Months later and here's my second blog post! I'm sure consistency is key but I'll settle for doing this whenever I have time.
It's 2020. New Year, New Decade, for a lot of people all of this has kickstarted a lot of new habits, a lot of new goals, and a lot of new endeavors. So guess what everyone - this blog is going to be my new 2020 goal. So on January 14th, here's my second post.
This new year has brought a lot of thought about what I do, why I do it, and what I want it to look like at the end of the year. Honestly, this contemplation has not been very fun. It's brought a lot of comparison, a lot of "well, I think this will be successful" and "I think this will make me money" even if it's not something I love doing. And a whole lot of "I'm not good enough for this" (I'm a 3 on the Enneagram - and I want everyone to take that with a grain of salt because it's not an all defining number, but it does speak to some aspects of my personality). So, here I am, trying to sort through all the mess, all the jumble, and figure out what 2020 holds for me.
For starters, I want to explain just a little bit about how I became an "artist" (I don't even know what that means, honestly). When I started at UNG, I was an athletic training major. I thought I wanted to go to PT school for pete's sake. After my freshman year, I realized I didn't want to pursue that. I've always had my toes in photography, but pursuing an art major didn't seem like an option. I mean, what kind of job does that lead to? Then I found this "Art Marketing" major and it seemed like the perfect balance. I enter into the art program and I'm surrounded by what seemed like "legit" artists. I didn't know how to paint or draw. I didn't even know how to formally compose a photograph. I was bad at a lot of things, but I was learning and I was actually enjoying it (I could not say the same about my chemistry classes).
Starting my senior year, I'm taking photography classes and trying to figure out what kind of project I'm going to do for my Senior Capstone exhibition. This was a pretty important part of our program, and again, I felt like I wasn't capable of pulling off a worthy project because I wasn't a real "artist". I figured I should do something with photography, but what in the world would I focus on?
Here we go, y'all - I focused on a glorious gift God granted mankind - his own creation. Seven days that cannot be fathomed. Seven days of the purest beauty, the most wonderful forms of sustenance and life. Seven days of power that we should fall on our knees before.
This project changed the way I looked at art. The way I looked at myself as an artist. The way I create things. This project is on my website, and I encourage you to go check out the final photographs.
So, what am I getting at is what did I actually learn?
Well, for one I realized how closely united my Christian faith and expressions of art are. I'm not talking about the paintings of Jesus on the cross or of the Last Supper, but emotional art. Powerful art. Art that can infect the mind of the viewer for days, challenging their worldview and exposing their souls. Souls that were created to worship our Heavenly Father. Souls that have an inherent sense of right and wrong, good and evil. We long for communion with our all-powerful God, and that longing when left unsatisfied can seek wholeness through other means that will always fall short.
I'm not saying every single things at the High Museum of Art is going to impact you so strongly. What affects one person for days may be ignored by someone else. It truly is incredible when you look at the dynamic of art, the artist, and what they strive for others to see. But, when I began to look at even pieces that I didn't like all that much, I could draw it back to my faith. Whether I saw the strongholds of sin, the beauty one finds in people, situations, objects. An artist that wants nothing to do with religion could have a painting that reveals Christ in ways they will never know, and as a believer we have a connection to that beauty that is graciously given to us through the Holy Spirit, through the price that Jesus paid for us on the cross.
I think everyone could benefit from thinking about art this way (I know, there's some stuff out there that just makes me cringe too), but when we see the beautiful gifts of common grace our Lord has given us, how can we not? When we read the Psalms, it's not David's gift that makes it so beautiful. No, it's the Holy Spirit working though David to pen down these wonderful poems and lines that will make us sit back in our chair in awe of a God as magnificent as He. When we're on our way to our job and the sun is just beginning to creep up over the trees, it's brilliant rays of light reflecting off of the clouds - can't you just hear nature worshipping its Creator? Proclaiming His power and majesty and grace to us all in giving us such beautiful things to behold?
Whatever it is that we do, artist or not, may we all take a minute each day to, "simply stare at a tree, a flower, a cloud, or a person. I shall not then be concerned at all to ask what they are but simply be glad that they are" as Clyde Kilby says (10 Resolutions for Mental Health"). What lies behind these things, what's so wonderful about noticing is these things, is the even more wonderful Creator. And for me, I get to create things that point to Him.
That's what my art is about. That's what my life is about. And with all my goal-setting and planning, I hope I don't make it any more complicated than that.