Made to Create: A Biblical Perspective on Homeschool Art & Artistry | Ryan Lauterio

About this Episode

Most families think of “art” as an elective, but our kids are being shaped by aesthetics all day long. Clothing, movies, book covers, music, room design, even the way a table is set can train what we value without us noticing. That’s why this conversation with Christian artist and educator Ryan Lauterio lands like a wake-up call: creativity is not reserved for a small group of gifted kids. It’s part of what it means to be human and part of what it means to disciple our children with intention.

As the founder of Made Makers Christian Art and Design Education, Ryan connects art education with theology and a Christian worldview, showing how images and stories can bypass mere logic and go straight to the heart. During this episode, Dr. Amy and Sandy talk with Ryan about how culture is formed upstream by makers, why the church often treats artists as fringe, and how that leaves families unprepared for what media normalizes over time. Along the way, we explore gratitude for the “made-ness” of life and why treating creativity as a shared human calling changes the tone of homeschool, parenting, and learning. 

Then we get very practical. Ryan gives a simple set of questions you can use with any object, image, or piece of media: What is it? What is it for? What does it do? We also dig into perfectionism, learning through practice, and why making things with our hands builds the kind of embodied problem-solving our kids will need in an AI-heavy future. If you want your children to become wise, thoughtful makers who can discern what they’re consuming and contribute beauty and truth back into the world, this theology-heavy conversation is a place to start. 

Subscribe, share this with a homeschool friend, and leave a review so more families can find the show. What’s one creative habit you want to build into your home this week?

About Ryan Lauterio

Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of the Maker Institute of Studio Art and Theology and Made Makers Christian Art and Design Education. He’s an award-winning artist with a master’s degree in studio art and a master’s of fine arts degree in painting and printmaking. He’s an educator and speaker who taught for 17 years at Virginia Commonwealth University, but now serves full-time in Christian arts education. He is the husband of Laura and the homeschooling father of four. Find him at https://mademakers.com/ and https://www.instagram.com/mademakerschristianart

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NOTE: This transcript was auto-generated by an AI assistant that thinks it’s smarter than we are. It’s not, but it has more free time than we do, so we gave it a low-stakes job. It probably spelled a few things wrong, but we’re okay with that. We’d rather spend our time interviewing cool guests!

Welcome And Meet Ryan Lauterio
Dr. Amy Moore 0:01
Hi, smart moms and dads. Welcome to this episode of the Brainy Moms podcast brought to you today by Learning RX Brain Training Centers. I’m Dr. Amy Moore here with Sandy Zamalis. And Sandy and I are having a conversation today with Ryan Lauterio. Let me tell you a little bit about him in case you don’t know who he is yet. Ryan is the co-founder and CEO of the Maker Institute of Studio Art and Theology and Made Makers Christian Art and Design Education, an award-winning artist with a master’s in studio art, a master’s of fine arts and painting and printmaking. He’s an educator and speaker who taught for 17 years at Virginia Commonwealth University, but now serves full-time in Christian arts education. He is the husband of Laura and the homeschooling father of four. We met Ryan at the Home Educators Association of Virginia’s annual convention. He actually has the booth right next to ours at LearningRx. And we are fascinated by how many people were always at the Made Makers booth. He does live art lessons right there in the booth, but also their giveaways are super fun for kids. And it’s just a real draw for kids and their families every year. But this is a really unique conversation because Ryan’s mission is to make sure that families understand that creativity isn’t reserved just for artistic kids, that all children make things, that all humans make things, because we too are made in the image of the creator. So it’s a really fascinating discussion about what that looks like, what it means to create, what it means to be a creator of things, of a maker of things on this earth. But it’s a rich philosophical and theological discussion about art and art and the culture and where art actually comes from. There were times where I didn’t feel so smart because he was using really big words and really difficult concepts. But there were also times in our conversation where I thought, wow, I hadn’t thought about it like that before. I hadn’t thought about art and aesthetics and creating in some of the ways that he shares. So we’re really excited to share this conversation with you today. So please help me welcome Ryan Lauterio. So, Ryan, I was listening to your um talk at Heave that you have posted on the website this morning because Sandy’s been so excited uh to have you on the show. And I know you guys talked um at Heave last summer at length. And um I I didn’t get to meet you, but I was there. Um so I said, okay, well, let me listen and find out why Sandy is so excited. And so now I know why, because you’re amazing.

Ryan Lauterio 3:19
Well, that’s super kind of me. Thank you.

Sandy Zamalis 3:21
Ryan, we’re we’re so excited you’re here. Um, I don’t know if Amy mentioned while I disappeared, but um, we met at the Heave conference. We were in the booth next to you. And we just always were like ooing

Why Creativity Belongs To Everyone
Sandy Zamalis 3:33
and awing over your booth every year. Yeah.

Ryan Lauterio 3:37
And we wanted to talk to you. We’re with thankful, you know, you get uh you our desire is just to be a is to be like it. Like we’re we’re really team players, so like we really want to see like we love H E B. We’re from from Richmond. So for us, like it’s like we want to do everything we can. We can’t do it everywhere else. You know, we can’t bring everything to every convention, but with that one, it’s like Will’s hometown, we want kids to be built up, you know, we want other booths to feel encouraged. It doesn’t always work that way, but y’all are are like great. Like you guys bring your A game and it’s like it builds an excitement. It’s like, hey, people are here. Let’s let’s bless them and let’s have a great time.

Sandy Zamalis 4:15
You are so encouraging that like we literally have a team meeting every year and be like, okay, we want we’re gonna do capes this year. That’s what we keep saying.

Ryan Lauterio 4:24
Yeah, let’s do capes. We’ve given out like 2,000 capes at every convention, and we never would have thought that that would be such a thing, you know.

Sandy Zamalis 4:32
It was a such a hit. Yeah, like it was hilarious how many kids were walking around in capes.

