The hands, the mind, and the heart of an artist

"A man who works with his hands is a laborer; a man who works with his hands and his brain is a craftsman; but a man who works with his hands his brain and his heart is an artist."   -Louis Nizer

   

    It was around finals week this spring that I began thinking about what it means to be an artist along these lines--in particular from the time of the senior show of one graduating student. Her show discussed how we are bombarded, "Overloaded" by media at all times. I started to consider at that time how much what I am absorbing from the media all around me affects me as an artist. One thing my professors mention often is how the brain is constantly storing images. They recommended that we constantly be looking at pictures of artwork, filling our minds with images of creativity so that, while we may never remember the exact piece, all the ideas would be stored in our subconscious to eventually come together in a different way as an original work. 

   Think about that for a moment. What kind of images to I fill my mind with? Are they beautiful ones? Creative? God-glorifying? Or are they distracting, images of lies, violent or disturbing? What kind of thoughts am I filling my head with from things that I read? Am I reading things that encourage pure, beautiful, deep, creative, challenging thoughts? Or am I filling my head with the worldly, the twisted, the unhelpful, the cotton candy and fluff?

   Something I remember writing in my journal at that time was this: If I am to really be creative in a way that will bring glory to God, if I am to be able to represent Him and His ways accurately in my work then I need to have beautiful hands, a beautiful heart and a beautiful mind.

   The next thing I had to figure out was what this meant.

   What are beautiful hands? I believe that the hands that are worn and calloused from serving others are the most beautiful hands that can be found. Just as the feet are beautiful of the person who brings the Good News, I believe that the hands that tirelessly serve, the hands that are rough from use but gentle, with a touch of love--a 1 Corinthians 13 love--these are beautiful.

   A beautiful heart can only be a heart that seeks after One thing. A heart that is faithful only to Him, a heart that is full of Him, and through that fullness this heart spills over with His love for all those around. This heart is not self-loving, but completely others-loving. The beautiful heart is the heart that beats for its Maker, that continues beating so that it can do His Work and spread the Light that illuminates it. Create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me!

   A beautiful mind is a mind that is carefully guarded. A mind that has not been filled with the garbage that is so easy to find in this fallen world. "Finally brothers, what ever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things." (Philippians 4:8) It is a mind used to think good of people, a mind with no evil thought. It is a mind that has been carefully pruned, tended and grown. It is a mind that poses problems, and solves them, and it is a mind that considers deep things and is not filled with nothingness. There is so much nothingness out there that is clamoring to be allowed to take up space in your head. Don't let it! It will only hinder your ability to approach life in a manner that can really build the Kingdom. A beautiful mind is a focused mind. One that cannot be distracted from it's purpose, and that is striving to fulfill the Great Commission, working to restore the Shalom that once was. That is what is beautiful.

   And these were my thoughts, and they continue to be something that I think about often. I don't know where they came from, but there they are. And then recently a dear friend shared with me the Louis Nizer quote that I began with. How perfectly it fit! I was amazed, and excited to see that the three areas that I had decided were important as an artist were considered important be at least one other.

A woman who works with her hands is a laborer; a woman who works with her mind and her hands is a craftswoman; but a woman who works with her hands her mind and her heart, SHE is an artist. And if her hands, mind and heart are beautiful...just imagine the work that she will be able to do!

  One thing I have learned in my first year studying art is that becoming an artist is so much more then training for a day job. Being an artist is not like being an accountant or a teacher, or so many other professions, where you go somewhere to work and do your job, then when your time is over you put aside that part of yourself, drive home to live your home life. Being an artist is truly being something all day, every day. It is more then painting in your free time. It is living life with a mindset of seeing as well as making things. It is opening up to everything that is beautiful, allowing it to fill you and responding to it with your own work. It means working through big questions and struggles, sometimes in thought, sometimes in writing, and sometimes through your work. It is seeing that life itself is beautiful and living it, appreciating every detail--the hard, the easy, the sweet, the bitter, the sweaty, the sore, the fun... 
   I thought about this last weekend, which we spent and my grandpa's home in Alabama. There are few places that hold so many sweet and rich memories for me the way that that house on the lake in Northern Alabama does. There are few places where I have been able to see so much beauty in the same the way that I have experienced the beauty there through the many years. It is the same scenes, the same landscape, the same view, but it is always different in some way--the way that the sun falls on the trees, the color and shape of the clouds, the waves sparkling out on the lake--it is always changing. There are so many experiences I could share from that place of retreat, but here I only want to share a taste of the richness of life that can be found...


