Over the last few weeks I was creating almost every day. I was at my friend's Mark's house helping him to build a backyard pond. I noticed something familiar: I said to Mark, "you're having fun aren't you." The way he was lifting and carrying rocks looked somehow familiar. It reminded me what I do when I am creating a large painting and I am examining it from different angles and moving my head to side to side. It's fun. Mark wasn't moving large, heavy rocks, he was playing. When I was a little kid I did the same thing. I'd build kingdoms and fight battles with just toy soldiers and cardboard boxes.
I have been going to church for the last six weeks. I have been to two churches and the pastor of another church came to our home to offer my wife communion. Each of these three churches had less than sixty members in the pews. It was startling.
Painting the last few days has been on hold. From staying home every day I now find myself out and about every day. This blog had no hits the last time I posted. I have had no time to post. Someone once wrote that if you want to be an artist you have to spend lots of time alone. I just don't do that anymore. Artists spend time with other artists, but mostly it is a lonely pursuit. It is a very solitary experience. My friend Mark is another artist. He creates furniture. He used to make driftwood worlds for little figurines. When I watched Mark today creating, I realized art for me is fun. One day I took my work into the local shop where I sell it and one of the other employees said of my work: " That is the happiest piece of art in the shop." Art is a spiritual gift. The sermon I heard today was about artists and their unique perspective on the world. At the risk of sounding conceited it is like being tied into the creativity of God. This pastor said that artist's have a unique spiritual gift. Julia Cameron wrote a book about it called, "The Artist's Way." For me, this book did something to me that I had been able to do, but Julia Cameron showed me how to do it everyday. Not just haphazardly, but consistently. Julia Cameron had somehow found out how artist's create. And she wrote an entire book about it. It is old news now. The Artist's Way has sold millions of copies. Go to a site like Pinterest and you can see how many millions of artists are in this country.
I haven't been posting my pictures anymore, I have been selling them. Not much Sometimes it seems art is not about money at all. You don't sell your favorite cake recipe, you share it with friends. I give almost all my work away. I don't even want to sell it. It is just good to share an inspirational painting with a friend who is struggling with depression. But the tendency is to see art as a commodity. A way to gain fame and fortune. So often I say to myself now, I can't post this, someone will steal my idea. I gave my wife's pastor a work and she cried. There is a verse in the Bible that is Ephesians 6:8. It says that whatever good a man does for someone, the Lord will repay him in kind. I gave the pastor a painting and the next day I created the best work I have ever done. Now it is up to me to share this work with others, so that I can create more works. But it is scary. What about the money? What about the success that I have always craved? I don't know how to find out if others feel this way as well. I guess it is just a question that will have to go unanswered.
God bless. Dale
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