Ryan Lauterio 4:38
Yeah. You know, for us, like the capes are part of a character I created a long time ago. And so he wears a cape. And so it was really like, oh, maybe there’ll be some kids who want to wear a cape. And it’s like, well, we’ll put the logo on there. But sincerely it wasn’t, you know, you you we couldn’t like the first year we gave over 2,000 capes away. We had no idea. Like it wasn’t like we’re gonna get this gonna blow up. Um in our we have a plan. So like this year, kids got a cape and a pencil. And if you follow the logic of the character and you look at him, you can kind of see where we’re headed.

Sandy Zamalis 5:09
But what I love about that, Ryan, and I think what you know, our listeners are gonna really enjoy from this conversation is how thoughtful you are and how far ahead you have thought through this mission and vision that you have for helping um homeschool families uh really sort of wrap their arms and brains around becoming creators. And so, you know, I’m excited for this conversation though, because we haven’t had anybody um from from I think an artistic space really talk about that part of our brain because we are all made in the image of the creator. So um we are creators.

Ryan Lauterio 5:47
Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 5:49
And I don’t think it’s just about not having had anyone in the artistic space. We haven’t had anyone who integrates the idea of creativity and art with theology and a Christian worldview. And I think that’s what makes you so unique in general, right? Is that I I first of all, I love how you talk about um how artists are feral cats, according to the church, right? Um so what I love is that you’re like, wait a minute, that is totally a mischaracterization, especially of Christian artists, right? Uh and so I just anyway, I’m excited for this conversation too.

Ryan Lauterio 6:32
So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s hilarious. No, it’s true. You just it’s the it’s I’ve seen it, I’ve lived it. And you know, if you if you say what you do, there’s a, you know, do we can I pet you? You feed him? You need do we shoosh you away? You know? And it’s like that is, you know, it it’s it’s tongue in cheek, but there is that. There, you know, historically there is that. And there’s good reasons for that too. It’s not, you know, that’s a whole discussion. So anyhow.

unknown 7:00
Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 7:00
Yeah. Well, so I would I would like to hear a little bit of how you got to where you are right now in this mission. Um and particularly how did you get to this space of wanting to educate parents about the importance of how our kids are interpreting the cultural aspects of art and aesthetics, right? Um, like because you are an artist, but how did you get from being an artist to saying, hey, there’s so much more to this, not just interpretation of culture, but creating culture and creating the culture of the future that that we want our world to look like through art?

Ryan Lauterio 7:46
Right, right.

How Art Shapes Culture Quietly
Ryan Lauterio 7:47
That’s a great question. Um well, because I was a practitioner first. So I was a an artist and um in a very kind of heady environment that didn’t neglect the mind for the making. Um and the more the more I found myself in those environments, the more I realized that these are the engines, uh not to mechanize it, but these are the spaces where that are driving a lot of what trickles out into culture. And the average person has no idea. And so what they see is maybe, maybe uh like uh the person who’s maybe a little more like willy-nilly about things and a little louder in attention seeking, and they think that’s the artist. They’re they’re really kind of uh um kind of like a loud flower in a beautiful garden. Like we don’t really need to take them seriously. Um but it’s the it’s the serious ones that are actually undergirding so much of how we think through media, through um uh music, through film, you know, through aesthetics, through, you know. So I you heard me say it in the I say it everywhere I go, but the arts are the suggestion-rich symbolification of objectified meaning. Or another way of saying it is it’s the aesthetic symbolification of objectified meaning. So when God puts us in a garden, he says to name what? The animals, right? Well, they were objectified, they’re there, they exist ontologically, and then we symbolify them through through naming, um, and they’re a suggestion rich, full of uh aesthetic possibility. So aesthetics have something to do with the sum total of a thing and what it is as it is, but what it suggests beyond what it is. So a bear can suggest many things, including needing to run if it’s a grizzly, because there’s something in their nature that we have to contend with. Or if you took a tree, nobody looks at a tree and says, Paper. If you were being honest, you you’d have to play around with it. Someone, so there’s a lot of mucking around that had to happen before you before you ever came to we can get paper from tree, but it was there, it was it was laden. There’s an unpacking in creation is laden with all of this stuff to search out. And God has done it that way so that we might know and discover and search and grow and and uh and who we are as as image bearers. So the arts do that also because the whole of creation is that. The whole of creation is what it is, it’s what it does, and it’s what we call it, and therefore we can know it with consistency and and