  The car vibrates as I take out my pen to write. Miles of road stretch out before us, lined on either side by rolling mountains covered with trees, clothed in the rich green of summer. The van is quiet for once, each member of my family occupied with something. My heart is light and I can feel excitement building as we travel ever nearer to our destination.
   The familiar sight of my dad at the wheel with my mom sitting beside him is before me, and I find the familiarity calming. Fiona makes herself busy in the seat beside me, copying what I do with her notebook and pencil in hand. Her pages fill faster then mine. Behind me, all are either sleeping or reading. For once peace reigns. All the people I love, minus one, my older sister who had to stay behind to train for a new job, all in one place, together and happy. This is becoming too rare of an occurrence, and I treasure the beauty of this moment in my heart.
   Why am I excited? Because we are traveling to a place that holds sixteen years of memories, a place that has been there and remained the same as I have grown and changed through the years.
  
   It is late. The van's headlights shine, piercing the pure darkness of rural Alabama, illuminating a gravel road and casting deep shadows into the dense woods on either side. The car is a sleepy kind of silent, the only noise being the gentle sound of the engine, a whine that is only heard when driving the final stretch of road before coming to rest at the end of a long trip. We turn, pulling up the steep driveway on the hill on which Grandpa's house sits. The van doors are opened, letting in the warm, humid night air. I hear crickets and cicadas, together singing their summer lullaby into the stillness of the night. We pile out of the van sleepily and gather a few items, still not breaking the stillness. The screen door the the wide side porch creaks, and in the dim lighting I see a familiar form, arms open, welcoming. We have arrived.


   It is morning--early morning. It has to be early if I am going to make it to the lake before the fishermen, meaning my brothers. I gather a few things, my camera, notebook and Bible and make my way from the back room of the house. My feet know just where to land to avoid the boards that creak as I move to the door. The house is so still that even the smallest sound seems loud, making me cringe. I reach the door and step out onto the porch. Oh morning! The sun has not yet risen above the trees and the sky is still a lavender-gray color. Far down the hill, which slopes steeply away from the house, I can see a glimpse of the lake through the trees. It is glassy, with hardly a ripple marring its perfect surface. I start down the rough wooden steps that lead to the dock, careful as I step on the ones that have come loose over the years. This long stretch of stairs is so easy when going down on a morning as beautiful as this one, a "first morning" when I am not yet sore in every muscle from waterfront activities. Finally I make it down to the dock. Already the sky has grown lighter, changing to a rosy pink in the east, preparing to celebrate the dawning of a new day with an ever-unique sky painting. I settle myself into the wooden porch swing that hangs on the dock and take a few minutes to simple look around and absorb as much of the beauty that surrounds me as I can. And there I sit until the sun makes its first appearance, sending its golden light to warm my face. There I sit until the world begins to stir, with the fishermen on the lake heading home for breakfast, roaring by in their boats, and my brothers making their way down to set up for their morning fishing, speaking of a house that is awake and ready to begin the day.


