For several years Kent Smith and Jim Allman commiserated about their feelings of ostracism from both the mainstream culture of the modern church as well as from the “secular” arts community. They were acutely aware that the reflective Christian who was actively involved in the pursuit of beauty as a calling, often finds himself in the no-man’s land of being too secular for the church, and too pious for the secular community. As time progressed it became increasingly more evident that they were not, in fact, alone in their feelings. They suspected (and rightly so) that there were many artists of similar mind, but that, for the most part, they tended to be isolated from each other. In 2009 Jim and Kent decided to take address this by forming the Continuum. After they mulled over various ideas, Kent stumbled upon the name and Jim the triskelle logo which together perfectly represented the purpose and motivation of the group: a community that (a) acknowledges the importance of artistic, cultural, philosophical, and theological precedents and antecedents, (b) that is informed and inspired by the three inseparable ideals of truth, goodness, and beauty, and (c) that is determined to elucidate the value of their revelation via the unrelenting pursuit of the beautiful as ultimately defined by the incarnation of Christ.
Since he was born, Kent has had an unusual fascination with music. He would sit perfectly still for several hour stretches at the age of three between the speakers of his parent’s stereo listening intently to Beethoven, Saint-Saëns, Mussorgsky, Debussy, and Tchaikovsky. As he grew older he became enamored with various other genres of music. He is a guitarist, vocalist, programmer, and composer. Several of the pop musicians that have helped to inform his sonic sensibilities include Brian Eno, Trent Reznor, Daniel Lanios, Robert Smith, Peter Gabriel, and the Edge. He has played and sung in various incarnations of bands over the past many years, and has written pieces for film, and commercial. He has studied film scoring in Los Angeles at UCLA. He procured his Bachelor’s degree in English Literature after attending Samford University and Crichton College. He recently stepped down from his position as Executive Director of Restoration Inc. of Memphis in order to pursue his music on a more full time basis. Some of his most recent scoring work has been on the independent feature film Daylight Fades, an example of which can be found here on this site.
Aside from scoring film, Kent is also fascinated by the entire film-making process. He loves academic criticism and the open discussion of film and hopes to cultivate that appreciation for the medium through his work with the Continuum.
In addition to co-founding the Continuum, Kent currently sits on the board of directors of both Restoration Inc. of Memphis ( www.restorationinc.org ) and also the Center for Western Studies founded by John Hodges.