Latest / Sword&Spade / The Christian Imagination: The Imago Dei in the Age of AI with Stephen Crotts
Transcript
- Jason M. Craig (01:53.95) Welcome friends back to the sword and spade podcasts, the podcast born from real men doing real things and today I have with me an artist a craftsman I would say a craftsman of the Christian imagination Stephen Crotes. Am I saying that right? Yeah, I was just joking I wanted an opportunity for you to correct me publicly for my humility Stephen cross in his actual workshop and Stephen I don't know if you know about sword and spade but it's a Magazine started really just for men, but we discovered that lots of people within the household Stephen Crotts (02:32.888) Cruts. Jason M. Craig (02:50.491) I like to read it, but it's for men that are doing things, making things, leading things, crafting things, especially growing and tending to their families and their households. And I was super inspired by seeing some of your art, especially, guess, and this is gonna be my opening question, and then I wanna ask you about yourself, in the age of AI slop, and things that become easier, which I've used AI recently. I realize how easy it is to feel like you're doing more than you're doing. But I had a young man who was a really good musician and I asked him about all these AI songs that are being created. And he said, no, in the age of AI, it's becoming more obvious what's real and what's not, or what's human and what's not. And when I saw your art, I thought, wow, that's, you know, I don't... Stephen Crotts (03:32.728) Mm. Jason M. Craig (03:45.032) I'm almost scared to say a robot could not do that. Cause then what if it tries really hard and we're fooled, but I just thought that's a man who has, a Christian imagination and appreciates something that I need to appreciate is the way I would put it. So, Steven, welcome. Yeah. Welcome to the podcast. Let's, but you know what, before I even ask about you, just, what do you think about that as an artist? Is it getting easier or harder to be an artist? Stephen Crotts (04:02.008) thanks. Jason M. Craig (04:12.556) and making real things in an age of AI. Stephen Crotts (04:16.927) Yeah, it's a real challenge that we're facing, but these technical monsters can never get the image of God. that's something that they will not be able to achieve. So I think you're right that... Jason M. Craig (04:28.519) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (04:33.415) Whoa, whoa, whoa. Tell me more about that. Wait, that was really good. I'm sorry. They can't what? Stephen Crotts (04:39.245) Things that do not bear the image of God can never gain that ontology. yeah, God has made us different from other entities. So, I'm encouraged by that and I think you're right that this challenge will highlight embodied reality in the end. Jason M. Craig (05:06.291) I wonder, sorry, I never thought about that until you just said it, but I wonder if you see something and go, that's not it, if it just doesn't have the image of God stamped in it or really coming from man himself. It's just sort of, I don't know what it is. You know it when you see it, I guess. Stephen Crotts (05:21.407) It's an imit... Well, it's an imitation of falling away from creativity, which is our duty and responsibility. You know, as bearers of the Imago Dei, that's our job, is to be creative underneath and alongside the creator. Jason M. Craig (05:46.653) Well, how did you get in? How did you become a creator alongside the creator? Stephen Crotts (05:53.238) Yeah, I was raised in a very creative family. My parents were and are always making things, and my grandparents and aunts and uncles. So I was born into that happy kind of habit. And I had a lot of great teachers along the way who just encouraged me and found my way into doing design and illustration. Jason M. Craig (06:19.613) So they were making things like your family, your parents were literal artists or they were just very. Stephen Crotts (06:26.253) Yeah, I mean, I think like I've got musicians and quilters and I mean both of my parents were they do, you know, they sew and make things and craft and paint and, you know, in various ways. Neither of them does fine art to the same sort of in the same direction or degree that I'm doing precisely, but they've always got their hands in something, making things together. Jason M. Craig (06:56.381) Yeah, that seems to be, I was talking to somebody recently and he just said that is the essential act of man is to make things, is to be co-creators, create as you, or however you put it, create under the creator's watch, so to speak. And when you're not doing that, you're less human because that's what you were supposed to do, is to keep creating. know this is like, Stratford Caldicott was a very influential writer for me and he would say, Stephen Crotts (07:10.891) Yeah, right. Stephen Crotts (07:15.938) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (07:25.939) You were placed in the garden to keep creation going. It's not as if it ended. He invited you in to keep going, doing what he was doing. Stephen Crotts (07:34.446) Well, and the great thing in the Genesis account that there's these sort of mysterious things that are just put in there that seem maybe bewildering outside of a big story, but it mentions that gold and onyx and all these things are like buried in the ground. There's potential inserted into the land of Eden. you know, and then... If you can see that in light of the bookend in the apocalypse, like we've got a city being made out of all the things that are in that garden. the gold that's buried in Genesis is the street later on. So we were always meant to make something, not to pave over paradise, but to make something in harmony with it. And I think that stuff is, there's unlocked potential that's built into the world. Jason M. Craig (08:37.009) Yeah. So how would you, all right, and if this is like... If this seems like a challenge in a negative sense, help me. But I feel like you could help me understand this better, because I was having this debate with a brother in... I was trying to describe technology as why I saying it's obvious technology is clearly the Antichrist. And I don't mean that I'm not using it, but that, you know, if the beast in Revelation, you know, he's erasing everyone's identity, he's consolidating you into a number so that you can buy and sell and participate in an economy as a nameless rootless. I'm like, that's obviously what's happening. And he was arguing, no, no, no, technology. They're just tools are