Becoming Christian Without Idolatry
Ryan Lauterio 10:24
see it unfurl. So knowing that kind of stuff, not as a Christian, and then becoming a Christian and feeling burdened immediately, strangely for a lack of awareness of what was actually happening in our culture. Uh, working with high-level artists, uh, being successful in the early days myself enough to be miserable without God in order to then then come to him and repent of the idolatry of the arts. Uh, so I got saved, and then that became this journey with my wife and I of just feeling this burden to equip and train artists and the church, because the church is forfeiting a non-neutral space that is arresting our affections all the time. You know, so we compartmentalize, we come to church on Sunday, uh, we put on clothes, we eat beautiful plates, all that stuff’s made. Everything, uh, we don’t eat plates, but we eat off of plates. Everything is made, the books you buy, the nice cover, the clothes you wear. Like there’s not a single thing where you’re not making aesthetic choices based on the suggestive nature of what that thing is and what you think it does or does not say about you. And so much of that bypasses our our cognition, like our conscious mind. And it goes straight to the heart and it stokes affections and comforts and longings. And you were talking about Disney for a second, but that film went right to something uh about longing and children, for better or worse. I’m not saying it’s a great movie, I’m saying, but it was a phenomenon for a reason. There was a there is a message being smuggled in that I think accords a little bit with the flesh, and so it stoked uh kids to want to wield great power. Well, that was 12 years ago. Now a lot of those kids believe they can be whatever they want. Um, so those messages work past a lot of the way we I think we classically are trained to learn. And it’s because they affect the whole of the person and not just the mind of the person. And so we’re whole beings, we’re whole psychosomatic unities fully integrated in this reality. And we gotta touch down, we gotta walk on ground, and we gotta be cold, and we gotta be like God gave us senses. And so I think oftentimes broadly understanding art design and craft is it’s it’s hitting all of those points. So I was a university professor for 17 years at the number one public art university in the country. Before that, I taught in California and accidentally created a good curriculum that put me in a position to develop it as a competing standard curriculum for the state of California. But I was a Christian and I was a newer Christian and I wanted to be a university professor, but I saw the fruit of what I was doing. And the reason why it worked well is number one, I was naively teaching out of what I knew from being a master’s student. I was I was supplemented into a school through a Warhol uh grant to teach art because the arts were being pushed out. And all these kids were exceeding. And they were doing really well and shocking everybody, and kids that weren’t good learners were starting to learn better, and all these things started to ripple effect over two years. Um, and so I stuffed it away. I was like, I got to do something with that. And then we homeschooled kids, and I’m a university professor at the number one art school in the country, so I’m seeing what’s coming before it’s happening. I’m seeing the loading of the tip of sphere of culture of what will be normalized. Um, you name it, I could see it 15 years before it’s coming. And because the church often thinks of the arts as fringe, they’re not prepared for what’s coming to the front door. Um, but more than that, Jesus says, therefore go, and there’s a creation mandate that he reminds us of in the Great Commission. Um, we should respond accordingly to Jesus. So I’m watching and and and makes simply because he said so, not not because the culture’s bad and the world can’t pick what it hasn’t seen or heard. So if we don’t make it, it’s not there to be selected, it’s not there to shape. Uh there’s a critique in the positive expression of something that can work more effectively than the negative critique of the thing, and doubly effectively when you present both. And so for me, seeing kids walk away from their faith, but also seeing how many kids were coming to faith, I got to see a lot of kids get saved in my time there that are now really awesome kingdom citizens doing incredible work with families and productive. Uh the desire was that we have to bring this to the church. And it’s got to be children. You know, all the people I admire Lewis. Lewis taught to the whole of a person. He never neglected children in the equation. And so many great theologians and thinkers that I admire uh carry the same biography and a legacy of work. And so this was we launched the Maker Institute for people after high school and made makers as homeschool, homeschool dads, uh, to bless kids from four years old up with a better, better starting assumptions, a better integrated vision, uh, that isn’t simply about teaching them to be artists, but it’s teaching them to be made in God’s image and how that links into all your subjects. How this is a this is a this is not an elective. It’s actually uh necessary in the way God’s

Teaching Little Kids With Scripture
Ryan Lauterio 15:30
made us.

Sandy Zamalis 15:30
So you threw so much deep stuff out there. My brain is like pinning like post-it notes in my brain of like, what, you know, what I’m like, surely Sandy’s gonna speak first.

Ryan Lauterio 15:44
I’m sorry, yeah, I went too far, probably, but I thought that was a deep dive.

Sandy Zamalis 15:49
Because in my head, I’m thinking, all right, what are we uh, you know, what can four-year-olds do that we are missing um in terms of that artistic space? Um, because we can start there and then we’ll go forward. Because I I I grabbed that right away when you said that that we were missing something.

Ryan Lauterio 16:05
So, like in Kinder uh with Maid Makers, I tell them that. And we were made to be in a garden and drive out all the darkness by bringing more light and more beauty until the whole earth is covered with that. That’s God’s special plan for us. And we mess things up a little bit, but Jesus has made it right and he’s got a plan for you to help be a part of doing that work. It’s really special work. And so God, when he made things, got his hands dirty and separated out the light and the dark values and the sky, he started separating things out. So we’re gonna do that. We’re gonna separate out using um finger paint and make light and dark values and look at what they do together and look what they do. How are they different? You know, and I talk very much in a way that’s for kindergartners, very simple, you know, um, in a way that’s excited and a little nerdy, a little times a little too crazy, but just because I know kids, I have kids, and I, you know, I’ve taught them. And then the next the next week is hey, God forms things, he forms things, and then he fills them like a cup. A cup is a form and then it’s filled. Like, can you think of some things that are formed and filled? Chocolate chip cookies. They have they have chocolate chips, you know? And then I keep walking them through things, and then I say, hey, you you’re formed and filled. You’re filled with life. And if you’re a Christian, you’re filled with the Holy Spirit. So we’re gonna learn to form and to fill. We want to separate things out, then we want to form and fill things, and we start with the big things, and then the little things go on top. Or, and so it the pattern starts there, and I’m always wedding it to scripture, prayer. Um, talking about Jesus in a very comfortable way. Um, I’m not talking about it as though I have to prove to them that Jesus is there, is what I mean by that. Because he is there. And I think we start with skepticism instead of the proper assumption that he is the Lord and he’s there. And they can intuit that. They may not, you may not be saying anything directly, but in your physicality, in your your your presentation, there’s prefacing, there’s qualifying sometimes. So it’s like bring Jesus right up to his, bring your children right up to his lap. Sit sit him, sit your children on his lap. And the only way you can do that is by sitting on his lap as well. You know, you have to have the same assumptions yourself. You know.

Art As A Real Way Of Knowing
Dr. Amy Moore 18:17
What I love about what you just said. I’m gonna sort of give this a science analogy, even, right? So, you know, as researchers, you know, we operate on assumptions when we analyze data, right? We uh we have to assume that the data are normally distributed, for example, right? Like we operate on these assumptions in order for us to generate, you know, our um analyses of what’s happening in the world, right? Or what happened in this experiment. And so if we if those assumptions aren’t met, then we can’t even perform that type of analysis on the data. Correct. So it’s fascinating to me how so simply you’re saying we just start with the assumption that Jesus is real. We’re not gonna actually collect data to prove that he’s real because he already is. And so you have a four-year-old or a five-year-old. And so your lessons are building on that assumption so that there isn’t room to say, okay, but yeah.

