Art and Spirituality

In 1995 at a men's retreat, I identified my life's mission: “To create beauty and share it with others.” I now understand this mission is, in an earthly way, sharing in the Creator's creative power. (Beauty has a particular significance for me, see the post below “What is God's Name?”)

Some things I've learned about creativity:

1. The number one enemy of creativity in me is fear--fear of who I really am, fear of failure, fear of success, fear of spontaneity, fear of criticism.

2. Repression of any kind in the creative expression ruins art. In a way, art is a self-portrait no matter what the subject matter. If I repress--anger, sexuality, fear, joy--anything, I've censored my true self from the expression, and it will be a lie and be boring to boot.

3. The best art comes when I am able to forget myself in the Buddhist or Christian sense and just let things happen. This is true whether I am doing abstract work or representational work.

When I succeed, Beauty emerges and people are moved. In abstract art, I think of the art works as Little Pieces of Spirit. In representational work, I mostly paint women. The work captures their naked persons (clothed or unclothed), the person under the social mask. This person may be all sorts of things in the moment--arrogant, angry, depressed, joyful, challenging; but always the Beauty is there.

I like the Muslim expression, "God is great!", because that's how I often feel in the gratitude of participating in the creative process. There is a book called The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, in which the author says that God loves artists because He is one Himself. (I know this is seeing God in my own image, but it's a nice thought anyway.)