neutral, blah, blah. know, this, which I would, you know, tools are not neutral. Stephen Crotts (09:17.74) Mm. Jason M. Craig (09:24.339) tools do something to us. and I was trying to describe, Heidegger's concept of the technological philosophy, which is the whole world is what he calls standing reserve. Or that's how a technological man sees the world as standing reserve. I it's either a battery or it's plastic that we can melt down and make into whatever we want. So it basically is not, it has no meaning, but it seems like what you're describing that actually just Stephen Crotts (09:39.084) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (09:53.288) looking through your stuff, you see the world as being full of meaning. It doesn't seem like what you're describing is the world is plastic and I can do whatever I want with it, but that the world is full of something that with which I can create. sort of the, but cause there's something fundamentally different in my mind between the artist who sees the potential of beauty and creativity in the things of the world versus the technologist who sees everything as potential, you know. battery or plastic that I can power or make something with. Stephen Crotts (10:24.983) Sure. It's the difference between a good and humble stewardship, which is what we call dominion, versus domination. And the things in the world we know are made for something. They do have a telos. And it's the things that are baked into the world are put there to build the New Jerusalem. So if we can get that, we'll treat Jason M. Craig (10:32.829) Mm-hmm. Mm. Stephen Crotts (10:53.985) the world and our neighbors rightly. Jason M. Craig (10:58.429) That's beautiful. Okay, so it does feel like then the stuff that I see that you've created, you have something that you're trying to teach, right? You're not just like decorating things, I guess. When I became a Catholic, I was fascinated with the Catholic ability to slap a saint on a sock or a coffee mug, you know, and somehow link it to art. Stephen Crotts (11:15.041) Woof. Stephen Crotts (11:23.521) Yeah Jason M. Craig (11:28.445) But you're trying to teach us in your art. What do you feel like, or that's my impression. I would like to think I'm an artist in some ways. so what is it like you as an artist that you're seeing that you want to teach and show and reveal and illustrate? Stephen Crotts (11:36.659) that would be great. Stephen Crotts (11:52.236) So most of the time I'm partnering with someone else. who's telling a story or bringing out an idea. I'm, you know, the vast majority of the time my work is coming alongside and helping to unpack what someone else has written as an illustrator. So, you know, thankfully I've been able to work with people whose ideas I generally have cared something about and have at least some agreement with. So. Yeah, but I mean, I think what we were talking about earlier, you know, just getting to... make things that hopefully arrest people from whatever distraction they're in and direct attention towards the things that matter the most. I hope that's what I'm involved in. Jason M. Craig (12:45.683) Yeah, well seems like you, I mean you're hitting on, I didn't even ask you about that, what you're saying it very clearly. We are a distracted people and we need to be able to, we need to see things better than we are seeing them and you're hoping that your art does that. Stephen Crotts (12:55.938) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (13:02.687) Yeah, like when our Orthodox friends, know, their priest sings, let us attend, you know, and it's the sung word, there's some creativity involved. It's a thing of beauty that calls your attention. I hope that my artwork can be like that, that sings out, let us attend to whatever is, you know, written. Jason M. Craig (13:09.875) Mm-hmm. Stephen Crotts (13:28.949) alongside the drawing. That would be an ideal thing to happen. Jason M. Craig (13:32.723) Do you have a family? Are you married with children? Stephen Crotts (13:36.769) Yeah, my wife and I have two little girls. Yeah. They're nine and 13, so not as little anymore. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (13:39.699) they're beautiful. How old are they? Jason M. Craig (13:45.14) Oh snap. Yeah, that's what I say. Well, the reason I ask this is I have a, from the Eastern liturgy of our brothers, I, you remember there's a part, I can't remember where this is, where the deacon sort of pops out again and he says, wisdom be attentive. Yeah, that's whenever I feel like I'm saying something profound and one of the kids gets a glimpse that he thinks I'm saying that. Stephen Crotts (14:04.981) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (14:12.775) Then one of the other kids will go, wisdom be attentive. you should have a, let us attend. I'm showing you something I made today. Have you, no, I tell my kids, I need those assistants like Kim Jong Un's people that follow him around North Korea, like just taking notes when he's walking around. I'm like, guys, take notes. just took. Stephen Crotts (14:13.824) huh. That's great. That's great. Yeah, I need some little deacons around. Yeah. Stephen Crotts (14:34.508) Maybe we don't need that. Jason M. Craig (14:36.979) I think they would agree with you. Yeah, you're right. I'm sorry. My kids come on. We're who's writing this down. I'm not gonna remember this later. We got to do this. We got to do this Wow, you say okay, so you're older kids then Yeah, would say older a lot of people I talked to this podcast my hey, how are your kids? we just had our first, you know three days old and like what are you doing in this podcast? What's it been like now that you know, you're kind of a generational man. You just said you're Stephen Crotts (14:57.015) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (15:06.513) your parents and your extended family were artists. Have they kind of entered into this life and this world with you? Stephen Crotts (15:16.961) Definitely. I hope that our house is filled with instruments and art supplies and things. We give the kids a lot of room to... make the things they want to make. My oldest daughter, I walked in the other day and she was having, you she's got a little time where she can do some chat with her best pals and they're working on us, like they're writing a sitcom script together. It's what I was picking up on the other day. both love music. They both draw. They both make things. I think they're still figuring out what they're, you know. primary thing will be, but it's great with