Ryan Lauterio 19:26
Because he’s he, if he is God, he’s going to demonstrate that. That’s his prerogative. That’s his, and so the taste and see is gonna come, but you it’s not a it it it it is a it does it does differentiate a little bit. Um as a as the prime mover, uh, everything else then can be you know scrutinized, tested, searched out. And it’s I love that you brought the sciences because even even you know, before 1940, some into the 50s, um aesthetics were cons were uh flirted with as a hard science. We had a very different understanding of of uh different assumptions, and then um uh different so part of those assumptions were then this is testable. Um we can we can uh quantify it, and everything became subjectified in a popular level in the 60s, you know, just as far as how we think about the arts and aesthetics and things. But prior to that, it wasn’t like that at all. And uh, and so when you wed that to a good theology of creation and some good presuppositions, there is a lot to search out there that actually is correspondent or uh integrated together in a Trinitarian sense, so unity and diversity simultaneously expressed, um, not uh one epistemology over another. You know, like there’s the time where the sciences were uh narrowly the only trustworthy way of knowing. Um, but poetry and art also render credible knowledge. And I would use the word credible specifically, um, and a way that is in complement to some of the empirical understanding that can come through some of the hard sciences. That that these are all facets of the creation God’s made and they reflect something of his character. And so when we’re missing one or the other part, we really are missing um a richness that the Lord’s uh uh supplied us.

Home As A Discipling Space
Sandy Zamalis 21:19
So what I’m hearing you say is that um as parents, we really need to think through it to your point, it’s not the it’s not the loudest you know, media image or a popular icon that’s the problem. It’s the what we would call the norm of inundated uh media and art and graphics and things that we’re consuming that we’re not maybe balancing well for our kids to really understand how they’re made in God’s image.

Ryan Lauterio 21:56
Or even you might say, so Jesus was like was. Considered like a peripatetic philosopher, which he he taught as he went. And his very life reorganized the order of the disciples’ lives. So that he didn’t like teach preemptive theology classes to walking with him. He they walked with him and they got theology, right? Externalized personally. And so then they’re asking, how do we pray? Like in there, they’re in year two of hanging out with Jesus and they’re Jewish. They they knew how to pray. Why were they asking that? Well, they were walking with him. And so I think as you, as parents, as we walk with Jesus, we want our kids to follow. And like I’m looking at the I’m laughing because my background, I’m in my art studio, it’s chaos in here. But both of your spaces are beautiful. And I suspect that the majority of your house uh carries with it the same kind of care and consideration.

Sandy Zamalis 22:48
Um so I’m No, I promise there’s chaos, right?

Ryan Lauterio 22:52
Okay. So you know, when we when we make our houses hospitable in certain You should see my closet. It’s a closet, though. But what that is, is that actually is discipling them. Because, you know, I tell parents, like, you need to have a few things in your home that are do not touches, that your kids can touch, that cost you if they break it. So that they see the hurt in you when they broke it, if they indeed disobey you and break it. I mean, you there there has to be skin in the game. It has to really matter. And then there has to be some things that are like you touch this on occasions, you know, this is for events, this is, you know, this is for eating, this is for, and then there’s things that they can roughhouse on, or, you know, you’re like, that that thing has um, you know, every day, all the time use. And I think so even our home becomes a discipling mechanism for leading our kids into an integrative understanding of what you’re talking about. So I’m saying that that way so that because I can hear in me talking this way, parents saying, oh my gosh, I got to think all this stuff. And it’s like, no, you you’ve got stuff you’ve already done. It’s just knowing that it’s working for you. It’s not neutral, it’s in your favor. When you when you get a table together and you have a really nice meal and you bring lawn chairs to the table and paper plates, that’s saying something incongruent with the really nice meal. It it tells your um your kid something about the people you’re inviting over. It’s a message. It’s like you don’t have to explain it. It’s it’s hitting them. That’s a silly illustration, but you see my point. Like you’re already doing it in so many ways. I think some of it’s being edified to realize that um you’re uh in him and through him all things hold together, and that uh creation itself is a speaking kind of thing. It just speaks in the language of what it is, not in the special revelation uh the scriptures or in written text. But it is a it is a phenomenon, it is a uh a non-neutral reality that has loudness or quietness or gentleness or soothingness or messiness. And so, yeah.

Sandy Zamalis 25:07
So is your message to be just be aware, not necessarily because I I would think from what you just said, it would be really easy to accidentally slide into some sort of performative kind of space where you know everything’s per, you know, I think of like, you know, Instagram, right? Where everything is beautiful all the time, and yeah, there’s nothing real that’s happening in that space, but there’s some balance in yes, you should have a space that’s nice, yeah. Um, and also a space that you can live and well, so that’s a great one.

Ryan Lauterio 25:41
I I mean my wife were walking yesterday. So what what I’m saying is one, you are made in God’s image. So you are creative, and creative is not crazy. Creative is the things you’ve already been doing. And some of the things that are really eccentric are eccentric because there’s a baseline that’s not. And so we assume the baseline we only recognize the eccentric and we go, that’s a creative person. You’re like, no, we all are. We if you remove everything that’s made from our lives, everything that’s made, we would be without clothing in a desert. So once you realize that, then you’re like, well, first move is to be thankful. Oh my gosh, thank you, Lord. Thank

Why Making Matters For The Future
Ryan Lauterio 26:18
you that somebody made shirts. Thank you that some more thanksgiving should be abounding in our homes. Um, the other thing is that the home, I told my wife, I said the home is more like a construction site. Construction sites get cleaned up, but because there’s culture being produced, they get messy. And there’s occasions for uh guests at any point in the process of the construction sites’ work. And we don’t have to apologize for that by understanding what it is. This is the center of culture making. So when moms are homeschooling, you’re at the foundation, as my wife says, of building culture. Uh, you’re not at the periphery, you’re not at the um, you know, the outer edge where no one cares, the fringe. This is a construction site. So there’s times where we’re working on something and there’s mess. That’s just evidence of good living happening. And so those two things are not at odds with each other. It’s not a balance, it’s not a stress. It’s a it’s a qualitative set of relationships that we’re stewarding uh uh two positive effects for the um strengthening of our children into safely in adulthood to be uh great Christian men and women who love the Lord and love neighbor and steward what he’s given them with greater wisdom. So a lot of art artistry requires haptic or embodied wisdom and understanding to be played out tangibly. And a lot of education doesn’t require that from us. So even as a residual thing, learning to work with your hands and your mind and your heart all synced together is going to be towards your edification as a person going up into the future where we don’t know what AI is going to do to jobs. Like we we really don’t know what the future is going to look like for our children. You know, we we know Jesus wins. We know he he’s pro-human, he’s uh he’s not wanting us to become robots and you know, whatever you think about that. And we know that he wants us to use our hands and feet because he has uh forever enjoined himself to a body where he commissions hands and feet. So that’s not going away. We know that he wants that. So we better learn how to use them. Or the metaphor loses its power, right?