   The day is fading. I am slightly weary from spending many hours doing the usual waterfront activities, but not too weary to go for a final tow. The sun has moved across the sky until it is positioned over the channel, a narrowing of the lake that leads back toward the Yellow Creek Falls. It sits, shining bright and long, preparing to set. Finally other boat traffic has cleared from the lake as, one by one, families and individuals dock their boats, heading to supper, leaving the the waves to subside and the lake to calm into that smooth, glassy state that is ideal for waterskiing. Many in my family have themselves already headed up to the house to get ready for dinner, with only a few of my brothers remaining to fish for a little longer. My dad gets the boat and I get the skis, and we head out.
   After moving out a good distance from the dock, dad stops the boat. I have my life jacket on already, and, as he casts the tow rope out over the water in a long, slithering throw, I fiddle with it, adjusting the straps until it fits comfortably. Then, grabbing the single slalom ski I walk to the end of the boat. Dropping the ski into the water, I follow right behind it, pushing off the boat and plunging feet first into the lake. The slightly warm water closes over my head momentarily before my life jacket pushes me back to the surface right beside my ski. With familiar motions, I allow the life jacket to support me in the water and slide my right foot into the binding of the buoyant ski. Aligning myself with the boat, I position my foot and ski at and angle through the water in front of me and reach to my left to grab the tow rope. I hear the boat's motor cough and start, and I hear the "clunk" as my dad shifts into gear, moving slowly forward, pulling the rough rope through my loose grip until the handle at the end comes to my hands and the rope is taut between me and the boat. Keeping the tension, I position my body, right knee to my chest, ski angled, tip barely emerging from the water, left leg dragging to balance me as I start. I hear my dad call back to see if I am ready, and I call back that I am.
   With a roar the boat begins to accelerate rapidly. My arms strain as I pull back against the rope, and my leg, tense, pushes against the force of the water. Spray flies up, wetting my face, and suddenly I am standing! Water flies by beneath the single ski and I balance, bringing my free left foot around to the back of the ski, quickly working it into the toe strap there. Once both feet are securely in place, I shift my weight to my back leg and lean to the right. The ski's edge catches the water and sends me cutting over the rough water of the boat's wake and out, free, onto the smooth water outside. I ride there for a bit, enjoying the perfection of the water and the beauty of my surroundings, every color being accentuated by the light of the evening sun, then I dig hard with my back left edge, turning sharply and sending a sheet of shimmering water up into the air to catch the golden light as it falls. I fly, leaving that behind, and bump across the wake to play on the other side. These are the moves of the dance that I love to dance behind the boat. 
   
   The sun is in it's last moments, I can see through the open window as I sit in the dining room, surrounded by family. The lights in the house glow cheerfully, shining from the windows as if to reassure the fading sun that they are there to carry us on and light our long night. The sun sinks behind the trees sending up its farewell with a last bloom of color in the west that slowly fades to purple, then to a deep blue, then to black. Night has fallen.

A Stained Glass Window

Oh to have the words! There are thought, swirling, moving, but to grab them, pin them down and make them logical is impossible, and would probably destroy them. But I have to try, if only to see them in writing and to better understand them. 


Light. It is intangible, but so powerful. In its smallest form it has the power to chase darkness away. 


Your assignment is to use light as a three dimensional medium.


Light. It flickers, glows, shines, beams. 


How do I do that? Light is beyond the three dimensional world. I know the beauty of light. I know the power of light, but how do I express that through art? I know how it moves me, I know what I feel deep inside when The Master Artist lets me see an especially beautiful instance of light, but I have never thought it possible to share that with anyone else. I wonder if it is possible.


Light is divine. God is light, and in Him there is no darkness. Light shone in the world and the darkness could not overcome it.


I know the Perfect Light, it shines in me and through me. Oh to be able make a piece of art that shares that.
Make a sacred space. Rather then bringing light to a space, bring light to someones heart. 


Light. Illuminating, watchful.


Oh God, shine through this project. Thank you for the gift of light, I pray that it might bring you glory.


"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God you will not despise." Psalm 51:16-17


How can the simple act of filling a space with candle light move people so much? 


Light. It causes people to be still. It moves people to song. 


"It's a whisper in my ear, It's a shiver up my spine. 
It's the gratitude I feel for all that's right. 
It's a mystery appeal that's been granted me tonight. 
This peace." 

...

Color. Light, reflecting. Hues and saturation.

Your assignment is to change the color of an object in a way that will create a response.

Color. It makes the world beautiful.

Oh color! My favorite element! Oh color, how can I best show you off to the world? I want everyone to notice, if only for one day how beautiful you are. I want them to appreciate you and praise God for you, for what would the world be like without you?


Color. Bright paint, vivid tape, tinted light.


Go all out. Am I all in? Oh! The idea of colored light makes me excited. 


Color. Brighten my day, color it orange. 


Weekend laziness. Oh color, so much work. Oh Color! I stop and stare as you transform the drab, the mundane. Color on the window and on the floor. 


Color. Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Purple.


I don't know how to react right now. My heart is singing with the beauty that is taking place around me. It isn't of my creation. It would be nothing without the sun. But oh, color! You tell a story without words, without pictures. You point to the One and sing songs to those who will listen of His unfathomable love. Who could ignore the song you sing now? 


Color. Redeeming. It transforms the drab, making this mundane space a cathedral.


Stained glass windows glow. They are blank, without a picture, because none is needed. Light and color dance together singing their divine song, a song of praise to their Creator and the love He has for his creation. Sing along.