young folks to just give them lots to explore, you know. Jason M. Craig (16:09.959) Yeah, no, maybe I mean, I'll tell you, we have a lot of music in our house and stuff too, no, pretend I don't know. mean, say you're giving advice to a father who might not appreciate the sort of, I don't know, free creative spirit. Why is that important for young people in their, I don't know, in their formation, in their education? Stephen Crotts (16:34.517) Hmm. Stephen Crotts (16:38.071) Gosh, it's just so hard for me to imagine not having access to the tools that help creativity flourish, you know? Because they were all just put in front of me as a kid. So it seems like it's just something that everyone gets, but I realize that's not the case for everybody. So I would encourage folks, you know, to make sure that you've got lots of books and art supplies, even if you don't. do these things, letting the kids have the opportunity to play with creative tools is important. And like our youngest daughter, we've got the piano there and my wife plays, you know, but nobody ever sat our youngest down and told her to start practicing. But she would just kind of come by and start picking out a theme from a movie or something that she heard in church or, you know. And she was able to, as a little kid, pick out plenty just on her own. And now she's having that honed in lessons and stuff. But it started as just play. It wasn't something we told her she had to do. Jason M. Craig (17:56.872) Yeah, that's interesting you say that because we music is probably I don't next to farming music is the most dominant thing that we do in our house and people come over and now all of our you know, all the kids play so they all start jamming and then somebody joins in and so it's mostly bluegrass folk kind of thing. By the way, I think we're kind of neighbors. It sounds like we're kind of neighbors. You should come up for a jam. Stephen Crotts (18:17.441) Yeah, sounds like our house. Stephen Crotts (18:23.241) Alright, let's do it. I'll bring the banjo. Jason M. Craig (18:25.575) All right, we got it, a three finger or claw hammer? Stephen Crotts (18:29.037) I'm a back porch simpleton, but yeah Jason M. Craig (18:30.387) You're a claw hammer. Are you kidding me? Oh man, no, I uh, I Haven't my I wrote this as a joke in a bio one time and it's like been people announce it that I I'm from where three finger was like invented in Rutherford right down the road and But man claw hammer when claw hammer gets going it's just I don't know. I don't know if it's cleaner. It's I like it better I'm just gonna say it. I like it better, but I think three fingers so Stephen Crotts (18:46.42) Yeah, you are, Jason M. Craig (18:59.403) Flamboyant people just get you know, they get hung up on it. So I'm grateful for it, but that's interesting All right, you can bring I have a kid. have a kid who's proficient in both and My daughter and my daughter plays a lot of claw hammer, but we have some friends are like a couple miles from here that are so die-hard old-time and claw hammer that they won't even They won't even play any three-figure. In fact, I think they'll I Know well, they don't Stephen Crotts (19:04.959) Yeah Stephen Crotts (19:09.879) very good. Stephen Crotts (19:23.149) I think there's a place for everything. Jason M. Craig (19:26.107) And I'm appreciated for people drawing lines in the sand these days. But OK, back to the music thing, though. People ask us how and I didn't. So I'm not like you. I'm not inheriting a tradition. I'm recognizing something as inherently good that I would like to culture, but I don't know how, you know, because now I'm one of these sad, skipped generations that most of us in America are because my grandparents and everyone. Stephen Crotts (19:52.267) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (19:54.416) Everyone used to play music. Everyone did. mean, there was just it's just because it was the culture. And then there was this exporting of that skill to the machines, i.e. the radio. So now no one knows how to do it. Maybe we'll realize that with things like writing or something in the future. But so now we're recovering it. And people ask me, how how did you do that? How did that happen? And there was a time where it was we had like a teacher in there for my first and she had to do lessons. And it was like from this like Stephen Crotts (19:57.154) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (20:24.241) Russian orphan, literally, very strict. But then something happened where our family switched over to where it was the culture of the home to play music. And now we don't. I mean, if anything, it's like put your dang banjo down. It's like it's switched over to the love and the experience of the thing culturally, which might be hard to grasp if you're outside of it, where it's like, that's just what everybody's doing. It's not. And they're, you know, they need to practice and I mean, tomorrow they have a little concert at the end and they've got, now we live in an area where there's lots of music, but it became the culture of the home. So it's not like, man, there's one more thing I need to like organize and put on a checklist and put on the calendar and make sure they're practicing. so I don't know if that's what you're describing in your home. You didn't, you almost seem to reverse like, well, we had the culture and then they were able to enter into the flow of it. They being the kids. Stephen Crotts (21:11.51) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (21:22.111) Yes, I mean we just enjoy, my wife and I enjoy making music together. And we love making music with our friends. And that's just been what our kids have grown up around. So, you know, if you're just starting out, I mean don't think of it as a chore. Like this is, you get to make music. If you try to make music, you get to make music. you know, but you might have to. Jason M. Craig (21:43.539) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (21:50.816) rearrange the space and the time like maybe take the TV out of the living room and put a piano in there or a guitar, know things like that, but Yeah, it's something you get to do and it's it's it's the joy of togetherness Jason M. Craig (21:57.022) Yeah. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (22:02.705) Yeah, yeah. Jason M. Craig (22:09.361) Yeah, at this point I don't, yeah, I think I'm like you when people ask the question. Whoa, what's in the way? Like, is there a TV in your living room? Because now they just do it. They fill the space, which I think is the wisdom of places like St. Gregory's and the Johnson, your stuff is if you have to make the thing, you're going to make the thing. You know, if the silence is constantly filled with the noise and you're not ever going to feel the need, desire for music. All right, so then let me just keep asking then about your household and your community then. So you say you play music with your family and with your friends. Is that now sort of a cultural reality with other people that come over? mean, how are you guys tending to that? All right, do you feel isolated? you're this, I mean, I'm looking at you, you got a studio in the background, unless it's a green screen and that's Are you sort of... Stephen Crotts (22:38.007) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (23:01.133) This is my little shop. Jason M. Craig (23:04.325) Are you sort of isolated in these things you love or has been something you've been able to find shareable? Stephen Crotts (23:12.211) No, it's something we've shared with friends. I mean, there's been seasons, like there's been years where we're writing music and having a band, especially before we had the kids or when they were really little, it was easier to kind of just do a ton of this stuff. And, you know, it comes and goes, but in terms of intensity. But, you know, on a Friday night when our neighbors are... coming around and my buddy brings his guitar over, you know, people are gonna listen to us play John Prine songs or whatever. that's just, yeah, it's not a super structured thing most of the time. It's just something that happens. Jason M. Craig (23:59.656) Yeah. Can you play Summer's End? Stephen Crotts (24:03.903) I have tried to play that song. My wife loves that song. Jason M. Craig (24:07.027) I know it's a newer song, a John Prine song, as far as John Prine goes, but man, that's a good song. Stephen Crotts (24:12.255) It's the denouement of his whole repertoire. Jason M. Craig (24:14.547) You think so? Okay, I'm with you. I'm glad you said that Okay, all right, let's get back to your art here, this is good. Well one I would make this official on the podcast you're invited we also have Friday nights and play music up here on the porch and Sometimes it's just us and sometimes it's 50 people. So We'd love to make it. Yeah. Yeah. Where are you in South Carolina? Stephen Crotts (24:39.159) Yeah, that sounds amazing. We're in Rock Hill, just south of Charlotte, so not far at all really. Jason M. Craig (24:46.239) Okay, yeah, man, you should have just drove over here for this interview we could stop right now finish it up later No, we'll keep going. We'll keep going Okay, so then are you now as far as your art your illustrations? I mean is that Primarily what you're doing is illustrating books Stephen Crotts (24:51.309) Alright. Stephen Crotts (25:05.555) Yeah, that's what I've been doing for the last few years full-time. For the first several years of my post-college life, I was doing graphic design in various nonprofits. But I've been able to move over to just doing this full-time as a freelancer. So, I mean, after the... Jason M. Craig (25:27.335) You waned yourself, waned yourself, okay. Stephen Crotts (25:34.817) The lockdown era, when I got used to being at home, I didn't want to go be somewhere else. So, yeah, now we're all finally here together, you know, through the day. So that's nice. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (25:38.483) Amen. Jason M. Craig (25:48.116) That's beautiful. All right, well, we'll tell our listeners, think, you know, for a lot of us aren't musicians, a lot of us aren't artists or illustrators, you actually have a unique skillset though, because you're making, just describe your etchings in the process of what's going on, because it's very unlike typing in a prompt to AI. Stephen Crotts (26:09.997) It is unlike that. So, I do a few different media with my illustrations, depending on what the project calls for, but for the majority of my stuff, it's based in the visual language and the feel of woodcut printmaking, which is something that I do. More occasionally than I would like. But even when I'm drawing, I'm drawing towards having the effect of a lino cut or a woodcut print. Jason M. Craig (26:52.915) So when you say woodcut, that's where you etch it in the wood. Stephen Crotts (26:57.985) Yeah, so I've got like a carving tool. You you draw the image backwards in the reverse on the face of a piece of wood or a piece of linoleum. And then you've got like a V-shaped gouge or a U-shaped gouge and you're scooping out the material from the surface and everything that you remove from the surface of the block will be white and everything that... you leave, you roll ink on it, and once you press paper down with pressure, it's lifting the ink off the surface of the block. So everything you've removed becomes essentially the highlight. So you're, you know, revealing the light with your mark making. So that's that process, and it's, you know, an old process. But even the way I draw, yeah. What's that? Jason M. Craig (27:51.284) Are there many, keep going. Oh, I was gonna ask you, there many people still, that just seems, I would describe as an old world skillset. Is that something that's dying out and you're preserving or is just something that you're good at and there's a demand for? Stephen Crotts (28:06.167) of Stephen Crotts (28:10.069) I see a lot of folks doing it again and there's a really low barrier to entry for it. mean kids can do it. It's and it's a the great thing is that you get to make multiples. You you can you make a piece of art by hand but then you can keep rolling ink on it and putting paper down and you've got a lot of copies to share with friends or sell or so it's a it's an art process that multiplies well. And yeah, I think a lot of folks are doing it again. And I think it's being driven by some of these disembodied forms of supposed expression that are out there. People want something tactile and handmade, so. Jason M. Craig (28:56.883) Sorry, you got a dig in you're a very gentle fella and I was just reading the scripture this morning and it was praising You know the the contented and gentle heart. This was in the book of Timothy But come on just I need you to dig in a little bit more. You just said supposed. What did you say? Yeah, I felt some animosity that Stephen Crotts (29:15.049) so- so- so- okay. I was talking about the devil again. I mean, AI. Yeah. No, I mean, I have really strong feelings. Jason M. Craig (29:22.429) hahahaha Jason M. Craig (29:28.839) Go, for it. Let them out. You're an artist, man. You're supposed to let it flow, right? Stephen Crotts (29:33.953) Yeah, no, I mean it's not expression if it's not being made by humans. Jason M. Craig (29:39.368) Whoa, hold on, say that again. It's not expression if it's not being made by humans. So you would, if somebody is trying to express themselves by articulating into an AI visual creator what they wanna see, they're not actually expressing themselves in what's produced. Stephen Crotts (30:01.389) Well, they're at least diminishing and abdicating their responsibility, I think. It remains to be seen where the lines are going to be drawn with all these things. it's really brand new for us, right? And even people like me who think of themselves as Luddites are probably participating in these technologies in ways we don't understand. So I grant that. to try to make some writing or music or something visual with these things is, I just have to stay away from it. I'm extremely suspicious because I don't think tools are neutral. I think we do things with purpose and some tools are made for destruction. And I think we just have to ask what is this, what is all of this energy going into this ultimately serving? It's hard for me to imagine that being for human flourishing mainly as I see it at this point. yeah. Jason M. Craig (31:21.767) Yeah, I agree. I, I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I don't mind saying this, you know, live on a recorded podcast here. Cause you know, you see here, I have, I'm a bit of a Luddite. got the smartphone. I mean, I've got the dumb phone here, the flip phone. I refuse all social media, you know, I live on a farm and raise most of my own meat, dairy and all my meat and dairy, half my vegetables, like for the real things. But I've, I think I've, teetered over towards excitement over AI and that I think it's going to destroy the internet itself because it's just doing what the internet, a lot of it. Now, I'm not talking about chatting with a fake girlfriend. Anytime where you're speaking with something that's just reading your emotions and putting you in a feedback loop and manipulating you towards just feeling good about yourself. But that's also like, that's what the therapeutic society has been doing. Stephen Crotts (31:56.258) Mmm. Jason M. Craig (32:16.727) for 40 or 50 years. mean, that's just, that's what everything's been doing. But the internet is imploding on itself when the robot is able to, if I do an internet search via an AI, give me a synthesis of people's thoughts about whether or not growing mushrooms is as profitable as growing pigs. It's just going all over the internet and regurgitating something more efficiently and without soft core, soft porn ads on Google. Stephen Crotts (32:19.573) I mean, you know, mate... Jason M. Craig (32:46.291) It's just bypassing all of it and it's getting rid of I don't have to So I don't do any social media or anything, but it swims past all the influencers It swims past endless scrolling on YouTube. It swims past all that and gives me this synthesis now, that's not the same what you're saying is Trying to create something and call myself, you know an artist but it's able to Bypass the internet by doing what the internet does best, which is Stephen Crotts (32:46.797) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (33:16.135) going around and gathering stuff from people who gave it freely and then giving it to you for free because it's selling you an ad somewhere. I mean, it's gonna give you an ad somewhere. So anyway, I'm on this weird place where I'm with you on being a Luddite. I'm a front porch music guy. I like to kill pigs and have children. But I think... Stephen Crotts (33:25.698) Hmm. Stephen Crotts (33:35.789) I just think my concern is moving back towards a kind of magic where we as humans are using a technology as some sort of intermediary to talk to something we don't see and get knowledge and wisdom from beyond ourselves, which seems to me like... Jason M. Craig (33:43.014) Stephen Crotts (34:04.083) the technology of the Tower of Babel or Ouija board. So I don't talk to the void. Jason M. Craig (34:09.021) Yeah. Yeah, I just, I just wonder if that the. Yeah, I just wonder if all of our the the delusion that we've all fed each other and we're doing it right now is that well But I can communicate with aunt Betsy on my Facebook and like but what if it was never what if it we were never really communicating with each other what if it was always This speaking into the void not actually being present always disembodied the sooner it's all destroyed the better in my mind and I just I see AI is actually destroying the illusion because now Stephen Crotts (34:31.457) Mmm. Jason M. Craig (34:44.669) People will say, we don't know what's real online anymore. I'm like, I don't think you ever really did. I don't think you ever really did. I don't know if ever was really real. Stephen Crotts (34:50.069) Hmm, I guess we could be, we could be excited about it in the same way that Noah's family might have had some excitement about the flood coming. But I think that whatever excitement that might have been surely was mixed with grief. So mine would be mixed with grief as well. Jason M. Craig (34:57.907) There you go. Jason M. Craig (35:05.725) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (35:09.597) Good, I'm glad to be with, okay. Well, let's be careful though, because you can scour the internet looking for faux artwork or you can make your own, but you're actually able to get yours out there. I imagine being able to have a home studio, that's your prime location. I'm sorry, your prime medium of getting out there. Are people, so are most of the people soliciting and asking you, Stephen Crotts (35:27.703) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (35:38.228) I'm sorry, what's the word to employ an artist? Commissioning, commissioning you for their work. You said it's illustrations, but where, if as an artist, where do you, I don't know, like desire or long to see your art displayed the most? it something above a mantle or is it in a book? Is it devotional? Stephen Crotts (36:03.563) Hmm. Yeah, I've been thinking about sort of what is the highest form of art and I think I'm convinced that art is at its highest when it is devotional, perhaps. You know, the highest art was reserved for the cathedrals and things like that. know, those were the places where, you know, creativity found its its climax in worship. And then we moved into this century of the self or however long it's been, but at least the 20th century to now, like the art museum became, you know, our cathedrals where the self was on, was the center of the drama. So, you know, I do think that it would be ideal to have our our highest artistic goods directed towards the highest things. But for myself, don't know that I'm ready to do explicitly devotional or liturgical art or that kind of thing. What I really want to be involved in and what I am doing is in books. So I want to people find their way back into good formative stories. Because I think that helps us understand the greatest story. So I think that's probably what my life's work will be is in books. And I'm happy for that to be the case, if it is. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (38:01.371) As we I'm sorry, I'm going to Stephen Crotts (38:02.342) I think I'm doing what I want to do at the moment. Jason M. Craig (38:04.689) Yeah, man, a man who people are scared of this, but you know that we want everything to be up and to the right. But actually a man really wants to plateau. He wants to be contented and where he is like I have found contentment and peace now that you're not striving for excellence, but that I'm there. I've arrived and I'm going to enjoy this. So I'm just going to echo something you said a minute ago that I'd never heard this, but the. The use of art for a cathedral for our beautiful churches is very different from the museum where the purpose is the self, right? Me enjoying all these things on display for me. That only gets heightened when the artwork's actually just a backdrop for me taking a picture with it. read an article about people, everyone who goes to see the Mona Lisa just takes a selfie in front of it as if nobody sees it. Stephen Crotts (39:00.105) Nobody sees it. Or they throw something at it, you know? I mean, it's... Jason M. Craig (39:05.041) Yeah, yeah, or destroy or destroy art. Yeah. Yeah, you've really arrived, Stephen Crotts (39:09.588) I I went to a museum recently and I walked into a room filled with icons, but the experience was completely different from walking into a cathedral filled with icons because in the gallery, they're, you know, they're, they're bereft of their purpose. They're, they're divorced from their context and I didn't know, my emotion was like so torn as I walked into that space because it's like the natural thing when you're surrounded by those images is to want to cross yourself and be in prayer. But everyone else is in there, you know, kind of looking at them in this like analytical kind of way. We want to see what it is rather than participate in what it means. So these are really different ways of experiencing a thing. Jason M. Craig (40:09.789) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (40:15.839) So somebody who's not into art, can you unpack that a little bit more? What does it mean, and I know into art sounds vague, but someone who can't articulate the way you can as an artist and someone who's capable of enjoying it, what does it mean that it has meaning? What do you mean that art has meaning? Stephen Crotts (40:33.524) Yeah, I mean, okay, like, in the most simple kind of terms, like that example of, you know, if you're faced with an icon of, you know, the Blessed Virgin holding the Christ child, like, that's meant to direct your attention into a certain, you know, story. So that's like the most easy way to think of it, I think, is... You know, it's pulling you, your minds and hearts attention into that story of incarnation. So, I guess that's all I was saying about meaning. When that thing is in its right context, it is pulling you along into a story. Versus, I think when it's pulled from its context, you're more likely to. Jason M. Craig (41:25.715) Mm-hmm. Stephen Crotts (41:31.914) be asking questions like, well, what century was this made in and what are the materials on the surface? Which are all interesting things, but you might not ever get to the purpose of the object if it's outside of context. Jason M. Craig (41:45.725) Yeah, they're little particulars that make you feel like you've dissected the frogs and now you understand it's life, you know. Stephen Crotts (41:53.377) Yeah. And it's in a context that is in the museum, which is designed for our atomized view of things that we've participated in for the, know, the sort of the ethos of the 20th century, which is all about us. Well, it's all about us as individuals rather than us us as a body. Jason M. Craig (42:12.081) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (42:18.119) Yeah, no, I've come to understand and articulate the situation we're in is that we're now, you know, use the word atomized. We've taken everything apart. We don't know how to put it back together. So then we see these parts of the thing and it's like, it's just, it's not working. You know, it's the icon in illuminated light in a museum with people taking selfies in front of it versus. I mean, I recall the sense. So I'm a convert. I mean, I remember the sense of walking into an Eastern Catholic church and feeling like I would like someone to instruct me on how to approach that icon, because I would like to get closer. But I need to know what to do, you know, and the guy was like, well, we do this little thing where we look like we're scooping across up, but we're actually almost kind of touching the floor, but not quite. And if anyone. Stephen Crotts (43:03.422) Mm-hmm. And it might. Jason M. Craig (43:12.369) If you haven't seen this, there's a beautiful sense of in the presence of these icons in a sanctuary where you actually, you know, reach down and touch the floor because it's a holy place and you cross yourself. And I remember feeling so relieved to be given the ritual to know how to approach this beautiful piece of art that was really startling to me. And, I cannot, you're right. And in a magazine, in museum, if somebody were to Stephen Crotts (43:24.075) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (43:41.297) walk up and touch the floor and cross themselves, would seem odd, but that is, that's its proper context. Okay, so sorry did you have another comment on that? Stephen Crotts (43:54.612) No, I'm Yeah. Jason M. Craig (43:55.887) Okay, man, you got you got lots of good stuff. You're gentle. You're You have a gentle wisdom, Stephen. Okay. Are we at a time right now though, and what's kind of your place in it? It seems like recovering imagery and art is something somewhat urgent to the Christian vocation that, you know, I think the best commentators out there have