The Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough

Art has always played a role in my life. My mother was trained as an occupational therapist, and her creative interests and projects filled our home....things like centerpieces made of milkweed sprayed gold, roosters fashioned of coloured corn, and acrylic bunches of grapes...get the picture? And music was ever-present...granted it was usually church music...but still, we were always encouraged to sing and play instruments. I’ve often wondered how my parents afforded music lessons for six children on a small income...obviously their priorities and values led them to create a life for us that included the arts.

 

In college I studied ceramics and art history and theatre. My first ‘real’ job was with a professional theatre company where I was, rather unfortunately, taught to value “high art” above any other. I say “rather unfortunately” because I think this elitist perspective has served to narrow both my appreciation of and my joy in all things creative. So, my message this morning is actually more of a personal journal entry that I’ll share with you, as I try to re-train, or re-create, myself toward valuing all that is created in the pursuit of meaning and all art that comes from authentic places within. So, welcome to my therapy session!

 

Like Yashti in our story, I could never conceive of myself as an artist. Some of that has to do with the humility I was taught (oh...and that’s a huge topic for another sermon.) Some of this had to do with receiving messages that were exactly the opposite of the message Yashti got from her teacher. Some of it, perhaps obviously, was grounded in a lack of confidence. And, as I said, some of my inability to call myself an artist is because I adopted a very high standard for a particular kind of art that, while incredibly worthwhile and beautiful, is rightfully reserved for those few humans among us capable of its creation. I know I am not one of those people...so how can I truly call myself an artist? 

 

So let me start with my draft, and as yet not-fully-embraced, definitions of art, artist, and creativity. Traditionally, we use the word ‘art’ to describe something that is…intended as art, presented as such, and which is judged to be art by those qualified in such matters.[1] This is the “high art” to which I referred earlier. But etymologically speaking, art simply means to fit together or join. More broadly, then, art is anything that is created out of different parts and pieces, brought together. Whenever we create something...from paintings to soup, from ideas to relationships, we are making art. Using this definition, I can make art...I guess. 

 

Artists, then, are those who engage in this process of putting things together out of their unique experience. I have to add a caveat here...so you see, I’m not quite willing to give the title ‘artist’ to just anybody. My caveat would be that a person is an artist only when they intentionally participate in the process...when they bring who they are into the work. That is to say, it is absolutely necessary that one’s unique voice and perspective is one of the pieces out of which the art is created. If I am willing to do this, I could be an artist. I guess. 

 

Further, in my ‘new’ definitions, creativity is simply the spirit of ability and willingness to engage in the work, born out of an innate need to bring things into being. I believe, or want to believe, that creativity is our true nature, so being creative ought to just come naturally.   Eric Booth in his book, The Everyday Work of Art, says that ‘making worlds is one of the contract acts of being human.’[2] This ability to take what is inside of us, our unique beings, to bring that uniqueness out into the open, and to use that alchemy of the inside and the outside to make worlds...to create some new meaning or reality, is the great beauty, and challenge, of being human. Being creative human artists who make art out of our lives is both an awesome burden and an incredible gift. Being creative human artists requires that we step into the process of art as an act of faith. If I want to be creative, I have to, in faith, act creatively. 

 

Rev. Forrest Church calls this process ‘lifecraft’... that is, to take the pieces of our lives and to craft meaning out of them. We create our lives. A lifecraft artisan, then, is someone who embraces the human purpose of making meaning, and who does so with integrity, and authenticity, and pizzazz, and abandon, and courage. 

 

For indeed, it takes courage to be an artist. Being an artist means being vulnerable to the outer world.   It means overcoming the voices that tell you that you are not, and cannot be, an artist. It means having the chutzpah to make a jab at that blank sheet of paper with your marker. You bring forth what is within, and then you ‘sign it.’ You claim it. You make your mark, and you hang it on the wall of the gallery of life.   This takes incredible courage. 

 

Doing so makes that mark available to help ‘put together’ all the art that will come after...yours and others’.   In other words, what you do, what you create, influences what happens next. I was reading something the other day in the Utne Reader about how corporate copyright laws are stifling art because art is becoming increasingly inaccessible to those who need to see it, or read it, or hear it, in order to ‘use it’ to create their own art. In other words, we need easy access to all that someone else has to offer in order to fill our paint boxes with all the imaginable colours.... as well as those we have yet to imagine.   It follows then that sharing our unique colour increases the range of the palate of all that is...and if we do this, as Julia Cameron says in The Artist’s Way, the universe is able to advance.   And the universe will advance in the direction of that which we have created.

 

But, I am not an artist. I am that little girl, staring at a blank piece of paper, who says “yeah right. If I create something the Universe is able to advance. Sure. Well, it might as well leave me in the dust because I have nothing to offer. No talent to share. I am not an artist.”

 

And yet, here is one place my defiant nature has served me well...that is, by kicking me into some version of survival mode so that I can turn off, sometimes even ‘flip off’, the voices that tell me I am not good enough. It is from this place of rebellion that I make my jab at the paper. Because if I don’t, I disappear. If I do not make myself visible, that is by bringing forward the essence of what is me, then I become as nothing and my life has no meaning. As Jesus is purported to say, in the Gospel of Thomas, if you don't bring forth what is inside you, what you don't bring forth will destroy you.   I would rephrase that just a bit, (if I might be so bold as to revise the words of Jesus) to say that the absence of my unique colour in the world means that I have no impact, no purpose, no reason to be here as me. Come to think of it, that defiance of mine is mostly a reaction to feeling invisible, so wouldn’t it be better to make my mark and make it as boldly as possible?

 

I mean, what have I got to lose, anyway? If I make no contribution, that contribution amounts to zero and is worthless. Better to make one and have some chance of making a difference than to give up without ever trying. This is what it means to be an artist...simply to be willing to bring forward all that is me and to mix it up with all that is you, and everything else I encounter, and from that to create something new and beautiful and meaningful.   Henry David Thoreau wrote that “It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a sculpture, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to paint and carve the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of the arts.” 

As a human being, I have, we each have, the inherent ability to affect the quality of the day and to make art of our lives, and for that art to be the highest of arts. I am a human artist who creates a piece of art out of my life.   My life is a piece of art created by me. 

 

Oh, I know. All of this will never change the common usage of ‘art’ and ‘artist’ to refer to a certain kind of work and person. I will never stop appreciating ‘high art’ for its beauty and poignancy and astonishing insight. Such art, such artists, play an indispensible role in our world and culture. But I also want to affirm the artist in each of us and the incredible art that we are creating and re-creating each day. I want to affirm that your contribution is valuable and exists beyond the reach of any who would call themselves jurors. I want to assure you that my world is less without the presence of you; and my ability to create an artful life is made possible by your creative contributions.  

 

Kathryn Waugh tells me that this year’s art sale includes more personal contributions than ever before. A whole bunch of you have created something, brought it into being, with the hopes that someone else will see its beauty. All of these contributions came from life-artists who put themselves out there in the service of a richer existence. 

 

Thank you for making your mark on this congregation, on this community, and on our world. Thank you for helping to bring out the artist in me and in each other. You, through your inherent creativity, make this planet a much more beautiful place. 

Blessed be.

 

Make your mark.   Amen. 

---