I am hoping my artist friends will respond to this blog, because I am struggling with the question, "Is Art Frivolous?" In college I could have "just" majored in Art, but decided to double major, to cover my behind. Why?
When I finished college, I applied for a job doing the installations for the Field Museum in Chicago, but I did not show up for the physical test, when I would have to build something, because I didn't believe I could do it. Instead I walked into a temping agency and asked them to help me find a desk job. They sent me to Enterprise Rent a Car, Tech companies, Volkswagen and eventually Citigroup, where I stayed for seven years.
I feel like I am faking my way into art, while my real job is, "homemaker." I tell people I am writing, but I don't want to show them my work. My words often read exposure, embarrassment and humiliation. My art is about sitting in front of my truth and manipulating it into an image, a choice and letting go of being beautiful. I am afraid I might be wasting time focusing on me. The stack of survival work like groceries, helping others, doing my jobs for the neighborhood, blogging, reading, my family are all sitting over my shoulders demanding attention. My guilt in writing feels like I am pulling on a choke collar, where to get relief I must focus on the survival work and move away from my creative space.
Do I pretend art until I am legitimate? Is it a game where I try to convince people of my worth through a label? Is art life-giving or life-taking? Are children life-giving or life-taking? The question that haunts me even more is, Is time with God legitimate? Is God life-giving or life-taking? I jump to want to say, of course Jesus is living water and worth my attention, but when I sit down to write, I don't want to "waste time" with God.
My guilt at these questions is extreme and lead me to an internal question of, Am I life-taking or life-receiving? Am I open to God? Open to his art? Can I settle into his deeper work that is demanding my attention, exposing me deeper truth so that I can openly express both faith and doubt.
2 comments:
Of course you know my answer. :) Art is not frivolous! In fact, it's the most important thing there is! And I think you can see the evidence for that right in your questions themselves. Because art is time with God; art is where we practice mimicking the Creator by becoming creative ourselves.
If we can't believe that is important, then nothing is.
Thanks! I needed those words this morning! I might just have to stick them up somewhere! Missing you and wanting a hiking get-away without any noise but our voices in the trees. Maybe Spring in TN????
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