Summer: It Changes Everything!
Summer – it’s here, as of this weekend, Memorial Day. Three months of changed seasons, and with it changed experiences. Summer’s here, and I have Summer goals, and Summer activities, and Summer thinking. When Summer hits Seattle, everyone comes out of their Hobbit holes. The streets are filled with people taking it all in.
I know we are chided all across the nation for having so many gray days, but real, true Seattleites go out anyway. We love misty Spring rains; when it’s warm and there’s a rain shower of fine mist falling, and we don’t care that we’re in shorts and a T-shirt.
58 Days of Sun
According to KOMO 4 Weather, “Seattle only averages 58 sunny days a year with, on average, about 10-12 for each of the summer months so that doesn’t leave much left for the other nine months. Indeed, Seattle and its 220 overcast days ranks as the cloudiest major city in the U.S. and only ranks a little behind Forks and Astoria, Ore. of major weather stations that track the data.” So when the sun does come out, you can bet we Seattleites are out soakin’ up the vitamin D.
This whole sense of a seasonal shift gets me looking for new creativity. There’ll be Street Fairs, Farmer’s Markets, and gallery openings in abundance. It’s the energy that gets me excited. I tend to get out more, something I’ve been lacking lately.
Creative Permission
Summer seems to be a permission season for me. The change of season seems to fuel new experimentation, seeking new ideas, methods, and techniques. I’m going to be building paper-making equipment, mould & deckles, pulp tank, and vertical press. I’m going to be experimenting with various materials and methods to make paper for my collage work, my journal covers, and maybe journal pages – we’ll see what develops.
I’ll certainly be painting and drying new batches of hand-painted paper-stocks for art making. This is best done when the weather’s not so cold out there in the garage. Besides, the paint dries a whole lot faster.
I’ve set some new goals for both my online ETSY site – Fingerprints, and for show & sell opportunities of a growing body of new work. Lately I’ve been focused on making Copticbound Journals. The last batch I put into the bolt press numbered 15; that’s 30 new covers, and 60 new signatures (sections) of pages. I love stitching these journals together, it’s so relaxing, giving me good thinking time.
Your Thoughts;
Do you have Summer art-making plans? Does the bright, new energy of Summer move you into new creativity?
Discussing Our Role as Artist’s: Part 1- God’s Invitation
This post is the first in a series discussing the role of God’s Faith-Driven Artists in the Church and the world. These are just rough ideas that, over time, are maturing and becoming clearer to me. While these ideas are rough and only loosely formulated, I thought I would share them and ask for your views. What do you see as the role, in the world and in the Church, of Faith-Driven Artists?
God’s Invitation
As Believers, we are God’s living invitations to the foot of the Cross (1Peter 3:15). We are not His Holy Warriors here to change the world. Ridding the world of evil and sin is God’s job through Christ Jesus. We Believers are God’s hand-written, gold embossed invitation to the world to come to the foot of His Son’s cross of redemption. The responsibility is upon all who believe (Matthew 28:19), to so strongly reflect the grace and love of Jesus that some may ask, “Why are your so steady through the tough times? Why are you always so up? Why doesn’t life seem to bug the hell out of you?”
Our art therefore needs to be a truthful expression of the grit and grace of the human enterprise. It also must be, in some way, a loving invitation from Christ to a hurting world. The phrase, “in some way” is used very broadly here.
I’m not in any way telling my fellow artists what to make or how to make meaning in the name of the Lord. I’ve read my share essays written by presumptuous theologians dictating what art should and should not be. I’ve personally encountered Christians who believe they need to tell me how to use my gifts to his glory. I’m not adding my voice to that crowd.
It’s evident however that in our creative work, the world-view of who we are and what we value is indelibly infused into our work. The two, our world-view and our art, cannot be separated, nor can our faith. If we’re diligent in our walk with God, that vital and eternal relationship will, in some way, be evident in the work.
What I See
I see faith driven artists then as walking upon the same knife edge that Jesus walked while here among us. The great lamentation most of us in the faith-driven arts have encountered is that the secular/unbelieving world often complains that our art is “too religious.” And further, the Church often complains that our work is too worldly or secular. Both, of course, are mere excuses in an attempt to sideline God’s creatives as somehow irrelevant.
Christ constantly disconnected Himself from the political or merely religiously driven agendas of the powerful people around Him. He avoided the efforts of zealots wanting to hijack His mission and use Him as a king to liberate Israel of the Roman occupation forces. Christ also fiercely reprimanded the Leaders & Teachers of the Law from hijacking the faith of the people and to promote themselves as religious gatekeepers.
I see us, the faith-driven creatives as walking the same knife edge; that of preventing our work from being dumbed-down into secular impotence, and avoiding it being acquired and manipulated by the Church.
Your Thoughts
If future installments I’m going to explore what seems to me to be our role as we relate to the Church and to the secular/non-believing world. I hope you’ll weigh in with your thoughts, views, and experiences. Oh, and please remember, this is a discussion, not a debate. Let’s respectfully leave room for all views.
Please, ask first…
A reminder: All of my posts here on Creative Harmonies are protected by copyright law. If, beyond brief quotes, you wish to copy or use this material, please contact me first at lcurtiss54@gmail.com.
Thank you!
Gettin’ It Right!
I love problem solving in my art-making. I love tweaking, and trimming, and refining my process. I love watching the work improve with each new little innovation I learn and apply to the work.
This process of improvement is not a quest for perfection, but of excellence. I’m going to try to stay away from any discussion of the perils and pitfalls of so-called perfection. I’ll just say that the pursuit of perfection is nothing more than a futile dead end.
PURSUING EXCELLENCE
A very long time ago, I chose to pursue excellence with all of its twists, turns, and variations. And what that means in my handmade work that there are variations (not “imperfections”) in the work. These variations stand as a testimony to the maker’s hand in the making. I love the fact that, try as I might, the joins and seams of my collage quilt-block pieces are somewhat uneven. I enjoy that elements don’t match-up precisely, try as I might to make them do so. When I’ve finished, I see the variety of “marks” in the work because I made it all by hand. I love that. Marks of the maker is the inspiration behind the name of my ESTY store – Fingerprints. It’s also a faith thing with me; that God’s hand is everywhere in His creation.
MY PROCESS
Lately I’ve been building my 4-Panel Collage Quilt-blocks – I call them Quads for short. I got to thinking about what it takes to make just one of them and realized that there’s a boatload of hand-work involved.
I begin by painting the papers; 18 x 30-inch sheets, onto which I paint visual textures using donated (upcycled) latex house paints. I must have some 80 or 90 cans in various sizes, and with various colors. I love latex because it covers like acrylic, but it mixes and washes like watercolors. It’s incredibly versatile, and I’m keeping it all out of a landfill somewhere.
Once the paper-stocks are dry, trimmed and pressed for a week, I cut each collage piece according to the quilt-block pattern I’m following. Allowing for some edge overlap, I develop an assembly process for each design so that I achieve a well made block.
These blocks are glued-up onto either Masonite panels for single block artworks, or onto upcycled file folder card. The “singles” as I call them, are given a finish, framed, and sold. The rest of the work goes into the larger quad-pieces through a series of combining, cutting, and working with all of those “patches”, just the same as a quilt-maker does when doing a quilt top.
There’s a lot of thinking time when I’m working on these pieces. There’s a lot of mental energy spent thinking and re-thinking through the step I’ve just completed, the step I’m into, and the step I’m working toward.
MENTAL MOMENTS
In those mental moments I’m always having to tell my judgmental left-brain to just shut-up and go sulk in the corner. This is right-brain time and I don’t need the criticism and fear. It’s amazing to me that it takes this kind of mental discipline to quiet the judge/critic, even as my hand is approaching the work with another glue-backed piece.
“You’ve got to get it ‘right’!”, I hear, and I just block him/it. I think, “I am getting it right – not ‘perfect’ but excellent, and right.” I remind that little left-brain punk that it’s not an artist. Right-brain is the artist. It’s kind of like having a bold bullying kid going up against a gentler, quieter kid and having to defend the gentler one. I don’t isolate my right-brain, because the conflict teaches me to make choices about which one to “listen to”.
It’s what Betty Edwards teaches in her masterwork. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. Her entire thesis rests on teaching readers/students how to silence the left-brain, activate the right-brain, and know when that has happened.
YOUR THOUGHTS?
What’s your inner judgmental conflict like? How do you deal with what’s so often been called the “inner-critic”? What resources do you use to raise your self-confidence, and maintain it amid the risk-taking of creativity?
Faith in the Movement
I’ve had some really wonderful conversations lately, and I’m very excited about the future of the movement. What movement, you might ask? I’m talking about the Faith & Arts Movement. For me, an awareness began back in 2001 when I attended a Church Drama Conference here in Seattle. It was sponsored by our own wonderful Taproot Theatre Company.
IN THE BEGINNING
I listened intently to the Workshop Leaders. I picked up every piece of literature I could lay my hands on. The three biggest gifts I got from that gathering were; 1) an awakening to the fact that there was an on-going dialogue about the convergence of faith & art; 2) that there was a reason I bristled at the term, “Christian Artist”; 3) that author Madeleine L’Engle had written a highly praised book, Walking On Water: Reflections On Faith and Art.
I quickly got my own copy of L’Engles book. I highlighted passages, tabbed it, and even found Biblical concepts she was talking about and noted them in the margins.
It’s been 11-years since that life-changing conference. In that time I’ve done 3-years of theatre in a church, 7-years of leadership with a major Christian theatre company, and have now segued into my own visual art practice. What I’ve learned along the way has been priceless, and God and I are continually mining those hard-won, extremely difficult experiences for clarity, and vision.
I now know the difference between faith and mere-religion. I have a tougher skin and can accept secular criticism of being “too religious/spiritual.” I can even handle challenges from fellow Believers who call our art “too worldly”, or worse. I know why my fellow faith-driven artists and I shun the terms “Christian Art” or “Christian Artist”. I know why “good enough” simply isn’t and why God deserves the finest work I can possibly produce.
I read everything I can lay my hands on about this Faith & Art Movement. In my most recent reading of the blogs I follow, I’m hearing from many quarters that what once was a cacophony of disappointed, frustrated, often infuriated artists of faith, has now matured into an actual movement. It has no single leader or organization, but is without doubt directed by God’s own Holy Spirit. This is common ground we share with one another, and it’s not just an American movement either. There are creative brothers and sisters of faith all over the world participating. It’s absolutely amazing.
LANDSCAPE TRANSFORMED
In a recent StoneWorks interview, CIVA Executive Director Cameron Anderson said; “Forty years ago, especially in the more conservative parts of the Protestant church, there were only a few books on art and faith—notably by writers such as Francis Schaeffer, H. R. Rookmaker, and Madeline L’Engle—and no supportive national organizations. Today, this landscape has been transformed! There is interest and support on many fronts including, but not limited to, books and blogs, conferences and journals, arts-related undergraduate and graduate programs, and local and national exhibits.”
I’m excited by my fellow creatives who are thinking about and responding to a growing awareness that our faith in God ought to be at the center of our art practices; that God is sought as the source of what is made/performed; that tangible changes in art circles, in churches, in theatres and galleries are evident.
I sense a momentum building toward a future day of critical mass. When that will happen, or what it will look like I do not pretend to know. In the mean time I am seeking to join the conversation. I pray that my own art practice will result in changed lives to God’s glory. I read books, blogs, essays, and articles. I seek fellowship with other faith-driven artists. And the intimacy of my own ArtRoom Studio, God and I work together to interpret, translate, and communicate the messages He has for me to convey through my art-making. I do the work. He gets the glory. It’s awesome.
LINKS
Here are just a few links to resources you may find nurturing and nourishing. For more possibilities, please check out my blog roll in the side-bar at right. The plethora of resources available today can be overwhelming, so may I suggest that you simply skim and glean what seems meaningful to you in the creative work you’re pursuing. You’ll often find wonderful lists of meaningful links on these sights as well.
Christians in Theatre Arts (CITA) – http://cita.org/site/
Christians in Visual Arts (CIVA) – http://civa.org/
David Taylor’s Diary of an Arts Pastor - http://artspastor.blogspot.com/
IMAGE Journal – http://imagejournal.org/
International Arts Movement (IAM) - http://www.internationalartsmovement.org/
StoneWorks – http://stoneworks-arts.org/
YOUR THOUGHTS
What have been or are your experiences with finding your way to the convergence of faith and art? Where are you showing/performing your work? How do you find nourishing, nurturing friends, fellowship, and conversations?
Tweakings
Collage Minis / Handpainted paper collage / 5.25" x 7.25" approx. / (c) 2012 Lewis M. Curtiss jr~
In the last couple of weeks I’ve concentrated on getting my websites linked to one another (Art Making & Social Media). Things didn’t work correctly at first, even though I followed the instructions. It’s just something about me, I guess. Anyway some very helpful folks at ESTY Support walked me through it and on the third try, voila, I was connected!
I’ve been reading a few art marketing blogs, and my gleanings have lead me to evaluate what it is I’m offering as finished art works. This is more than just mere marketing and promotion, it’s about my need to take a second, third, and fourth look at my God-given mission; That my art practice will result in changed lives to God’s glory.
My reading has helped me to articulate what I physically create and why, as well as figuring out where and how I’m going to “show & sell” what I make. I make 5-lines of artworks and will eventually be selling them in 2 different venue contexts. I forget where I heard it, but when it comes to selling artworks, context is everything.
Decorative Beauty
I make Coptic Bound journals, Collage Minis, and Collage Quilt Blocks. These three lines of art-works fall into a decorative realm because that’s what they are – decorative. They’re fundamentally made to offer some beauty to the lives of those who buy them.
The journals are idea/memory catchers (Books & Bindings). The Collage Minis are an affordable, approachable collection of unique, one-of-a-kind pieces of personal art. They look great on a desk or table, or in groupings on the wall. And third, the Collage Quilt Blocks, are single-block collage works based on traditional quilting designs rendered in contemporary collage.
These three “lines” of artworks are my “creative solitaire”. I make them in batches, and really enjoy the spontaneous process of making them. And while they’re complicated to make, the creative decisions are something I do quickly, without a lot of thinking. I follow my instincts which allows me to a re-grounding of creative spontaneity, an important instinctive skill (Process and the Journey).
Meaning, Purpose and Story
The two bodies of work I make in the meaningful/purposeful category are my Quad Quilt Block Collage pieces (24” x 24” approx.). These are large embellished collage quilt-based pieces. A series of works are in development. And lastly I’m developing a body of concepts for Collage / Mixed-media paintings. These will be narrative, story-telling works coming as soon as late this year.
I can only spin so many new plates at a time (Balance & Productivity). Lately God’s Spirit has urged me not to spin so many new plates at one time. I’m to develop my art practice in healthy steps, making adjustments along the way. That’s the only way it’s is going to grow and remain sustainable. Heavens, I’m still struggling with how to best use this blog in the service of my creative mission; That my art practice will result in changed lives to God’s glory.
Which reminds me of something I’d tell cast-members in the theatre productions I’d direct; Everything, every line of dialogue, every movement, every gesture has purpose and meaning. It’s no different for me in this context of making visual art. All of it, in one way or another, points to the fulfillment of my mission. Hence the tweaking.
Mid-Course Corrections
I love this process of setting of to purposefully accomplish a goal, and at regular intervals pause to reevaluate. These mid-journey course corrections keep me on track, help me to adapt. They keep me focused on the main thing as the main thing.
It’s all up in the air, and for me that’s a huge change I’ve made over the last five-years. I used to be rigidly unchangeable, unadaptive, and laser-focused. I have missed a whole bunch of healthy opportunities and serendipity along the way. I was so blasted insecure that I’d muscle my way toward the goal only to find that I’d usually missed out on better choices. I’ve loosened up a great deal.s
So I tweak, I plod, I spin one new plate at a time and to remind myself, to focus myself, I continually ask myself “Why?”
Your Thoughts?
What do you do in your creative life/art practice to discover and re-discover the main thing? How do you focus and remain focused, and yet remain open to really great serendipity along the way? Do you think as much as I’ve described here about what you’re making and why you make it?
I’d love to hear from you.
Process and the Journey
Water Garden - Latex paint & Wallpaper on Masonite - 18"x18" - (c) Lewis M Curtiss jr~
I’ve turned yet another corner in how I make what I make. Every time I turn a corner of innovation (making something “better”) it gives me pause. I tend to turn back and, for just a moment, enjoy just how far I’ve come on this particular journey.
With each new “generation”, perhaps iteration is a better word, of the work I make; with each simpler, more powerful, process of making, I am liberated. I am also exhilarated, because each new step I take in the journey represents new creative possibilities I hadn’t encountered before. It’s almost as if the art itself is alive and maturing, which it is in a way.
I am, of course, a living-breathing artist. I get into the studio 6-days a week and joyfully tackle the practical process of making meaning from the mountain of materials I have at hand. But I am, as all artists ought to be, endowing the work with a small part of me. I mean, you can’t help it. Give three sax players the same tune to embellish with their solos and you’re going to get something that is distinctly “them”. In that way our art is alive.
Being a “living” thing, process becomes journey, and journey is process. The work seems to mature as does this artist. And that’s part of what I love about being an artist; I am always growing because I am always being challenged to make meaning more powerfully, more concisely, and more succinctly. It’s what theoretical mathematicians call “elegance”. It’s like enjoying a good glass of Port. Time has removed much of the water and concentrated the essences, bringing forth a powerful bouquet of aromas and flavors to be enjoyed.
Perhaps that’s why artists who’ve been working at their art for a good many years make it look easy. Well applied experience brings out a confidence and an ease when working. Experience also teaches that to remain open to new innovations of expression deeply enriches the work. Again, process is journey, and journey is process.