Dr. Amy Moore 28:26
Yeah. So I love how you said that if we took everything away that is created, we’d be naked in a desert, right? So what I what I think you can infer from a statement like that is that this isn’t just creativity from artists, but it’s the engineer who understands how materials work and move and fit together. And it’s the, you know, human factors engineer who understands, you know, the interaction between the human body and a static um chair, for example, right? Like so it’s it’s about sort of what we know about what already exists in the world, how to combine all of the things that exist in the world in a way that then humans can come in and interact with them. That’s creating.

Ryan Lauterio 29:29
Yes, that’s creating. And and so when you and when you like I before COVID, I was asked to be a clinical physician in the school of cardiac surgery as a visual arts professor. They were like, we want you to become a resident artist and physician, and we want you just to observe for one year. So they just gave me access to everything. And and I would, and so this was supposed to happen. It was unfortunate it didn’t happen because COVID happened. But the goal was I was would be brought in to be observant. And because I was outside the the boundaries of uh most of the established norms, their hope was that I might notice things and have solutions that were outside their norms for how they solve problems, including uh caring for people, bedside stuff. And so I was thrilled because I was like, this is someone who actually is seeing like the point that that I’m trying to make here, or you know, in general all the time. And uh that requires competency. You can’t just be anybody, you know, but but at the same time, like um having a united vision of what humans are, so anthropology, ontology, like what are humans? What does it mean to be made in God’s image? What is our fundamental problem? What has God done about it, and what is he doing about it? And how do we fit into that mission? And so he’s given us a creation to steward to glorify him. Like, you know, I it’s like an incredible thing. Like, you know, the Bible says woman is the glory of man, right? In Genesis. That’s an astonishing statement. I don’t think we understand that well enough. Like, like I can bring some something to my wife. Like, in in the it’s like uh a man brings himself and and with his wife, and his wife gives back a child. But there’s a very disproportionate distribution. It’s an astonishing glory. And so I could bring, you know, some, you know, in the old days, you bring some flour or something, and your wife comes back and she’s made pie and bread, and like, you know, I can I can bring some of my hard labor, and my wife will turn it into so many different things. Like she can like spin so many plates. And so there’s this, and I mean that in the most um honoring sense of the scriptures, the way I think God’s made men and women to work together. And I think I say that to you to say that that’s a picture of Christ in the church. So Christ gives you his spirit, he says, you’ll do more than me. Because you’re the glory of Christ. Like we’re the glory of the spirit, we’re we’re his people, and it’s undeserved by grace, but we’re to take what he gives and bless it, increase it, be fruitful and multiply. And so when you get new knowledge from inquiry or scientific understanding, it normally expands an understanding and brings blessing with it. I mean, it opens up jobs, it opens like just think of all the things that come from that. Well, that’s what we’re to do. That’s what we’re made for. And that’s how we, the church as the new Eve, to Christ as the the uh secondborn or the new Adam, the second Adam, the first Adam, the firstborn, like that whole all of those analogies, that that typology is that relationship fulfilled that failed in Genesis. And so we’re Edenizing the earth. We’re we’re making a new new heavenly earth. And so all of the stuff that we’re treading in, we should expect to see um frustration from the curse, sin creeping in, but correspondence, connectivity, and flourishing, human flourishing uh under the lordship of Christ.

Sandy Zamalis 33:04
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Sponsor Break
Sandy Zamalis 33:40
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Practical Questions For Any Object
Dr. Amy Moore 34:54
So we’ve spent 30 plus minutes in this um philosophical, theological sort of foundation for your work. And it’s been fascinating. Um let’s talk about um what that looks like practically at the dining room table. Um, a majority of our listeners are homeschooling families. And so what does that look like then in terms of how do we set the stage? How do we encourage creating and making, but also interpretation of what’s already existing in a way that protects the Christian worldview?

