each form expresses a knowledge inaccessible by other means, or at least dulled in its translation. Marshall Mcluhan gave us the phrase “the medium is the message;” it is a wisdom the artist has long known even if left unarticulated. So much is gained from engaging them which would otherwise be left silenced.

But God has seen fit to reveal himself in the infinite variety of his Creation along with all of its perpetuating creations—along with all of its opulent but transitory moments (consider the bee in the prairie or the endlessly changing face of Half Dome) which all exist for “an instant and will disappear forever, and only in the memory of angels [and artists’ souls] will [they] be preserved, above time.” (Maritain, Creative Intuition) God rewards those ardent-hearted who understand that “to love God is to invest the world with significance, a significance which deepens the mysterious presence of things” (Graham Ward) and results in an ever watchful eye and ever transforming hand that helps us all remember that beauty is the radiance of all the transcendentals united.

What is written above is by no means exhaustive. Rather consider it a groundwork on which to build. For the God of the Bible is an inexhaustible sea of splendor, and each singular piece of art possess the capacity for something unique and never to be stated again. This is the nature of the infinite. The Word is much more glorious then ever surmised by reason alone; it is a much brighter light then we first believed, and we must be about the business of chasing after its abundant expanse as it overcomes the darkness with truth, goodness and delight—stirring up our passion to know the God of Beauty. Let us consider ourselves, now, without excuse.

Yes, what’s happening in Memphis is truly exciting in regards to its investment in the arts. I don’t know if it is related to a change in guard at the mayor’s office or something more elemental, but over the past 2-3 months I’ve heard word about 3 significant projects on the horizon: 1) The William Eggleston Museum, 2) The William Christenberry Center for the Arts and 3) an Artspace live/work project.

William Eggleston

Widely considered the father of color photography as high art, Eggleston is a Memphis native.  Eggleston’s work focuses on what he likes to call the “democratic camera” in which the lens favors the seemingly banal and mundane like tricycles, mailboxes, and people entrenched in the everydayness of life.  His work has been featured around the world including MoMA in New York and the Getty, to name a few.

The William Eggleston Museum will house the Eggleston archive (some 60,000 images) and a gallery to show both his and the work of other contemporary artists. It is projected to open in 2013. The primary developer, Mark Crosby, was also instrumental in establishing the Stax Museum of American Soul, also in Memphis.

Willam Christenberry

William Christenberry, a one time teacher of Eggleston at the Memphis College of Arts (MCA), who is a photographer, painter, and sculptor. He like Eggleston is  an artist of renown who has displayed work in New York galleries and the Smithsonian Institute. He has been featured on ArtBable, art:21 and NPR.

The news for this center is as of yet unverified, but comes from a local artist with ties to MCA. No dates have been given as to completion or commencement; I will try to give more details as I can.

Artspace

The mission of Artspace is “to create, foster, and preserve affordable space for artists and arts organizations.” Currently they operate 27 projects in 19 cities and 13 states. Most of these properties are what they call live/work projects, which are affordable residential housing units each with extra space to accommodate a studio. Each live/work project also has common spaces to encourage cooperation and community involvement.

Artspace has just closed their Memphis survey which assess the local need. There is no date available yet for this project, but their website claims that it generally takes 3-5 years to develop; so any where between 2012 and 2015, is to be expected.

Etc.

All exciting stuff. Beyond these things, the local artist community is growing and organizing. The Continuum is connected with over 80 local, Christian artists and creative catalysts. There are conferences on the horizon, projects planned, and a small stream of applications to join as a Continuum fellow. There are serious artists; committed artists, and I see excitement in the their eyes!

Many people believe portraits are an extravagance, and that the needs of the poor are so great that a portrait isn’t worth giving; why not give them something practical? These same people though might call it a tragedy when someone loses all their family photos in a fire or flood. It is a tragedy to be bereft of memories, to never have an image that captures the transience of childhood and when finally as all families must at some point be pulled asunder lack those precious memories caught together.

As a new father I am amazed at how quickly a child changes. Every month my wife asks for new photos to capture our growing boy: his changing physique, plumping jowls, and many firsts. It would sicken me if in twenty years I did not remember his small hands wrapped around my index finger, his toothless smiling face or cherub-like countenance. Images create a deluge of memories—a thousand words that if not forgotten risk going unsaid. Seeing the artwork in an old favorite childhood story creates a rush of powerful emotions and recollections. The same is true while flipping through a photo album. They are not forgotten or completely invisible but are made visible again only through the silver halide and golden smiles of collected portraits and pictures.

Before Help-Portrait I couldn’t imagine how many families have never had a portrait together: something as simple as a picture! Yet over and over I heard mothers and fathers say, “This is the first portrait we’ve ever had all together.” I was told, out of 613 students who attend Oakhaven only 18 purchased school pictures this last year. May be the kids rejoiced at this; I absolutely hated school pictures: the braces, the wiry hair and acne, but that is exactly what their parents want to remember; because those are the children they love and adore freckles and all. When the flood is everyday, I guess we no longer consider it a tragedy. But it is a tragedy, and it is the tragedy that Help-Portrait’s founder Jeremy Cowart, 20 Memphians and thousands world wide sought to relieve this holiday season.

Locally, the event happened over two days and at two locations: Porter-Leath Head Start on the 11^th of December and Oakhaven Elementary on the 12^th. Professionals, hobbyists and plain enthusiastic people took time off work and away from family during a busy time of year to bring smiles to 247 people’s faces. Granted, some of these smiles didn’t come in front of the camera. One woman ashamed of her missing tooth refused to offer any glimpse of joy until she received the portrait of her with her two children; at which point missing tooth or not she beamed with irrepressible excitement.

Both days, I broke a sweat trying to elicit smiles from small children; I buffooned—checking my dignity at the door—to help create precious memories. Both days I left fatigued but filled with pleasure; their smiles and the radiant pride of parents were genuinely infectious. I might say they were the most memorable days this year except that my first child was born just ten weeks before, and though it would be criminal and unrealistic for me to say it for a few moments afterward I sure thought it!

The photographers get nothing: not even a mention in this article. The pictures they took will not appear publicly or privately in portfolios. No business cards were passed out to families; no sponsorships were sold. Plain and simple the photogs were there to give both a picture and an experience: the value of a smile captured once for a photo and repeated time and time again each time it is seen. For two days in December these photographers and everyone who helped were genuine heroes, as genuine as National Guardsman packing sandbags to protect homes and memories. The photographers get nothing except the memory of so many smiling faces.

If you live in Memphis and you are interested in participating, join the discussion on ning.

Additional links:

1. Help-Portrait
2. Help-Portrait on Twitter
3. Help-Portrait on Facebook
4. Jeremy Cowart

The people over at Help-Portrait have given us another promotional video to consider as well as a look at the trial run in Nashville: