My brain is always going. Every moment of the day is spent watching and imagining. I see strangers on the street, and I immediately imagine their background. Characters come to life in the personalities that pass me on the sidewalk.
Observation is both the blessing and the curse placed squarely upon the writer’s shoulders.
We don’t just see the flower, we see the petals – and they dance.
We don’t just see the person, we see the way her hair floats in the breeze, or the wisdom in the lines that fan out from the corners of his eyes.
We hear the song of the birds, and the magic in a laugh that cuts through the air like the like a happy melody.
And when we stop to think about God Himself – well, the image cannot possibly be written in bulleted form. It’s a poem, because God isn’t abstract in the mind of a writer. He is the vibrant orange of the sunset. He’s the rumble of thunder, and the gentle whisper in a breeze. He’s the highest peak, and the lowest valley. He is the soft whir of a hummingbird’s wings, and he is the power behind a lion’s roar.
He is all the color and all the music, and He’s hidden in the laughter of the smallest of babies.
This is what it’s like inside the mind of a writer.
It can, at times, be utterly exhausting.
I am currently enjoying a week away with my family, and the people watching is superb. How anyone makes it through this life without observing the personalities around them is beyond me.
Stories and characters always come to me late at night. When my brain is relaxed and the distractions of the day are quieted, voices come alive in my head. This is the product of an overactive imagination and a mind bent toward story.
The last several nights as I’ve stumbled from my bed to feed Annika, I’ve felt the beginnings of a new story begin to rumble beneath the surface. Words and phrases come to mind as she leans close to me, her eyes heavy and breathing even. The warmth of her body next to mine calms me, and the characters are slowly taking shape.
I don’t know who they are yet, or what story they’re trying to tell, but I feel them bubbling and fighting to escape. After I get her back to bed, I scratch out the pictures that are still fresh in my head on a piece of paper, then go back to sleep as the story continues to take shape in my slumbering mind.
This is my creative process. It’s always happening at night, and it’s slow. The stories don’t tumble out, but rather simmer slowly until they’re ready. And then, when the time is right, I’ll sit at the computer and let the characters write their own story. This is what works for me.
The creative process looks different for all of us. Some come alive in the middle of the night, others in the early morning hours of the day. Some of us need peace and quiet, while others work best to the pounding strains of their favorite bands.
However you work out your creativity, know for certain that what you do takes courage. You’re putting yourself out there each time you create something new. For every story you write, blog post you craft, photo you snap, watercolor you paint, room you design, and song you pen, you take a chance.
When you allow yourself to give in to the creative process, and then you are willing to share your work with others, you open yourself up to criticism and rejection. But you also have the power to inspire a weary world with your art.
It’s scary to give yourself into the creative process knowing that your control ends when what you’ve slaved over is handed to the public. When it’s given away, you are left to accept the adulation or rejection. This is terrifying and exhilarating, all at once.
Yes, creativity takes courage. But it’s also what keeps us creative types alive, so don’t be afraid of the process. Let it take you where it needs to take you. Then hand it over, confident that you were obedient to the craft.
Believe it or not, the world needs what only you can create. They need you to be faithful to the stories and the pictures that call you out of bed. Take confidence in that.
When are you most creative? What is your creative process, and how do you find confidence in the face of rejection?
A few months ago, Tia and I discussed what she’d like for her birthday. She’s growing increasingly more difficult to give gifts because she is entering that awkward stage between little kid and teenager and, truth be told, she’s never been much of a toy kid anyway.
I hate spending money on gifts that they don’t really love, so I tossed out the option of redoing her room as a birthday present and she immediately said “Yes!”
Then I died a little inside because me and decorating are not the most compatible of companions.
The “T” above her bed isn’t crooked. It’s just the way I took the photo. Because I’m awesome like that.
A few days before her birthday, I realized that if we were going to remake her room I had better get on the ball. So I bought a couple of cans of paint, called in reinforcements (thanks, Jenni!), and the transformation began.
The wall color is Benjamin Moore “Jack Frost” and it is my very favorite of all the colors. I’d paint the whole house this color if Lee would let me.
I let Tia sit down and surf Pinterest, then we created her own board so that I could get a feel for what she would like. I hoped to create a space that inspired her since this is the child who is much more prone to realism than imagination. I wanted her room to be a place that she could escape and enjoy. And I wanted her to be able to grow into the space rather than grow out of it again in a couple of years.
The magnetic boards were another IKEA find and she loves that she can decorate the wall herself by moving pictures and cards and magnets around.
I could not be more pleased with how her room came together. She has a small space, so I really tried to utilize it well. I put a small dresser in her closet, and I got rid of all the clothes she doesn’t wear, which left her with fewer clothes and more space.
I’m totally fine with that.
Makes you want to curl up with a good book, right?
