Our deepest beliefs about the universe filter their way up through the soil into the tiny aesthetic decisions that the artist makes. How we make our records. Which color feels right. Rhyme schemes and word choices. These kinds of decisions are rarely made out of purely analytical comparison. They come from the guts. From faith.
Art is powerful. It has both the ability to create chaos and to unify. We respond to art on an emotional level and it moves us to rethink how we go about our living in the world and living with each other.
The oldest story is one of making. God created. God made. God formed.
We must never forget that creatives are possibility makers.
Our creating is a part of the unfolding, generative process of God’s goodness filling the earth. Our desire to create is an imprint of the divine, designed into the fabric of our existence. Artists and creatives feel this acutely.
Good art subverts empire. It runs counter to the narratives of greed, dehumanization, stockpile, consumerism and the power that enforces them.
As creativity becomes intertwined with our identity and livelihood, we forget its intrinsic value. We think everything must have a practical purpose – but isn’t life more than a series of accomplishments? We’ve forgotten that pleasure isn’t sinful, and so we scramble for ways to justify that which brings us joy.
Many of our stories began in the secrecy of our bedrooms, strumming an instrument or writing in the pages of our journal. For others, it was the meditative practice of exploring the world through a clear glass lens or painting with our fingers. These quiet moments gave us a glimpse of the divine, a gut feeling that God was sharing our space. Or maybe creativity felt like a wrestling match with God – more an argument than a conversation – or even a tense confrontation with ourselves. Either way, as we engaged with Him, we were changed.
The call of the creative is the call to imagine an- other reality. Whether it’s by shedding light on the ways in which our current living falls short of God’s vision for humanity, or by articulating the possibilities of a shalom here on earth — the creative ultimately helps us locate ourselves within the larger story of God’s unfolding work in all of creation.
When we open the book of Psalms, we are opening the heart of what it means to be human.
When we spend time in the Psalms, we are learning how to explore the depths of who God is. They are a library for our spiritual language. They show us how to speak of hope, loss, grief, victory, love, and failure — but more than that, the Psalms show us how to call out to the God who is present in all.
All human creativity depends on something deeper than itself.
One atom is capable of producing an atomic explosion that can unleash unfathomable destruction. What if this nearly infinite potential exists in everything? Maybe this explains the full emotional potential of music. Perhaps a single note truly and completely heard would overwhelm us as completely as the voice of the Creator himself, entering our consciousness through processes of intricate complexity . . . the crafting of instruments, perfecting of skills, vibrating air and eardrum, nerves and synapses and understanding, and my God, it is all so magnificent!
Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.
When you make music or write or create, it's really your job to have mind-blowing, irresponsible, condomless sex with whatever idea it is you're writing about at the time.
The first step - especially for young people with energy and drive and talent, but not money - the first step to controlling your world is to control your culture. To model and demonstrate the kind of world you demand to live in. To write the books. Make the music. Shoot the films. Paint the art.
Deliver me from writers who say the way they live doesn't matter. I'm not sure a bad person can write a good book. If art doesn't make us better, then what on earth is it for.
A writer - and, I believe, generally all persons - must think that whatever happens to him or her is a resource. All things have been given to us for a purpose, and an artist must feel this more intensely. All that happens to us, including our humiliations, our misfortunes, our embarrassments, all is given to us as raw material, as clay, so that we may shape our art.
Art never responds to the wish to make it democratic; it is not for everybody; it is only for those who are willing to undergo the effort needed to understand it.
