Meet Tanner Kalina of Saints Alive
“Hey! My name is Tanner Kalina with Saints Alive. I work alongside Alex and Melissa Dee, the true heroes behind Saints Alive. We are mainly writers and actors (but Alex wears a ton of hats on top of that: editing, sound designing, filmography, etc.) I live in Denver, Colorado, but Alex and Melissa live in Bennington, Vermont.” Check out the work of Saints Alive at saintsalivepodcast.com.
CATHOLIC ARTIST CONNECTION: Where are you from originally, and what brought you to your current cities?
TANNER: We started out in Los Angeles as big-eyed dreamers in big bad lalaland. However, the day to day grind to keep our heads above water only to tell stories that consistently undermined truth, beauty, and goodness eventually wore on us. As we continued to come up empty handed with Hollywood's promises, we continued growing more in love with Christ and His Church. There comes a point with our faith when you just have to go all in. We reached that point together and had simultaneous exoduses from the West Coast. I went on to serve as a FOCUS missionary in Colorado, and the Dees went on to serve with Holy Cross Family Ministries. The call to continue creating has kept us just as close, despite the thousands of miles between us.
How do understand your vocation as a Catholic artist?
I do consider myself a Catholic artist. I consider myself a defender of beauty. We live in a time when the idea of truth has become relative and the idea of goodness has been flipped upside down. Beauty, however, continues to penetrate hearts. Artists have a special ability to communicate to the masses and reach people in ways that no other group of people can. It's essential that we don't take the power for granted. We need to use beauty to point back to truth and remind the world what is truly good.
Where have you found support in the Church for your vocation as an artist?
I think the Church recognizes the need for art. I find the work that we do to be quickly celebrated and shared. There's just not enough of us, and the Church is parched for beauty. She craves to be satiated by beauty. Artists have a unique moment in history to really impact the world. We have the Church behind us!
How can the artistic world be more welcoming to artists of faith?
I don't know exactly. I'm going to answer this question in reverse and question if artists of faith need to try and fit into the artistic world. We live in an apostolic age (as opposed to a Christendom age). The Church goes through periods of these, and she adapts the way she runs/teaches/evangelizes to those times. I've been thinking a lot about how artists should approach these different times as well. I think that we live in a time with so much confusion and so much animosity toward actual truth, beauty, and goodness that artists have to be ruthless in our approach. We have to stand by what is good and what is true in our works. This will only isolate us from the artistic world, but that's ok. We can recreate and renew our own artistic world.
Where in your city do you regularly find spiritual fulfillment?
We pump ourselves with prayer. Artists who try and create beauty without returning to the Source of beauty are like surfers trying to hang ten in Kansas. Any chapel we're close to, we will go to!
What are your top 3 pieces of advice for Catholic artists post-graduation?
Create! Pray! Repeat!