Ryan Lauterio 35:39
Yeah, that’s a good one. So I like to say with art or anything, what is it? What is it for and what does it do? So what is it? What is it for? Oh, it’s for sitting on, what’s it do? Ah, it makes me feel uncomfortable. You know, oh, it’s really comfortable. What’s it for? Well, it’s not for sitting on. So, you know, just very, very simple in that way. And in into stoke curiosity, hey, what is that? What do you think that’s for? What is it doing? What’s the effect? You know, so then they go for it’s like, how are you affected? It makes a loud noise, I don’t like it. Um, what is this? Oh, that’s paint. What’s it for? It’s for spreading around, it’s for drying, it’s for coloring, it’s for imaging. What does it do? Well, it makes me feel yucky. I don’t like it. I like to draw with pencils. Um, why do you like to draw with pencils? What are those for? It’s you know, it was I’m talking talking with little ones, but the funny thing is like this just works for everything in some ways because if you’re willing to ask the question, you will be met with the answers. They’re kind of like it’s like suppressing a ball in the in the in the water, it’ll just bounce back up. So with parents, like we we built this program that is a scription-based program where families can sit at the dinner table, uh, have your kids uh interact with me or listen to me and um get out some materials and supplies uh relative to what they could afford. So we try to make a lot of accommodations and um start making things and um not judging them too harshly, not being perfectionistic. Um it’s incredible how perfectionistic kids are immediately. Um I I was telling some graduate students today, uh, you have you can’t control what you don’t have control of. So you have to start by being out of control. And then we get to look at how out of control you are. Like, how much do you not understand? That’s an exciting prop possibility. So make some messes so we can see what kind of patterns show up. Because patterns will emerge. You’re really good at making messes this way over this way. What does it look like to subdue that, to shape it? Uh and in the early days, I think it needs to be a lot of curiosity. What is that? What does it do? Uh, what’s it for? And do those match? And um, so that can be with pencil and watercolor. Um, I think gratitude and simple acknowledgement of things in the home from the parents. Like, I have four kids and I have a nine-month-old. My son’s 11, and then my daughter’s 13 and a half and 16 and a half. So we’ve got this nine-month-old late in life, it’s a surprise baby. We’re really excited about her. She’s she’s wonderful. And she is the most curious kid by a long shot. So I’m already doing this with her. She already knows what trees are. She says trees, she points to them. If I say, Where are the trees? She’ll nudge me to get to the door to go outside. And then she goes, Wow. And then she’ll look at me and I go, I know, right? Isn’t it incredible? That’s what they need. They need us to see the wonder of the Lord as much as um as them, you know? And so we have to be able to step back a little bit and just, you know, be grateful. And if you don’t have the gratitude, we just got to ask for it. He wants to give us the gratitude. He says it’s his will for us in Christ Jesus that we’ll be uh rejoicing always, praying without ceasing, and being uh grateful. Well, if we’re never asking, we’re never able to thank. And if his desire is for us to be grateful, then he meant for us to ask.

Sandy Zamalis 39:11
I think one of the gifts of artists is that um looking through the world

Talent Myth And Learning Through Practice
Sandy Zamalis 39:16
with different eyes, right? Or a different set of um assumptions or questions as you kind of put forth. And I think probably the interesting or I think more difficult thing to do from a homeschooling perspective is we often see the arts as a talent, like something that you just are imbued with and it’s not something that’s a practice, like something you have to kind of master, uh, which I you alluded to a minute ago, like make the mess, you know, let’s let’s draw that fish a hundred times and let that skill grow. Um, so how can we and because this shows up in lots of different things, right? It shows up in academics, it shows up in sports, but for whatever reason, I think for a lot of people, art is in this bucket. Yes, but you either are an artist or you aren’t. Um but you can become an artist just like you can become a musician, right? Yeah, it just takes practice. So we have to start simply, right?

Ryan Lauterio 40:19
Yes, you have to start as you know, I say it’s like a mustard seed, like everything else. So God cadences things that way. And so everything seems to kind of grow. And it’s only in the Garden of Eden where we try to do a knowledge download that we’re crushed. We want, right? So we’re always capitulating that. I want it all right now. I just talked to my son this morning about this. He had got a writing prompt, he didn’t want to do it because he just wants it done. He wants microwave. But I was like, that’s not God’s world, not really, and that’s not who you are. That’s what your sin wants you to do, but that’s not who you are. And you’re gonna have to grow and it takes work. And so everything does grow up that way. And I love it’s such a keen insight from you because the arts are more like everything else, but the modern world set them apart in such a way that it has a stronghold on us. So we think, oh yeah, this is like a weirdly, it’s weirdly defined, and therefore only a very narrow person is that, and it’s got to be um, you know, uh a divine appointment. Plato’s Republic, and he talked about what a society should look like, he exhorts artists through the roof, and he says, but because we don’t know where they’re they get their inspiration from, they’re dangerous to society, so we should throw them out. And so that the residue of that is throughout. But it’s like it’s such a wicked attack on the image of God. Because I’m not saying go be an artist first, I’m just saying you how you make your home is splendid, like how you put your clothes on is glorious. Like how you you make a meal, how you mow your lawn, like there is lines and angles and form and density and artistry. There’s an epistemology from making here that has its um application out here. So when you’re having your kids learn to like boys, a lot boys a lot of times will get pushed out of the arts early because sometimes they’re not as studious as a lot of young ladies are. My daughters are very studious, no one had to teach them that. It it’s it’s impeccable. Like, but my son is a big mess. He’s like, wants to move quickly, and the development stages are different. And so um, we often affirm that in secular education, and then boys are like, well, I’m not an artist. And then there’s all these art these guys that are maybe become artists late in life because they kind of found their bearings for it, or contractors, or whatever. But it’s like if we didn’t focus so much on those kinds of outcomes and we started to uh encourage the kid who wants to tear up cardboard and make objects and sculptures, uh, you’re actually cultivating something necessary in him that deals with perseverance, with patience, gentleness, strength. I mean, both boys and girls need this, and the arts can bring those requirements out into outcomes that both satisfy and raise questions about what could be done next. And there’s so many things in our learning that that don’t do that, you know, that you know, depending on how how our children are being educated, broadly speaking.

Arts Skills In Modern Careers
Sandy Zamalis 43:13
How much do you think the arts infiltrate future jobs today? I mean, you just talked about being asked to go into a hospital and just observe um and figure out what they were missing. Um and I’m sure it was things like are the walls the right color? Is the furniture giving off the right comfort and care that a person in our ward needs? Um, those kinds of things. But um because what I’m hearing you say is that we’re missing this key piece of creation, but art has infiltrated every job sphere. And I would argue, like in the age of social media, content creation, video making, um, just even AI, um, to be able to detect. Detect AI versus real art. Like it’s infiltrating everything. So having having an artistic eye or learning skills in that realm is becoming more and more important for our own.

