Fellowship of Christians in Portraiture

Greg Rudd lives in Fairfield, CT, where he has his studio. He is an illustrator and designer as well as a portrait artist. His paintings of great figures in the history of golf hang in private collections, country clubs and golf clubs.

Personal Testimonies by Fellowship Members

The Magnificent Obsession
by Gregg Rudd

or the artist,. Art is his "Magnificent Obsession". It is a relentless joy and love, a hunger born in him for beauty; to behold it and to make it. It is a rushing river of passion that at first is unknown yet perceived at the core of him. It is a kind of destiny that is waiting inside him to be discovered, something so much a part of his soul that to deny it is to deny himself.

As a young boy, this unknown, yet known part of me, bubbled to the surface of my childhood play, revealing itself through the peaceful pleasure of crayons and paper, pencils and chalky pastels.

While in a Christian boarding school, I discovered another desire stirring inside me — a genuine desire to know God. I was a Christian. However, Mr. Richert, my sophomore Bible teacher, introduced me to Biblical men of faith. These men stirred my imagination. I wanted to walk close to God as they did. I began a habit of slipping away to pray alone. King David's passion for God impressed me and I began to ask God to make me a "man after his own heart". I did not fully understand what I was asking.

Yet, this new hunger to be close to God drove me to persist in this prayer. God answers prayer. Sometimes it takes a long time. Usually, there is a pattern to be discovered. God shows up in the life of a person. He speaks, a vision is cast for that life, then, a long process of difficulty ensues. If the person perseveres in faith through the seasons of difficulty, God's vision becomes a living reality. At fifteen, I did not have the experience to discern that the long process of growing through the seasons of difficulty comes at a price. God takes the naive prayer of a young boy seriously. A prayer of this kind will not be delivered nicely and quietly. To truly know God intimately is the dream Jesus prayed to the Father in John 3:17. Jesus said, "This is salvation: to know the one true God and His Son Jesus Christ, whom He has sent." You see, the magnificent obsession that was awakened in my youth for art, was given only to point me in the direction of God's obsession.

As most people do, I launched a career using the gift God gave me, to save my own life through success. I started my artistic career at Hallmark cards. In 1977,1 married my wife, Georga. We established our home and I began to work for a small advertising agency as an illustrator. Soon after our wedding, I studied at the Illustrators Workshop. Georga and I decided to move to Connecticut where I would work as a freelance illustrator. We had a rough time establishing ourselves during the recession of 1979-1980. I decided to go back to art school and was accepted at the Art Center College of Design. Six months later, Georga was diagnosed with terminal cancer. Two years later, Georga died.

I wanted to be close to God.. .to know Him, and I was sure the valley of the shadow of death was not the way. I threw myself into my work and spent extended time with God. He was faithfully answering my prayer to be a man after God's own heart, but I did not see it. I eventually began carving out a career.

Two years later, I married Crystal Jensen. After three years of marriage we encountered Wall Street's Black Monday. We lost everything but our three precious daughters.

In my career, I always painted with this mindset: create a masterpiece of excellence. However, when the wheels of my career came off and my lifestyle was diminished, I understood that my driven pursuit of excellence was a cover for my raw ambition for building the kingdom of Greg... not the kingdom of God. There is a world of difference between being successful and being fruitful! I discovered one can be a sincere Christian, yet distracted by personal comfort and security goals. However, fruitfulness is always in the direction of God's magnificent obsession, our conformity to the image of Christ. I needed to move in a different direction, from a self-centered to a Christ-centered relationship. God's mindset and mind were similar, but not quite in sync. We both believe in creating masterpieces of excellence. However, as living portraits in progress, we must learn to deny that treasured part of us. We must die to ourselves in order to live out God's dream, Ephesians 2:10. "For we are God's workmanship, (a work of art) created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which he has prepared in advance for us to do." If we die to the treasured part of us, our own way, I believe as artists, we will then paint masterpieces directly inspired from his mind because we walk freely in his heart. That is our true destiny as Christian artists.

As artists, our magnificent obsession for succeeding at our art has the potential to block God's dream for His magnificent obsession: the transformation of our character likeness into the character portrait of Christ. These two potential competing passions are often in a great contest for our first love. It happened in my life. I want to encourage you. When you think the treasured part of you will be lost in the difficulty of life, that is often the time we think all is lost or our personal dream will die. This is exactly what God is after... our death. "The paradox of kingdom logic" must overtake us if we are to make God's dream of transformed lives come true. What a dream he has dreamed for you and for me, to be like Him, The Magnificent Obsession. "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But, if it dies, it produces many seeds. " John 12:24.

Gregg Rudd
Fairfield, Connecticut
August, 2000