Speaking Without a Voice or What is Art?

“The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.   Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world.”  (Psalm 19:1-4 TNIV)

Hope Appears

Why I paint with a knife....

Sometimes I have a tendency to overdo.  No really.  In truth, I think we all do. 
What I have noticed though is that this, unfortunately, spills over from my life and into my art.  The first time I realized that I was getting too picky about my painting was in college.  I had worked on a portrait for an entire semester and when the class was over, the painting was not finished.  No big deal.  I just set up in one of the studios and continued working while another class began.  MONTHS later, a friend walked up as I was cleaning up for the day and said, "You know it doesn't really look any different now than when you started."  I looked at him as if he were nuts and proceeded to point out all of the things I had accomplished in the past few months.  He conceded on a few points but again pointed out that for at least the past month, the painting really hadn't changed all that much then he turned and walked away.
I brushed this encounter aside and went to my next class, but it started to eat at me - invading my peace and my concentration at the most inopportune times - and later that day I ran back to the studio when I could spare a few minutes and stared at the painting in earnest.  The next morning I pulled out my paints and placed my signature in the bottom right.  It was finished. 
The truth is that I could have probably continued painting for another month or so, drawing myself deeper into the details, blissfully ignorant of that fact that I was not only wasting time, I was also risking overworking the painting and ruining it.

Lily

Years later, when I again decided to enter the art world I dragged myself back to the beginning - back to MY beginning - and starting working seriously on something that had been a joyful pastime in my youth.  My earliest memory of creating art was sitting in the church pew beside my mother as a child drawing.  I would intently study the picture on the front of the bulletin, taking my time to block in shapes and shades and outlines with my borrowed ball-point pen.  This time around though, it was my own images that I would used and good quality artist's pens, not whatever my mother happened to find floating around in the bottom of her purse. 
So I took my camera out and I took about a million shots and I whittled it down to about two or three good ones and got them printed out on card stock so that I could see if I was still any good at this without ruining something I'd just spent a lot of money on. 
So I started working, outlining shapes, finding shades and shadows, interpreting outlines and when I was done I was so pleased with the finished product that I began another interpretation of the same image - and then I got carried away - I did too much - and I ruined the second piece.  It wasn't that I was putting in things that I didn't really see.  I just wasn't taking the time to recognize that some things need to be seen but don't need to be acknowledged when it comes to art.  Sometimes it is the things we leave OUT that makes a piece good art.

Morning Rose

"So what does this all have to do with painting knives?" you ask.

I felt like I needed to paint again.  I loved the photography and I loved studying the photos in depth as I went back over them with the pen and ink.  I loved the connection it gave me to my childhood and the times of intense concentration it demanded from me.  But still - I needed to paint again.  This duality had risen up in me and consequently in my work as well.  I am intensely focused on all of the details of a photograph when I work with them and I just couldn't stand the thought of being dragged into a painting in the same way.  (After all, history had showed me that I was capable of doing just that.)  Solution: only allow myself painting knives - no brushes - to force myself to step away from the details and look at the big picture. The looseness I feel when I work on one of my paintings now is like the satisfaction of untying a hard-to-get-undone knot.  It's like I have given myself permission to be okay with my work - to LIKE my work - to be proud of my accomplishments every time I finish a painting.

The Singular and The Sovereign



Wonderstruck

 

I've been thinking a lot about the power of words lately.  It helps that I have a very inquisitive 8-year old that loves to ask me questions like, "How far is 'as far as the eye can see'?" and "what does the word 'slender' mean?" as he stretches out the pronunciation: s-l-e-n-der.

I was pulled into a discussion with said 8-year old just the other day about how amazing it would be to speak a word and have that thing appear.  Creation with nothing more than syllables, pitch, intonation and accent.  Wow.  What an amazing power would that be?  I can't help but think that no matter how hard I might try though, that what I spoke into existence would be nothing more than fragile shadows of what it is that I set out to create.  After all, how can the word "flower" sum up all that a flower is?  How can this simple word sculpt the petals of a tulip as softly rounded as an infant's cheek? How can six letters, arranged in a certain manner, paint a rainbow of colors from the deepest hue of purple to the stunningly pure white?  How can two brief syllables show the tiny tendrils of green shooting up from the ground before the last of the snow has left at the beginning of spring to the final drooping buds browning on the stem in late autumn?