I began these Collage Quilt Blocks I make back in 2007/08. I was seeking a new personal visual art that I could create that was original. My first works are overdone in many ways; heavy handed, if you will. But each generation has become lighter, more balanced, and now is taking on entirely new forms of expression. As I streamline the process of making, there is more room in the work for meaning.
I don’t know if I’m making any sense to you. But it seems that as I loosen my grip on what I’m doing, and how it gets done, the work itself has more room to breathe and to speak to me. As I become less heavy-handed, using less brute force to make what I have intended, and instead simply “dance” with the materials, I find the work takes on a life of its own. Together we become something more than when we began the process.
Journey as process. Process as journey. This whole thing; this dance I’m so privileged to take up every working day involves my relationship with God, my attitude toward myself, and a humility in the presence of the creative process Himself. In the end, it seems, that not only is a work of meaning made, but we are as well.
What have been, or currently are your experiences with the on-going maturation of process and journey in your art practice?
Balance & Productivity
Accidental Splendor by Lewis M. Curtiss jr~
You’ve seen them at variety shows, and circuses; plate spinners. To great fanfare and energetic music they place long thin rods into a base on the floor and proceed to balance a plate atop each by spinning it. They begin with maybe four and by the end of the act they’ve got eight, ten, maybe twelve or more plates up there spinning away. The suspense of this show is that the performer must run from one plate to another whipping the rod round to give its plate the spin needed to stay up there. The grand finale is that, for a mere moment, they can actually stop long enough to take a bow before rushing along the line of rods collecting their plates without dropping a single one.
I don’t know about you, but as a working artist and a global thinker I can sometimes get too many plates spinning. These gifts of being both global and a philomath are driving forces to my art practice, but unless I channel them somehow I break far more plates than I spin. I get far too many “ideas” about what I might make. I get to thinking about how to show ‘n’ sell my art long before I’ve even created any. It’s frustrating.
In the last several of weeks though, I’ve finally got some of this discomboobulation figured out (which is why it’s been so long between posts here). I’ve found that if I mix just the right amount of disciplined art-making time, with just the right amount of flexibility I can actually get the work made without losing other tasks between the cracks.
In the past I’ve tried everything from rigid schedules, to no schedule and everything in between. I’ve set digital reminders (like egg timers) to tell me that it’s time to go here, do that, and make this. In that milieu though, the uninterrupted serendipity of creativity simply hit the floor. Then I gave up entirely and just did what seemed to be the right thing to work on at the moment.
For example; Have you ever gone onto the internet specifically looking for one thing, but getting drawn down various other fascinating bunny-trails, and after two or three hours of fascinating wandering, discover you’ve gained nothing? Being a philomath it happens to me all the time. So how do I organize myself in ways that enhance how I’m wired AND get the best art made at the same time?
It took a lot of experimentation but, I am now trying out what I call a Work Guide, and so far it’s been wonderful because I’m getting good work done and lots of it.
Coptic Bound Journals
I found that the artist in me needs regularly set aside hours of uninterrupted, focused, making. I need to be free of concern for other tasks; learning, marketing, portfolio, CV, etc. I need to know that none of these other important items will be overlooked or forgotten. I also had to ask myself what the most important thing about my art practice really is. It’s about making the very best art I can at this moment, and yet I’m not a creativity factory. I’m not doing this just to “produce”, hence the gentle, uninterrupted art making time. The solution God gave me is wonderful in its simplicity.
I now commit to making art for at least 5-hours every morning beginning at 8am, and I will work on only one of the three types of art I am currently making. On Monday & Tuesday, I bind books. On Wednesday & Thursday, I make Collage Quilt Works. On Friday & Saturday, I make Collage/Mixed-Media Paintings. After lunch each day, I review my other commitments. If there’s nothing needing my attention, I just keep going with the morning’s work.
The exciting thing for me is the juxtaposition of both sacred / don’t interrupt me / must do the work art-making time, and the fluid / open-ended / serendipitous flexible time of other tasks and commitments. When I get to my afternoons I can rest assured that the Main Thing was tended too – Making Art for that day. In the afternoon I’m free to go on an Artist’s Date (Julia Cameron), or other refreshing, creativity nourishing outing. I’ve done the work and I can “play” if I want to without any guilt (art-journaling / photography / sketching / drawing / reading).
It all reminds me of Twyla Tharp‘s wonderful book, Creative Habits: How to Develop and Keep One. She uses habits, what she calls “rituals”, to get her started, focused, and prepared to make meaning for the day. Come what may, good days, lousy ones, she goes through her rituals and gets the work done. It happens because she protects her creative self and her process through meaningful, preparatory habits / rituals.
My old friends . . .
I’m sorry Julia Cameron, but I must delay my Morning Pages for five hours until after I’ve made my art for the day. Anything that needs attention, like a wonderfully nagging great idea, is parked quickly and briefly onto a note pad and I get right back to the making. The Making of Art is the Main Thing, everything else in my practice is in support of that fact.
So far it’s working really well! Oh, there’s my 8-o’clock alarm. Sorry, I gotta get to work!
How do you deal with your own productivity in balance with all else that you do and are? What works for you? Do you know how you’re wired for learning and creating and are you caring for it?
I’d Like to Think About Hand-Made
I’d like to think that as the things I make enter and live in someone’s life in some way our spirit’s connect. I’d like to think that someday when I’m gone the objects of art and craft which I’ve fashioned will retain that connection, whatever it is.
I’d like to think that the object(s) itself, having been fashioned by a human-being, rather than a machine, carries something of me with it into the life of the the person who possesses it. I’d like to think that they will always value the nuances of the object(s), the so-called imperfections, seeing them for what they are; marks of the maker.
When I handle something handmade, whether from past generations, or from an art studio or gallery, I am holding an object which has been thoughtfully made. A person did far more than merely design this object. They also fashioned it. They gathered their materials and guided them into an object of meaning. I enjoy the impressions of the maker; their marks. In fact I look for them; brush strokes, penstrokes, tool marks, hand impressions. I like to imagine them gathering their materials, and perhaps without much thought, through years of experience, guiding an object of meaning into being.
I’d like to think that, in some way, I’ve made some kind of precious impression through the object(s) I create; to have transmitted something in common with the owner(s). I’d like to think that my work is valued, not only for the sustainable, up-cycled aspect of my art practice, but that it is seen as something which interprets, translates, and communicates meaning, either mine or theirs.
Certainly I want to make a good/decent living at my art practice. But I am far less interested in fame or fortune, and far more interested in leaving behind a substantial body of work which continues to transmit meaning. With the singular, personal objects I’m privileged to make, I’d like to think that the connection between our spirits, my patrons and mine, will be both valued and eternal, perhaps for generations to come.
Planning: Overrated!
I’ll show my hand here at the outset; I’m not against planning. I’m against my former anal-retentive, hyper-controlling methods of getting creative things done. Can you imagine how much of my own art-making I’ve stifled simply because I’ve “planned” what I’m going to make down to the n-th degree?
At the gallery (ArtFx) last Friday evening I got to speak with people about my work. Many were engaged by the power of the colors. Others were taken by the impression of movement. Some of them moved in closer and mentally dissected the work wondering how it was made.
“How’d you do this?,” they’d ask. Do you sit down and plan what you’re going to do?”
“No,” I’d tell them. “It’s all an act of faith. I trust my instincts and feel my way forward not knowing what I’m going to get.”
That’s a really big change for me in the last few years because it hasn’t always been like this. Up until recently I’d plan everything trusting entirely in the plan and the planning process itself. What I was doing was completely left-braining a right-brain process. I was rationalizing, naming, labeling, and categorizing the work, all the while thinking that something creative would emerge from the process. I was a really tight person. You would not have wanted to spend much time around me. Heck, I didn’t even like being around me back then.
For me it was a control issue. Brought about by the way I was raised, my hot-button was having control of my life taken from me. How I was raised; who I had become through that horrid process had imposed itself upon my art-making. It was killing me.
What I’ve recently discovered in the growth out of that tight, closed thinking is another dimension to the convergence of faith and art. It’s one thing to be a faith-driven artist; making art in the company of the Lord. It’s another to believe not only in God the Father through His Son, Jesus, but to believe in the creative process from within that milieu.
In the nourishing and nurturing environment of faith in God, I am asked to trust, to surrender, and to really believe in what I do not yet see on the panel. I am asked to simply choose colors, forms, and movement as He and I “dance” in the studio. And, I say it again, every single time I open the gluing press the next morning, it’s all-ways a surprise. I am always amazed at what was made even though I was present for every moment of the making.
I don’t plan anymore. These days I simply gather, ruminate, and respond. My blood pressure is almost ten-points lower. My joy is high and growing daily. And my faith and confidence in this additional convergence of faith and art is an endless exploration of discovery.
In the end that’s what I told folks at the gallery about the art I make; that it’s all-ways an act of faith, and a process of discovery. And you know, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the studio, what does faith look like for you? Where do you find convergences of faith & art? How does that work for you and your own art practice?