said, don't, the reason we don't know what to do with images. Stephen Crotts (44:05.002) haha Stephen Crotts (44:18.572) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (44:30.543) is that we have so many of them. We're drowning in them that we can't recognize anything. Let it known good from the bad, we can't recognize. So what do you sort of see as the artists work and vocation and challenge in an age like that? mean, you know, what do we do and how do you kind of see your part in that? Stephen Crotts (44:52.842) Yeah, yeah, we do have too many images and we have too many stories. So I think finding the most specific stories might be more important. know, like, we need to find the story of where we are. Whether that's in your family, your place, your parish. You know, we have access to all kinds of stories, whether that's, you know, especially in the kind of the news or celebrity world, you know. which requires wisdom to navigate this. It's not like you shouldn't know what's happening across the planet. That's not what I'm saying, but we don't have the ability to attend to all of it. So we have to have wisdom to balance. what we can, but not letting it take us from the responsibilities in front of us. And this is a huge challenge for me, you know, to not be so distracted by things that I can't do anything about, that I'm no good to my family or my neighbors, you know. So I think that if we can find a few images to focus on, you know. buy a painting from a local artist and hang it in your house and look at it every day, rather than doom scroll and see 10,000 images that are just gonna confuse you. Or spend time with the stained glass image at Eucharist every week, or collect a handful of images that you care about. I mean, think that's what... Jason M. Craig (46:37.555) Hmm. Stephen Crotts (47:01.066) for me, I'm trying to do in books is curate and distill out of a big story a handful of images to really focus on. Things that you might could come back to and find some new things every time. I mean, this is how the scriptures are built, not as something that we can go through one time and mine for knowledge and then be done with it. Like. now that we've taken our notes, whenever to go back to that book. No, it's meditation literature. We're meant to go back to this thing for the rest of our lives. finding better stories, finding local stories and images to participate in, I think would be a good first step. Jason M. Craig (47:34.844) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (47:39.837) Hmm. Jason M. Craig (47:52.796) Yeah, so how? You mean sort of like local lore like your actual, you know, right there in your place? I mean, I can I can conceptual I can see. Battling. Stephen Crotts (48:03.775) Yeah. No, yeah, I mean, literally, like, find out the history of, yeah, that might be, rather than learning a hundred news stories and keeping up with what this person is doing and that person, like, nationally, like, maybe figure out what has happened where you live, what is happening, and who are the people literally next door to you. Because that's the story that you're in, that you can actually touch and participate in. and see some results in. So like, start there. Jason M. Craig (48:37.405) Yeah, just I don't know. I don't know if you know the history behind the magazine at all, but Sword and Spade, that it's where it sort of began. We decided to secede from the Internet largely to work on this magazine. And the sword is the tool of a man who's defending something worth defending. But the spade, the spade is the tool of a man who's creating a thing worth defending. And. We have over and over as and this is me personally, this is, know, the group Stephen Crotts (48:48.715) You Stephen Crotts (48:55.264) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (49:06.651) of friends and brothers that work on this magazine is discovering how much uprootedness makes us incapable of being human. So rooting back down and finding the stories right there locally in your place. It's harder if you're in a place where it just kind of looks like every other place you would say with Chili's and Olive Garden and Walmart. But even there, I'm blown away how much narrative and stuff worth learning there is. I happen to be in a rural place that has a lot of readily available history I can still see, but that's still a constant need. Stephen Crotts (49:41.205) Well... Stephen Crotts (49:50.94) Even in those places, you know, there's a creek behind the olive garden. And like, if you get to know the creatures in the creek, you'll care about it more and you'll protect it more. And you'll want to see it look more like a garden that has been, things have been drawn out of the garden rather than the impression of an olive garden, which is slapped on top. Jason M. Craig (50:20.134) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (50:21.535) We will not steward what we don't love. So figure out a way. Yeah, exactly. So get to know your place, even if you think it's just a suburban hellscape. There's no place that doesn't belong to the creator. Jason M. Craig (50:26.887) Yeah. And we don't love what we don't know. We don't love what we don't know. Stephen Crotts (50:50.325) There's only desecrated places. There's no unsacred spaces. So treat every place you find yourself as God's good earth and dig into it. Jason M. Craig (51:01.587) So I'm gonna illustrate, I'm gonna, that was abstract, which you just said, the creek behind the Olive Garden. Because maybe there is, I was somewhere though, to put flesh on your example, I was at a Verizon store, and the same shopping center was the UPS store, so you could ship out your Amazon returns, and a McDonald's, and some sort of 24-7 fitness place, which I'll never join. But it's probably about 45 minutes from my house. at a town called Boiling Springs, South Carolina. And I'm in Verizon and I had to wait for something. I don't know. You know, 2026, who am I to have to wait for anything? Give me my thing. So I'm waiting for something and I walk outside and I walk next to the and if anyone is in Boiling Springs, I challenge you go over to the Verizon store. It's across from the new Target just installed. And I'm walking next to this and there's a little one of those little historic signs and Stephen Crotts (51:34.623) Mm-hmm. Jason M. Craig (52:00.499) Over like a grate on the ground this little you could never see it was between of like a five lanes You know not a highway, like where there's just a hundred lanes so you can get to all your you know chicken places