Ryan Lauterio 44:11
Yeah, you think about you think about like even something like um X-ray technicians. And I’ve been in those rooms, and it’s like it takes a certain eye to actually observe what’s happening there. And they’re dealing with volume and space and density. Those are all qualities and properties that you study as visual artists that you become intimately acquainted with. It’s much like everything else in that way. And you’re you’re really exactly right. The um the future of jobs is going to require uh more agile, uh, wholly competent people that have a better grasp of their humanity than not, especially as Christians, because that’s what’s under attack. And um the ones that can steward that complexity through competency are the ones that will be in charge. And so um, so the world is creative in that sense. It it it’s what it is. Like if you’re gonna be a contractor, you’re gonna need to know how to do advertisement. I mean, like you just name a field. You read books, you’re thankful for people that know print layout. We we have a publishing company. Like, if you don’t make it legible, I can’t read it. I teach the people that design the letter form so they correspond to each other so you can read. Like, we just don’t think about it. So there are so many job opportunities, um, both job opportunities and job creation. And I think that that’s going to become more and more the thing because so many people are forfeiting embodied knowledge. They’re not going to know how to do anything. And so the church is going to be, I, in my prayer, in my mind, primed to be loving responsibility takers uh that are bringing blessing in these areas. We need to tell better stories. Um we need, we need to um cast a better vision. Like I said, the world can’t pick what we haven’t made. If we don’t make it, it’s just not there for us to choose or for anybody else to be confronted by or blessed by.

Sandy Zamalis 46:10
So um I think Veggie Tales is a great example of that, right? Like before Veggie Tales, I mean, Veggie Tales took over the world in terms of like like cartoons and you know, catchy songs, and like they really understood, I think, what you’re saying.

Ryan Lauterio 46:27
Yes. And it didn’t take much. I mean, it wasn’t the highest produced thing against, say, like a Disney production. And that’s that’s the astonishing thing that I think I wish we’d understand is we’re patron, we’re always a patron of someone or something. And it’s not whether but which. And so in my mind, I’m like, Peter walked on water and he didn’t have the Holy Spirit yet. What are we missing? We’ve got the world that can transform things in the most ungodly way in 50 years. And we have the church and we have the Holy Spirit, and the enemy wants us to feel as though we’re impotent and and our children are his. Far less the theoretical or the theology behind it, but much more the practical. And so there’s videos for every class for parents, uh, Bible studies for kids that integrate with the lessons, and that goes all the way through K through 12. And the hope is that it at least can be really affordable and make a wide dent in uh affirming the image of God in kids, letting them think more about a good theology of creation, uh, how the gospel is at work in their life, and that Christ really is a good Lord. Um, and that you don’t have to be divinely appointed in some special way to know that you’re actually made his image and you are a problem solver, you are an imaginator, you are a creator. Like that is not up for grabs. Like you make creative choices every day. When you’re driving down the street and the road’s blocked, you have to think, do I go here or there? That’s a creative choice. That’s an imaginative choice. It’s just not the kind we put on a wall somewhere for spectacle. Um, so and I so I think the hybridizing, if you want to call it that, of creativity into other fields, a lot of fields are recognizing their lack. So, you know, time is money, maybe it’s a terrible way of saying it, but time is money, perhaps. And um like surprise is new knowledge and and um growth is you know, uh the acquiring of new knowledge, right? In some kind of way. So there’s something about needing surprise to be factored into your life. And you know, from a Christian standpoint, like revelation breaks in. Well, if you don’t make space for the breaking in of new knowledge for surprise, you won’t grow. And so um we can’t all do it all. So I know it’s gonna cost, but like if we could do it in a way where we could bring something in a really affordable way to bring some surprise so that there’s new growth, uh that that’s our desire, you know, through through our program.

Discernment And Red Flags In Media
Dr. Amy Moore 50:02
So as we wrap up, um, are there some tips that you can give to parents um that are potential red flags to look for when they’re you know interpreting images and art that’s already out there in existence? I mean, because we could think um the same person could create a very similar image, but coming from two different philosophies or you know, worldviews. So how do you tell the difference that parents know what to look for?

Ryan Lauterio 50:40
That’s a that is a that is a phenomenal question. That’s a big one. Um knowing is tricky, right? So knowing there is some kind of you have to, it’s like a lexicon of knowing that has to grow with the thing that you’re in front of. Like your, you know, your vocabulary is growing as you’re exercising your vocabulary and reading. Like those two things are always happening. So that would be true with visual art as well. Um, some of it starts by take a child like my daughter, like I’m solidifying categories that we know uh are good uh in in in tangible ways. So, like I said, the tree, I’m connecting her to all the things that are good givens that we can know and trust reasonably, reasonably. And so that you’re building into them uh an awareness of what is good. So call it good. If God said it was good, call it good. So they they they’re connecting that. Um and then honor their questions or um uh impulses when you when they’re coming to something where maybe it’s a little more ambiguous. So affirm it and then raise the question. Do you you know this is what I do with my kids? Well, are you sure that’s all that you see there? How do we how do we know that one? And if they have an answer, then it allows them to answer it. But if they don’t, then they’ll go, what do you mean, Dad? Why are you asking? Well, look at this right here. Did you know that this is made from this person and they’re trying to say this thing? And I and I I use my wisdom as much as I have it to walk them through those moments as they’re happening. So it’s it’s wisdom on the spot. It’s the walking with Jesus as I as as my kids walk with me and taking those as they come. But I’m building their awareness up with what God’s already abundantly given me so that prior to those moments, there’s there is a um there’s some built-in infrastructure for making uh discerning judgments. Um, and then some of that happens through effect. Like, for instance, somebody could make something that’s meant for like their intentions weren’t great. They’re like, we all have things that were made not by Christians that we’re very thankful for. So that’s there. That’s that’s just very possible. Um but taking a little time in talking about things after you’ve encountered it, or preemptive to encountering it. So being proactive when it’s a discrete thing that you know is going to be uh uh a potential thing you have to talk about. So preempt the conversation, follow up the conversation. What did you think? Cultivate wisdom in them. You know, wisdom is from above, pray, pray for wisdom with them. Let them see you pray for wisdom. How do we know this? Lord, thank him for the wisdom he gives you. Do you got to know your kids? You know. Um but um the larger answer to your question is like a class. I mean, there’s so many categories for, and it but here’s the here’s what I will say to you though is um it it’s it’s absolutely possible to look at paintings and look at art and understand them, know what their effects are, know what the affects are producing, and you can look at the mechanics, the dynamics, um, the compositional thrust. Uh, you can do with movies, songs, film. It’s actually knowable. It just requires the tools that gain you access to that kind of knowledge. And when they have the when you have those tools, you can unpack the thing and you can you can show, you can demonstrate your knowledge to them. And then the person who doesn’t have the tools can hear it and say, oh my gosh, I can see exactly what you’re saying. So it’s to take away the boogeyman completely from realms of subjectivity that are far less subjective in the way that we think that they are. So there’s very much ways of accessing uh the nature of things and being able to understand it very well. And uh we just have not, it’s old knowledge, it’s it’s pre-it’s pre-modern ways of looking at the world, you know. Um it’s like if I could combine a little bit of that and some medieval cosmology where people are a little more excited about the cosmos, that would be a great time, I think.