2012: Rampin’ It Up!
This theme of releasing the past, turning around and facing the future has been something the Lord and I’ve been dealing with for a while now. The biggest gift I’ve been given this time round is that in order to move on it’s important to simply make a new tomorrow. It’s about not looking back, not making repairs, and not re-working what’s already been lived and gone. It all reminded me of the song Don’t Stop, by Fleetwood Mac.
A number of years ago, during a rehearsal break, a dear theatre friend came up to me and the Music Director, and feeling tremendous release from former criticisms, she just hugged us. With tears in her eyes she said, “I feel like I’ve come home here.” She’d been carrying around the burden of opposition and rejection of her art for a long time. She had nearly given it all up until she auditioned for us. That first season she played major roles in, I think, three of the four productions we did.
Later on returning the gift she introducing me to Julia Cameron and The Artists’ Way. In those pages, which I’ve long since dog-eared, annotated, and highlighted, I found another level of my own release from the burden of opposition and criticism. It lead me to both art-journaling as a faith practice, and to “artist dates” for creative nurture.
It is art-journaling which now has become my devotional time with God. The writing is spontaneous, prayerful, even meditative. I simply write what He and I are working through at the moment. These days I fill my journals with praise, gratitude, challenges, celebrations, in both imagery and words. It has become the richest source of inspiration I have for the artworks I’m making.
This year, I’m not looking back. God has brought me to this place of love and safety and I no longer need to turn around in regret wanting to “fix” something back there. This year I am facing forward, ramping up the art practice and looking forward to a tremendous year of blessings.
For another perspective, from blogger, writer, actor, Jeff Berryman: Thriving and the Now Factor.
Here’s to a new year; for you may it be filled with God’s richest blessings of abundance and deep, creative growth. And do me a favor, won’t you? Let me know how you’re doing, what you’re overcoming, and how you’re growing through it all.
Being & Becoming an Artist
I’ve been hovering around several blogs commenting on 1) being an artist, and 2) becoming an artist. I need to begin here with my own exploration of being/becoming by stating, that so far the best handles (definitions) I’ve arrived at for what art is, and what an artist is are these; ART is highly-skilled creative expression, and ARTISTS are persons who must make art.
I don’t mean to sound all uppity and intellectual. It’s just that I’m struggling to find my own way. It seems to me being/becoming is a huge aspect of what art and art-making’s all about; discovery and self-discovery.
ART: Highly Skilled Creative Expression
As I’ve written here before about Contemporary Art, there’s very little about it that is either “highly skilled”, nor “creative”, nor “expressive.” And it’s certainly not for lack of training. Most of those who participate in the contemporary art world have earned at least a BFA, and many more hold MFA’s. So what I’m talking about has less to do with training, than well developed, well applied skills of creativity, excellence, and meaningful expression.
ARTIST: Must Make Art
I’ve worked with, talked with, commiserated with creative people at all stages of their creative careers. One central discovery which has lead me to my own definition of what I call a “true artist” is the idea that a true artist must make art. From Julia Cameron, through Madeleine L’Engle, to Eric Maisel, right into my own experiences and conversations; everywhere I turn some highly creative person is suffocating from a lack of opportunity to make their art. I won’t bore you with my own story of this experience except to say that it was arduous.
Which brings me to the part about discovery and self-discovery; the art-making I do, and that I watch others make very often contains the adventures of discovery and self-discovery. It seems to me that well applied discovery, implies growth, and with growth comes heightened abilities; the development of talents, and better skills.
This is what I dislike about the oft re-quoted saying that, “Everyone’s an artist.” I believe that everyone is creative, but certainly not that everyone is an artist. There’s only a handful of people who experience the suffocating effects of being denied (or of denying themselves) the opportunity to pursue highly skilled creative expression. As well, that same handful are driven to make meaning; to interpret, translate, and communicate.
Being
As for “being” an artist, well to my mind, there must be a willingness to pay the price of discovering and developing one’s skills and talents. I’m one of those artists who struggles with my creativity. It doesn’t come to me as it did to either Mozart, or Conan Doyle, already finished in their heads. No, I’m like so many others I encounter; we have to search, and experiment, and make wonderful mistakes, and feel our way toward the finished work. It’s a journey akin to chopping my way through a jungle of fears and excuses, the judgements and opinions of others, and my own self-doubts to uncover something of creative meaning. It’s a process I’ve discovered about myself, and have come to embrace it.
I’ve also found that “being” an artist is a life-choice; a 24/7 openess to input, ideas, and inspiration. It’s often a perception of the world others usually find odd, different, and even peculiar. It’s a willingness to grapple with this stuff and figure out a way to live with it, to get it out in some kind of creative manifestation, and share it with others.
Becoming
Becoming an artist; well to my mind, that’s a life-long pursuit. It’s a choice to get into the trenches and commit to whatever it takes. I remember popping out of college, degree in hand, feeling so finished and complete. Like my peers I was ready to make my mark in the world. Because school was behind me I figured that I had learned just about all I needed in order to get out there and make my art. Are you laughing yet?
In the daily process of art-making, I quickly learned that what I left school with was merely an ability more akin toward imitation than to originality. Little did I know that the wondrous journey of discovery had only begun. And I think most artists begin this way. I see it in young artists of all media all the time; they begin with what little they know, and that’s usually only what they’ve studied in school. I was no different.
It has taken years, decades even, to be willing to make this mistake ridden, experiment laden journey to find out who and what I am, and then to see my own creative voice emerge from all of that experience. And on it goes, the daily joy of discovery, and development; of growth in self-awareness and abilities.
Some additional perspectives and insights;
Making Meaning | The Cult of Genius | Sarah Jane Gray
jeffberryman | Don’t Forget What You’re Doing | Jeff Berrymen
Stone Works | The Need to Pay Attention | Luci Shaw
Would love to hear your views and experiences;
How do you realize the idea of “being an artist?” What does that mean to you? How do you pursue “becoming” in your art-practice? As it pertains to your art-practice, what does “being” and “becoming” mean to you?
Creative Journeys: A Path of Discovery
As I look forward from the current showing I have up to what’s next for my work, I am reminded of the creative journey I’m on, and how I’ve come to this place.
A lot of artists I read about talk of how they’re engaged in “process,” or how the materials drive the “making.” While I agree with both of these motivations, mine is much more about the discoveries which emerge throughout the journey of making. As long as I’m willing to get up, get into the ArtRoom, and become open to the possibilities, I am taken on a journey of, “What about this? What if we added these? How about this? What’s that do for it?”
I find it useful to revisit my creative journey simply because it causes me to make course corrections; to realize the fertile place from whence came my current work; to appreciate the fact that I’m not stagnate, but am developing new elements to the work I’m making. I revisit the journey, less to justify what I’m making than to reground my choices. It’s a lot like checking and rechecking the road map along the way.
What’s most fascinating to me about checking where I’m at and where I’ve come from are the serendipities along the way. Art, when it’s merely nurtured and not mauled into submission, has a tendency to take me places I’ve never imagined. These discoveries are priceless gifts because I’ve chosen to live in a creatively nourishing and nurturing place.
The creative garden doesn’t grow unless it’s got lots of chicken pooh and compost all thoroughly turned in to the soil. The garden needs seed, sun, water, and frequent attention, and without forcing it into being, the fruits of my labors emerge. They timidly break the ground seeking the light of life. They begin simply, undeveloped, and hungry for water, air, and the light of day. Like a new fruit tree, these new works need pruning and gentle guidance to encourage them to produce the best fruit.
Last Friday night while at the ArtFx Gallery responding to questions, one young lady asked me if I know what I’m going to be doing next. I told her that I’m incredibly excited because I have a sense of the next steps out ahead of me, and I can’t wait to get back into the ArtRoom and begin working on them. Through my Morning Pages (Julia Cameron), art journal, and sketchbook, I always have something creative in development.
The future – the near future – is filled with many possibilities waiting to be explored. It is in those explorations that I will find new works, new processes, and new bodies of work.
Are you on a creative journey? Is it something you review from time to time? How do you feel your way forward creatively? Creatively, what are you nurtured and nourished by?
Have Courage. Don’t think too much. Live and create in Faith.
After the Party
You know how it is when you’ve hosted a really good party. There’s bits and pieces of stuff lying all around; shreds of streamers, dirty dishes, empty glasses. It’s the stuff of friends and family having been there. It all looks just as if they have simply had fun, said “Goodbye,” and walked away. Their presence and laughter almost hangs in the air.
That’s what the ArtRoom looks looks this morning; a brush rests in the water pot, the hair-dryer sits on the worktable, a press block has not been put away yet. It’s a scene of something having just happened. It bumps the heart for a moment. My usual reaction to the morning after a party is to savor the memory; to hear our guest’s voices again; to capture the fleeting scent of the moment. In the end, a party becomes an ethereal memory in just a heartbeat.