I made this little canopy tent all by myself (ALL BY MYSELF!! ME! I DID IT!), and it cost me less than $25. Here’s the tutorial if you want to make one. It’s embarrassing how easy it is. I probably shouldn’t be as proud of myself as I am, but I can’t help it. I’m not a DIY girl.
Tia loves her room, from the IKEA bookshelves, to the reading corner, to her antique vanity that her grandparents gave her for her birthday. The room is calming and sweet, and I do think that it will leave her inspired to dream a little more. It has now officially become my favorite place in the house. Sometimes when she’s at school I go in there to read.
Don’t tell her I said that.
When the whole room was finally finished and put back together, she walked in and her eyes grew wide. “Wow,” she cried. “I love it! It’s so pretty I just want to keep it clean all the time.”
If that happens, then this just might become the miracle room. I’ll keep you posted…
She took a toy marketed toward little girls, and she put the magic back into the doll. She stripped away the intended message, the over sexualized image, and she replaced it with innocence and imagination.
Where once these dolls had no no power to inspire, Sonia brought life and personality to them, and in so doing she awakened the imaginations of little girls.
Sonia is “just a mom.” She had no aspirations to go viral, or to make a business out of recycled dolls. She just had a vision, a creative gift, and the confidence to try something different.
Dear creative mom, do you see the magic at your fingertips? That vision that you have has the power to impact, to move us all, to awaken imagination and inspire joy. Your creativity is needed, and it all starts right there inside your home.
Don’t hide your gift. Don’t tuck away in the closet in shame. Share it. Show the world what you can do.Because creative motherhood is the pulse of imaginative childhood.
Your creativity, your artistry, it matters. That furniture you’re repainting, the walls you’re adorning, the cakes you’re baking and cookies you’re decorating, those words you’re penning, songs you’re singing, canvases that you’re lavishing with color, those photos you’re taking, and the dolls you’re remaking – all of it matters.
Your gifts are necessary, moms. Your creativity is needed. Because who but you will show these children of the digital age how to play? Who but you will give them the confidence to dream?
When motherhood, creativity, imagination, and artistry collide, the result is nothing short of magical.
If you’re just joining this conversation, you may want to read Part I first, then move to Part II for a little context as to how we got to this conclusion.
I stood at the edge of the sidewalk and held my camera to my eye. Through the lens, I adjusted the settings and the focus until I had framed the shot exactly as I wanted, then I pushed the button and in a second I captured a moment in time. It wasn’t perfect, because I am, sadly, not a stellar photographer. But it was hard to mess up this shot.
It was September, 2010, and Lee and I were in Hallstatt, Austria celebrating our ten year anniversary. Hallstatt may well be the most beautiful place on earth, and because the landscape possessed such serene perfection it was difficult to take a bad picture there. I stepped back and inhaled deeply, the crisp September morning begging to be taken in fully and completely.
After a few minutes of simply standing and letting the moment fill us, Lee and I turned to walk back to the center of town, and as we did so we passed a man and his wife sitting on a bench just a few feet from where I’d taken my photo. The man held in his hands a sketch book and a pencil, and I stopped and looked over his shoulder. Lee and I both drew in a deep breath when we saw what he’d drawn.
It was the scene before us, the very same scene I had captured with my camera. This man, however, had captured it with his pencil, and the result of his drawing was magical. The sketch seemed almost alive. Though devoid of the color that made up the morning, the details were so intricate, so deftly drawn by an artist’s hand, that it seemed as though the ripples in the water moved on the page.
That which I captured on my camera revealed the art of creation. The drawing on that man’s sketch pad revealed the art of the created.
I ended my last post on this topic with this question, and so here is where I will pick it up:
If all of creation reveals the Creator, then creativity (as defined by the act of creating) will always begin with the potential to honor God.
Do you believe this? Do you see the both the potential for freedom, and the danger, in such a statement?
As sinful man, our first and natural instinct is always to glorify and exalt ourselves. It began all the way back in the Garden of Eden when Eve was so easily convinced that she could become as God if only she’d eat the fruit. The temptation to be as God is impossible for man to ignore. It is ingrained into our very being.
And so the art that we create, while it begins with the potential to honor God, also begins with the potential to exalt us. This is the danger for the artist. We are prone to bastardize the created things.
We see this in so many different ways. From books to movies, music to dance. From photography to graphic design, and painting to home decorating. Every one of these gifts can point people toward God, or away from Him.
It’s up to us to embrace our art as a gift, and to use it not to our own glory. If we are creating, and our creative gifts do not go against God, then our art is a visual representation of Him.
This means, however, that there is a line that can be crossed when art no longer reveals the Creator, but rather taints His creation. Pornography, exotic dancing, songs and books and paintings that glorify the darkness of this world, all of these are ways that we, the created, have distorted the beauty of God and all His created things.
We are all prone to wander.