Ryan’s Programs And Where To Find Them
Dr. Amy Moore 54:57
Absolutely. Ryan, what do you want to leave our listeners with?

Ryan Lauterio 55:00
Well, my gratitude and thanks. I I don’t know which way the car I didn’t know which way the conversation was going. I feel like I might have been a little too theoretical, but something about like you have my favorite title to a podcast, the Brainy Mom’s podcast, is like the coolest name for a podcast. And so I was like, let’s go. Let’s get I am so ready for this. Um so I would just say, you know, two things like uh, you know, like our program is I we’re asking people to get behind it. Uh it’s being shown um in a oh, it’s in Cambodia, a hospital in Cambodia. So we’re working with them because they’re using the program to preach the gospel. So God’s using our programming ways to edify and build up homeschool families, but now there’s all these other opportunities. And so when you subscribe, you’re you’re all you’re blessing your family, but you’re also blessing the mission of this going wider and us being able to continue to produce more content because it’s a subscription-based platform with family-friendly content and then a K through 12 curriculum and an art history from a biblical worldview. So we can really name the demons that are at work uh throughout art history and understand them and see how they’re influencing us now and what God’s done about it and what he will do about it. And that’s four years worth of art history and biblical worldview. And there’s fun drawing classes, and so at maidmakers.com you can find that. And it’s like $120 right now to subscribe for a whole year, and you get all of K through 12. You could have 30 kids and it’d still be 120, and all 30 kids could access to everything on the platform. We’re all homeschool dads who really care about it. And then there’s some people that are maybe adults or kids or high schoolers just out of high school. We have the Maker Institute of Studio Art and Theology. We have professors studying with us, animators, people just out of high school, aging from 18 to 60, and that’s a three-year hybrid program, and it’s going really well. We have our big convocation tomorrow night, and um, and uh God’s sending people from all over the world to come study with us. So we want to provide as many opportunities as we can to make a real uh enduring change, which is like a mustard seed, you know, it’s gonna take time.

Dr. Amy Moore 57:14
So and how um how can our listeners find more about that? Like what’s your website?

Ryan Lauterio 57:19
And yeah, so if you go to uh makerinstitute uh.org, um you can find more about the Maker Institute, and then you can email us through a connect uh link there and and you’ll myself or one of our other colleagues will get it and I will meet with you. Um and then made makers.com, um, you’ll see some extra videos you can watch and you know some sampling stuff. And uh yeah, and then there’s an app you download if you subscribe off the website. Um, and then you can go to our Instagram accounts. Um so if you look at the Maker Institute of Studio Art and Theology or MadeMakers.com, we always have a lot of fun stuff there. And we have a fun YouTube channel as well.

Dr. Amy Moore 57:55
Awesome.

Sandy Zamalis 57:56
You haven’t gotten TikTok yet, though, right, Ryan? I tried to get you to get on TikTok and you know what happened?

Ryan Lauterio 58:02
You you and you you convinced us to do it, and then we had a technical problem in my tech, I could not make it happen. And so you you actually convinced me that we need to do a TikTok. I just don’t want to be on TikTok like doing like dances. I don’t know. I’m like, oh no.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:18
You don’t have to do that.

Ryan Lauterio 58:19
Yeah.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:19
So Sandy started out doing some dances, but I haven’t seen her do well. Actually, I don’t even look on TikTok. Sandy runs our TikTok uh account because I don’t understand it.

Ryan Lauterio 58:29
Um I don’t think she dances anymore. Yeah, yeah. Just you know, I didn’t know only when I’m inspired. Yeah, joyful, a joyful dance. Yeah. No, so we I’m I we actually tried when you told us it’s so hilarious. And we spent forever in in the middle of our booth, and our Curtis, our guy’s like, I can something would not work. And so this is a reminder that we are gonna get TikTok to work in it’s gonna be amazing. It’s gonna be amazing.

Dr. Amy Moore 58:55
Maybe Sandy will offer to help you.

Ryan Lauterio 58:57
Yeah, Sandy will help. Thank you. Thank you, Amy, for uh offering that.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:02
Okay, absolutely. I’m sure she she’ll thank me afterwards for offering her up to you. Exactly. Follow volunteering her. All right, we gotta close the show. Uh Ryan, thank you so much for being with us today, for blessing our listeners um with your wisdom and your experience and really um deep understanding um of where we are in this space. Uh so thank you so much. We really appreciate uh you taking time out of your busy schedule.

Ryan Lauterio 59:31
Yeah, thank you for us today. Extreme honor and privilege and love what you’re doing and look forward to uh more times having fun as booth partners.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:40
Yeah, absolutely.

Ryan Lauterio 59:42
Let’s go.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:42
Yeah, go.

Ryan Lauterio 59:43
Yeah,

Closing And How To Connect
Ryan Lauterio 59:45
all right.

Dr. Amy Moore 59:45
Listeners, we love it that you choose to spend this hour with us every week. If you want more from us, you can find us at thebrainymoms.com. You can sign up for our free monthly newsletter. And we are on social media, including TikTok at the Brainy Moms. And you can find Sandy at the Brain Trainer Lady on TikTok as well, where she no longer dances. Look, that’s all the smart stuff we have for you. We will catch you next time.