The really great thing about art-making is that it’s up to me to start another “party.” It’s my job to straighten up the ArtRoom a bit and get back to making more artworks, because in art-making, the fun never stops.
At the ArtFx Studio Gallery, where I currently have a show on view, I’m available on the evening of the First Friday ArtWalk there in Fremont. I get to answer people’s many fascinating questions and enjoy their reactions to the body of work on display. I love listening to them because I learn a lot about their perceptions to the work. I get to share in their own personal revelations as they engage the many pieces hanging on the wall. And in this case, since these works deal with the art of quilts, I’m gifted with their stories about quilts; everything from how they make their own quilts, to their recollections of quilts they own. It’s priceless.
But there’s still the morning after the party. The ArtRoom’s empty. There’s no new work on the tables waiting for the next steps of making, and there’s no regret, remorse, or after-party let down. I simple get to make more. I get to begin at the beginning and make more paperstock, and create more collage quilt blocks, and group them into new and exciting pieces of new artworks.
What happens next is entirely up to me. The Gallery Reception was fun, and there’s another just a month away, and I’ve moved on to the next generation in my work. But there’s little time to sit and savor what’s done and gone. Right now it’s time to get back to work creating art that engages conversation, contemplation, and brings a little beauty into people’s lives.
Happy Creativity!
Featured Artist at ArtFx Studio Gallery – Nov 03 through Jan 29
I have been given a great opportunity and am the Featured Artist at the ArtFx Studio Gallery in the Fremont District of Seattle. The show will run from November 3 through January 29 where my Collage Quilt Block artworks will be on display and for sale.
There will be an Artist’s Reception on Nov. 4 from 6-9pm. This opening coincides with the Fremont First Friday Art Walk, so there will be loads of art to see and open galleries to walk through.
If you’re in town, I’d love to see you at the reception.
These Collage Quilt Blocks are my own abstract reinterpretation of that timeless artform, quilting. I’ve long been enamoured with both the design and storytelling qualities of traditional quilts. And at a major Quilt Show in Portland, Oregon, I was blown away by the awesome imagination of those who produce art quilts. It’s as if they’re painting in cloth & fibre.
Having spent time around quilts, pouring through coffee-table quilt books, and just taking in this incredibly beautiful artform, I found myself 
seeing the quilt as collage. My vision had changed and I no longer saw merely beautiful blankets, but fabric assemblages of color and texture. By following my creative nose, I found myself creating these visually powerful blocks. They’re based on traditional forms which I have researched and chosen specifically for their movement and energy.
I use upcycled materials, hand-painting my paperstocks, and accepting gifts of surplus latex paint and masonite panels. I find working in latex pigments to be every bit as agile as both watercolors and acrylics. I can do almost anything with these paints, and they end up on walls as art instead of in landfills somewhere. To my mind these works are a win-win.
I work with the large sheets of textured paper just as one would fabric. I literally crop and cut each individual piece, working with the visual force of motion and energy found in the paperstocks. When it all comes together, it’s always a surprise. I love getting into the studio in the morning and opening up the stack press to see the dried, pressed, finished piece.
I hope to meet you at the reception, but if you can’t make that, this work will be on display for the entire holiday season. Stop by and tell ‘em Lew sent you!
Happy creativity!
Art: Fearfully & Wonderfully Made
To respectfully borrow the title of a book by Philip Yancey and the late Dr. Paul Brand, I believe that art also is fearfully and wonderfully made, especially art driven by one’s faith in God.
I’m talking about the courage to overcome my anxiety about which color to use, which tool to choose, and how to cut the pieces for another collage. I’m talking about beginning a novel with only the slimmest of clues as to what the thing’s going to be about. I’m talking about, as choreographer Twyla Tharp does day in and day out, entering the studio with little more than courage and an emotion to begin moving in meaningful ways. We artists are terribly anxious creatures, and the steps necessary for us to even begin work has spawned a pile of books of encouragement from the likes of Madeleine L’Engle, Julia Cameron, Luci Shaw, and Twyla Tharp; all of them written specifically to help artists unlock, unblock, and begin.
Like Tharp, most of us have our “rituals”; those practices we perform as we approach the Great White Room, the blank screen, the fresh canvas, or the sheet of clean bright paper. We show up to make marks of special meaning, a sacred act of faith in itself. We show up daily to begin anew the journey of making, and very often we do it without a hint of what’s wanting to be made. We begin in faith, and fear, having been entrusted by God with a special opportunity; to make meaning of something He has specifically given to us.
Perhaps for those of us who are empowered and driven by our faith; perhaps the very fact that it is God who has chosen us and entrusted us with something He wants the world to experience is what makes us anxious. “Will I get it right? Will I futs it up? Am I listening? Have I prayed enough, on my knees, in my journal, or during my morning walk? Will my efforts bring Him glory? Am I even listening to God, the work, the process, the materials?” For any of us who have or are raising families, constant demands upon us has its own set of strains. Being one of God’s creatives can feel like a heavy responsibility. Certainly for me it’s the central most important one, for without God, I have absolutely nothing to say.
Even the process of making is fraught with anxious moments. Each step must be tried to see if it works, and if it doesn’t, like a scientist, I take notes, and begin again to discover how to get what I want. We fight with our materials. We struggle with our processes, our ideas, and even ourselves as we grope forward in faith, unable to see ahead into the future.
And why do we do all of this? We do it because without struggle; without the often anxious question of, “Will this work?”; without some sacrifice of our-selves into the work, it has no life. It’s a dead, technically excellent, irrelevant, meaningless… thing. Without a drop of our own metaphoric blood, the work is little more than a blank eyed rag doll.
I once attended a concert and was excited about getting to hear Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue. The pianist was introduced as some former student with credentials in a list longer than my arm. He approached the piano, seated himself, and I closed my eyes in anticipation. What I heard was perhaps the single most sterile, dry, technically “perfect” performance of that piece I’ve ever encountered. I was sad, not for Gershwin, but for the pianist. He gave us nothing of himself. N’er did he push the tempo, or draw it in emotionally allowing us into his soul; taking us along with him through a sky of starry notes. He just left us there in our seats, alone, disconnected, abandoned. He gave nothing of himself, but instead hid fearfully behind his technical prowess.
I believe we artists of faith need to be scared out of our wits, by the work, the ideas, by life, and yes, even the Lord Himself. For me, these discomforts remind me that I am alive and working with Him who has made me. I am working with Him who has entrusted to me a small piece of meaning to share (to enflesh, as L’Engle puts it). I am reminded that I am a creative scribe to the Creator of the Universe, and it’s a privilege. I am empowered, engaged, enlarged, and alive because of my utter need to rely upon Him who made me, and who has a divine plan for my life and work. I believe I live out a part of that plan every time I make meaning (art).
I’ve learned that instead of “conquering” my fears and anxieties, I can turn them into creative energy, something which causes me to invest more myself in the work; to in effect, give
it life. More than the hope and prayer that the work will be done with excellence, I work so that God will be glorified, and that someone, somewhere will experience a meaningful question as a result of engaging that work.
It’s a privilege beyond measure for me to work as some small reflection of the Creator God who set the stars in the heavens, who paints a sunset, and who moulds the mountains. For me, to live this life as one of God’s creatives, is to be driven forward by the deep, abiding intimacy of our relationship. In this collaboration, I embrace my anxieties and move forward anyway because every single time I open the press stack to have a look at the final work, I am amazed at what He and I have made together.
Engage. Enlarge. Become.
Featured Artist: ArtFX Studio-Gallery, 11/03/11 – 01/29/12
I’m working furiously (happily) creating new works for an upcoming show at a wonderful little studio-gallery in Fremont, ArtFX. I’ll be posting more details here in the near future, but for now, I’m just creating and getting organized for this event. I haven’t been this “nervous” since my last performance on stage in a production of Little Women. I played the father, and enjoyed every minute of that as well.
Showing my work at galleries is somewhat new to me. I’m learning a great deal about the discipline of producing a body of work, preparing them for showing, getting the photography done, and the Artist’s Statement finished and polished. It’s not that this is overwhelming by any stretch, it’s just a brand new phase of my creative career. I’m looking forward to all that I will learn, and to preparing for the next show, wherever that may be.
What excites me most about this phase of the work right now is that with each stack of these Collage Quilt Blocks I create, it’s like Christmas morning. I get up and unpack the press stack to see the finished glue-up phase and I’m surprised everytime. It’s the same way with hand-painting the paperstocks I use; after they’ve hung to dry for 3 or 4 hours, it’s always a surprise to me how they have turned out. The textures are both tactile and visual, embodying colorful form as well as physical terrain.
The fact that I’ve given my best at making creative decisions, and done my best at the craft of making each piece of the best quality I am capable, is no guarantee that I control the outcome. I am merely along for the ride as it were; gathering materials of myriad abstract form, cutting them into geometrics of well established quilt patterns, and combining them into new expressions of the quilter’s art. That’s why, for myself and many other artists about whom I read, art-making is in every way an act of faith. There’s a need to trust that the work will, in effect, find its own way. I’m just there to help with the birthing process.