Popeye chicken chick-fil-a like all the chicken places Bojangles and I go and there's a historic thing and Steven I'm not kidding you the sign goes boiling Springs and I look down and there was some Springs and like wait a second Stephen Crotts (52:17.707) Mm-hmm. Stephen Crotts (52:27.819) That's the springs, yeah. Jason M. Craig (52:29.177) It was the boiling springs and I read all the stuff they had on the sign and it was this was the place of connectivity where people came to water their horses, like treaties were signed, like this is why this town was built and it was completely erased. But there it was, you know, there it was to be seen. And so now if we're ever passing through that area, if I have to go to Verizon, which I think I've no, I've canceled Verizon. I got something different now. Spectrum. If you want to visit a little bit of history and it's when you go in there, it's like a you're enclosed in it because there's these trees like no one knows it's there as far as I can tell. No one like visits this thing, but I guess with some sort of duty, they're still preserving the boiling Springs that this entire place was named after. Stephen Crotts (53:00.683) Stephen Crotts (53:20.689) I mean, in my town Rock Hill, they literally blew up the hill, the rocky hill to build a highway. So it's not even there anymore. But I mean, I'm just thinking about like, you know, there are so many ways to get to know a place. Go find an old person and ask them about your place or figure out what birds live in your yard. One time I was with a paleontologist friend who pulled up behind a chicken place. in the low country of South Carolina and he said follow me and we went down into this ditch and he started showing me megalodon teeth out of the creek. know, so here's this like we think we're just like we just escaped. It was like going through the wardrobe in Narnia. We're through the thicket in the back of a chicken joint and now we're in like this story of deep time. I mean, finding literal, like, monster teeth, you know? So, like, there's a story that's older than you wherever you are. Jason M. Craig (54:19.623) Yeah. Jason M. Craig (54:24.893) No, I've had this experience constantly. just have to, I don't even say, you gotta go look for it. That sounds so cliche. No, it's actually there. Yeah, a little bit. yeah, I had a neighbor who lent me a book that had the history of my area. And lo and behold, we find like a picture of where we now live. And it wasn't that long ago, but it was amazingly different. And just. Stephen Crotts (54:31.849) A little bit of curiosity, yeah. Jason M. Craig (54:52.451) the farms and the culture that was living there, just one generation. mean, this thing was taken one generation ago. And you're right, I would argue that there's people there, they are there and they're actually fascinating and eager to tell the story. Stephen Crotts (54:54.58) Hmm. Stephen Crotts (55:00.319) Yeah, and this? Stephen Crotts (55:08.083) I think that fostering your imagination, okay, understanding the past requires you to use your imagination. That doesn't mean that it's fake, like no, something really happened there, but you've, kind of all you have is data about it and then your imagination. But what you're doing there, that work that you do to try to piece together the past, is going to completely revolutionize your walk through the present and your concern for the future. So, yeah. Jason M. Craig (55:47.23) That's beautiful. Okay. So did you come to all this also through your, your general upbringing or is this something you had to be converted to this, this, being attentive? Cause I know that I, in my, in my imagination, the artist is uniquely attentive to reality, right? Cause they, and even the photographer, they take a picture of something you've seen a hundred times ago. I never noticed it like that. Right. And it's their job. Is this a sensibility that you have or you've had to cultivate this or where, where is this idea is coming from? Stephen Crotts (56:07.743) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (56:15.723) I think that all came from family who were really interested in handing me down a heritage, you know. That was always part of it. So I'm grateful for all that. Jason M. Craig (56:27.379) Wow, that's beautiful. That's beautiful. And you still have a, are they in Rock Hill too? Or did you move away? Stephen Crotts (56:34.439) I moved from my little town in Lawrence where I grew up, but I go back and hang out. Lawrence, South Carolina is where I'm from. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Jason M. Craig (56:40.433) Lauren, South Carolina. Jason M. Craig (56:44.999) Hey man, you're still in your home state, that's good. Okay, Stephen, I would like to invite you to be a subscriber and contributor to Sword and Spade Magazine. And I'd like to invite you to come join us for a Friday night, some time for a jam. Bring your girls, we've got a, I got a 16 year old girl who plays the fiddle, she can join in. And we'd love to have y'all. Stephen Crotts (56:57.759) Alright. Stephen Crotts (57:04.277) That sounds beautiful. Stephen Crotts (57:11.773) Absolutely. Jason M. Craig (57:13.125) And I want to say thank you for being on the Sword and Spade podcast. And if anyone wants to search out your work, which behind your work is clearly a man of depth and thought, where should they go? Stephen Crotts (57:26.301) I would say right now the book is Gallahad and the Grail, which is the first of this big story of retelling the stories of King Arthur that Malcolm Guide has written and I'm illustrating them. So that is merlonsisle.com is the place to go. Jason M. Craig (57:49.777) Wait, okay, so this book just, I can't believe you just said that. I just got an email from a friend, Theo Howard, and he said, you've gotta read, you need to read this review I wrote of Galahad and the Grail. There it is, okay, so I'm gonna order that then, I have to, and I encourage all my friends. Stephen Crotts (57:59.733) Yeah. Stephen Crotts (58:11.335) It's It's a Eucharistic Odyssey that is... Everything we've talked about is in that book. So... Yeah. Jason M. Craig (58:18.973) Beautiful beautiful Okay. Well, I'm gonna if we can put in the show notes as well I have a review sent to a dear friend Theo Howard about that and and there you go plugging it So that's some sort of conspiracy of grace Stephen cross. Thank you for being on sword and spade podcast. It's been a pleasure to talk to you Stephen Crotts (58:40.093) Thanks so much for having me. It's been great.