This is often how I feel when I paint.  Inadequate.  Fumbling, tripping over missteps taken with my painting knife.  Trying.  Trying oh so HARD to create.  And what do I have when I am finished?  Fragile shadows of the pictures in my mind.  Fragile shadows of the world around me.  Fragile shadows of the wonder of God.

And I stand, speechless, in awe of my Creator.

When I look around everyday I am seeing God's handwriting.  He authored the clouds.  He penned the wind.  He breathed life into man with nothing more than a word.  He spun a tale of the furthest galaxy.  He wrote the spirals onto the face of a sunflower.  With. Just. A. Word.  Psalm 29: 3-4, 7-9 tells us this:

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
the God of glory thunders,
the Lord thunders over the mighty waters.
The voice of the Lord is powerful;
the voice of the Lord is majestic. 

The voice of the Lord strikes
with flashes of lightning.
The voice of the Lord shakes the desert;
the Lord shakes the Desert of Kadesh.
The voice of the Lord twists the oaks
    and strips the forests bare.
And in his temple all cry, “Glory!” (NIV)

And here am I.  Stumbling forward toward my easel.  Paint covered knife clutched in my shaking hand.  Wild, powerful, majestic, striking, shaking, twisting, divinely uttered images racing through my head.  I am humble. I am wonderstruck.  Again.

My favorite author, Margaret Feinberg, has a new book out.  Wonderstruck: Awaken to the Nearness of God.  Wonderstruck is a personal invitation for you to toss back the covers, climb out of bed, and drink in the fullness of life.  You can follow Margaret on Twitter, Facebook, or her blog, and you can learn more about this great book by visiting www.margaretfeinberg.com/wonderstruck. The book can be ordered on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.  

I want to welcome my Creator with open arms everyday and see the wonder of God's wild, abounding creativity painted across the face of my child as he asks me about the world he sees around him.  I want to step out into that world with reckless abandon as I overflow with divine awe at the words...at the imagination...at the might of the One who Loved first and best and continues to Love like no other.

Where have you seen the wonder of God in your life?

10 things I am thankful for.....

My husband.....

My home which keeps us warm as the days grow shorter and more brisk.....

My studio.....

My children's love for making music.....

My church.....

My youngest son's new coat (just in time for the cold weather).....

My dog.....

My oldest son's quick mind and sense of humor.....

Answered prayers and unanswered prayers.....

My Creator's plans.....



"For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Jeremiah 29:11

Art is hard work.

No really, it is.

Some days the LAST thing I want to do is to walk back into my studio. Sometimes I am so disgusted with the work I've done that I have to leave for a while and observe the image from a distance before I can grow to appreciate parts of it and return and try again. Sometimes everything seems to be going GREAT then an interruption comes (generally in the form of one of my children) and it all falls apart before my eyes because I have lost focus.

So why do it?

"In the beginning God (prepared, formed, fashioned, and) created the heavens and the earth.
The earth was without form and an empty waste, and darkness was upon the face of the very great deep. The Spirit of God was moving (hovering, brooding) over the face of the waters.
And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.
And God saw that the light was good (suitable, pleasant) and He approved it; and God separated the light from the darkness.
And God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day." Genesis 1:1-5 (AMP)

I prepare. I form. I fashion. I create. I move and hover and brood. And on good days, I approve. What reason more do I need than to watch, emulate and learn from The Master Creator of All?

This starving artist :)

I'm starting to feel like an artist....

I have two pieces on display at the local art center until the end of April and I sent off a proposal this weekend for a hospital looking to buy or commission art from Michigan artists. Now if I could only sell something so that I can buy more supplies....or maybe groceries....here I am....living the dream. *Sigh*

10 things that made me smile today.....

The weather being warm enough for me to wear a light jacket outside in the middle of February.....

Eating the last apple out of the refrigerator.....

Listening to "Here With Us" by Joy Williams.....

The chirping of two lovely parakeets.....

A warm puppy dog that likes to curl up next to me when I read on the couch.....

My children getting their homework done in a timely manner.....

FINALLY finishing (and being happy with) the sketch for my next painting.....

Listening to my children talking back and forth in bed even though it is WAY past their bed time and I have told them 3 times already to go to sleep.....

Having the use of a good tripod (thank you, Victor).....

Reading the words: "When life is heavy and hard to take; go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don't ask questions: Wait for hope to appear." (Lamentations 3:28-29 MSG).....
.....today was a good day.