Every sheet of paperstock I paint, every collage block I produce is one of a kind. No two even resemble one another. It’s a little like looking through the telescope at a different
galaxy every night, they’re simply all different from one another.
And so, day in and happy day out, I make beauty that I hope will be meaningful to others. Whatever a person sees in any single piece is their own journey. I’m just glad that I played a part in helping them along the way.
May your own creativity blossom. May you too share it with all of us.
A Fresh New Look
As I tear into a new season of art-making, and exploring the convergence of faith & art, I though about giving the blog a brand new “paint job”. Here it is, and I hope it makes your reading experience far more useful, meaningful and engaging.
Creative Harmonies is about faith driven art, about faith driven art-making, about living the life of one of God’s faith driven creatives. It’s about my own journey through this realm at the convergence of faith & art, as well as the experiences of others whom I’m pleased to meet along the way.
I don’t use a regular schedule to post, but I do post about things of tremendous interest to me, and I hope to you as well. And since the season of my elder care responsibilities is behind me, I will be making more art, and with that, posting about the journey far more often.
Seek first Him and His kingdom. Make meaning. Share it with all of us.
American Visions and “Contemporary Art”
I am watching American Visions by Robert Hughes. It’s a wandering journey through the American psyche via our art and architecture, and it’s very telling. These two great institutions offer us a truthful vision into the historic depths of the American mind. These 5-episodes explain very well where our American thinking comes from, and why. It’s an amazing journey into an America our own history books do not, and will not offer. It’s a critical program, but that’s because Hughes lifts the romantic veneers we humans so often adopt to reveal demonstrable truths. He does get a thing or two wrong, revealing his own leftist worldview. But he can easily be forgiven that because he does not abuse his audience. Instead he gets on with doing what he set out to do, and rather balanced I might add.
This program is wonderful stuff, and for me, a visual artist, it is the best way to grapple with American history. It’s a panoramic portrayal of the American human landscape as seen through art and architecture, artforms which were reactive creations of our beliefs and values. Hughes is an extraordinary writer, and his narration is excellent, accurate, and clear. His choice of words is one of the delights of watching this impressive, and important series. I suggest that it become a mainstay in art history and American history classes of this country. I will watch and watch again, because I am certain of discovering new, deeper revelations with each viewing.
Something I sense in Hughes’ documentaries is an indication that most of the art of which he is speaking is a response to what’s going on at the time; a response to the context in which the artist is living. The art in the series is reactionary, being driven by the times in which it was conceived. Today however, it seems that contemporary artists are working diligently to drive society, culture, and especially governmental institutions. It’s almost as if artists today are no longer content to merely encourage, recommend, or suggest, but to force, insist, and demand. In this context, maybe most of what is deemed contemporary art, simply isn’t. Instead it is more akin to propaganda; a demand that the rest of us uninformed neanderthals ought to get with the program – whatever that is.
In watching, I am reminded of my younger days in which I could not penetrate the words of either the Bible, or the works of William Shakespeare. The Bible, I have been able to comprehend deeply. Shakespeare still eludes me, and I no longer try.
For me, the world of art in general has been just such an elusive construct. Robert Hughes, and others, have helped me grasp a good deal partly because I am a show and tell learner, and because I repeatedly view and re-view these documentaries. I learn best through repetition. Mine is not a mindless viewing. I am always listening deeply, and thinking about what I’m being shown. As I walk, one step at a time, closer to penetrating the “literature” of art, I am coming to understand where art comes from, why we make it, and what it means to us as human beings.
Because art is a product of the human enterprise, in our unique self-examination, it seems to offer ideas of what it means to be a human being in our own time. I think this means of explanation, even more than fads & fashions, is what drives much of the change we see in the art-making of each generation. Each has its own concerns, beliefs and values, and they’re not always cumulative. More often than not, the newest art movements are rebellions against the last, seeking to create a “new vision”.
Visual and performing arts are often physical manifestations of social philosophy. Lead by the artist, we seem to be looking for answers, trying to make some sense of life. The contemporary artist, seems however to have abandoned his fellow human beings for selfish introspection. This retreat is at the heart of my complaint about so much of the drivel so-called contemporary artists give us today. Contemporary art seems to be little more than a material rendering of one’s personal philosophy. It abandons all meaning, all worth, all highly skilled creative expression. I hate most of it.
I am a maker of story for people, of people, and by people. To my mind there is nothing of greater importance than the relationships we forge in our lives. Who cares about what some self-absorbed halfwit thought of a decade ago in light of our deep need for one another. It’s ironic, I think, that so many so-called contemporary artists seek mental solitude, and yet empty their already empty minds onto the stage of art galleries for all to see. It’s as if they have some deeply valuable secret of which they will only reveal the container and not the contents. I suppose we’re expected to become jealous of whatever it is they have holed up in their “works”. I’m rather inclined to call out, “The Emperor has no clothes!”
Art without an audience isn’t. And if the viewer cannot engage these deeply cryptic, self-absorbed, introspective offerings, then there may as well not be any audience at all. It is the relationship between the artist and the audience which makes this transaction meaningful. One without the other is simply mental masturbation and useless. Who writes anything except that someone, someday will read it? Who takes a photograph, in the context of making art, only to make the print and throw it into a box so that no one will see it? Who writes a play or makes a film only to shelve it so that no one views it?
Likewise, who, in their right mind, creates hyper-convoluted, cryptic nonsense within the empty confines of their own head, only to put it on display and bore us all to tears with a prolonged verbal explanation? The thing ought to speak for itself and if it needs prolific explanation, it’s an indication to me that there is nothing of any worth in it. Certainly there is nothing of any merit in the heart and mind of the person who created it to be shared with an audience.
Give me narrative, or at least the illusion of narrative so I can find my own, but don’t expect me to make an effort with no semblance of context or story. If you’ve nothing to offer me, why should I waste my time paying any attention?
Crankin’ Up
It’s been the better part of three years since I have been able to really develop some momentum in my art-making. In those three years I have worked in the service of our family, caring for our fathers. Both are gone now and those responsibilities are past. It’s time to move into the new future of producing a new body of work, and of producing new types of work.
I am enjoying the blessings of various breakthroughs. I am enjoying a deeper, more profound focus; something that’s difficult for a global thinker. I am enjoying a closer, more meaning-filled walk with my Lord & Inspiration. It’s a time of being released to go make meaning in the middle of whatever is happening around me. It’s a time of realizing the hidden blessings of inspiration buried in the simplest acts of life.
I have discovered that I am deeply drawn to storytelling in Collage/Mixed Media. This visual vocabulary has been with me in several forms for sometime now, and I have only recently connected all the dots. I am no longer searching for my “how”. I am now free to discover my “what”, and that too has driven a number of wonderful breakthroughs.
The basis of all of my art-making over the years, has always been grounded in storytelling. The human enterprise is vast, and stories are to be found everywhere. In fact, it was storytelling which drew me to art-making in the first place. In the revisitation of those memories, I have come full circle.
As a kid in elementary school, an orphan living with my Aunt and Uncle, I was intensely engaged by the tiny, incredibly detailed world on the stage of a professional marionette troupe. Riveted to that little stage, I realized that I too could make worlds of my own choosing; I too could tell stories others might wish to escape into. In all of the art-making media in which I am trained, storytelling has been the connecting factor.
I have also reconnected with that little boy, of so long ago, in another important way. I am completely free to awaken that young, courageous, unlimited imagination. I am free to imagine foolish things again because survival is no longer an issue for me. I am free to wander through the cosmos seeking stories and interpreting, translating, and communicating them to others. There is nothing like adversity and challenge to give us struggles we wish to share as stories.
That is the alchemy of art which both Ellen Dissanayake and Julia Cameron write, each in their own way; that willingness to intercept life’s ups and downs, and to make some sense of them. Making meaning, interpreting the significance of an aspect of life; that’s what the artist does. It’s not that we have all the answers – most of the time we haven’t a clue even what we’re making. But we’re willing to listen to the work, to the materials, to the process, and from that intimacy is born a piece of art.
Ramping up, developing momentum, takes time. I’m finding it’s a little like a steam train as it begins to
move. The chug, chug, chug of the engine begins slowly and then develops a regular rhythm. That rhythm picks up a steady pace as the engine, pulling its cars, develops momentum. I am finding my own daily rituals, and habits. I am finding that showing up everyday and making meaning, in some way, contributes to the works at hand, or is an investment in some piece in the future – nothing’s wasted.
It feels good to be moving again. It feels really good to be making again, and to have found a specific medium at which I can develop my skills by myself. Oh, I’m no hermit, I just mean that my art-making is both personal and portable. It no longer disappears into memory when the projector is turned off, or the last curtain is closed. What I do now will certainly have its collaborations, but the process is infinitely simpler; more direct; perhaps even, for me at least, more meaning-filled.