Like the man with the sketch book, though, we also all have the ability to see and understand when something created has revealed a picture of the Creator. The difference between art that blatantly captures God, and that which more subtly reveals Him is like the difference between my simple photograph and that man’s stunning sketch. One captured the color, the other captured the nuances.
Dear creative friends, everything you create begins with the potential to honor God. Embrace that freedom. Accept it as a gift, and use your art to paint a picture of the Creator and of all His created things. Do not devalue the power of your creative art. What you do matters, and it has the potential to have gospel impact.
Lee and I circled the podium and, like everyone else around us, our eyes turned upward in awe. Mouths slightly agape, breathless at the sight of one of the greatest pieces of art of all time. We were in Florence, Italy and we were standing in front of the Statue of the David.
To say that this sculpture is impressive is an understatement. It is truly the most spectacular thing I’ve ever seen, and I think I could have stayed in that room for hours studying it. The marble was exquisitely crafted into the image of a man, but what made it impressive were the details. The sinewy muscles of the shoulders and legs stretched made it appear that at any moment, the man would step off his pedestal and begin walking.
Masterful art by a master artist. How did Michelangelo do it? How did he form something so spectacular out of a damaged piece of marble over 500 years ago? Could it be because the artist was also the art and, therefore, the creating was merely an extension of his God-given gift?
Let me explain.
In response to Monday’s post, I had some really wonderful, thought-provoking conversation. Can an artist be a Christian without making Christian art? After a lot of thought, I’ve come up with what I hope is a worthy (and theologically sound) response.
The short answer is this: Yes and No.
Ah, ambiguity. Don’t you just love it?
If you look at the history of the Church, though, perhaps you will begin to better see what I mean. This idea of “sacred” verses “secular,” particularly when it pertains to art, is a modern concept. We began to draw a line of distinction between that which honored God and that which honored the world, and in so doing, we the Church (and in this case, the Church refers mostly to the Protestant Church) set up a false view of life and art, and ultimately of God. We began to claim and preach that anything that didn’t directly point to God, or speak of Him, did not bring Him honor and, therefore, art within the Christian realm was dumbed down.
A friend emailed me after Monday’s post with some thoughts on the matter and his words were good. Really good. I won’t embarrass him by sharing his name, but I’d like to pull a couple of quotes from his message:
“I think the dichotomy that sets [art] up as “intertwined” or “separate” is a false dichotomy. As Christians, everything we do takes place in a renewed, renovated, redeemed, forthcoming, there-but-not-yet, kingdom (on earth as it is in heaven). Therefore, there is no “separate,” as Christ is part of our identity, sealed upon rebirth. EVERYthing is intertwined. The gist of your point, though, on whether the art can be accessed within or without a (somewhat artificial) lens of “religion,” is merely one of public perception, and that’s one that’s changed substantially throughout history.“
If God is the Creator, the painter of this world and all that is in it, the Word from the very beginning of time, the rhythm to which we sing, the measured beat of the poem, and if we are His created beings fashioned in His image, then in a very real sense all forms of creativity have the potential to point to Him.
Do you see the beauty and the freedom in what we are discussing here? My friends, as his created beings, we are all the art.
“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” Ephesians 2:10
When Paul wrote that we were “His workmanship,” the Greek word he used was Poiema, meaning “made or crafted.” Friends, we as believers are the poem. We are the song. We are the beautiful painting. We are the handcrafted evidence of His Creative Power. We create because we were created.
What beautiful freedom to be found in this truth!
What does that mean, then, for those of us who create art that doesn’t explicitly point to God? This is a concept to be broken up in two different ways.
First, a believer can create something that reveals God without ever once mentioning His Name. It happens all the time. Paintings, photographs, novels, music, and so on – all of these can be written, and have been written, by Christians who used their creative gifts to showcase God, without ever once mentioning His Name. Faith and Art are intertwined, because the Poiema is simply living out the craftsmanship of God.
But art can be made that flies directly in the face of God. We can just as easily point to paintings, photographs, novels, music, and so on, that go against the very nature of who God is – so what do we do with this?
As believers we have been given the Holy Spirit, and through the Spirit we have discernment to know and understand and see that which does not bring glory to God. For this reason, I can still appreciate the art of a non-Christian as a revelation by God, though the artist may not have intended it to be such.
I can also discern when an art form is in direct contradiction with the very character and nature of God, and I can choose to look away. Not all art reveals God, because as sinful man our very first tendency will be to glorify ourselves.
But again, all forms of creativity have the potential to honor God.
If all of creation reveals the Creator, then creativity (as defined by the act of creating) will always begin with the potential to honor God. But…
There’s still so much more to say on the topic, so I will conclude this message in one final post. In the meantime, what are your thoughts? Feel free to share in the comments, or to shoot me a private message if you’re more comfortable with that.