Natural Connections & Creative Liberty
I was re-watching one of my favorite inspirational programs on PBS,Craft In America. The episode was Landscape. I noticed how many of the artists spoke in terms of connections to the natural world; spiritual connections. It got me thinking, and in today’s Morning Pages (Cameron), an idea, a realization just came gushing out of me.
For artists working in natural contexts, we are very often in harmony with God’s creation. We tend to be aware of the cycles of the sun and the moon. Even if we live in the city, we tend to feel the passing of the seasons. We appreciate and admire nature’s power, beauty, and mystery, regardless of scientific explanation. We know that God’s creation is spiritual, that His life and purpose throbs throughout His creation. We feel that pulse of life and as artists working in natural contexts, we fall into rhythm with the respiration of His cosmos. Our inspiration is born from this harmony.
Artists working in exclusively man-made contexts know little or nothing of this all-powerful spiritual connection. They’re often preoccupied with human matters, exploring humanity in and of itself.
I am an artist of natural connections, and I cannot see how any faith-driven artist could be otherwise. Though we live in cities, those man-made fortresses against nature, faith-driven artists must surely appreciate the cycles of the moon and the stars; must certainly appreciate the cycles of life & death in the seasons; must surely appreciate life in all of its forms. Even if nature is not the subject of our art, surely the faith-driven artist in their relationship with God, must feel the rhythms and pulse of life & death, rise & fall, of change & movement of the cosmos and its Creator God. Surely they must.
This could very well be the basis for artists being thought of as Shaman down through the millenia. Here were creative people who see the world and the universe in a startlingly different manner from their neighbors. Here are people who revel in the slightest, smallest, essence of meaning where others find absolutely nothing.
We’re odd. We’re in synchronization with the Cosmos. We’re different. We think, act, and see things in another light. We see meaning and significance where others may simply see an object, overlooking any idea with which it may be imbued.
We’re makers – we’re makers of special (Dissanayake). We capture and record significance on and through ordinary objects endowing them with significance and meaning. We’re often unsure of what we’re saying, but we listen; we interpret, translate, and communicate much of our life’s encounters.
This is why I claim that faith-driven artists are somewhat prophetic. They can see, experience, and understand things others simply brush off as weird. Artists are essentially communicators. Artists are every bit as important as God’s pastors, ministers, and rabbis. While theologians shepherd their congregations, it is the artists who help people make some sense of their daily lives.
Hear me well – I am not against Theologians. I am merely attempting to demonstrate the differing worlds in which theologians and artists operate, and their distinct roles in each.
Devoid of mere religion, artists convey meaning in almost any human context. Artists can go where and say what most theologians dare not even attempt. It would be deemed inappropriate, or offensive. They would not be listened to, much less understood. But an artist is allowed into the deepest, most intimate levels of truth running through the human soul.
Artists can, and often do, present the truth as raw and gristly as necessary. In the works of obedient faith-driven artists, people encounter themselves. We see ourselves in the scenes of a film or play, in the pages of a novel or poem, in the collage or painting we encounter. We don’t need a preacher to tell us. This encounter is personal and it’s deep. Only God’s creatives can go there, sharing joy & pain, happiness & despair, promise & disappointment.
Bound by the confines of the Bible, the Theologian works from inside its pages stretching its contained meanings out onto the landscape of life. Free of the confines of the Bible, the Artist works from the outside, drawing from both life and inspiration of the Word of God. Both, Theologian and Artist work with God’s Word and ways as their foundation, but one is limited by religion, and the other is free of it. Together they allow God to speak through them to a world seeking to comprehend life’s meaning and purposes.
I’m glad I’m not a theologian, but an artist. I’m glad that I get to work outside of the pages of God’s Word, being inspired, informed, guided and flavored by the truth and wisdom living there.
In the Service of Others
I haven’t posted since January and that’s primarily because on the 28th, when my son Levi and I went to visit my Dad, we found him bedridden for 36 hours and nearly gone. Since that episode my work with and for my Dad has become an almost full-time commitment. I walk through the hospital and nursing home corridors carrying my case-log notebook, and am often asked if I work there. Yeah, I think, I do work here. I’m an amateur/volunteer case-worker for one. It’s all joy though. It’s all glory to God.
February and March saw us nearly lose Dad twice, with trips to ER and then into the hospital for stays. April found him enduring rehabilitative physical therapy, and now mid-May finds him at Heaven’s Door.
There are two principal discoveries I’ve made in the midst of these hours; 1)Waiting is a vital stage in every life of faith & art; 2) Inspiration can be found in the most “art-less” of places.
Waiting / Resting
I have long been one of the most rest-less, impatient little cusses on God’s good Earth. I bought-in, hook, line, and sinker, to the mainstream idea that progress is only realized when we’re moving forward, conquering, achieving, consuming, building. Sitting still and knowing that He is God didn’t seem to me to be progress. Sitting for hours in hospitals and nursing homes can bring that kind of attitude to a gentle halt, or it can drive you nuts, as at first it did me.
I’ve come now to cherish these waiting/resting times, and to see them as rich opportunities to drive depth in faith & life. I’m not talking about mere pauses, but wholesale haltings of what I have on my plate at the moment. These resting / waiting times, for me, can last days, weeks, or even months.
The lack of a living spiritual depth is the premise of Dick Staub’s book, The 
Culturally Savvy Christian; that America is populated by people of faith whose relationship with God is miles wide and one inch deep – vast expanses of shallowness. Push against such a person with even a light breeze of adversity and down comes their life of faith like a house of cards.
The stamina, staying power, and strength of a deep and abiding faith is exactly what I want, and frantically ploughing through church services, bible studies, small groups, and 30-second devo’s will not achieve it. Like healing, I’m finding that depth takes a great deal of quiet time to develop, and I’m loving it.
Permit me to close with L’Engle’s thought on the vital need for faith-driven creatives to stop, look, & listen. In her book Walking On Water, L’Engle talks of her own meditative, quiet time, what she called being time. While her idea might seem little more than daily quiet time or meditation, on a larger scale, being time can become what I am experiencing. I’ve worked with/for my Dad’s needs for a couple of years now, and in that time God has shown me the real value of resting/waiting, much of which, in my own ignorance, I’ve missed. But no longer.
Living Inspiration
The stuff of life is the stuff of making art itself. This is my second discovery, something I am certain most artists already know. However, for me this is a brand new connection, and here’s why.
I have long bemoaned that I don’t have a studio, or a workspace even, and that I cannot get any smaller with regard to my art-making. I don’t know how it came about, but I credit the Holy Spirit; suddenly it occurred to me that the very experiences I am witness to in the midst of helping my Dad is being lost daily as I moan and groan about not having art space, or art time, or whatever.
Suddenly everything Dad experienced, everything my grieving & celebrating family is experiencing, everything that’s going on with me, is the stuff – the inspiration – the material of new works. My idea notebooks are filling with explorations of possibilities and I am seeing many everyday circumstances in a new light.
For example, I see row upon row of elderly and severely disabled being shown far more kindness and attention by Resident Staff members than by many of their own families who so rarely visit them. I realize that our family is fortunate that I have so much liberty, but still. I watch the Staff of both the Hospital and the Nursing Home and see things as I’ve never seen them before.
This reminds me of my own fervent prayers, that I wanted again to hear the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit. And if you’re a L’Engle fan as I am, you’ll realize that hearing God’s Spirit and seeing the world through Christ’s eyes are much the same thing.
It goes along with something a friend of mine sent me in an email. He was citing Leland Ryken and his book Culture in Christian Perspective, when he said,“…a couple of principles I gleaned from… Ryken… No matter how hard artists try, they can’t hide what they truly believe. Your core beliefs will surface in your work in some way.”
I’ve long seen my creative process as entirely separate from my daily living, and like prayer time, I’d have art time. Well, life time is art time, and living is prayer time. Again an idea from L’Engle; For her, she said, to talk about faith in God and about art are one in the same thing. I knew this. I’ve long believed this. I’ve just never known this deeply that life is the stuff of art; I’m talking about the everyday knit and grit of living.
Living With Eyes Open
In the midst of service to my dying Dad – of living everyday life – I find that there is, as Ellen Dissanayake says, much to translate, much to interpret, and much to communicate.
Your Own Journey
What discoveries have you or are you making in the convergence zones of life? How do these convergences inform your own art-practice?
Adversity: A Gift in Our Broken World
“An artist needs a broken world in order to have pieces to shape into art.” From The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok
I was doing my usual research reading and I came across this somewhat startling thought – without challenge and difficulty in the Human Condition, we artists of faith would have nothing to say. We’d have no creative voice what so ever.
Maybe I’m thinking about this because God’s Spirit has stirred me in this Season of Gifts and Gratitude. In this season, I find myself very aware of the terrible ironies often surrounding this time of year.
My son, Levi, and I often chat long into the night about faith, art, and life. In one of our discussions about how tough life can become it suddenly occurred to us that without the character building, life altering, gift of adversity, we artists would have absolutely no voice. We’d have nothing whatsoever to say.
Five Sentence Story Structure
For example, Western literature is linear. Our stories have a beginning, a middle, and an end. At a Taproot Theatre Church Drama Conference, I attended a Play Wright’s workshop lead by Sean Gaffney. In his talk he reintroduced me to the Five Sentence Story Structure. I still have and often refer to those notes from 2001.
The Five Sentence Story goes something like this; 1)The Status Quo, 2) Disruption of the Status Quo, 3) The Hero’s Quest 4) The Impediment to the Hero (The Villain), 4) The New Reality. Since that time, I’ve analyzed dozens of plays, novels, and films using this structure of the Western literary process. It’s linear, and filled with adversity and change. That’s precisely what makes the stories so engaging.
The Status Quo
In the beginning, or at least at one time in the past (flashback), everything was peachy. You can hardly write a story about peachy. Peachy is, well, just fine, pleasant, safe, no risks, no adventure – kind of like the typical life of Hobbits in the Shire.
Disruption of The Status Quo
Then something happens to shatter all of this pleasantness to bits. Something or someone threatens the peace, safety, and well-being of the story’s inhabitants. For Tolkien it was that the Ring of Power had been found and the Bad Guy (Sauron) was not, in fact, dead. In Speilberg’s film, Raider’s of the Lost Ark, the disruption was the sudden realization that Hitler’s goons were looking for the Ark of the Covenant. In both cases, the race was on.
The Hero’s Quest
The heroes of these stories set out on a “quest”, knowing who the Bad Guy is, and knowing what they must do. They risk everything to set things aright once again. The peace takes sacrifice to protect and maintain.
The Hero’s Adversary
The Villains of these stories are also racing to accomplish their own diabolical plans of conquest and power. And here’s where it gets good. There’s tension and conflict, and we love it.
The New Reality
In the end, both story examples are resolved with the destruction, the thwarting, or overthrow of the Hero’s adversary. There’s a New Reality. Lives have been challenged, changed, and even lost in the struggle.
Without an evil villain; without a threat to goodness, and peace, in this life, those of us whose calling it is to Make Meaning would have nothing to say but how nice everything is. And, yes nice, is nice, but…
The Gifts: Change, Growth, Redemption
My Point: Goodness, righteousness, peace, prosperity, love, these and more are all held just that much higher, and valued that much more, simply because we have had to struggle to get them and keep them. Because of their oft rarity, of how hard-won they are, how peacefully powerful they are, we prize them. We cherish them. Rest is only deeply known after great effort.
I don’t care what scale your art presents, personal & internal, or epic & external; I don’t care what medium you work in, we’re interested in your art because it asks questions about the struggle we all know in our Human Condition.
Irony is a Good Thing
Ironic isn’t it? We all want peace, most of us want righteousness as well, and if they were just handed to us without our having to pay a price (or someone else doing so for us) all of our bucolic bliss would be just so much mindless, meaningless fluff. Our lives wouldn’t be worth living.
It seems that struggle, in many ways, keeps us lean and fit. It certainly makes for great stories, because adversity demands in us a change. Adversity makes or breaks our character (the old wisdom of become either better or bitter). And what good are stories with no tension, no possible peril, no danger? What good are stories where nothing is risked, lost, and gained through struggle? Not only are we unamused and not entertained, but the characters we’ve come to read about or watch in performance, would have no reason to exist.
Lacking Ideas & Inspiration? Toddle-posh!
If any faith-driven artist, regardless of their medium of endeavor, should ever say, “I don’t know what to write about -or- to paint -or- to sculpt -or- to dance -or- to compose,” I submit we’re not looking. Adversity, challenge, quests of all kinds surround us daily, and we certainly don’t need the news media to tell us so.
Brief Footnote: Perhaps these explorations into questions of adversity are precisely what drive so many artists into activism.
Your Thoughts?
What do you, personally, think of adversity, pain, difficulty, and challenge? Is it your creative ally? Do you embrace adversity, or flee from it? If not adversity, then what sources of inspiration do you find useful in your art-making?
I love to hear from you.
Blessings ~ Lew
Mako Fujimura: A Letter to the Churches
Makoto Fujimura
This is going to be short and sweet, but I have something important to share with you from artist, author, arts advocate, Makoto Fujimura.
I know Mako has been “in the trenches” for quite some time regarding the restoration of that deeply profound relationship once enjoyed by the church and artists of faith. So deeply committed to the re-emergence of this union is he, that Fujimura and a small group of like minded creatives founded The International Arts Movement (IAM), an organization specifically created to serve the spiritual and creative needs of artists of faith.
Recently, Mako was invited by the Eighth Letter Conference for the Epiphineia in Toronto to compose and present a Letter to the Churches of North America. This is profound reading.
Enjoy. Be Nourished.
Turning Corners: Creating Excellence
I’ve made a deeply personal discovery.
Who we are, what we believe, where we’re at in life all intensely affects our art-making at that moment. That’s really a no-brainer isn’t it? Instinctively all creatives know this: our art is a direct expression of who and what we are at the time we’re creating the work.
I lied though – that’s not really the discovery I made, but almost. Let me tell you a little story.
Suddenly Uninspired
The other night I was out in my “studio” (the garage) putting together the collage quilt-blocks I make. I’ve got an arts faire coming up. As I was working, I began to think of what I was making as a sort of product; the result of a mere manufacturing process. Using the same dozen-plus traditional quilt-block designs, I make and re-make this same group of blocks. Oh, I select different hand-painted papers for each one and combine them in unique ways, but still, I felt a bit like a mere machine.
My Search
The next day I took off for the library to find some new inspiration. I went straight over to shelf 746.46, the shelf of beautiful quilt design books and filled my arms. I returned to our table where my son Levi was busy writing on his laptop, and plopped down a large stack of huge picture books. Most were from quilt shows or museum collections and they ranged from antique works, right up to full-on abstract expressionism.
Pawing through them, I soon realized that I was slip-marking pages of quilts that were only in the modern/contemporary categories. The traditional quilts did very little for my creative interests. Remembering my “mission” to come here and find new traditional designs for my collage-blocks, I forced myself to re-consider the traditional designs.
Realizations
That’s when it struck me, a question lodged in my creative consciousness and begged an answer: Was I done making collage quilt-blocks based on traditional designs? Now, while this may not seem earth shattering to you, for me this was cosmic. Had I actually moved on in my creative pursuits?
I had explored traditional geometrics in long established designs. Their beautifully ordered patterns had served their purpose and gotten me this far in my visual art-making. However, while using my own hand-painted papers, had the safety of relying on established designs given me the the courage and the confidence, to consider creating my own collage works?
Self-Limitation
You see where I’m going with this don’t you? All of us, in our creative lives, face the fear that our work isn’t good enough, that we’re not good enough, that we don’t have any ideas, etc., etc., etc. Some call it “Writer’s Block”, others call it being creatively blocked; whatever name we give it, at some point(s) or other, we all stall-out creatively. We simply stop making meaning.
Maybe we lack the self-confidence, the faith, or the courage to just get on with it. Maybe we’ve been raised not to “waste” time, paper, paint, or clay. Maybe the freedom to play or experiment has been drummed out of us by “Mrs. Freebish” in “art-time”. Whatever the reason, we all pause, and many of us do so for the rest of our lives, layering our disappointment with justifications and excuses.
Self-Justification
I’ve done so. I’ve laid on nice thick, comfy layers of excuse-laden justification as to why I couldn’t make / create / design / paint / collage / think-up / whatever. Julia and Elizabeth Cameron created a hilarious romp into excuses with their small book, How to Avoid Making Art. Read it – you’ll be giggling in seconds.
There are deep life-parallels for me here. My upbringing was very rough and I quickly learned not to take risks, to play life safe. I was taught not to take chances because I might “fail”. But my work homeschooling our children, working with a Christian theatre company, and now in my own visual art have all shown me that to grow I must listen to who and what I am today. To grow creatively, I must to let go of past excuses, fears, or insecurities.
Choices
Once I embraced the fact, the truth, that I can make works beyond what I’ve done before, I found I was suddenly brimming with ideas, and I didn’t listen to my “inner-critic”. The truth of what I discovered is that to grow and move forward creatively I have to gather my courage, take a leap of faith, and simply make what’s trying to be born.
The late Madeleine L’Engle in her book Walking on Water, puts it this way;
The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birthgiver. In a very real sense the artist (male or female) should be like Mary who, when the angel told her that was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.
Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story of a small child. …the artist either says, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses. pg 18
In matters of art, I choose to obey. I choose to gather what courage God gives me, and in faith, accept His commission to move to higher creativity.
Your Experiences
Have you ever been held back creatively by your life’s experiences, your doubts or insecurities? What did you do to break free and move on? What resources do you find most encouraging, nourishing, and nurturing in your pursuit of creative excellence? I’d love to hear from you!
