Rachel's Viewfinder

The first piece of handmade work I ever sold was a crochet beret.  Friends of my parents owned a bed and breakfast.  One weekend, they intended to have a mini-craft fair.  Knowing my family was full of creative ideas, they asked us to submit some of our work.  Mom sent in a couple of her braided rugs.  My sister offered her needlepoint cases.  I made some crochet hats based off of one I created for myself.

But…I didn’t have a lot of time to make them, so I hurried.  It’s not that I cut corners on purpose. I just didn’t pay attention to detail like I did when I made mine.  So my stitching wasn’t even.  The band didn’t stretch properly.  Still, I didn’t think too much of it.  Until I saw my first buyer place his hat on his head.  He thought it was great.  But to my regret, I thought it looked like a limp pancake, barely covering his hair.  I had eight bucks in my hand, and rock in my stomach.

Lesson learned: paying attention to your work, no matter what you create, is important. Craftsmanship is not just something valued by the new owner of your work.  It’s also required by you.

Last month, I had the opportunity to share my passion for video-producing, art and faith in an chat with Jon and Mindy Hirst of the On Call in Culture community.  Earlier this week, Mindy posted the results on the Acton Institute PowerBlog.  Check out the article here: http://blog.acton.org/archives/31241-on-call-through-video.html

Over the past few months, I spent time pondering what God would have me do with this passion for Art, Faith and Inspiration.  As I thought, researched and talked with other creative people, I also tried to take the time to creatively “practice.” These little forays into creative expression aren’t meant to be spectacular.  They’re meant to give the brain some fodder to chew on in between bigger projects.

Back in May, these words caught me on www.writerlylife.com: “Optimism has a funny way of encouraging more optimism; creativity often works that way. The more you make space for a creative mood in your daily life, the more you’ll find that creative mood popping up in the course of a day.” (http://www.writerlylife.com/2011/05/how-to-grab-a-creative-mood-when-it-passes-by/)

The concept struck a chord in me.  I was stressed from getting married, moving, work, etc.  My health took a dive (see April 11 post).  All my energy was gone.  My schedule had no room in it for a creative mood. But my job is a creative one.  Everyday, I use creative storytelling through visual mediums, primarily through video producing.  For example, a 45-minute interview becomes a 3-minute video with music, pictures, graphics…whatever.  Every aspect of the production requires creativity.  Over the past year, my projects piled up, and work became drudgery.  How can you be creative on a schedule if you’re out of juice?  As I thought about being creative, I realized I couldn’t afford to skip recharging my creative batteries.  If creativity begets creativity, then I needed to do some extra-curricular creation. I started thinking of other ways to be creative that were not work-related.

So began a binge of gluten-free baking.  First on the list were eclairs. Next came cheesecake.  Because that was so rewarding, I started work again on a piece of science fiction.  And then came my friend’s wedding and her bachelorette party…after squeezing the creative lemon for my previous projects, it was a delight to make her some hand-painted underware.

Now what does any of that have to with being creatively better at video-production?  Well…not much…on the surface.  Gluten-free eclairs, writing and underware don’t seem to have much in common.  But as a means of letting my creative brain “do something else,” it was invaluable.  I  found that creativity on a schedule is demanding and draining.  Giving my brain the time to “goof-off” and just “practice” being creative meant that creating on the schedule was not so taxing. And that meant regaining a level of enthusiasm that was missing at my day job.

Some things I’ve learned from my “practice” sessions:

1). Do something where the hands make something: cupcakes, curtains, a new doodle for the fridge…the goal is to have the hands moving with the creative brain.

2). Think, but not too much.  Start with a general idea and let your mistakes guide the finished product.  Remember, this is practice, not masterpiece.

3). Work in short bursts.  It’s practice.  Who cares if it’s finished (if ever?).

4).  Avoid passive “inspiration”; no TV watching, Internet surfing, magazine browsing.  The goal is to practice doing your own thing, not copy another’s work.

5). If there’s no creative tools, or you can’t think of what else to try, give reading fiction a whirl.  It engages the imagination, the creative “muscle” to stretch and develop.

One of my co-workers, Andy Caldwell, had this to say in one of our department meetings: “Creativity is not instant grits.” He couldn’t be more right.  It takes time…and practice.  How do you practice being creative?

(Pt. 5 in a sometimes occasional series on Art, Faith and Inspiration)

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This past Easter, some friends at SIM invited Robert and me to their church’s Good Friday service.  It was called “Tenebrae.” Erika described it as a very solemn service, quiet and candlelit.  And, they used music, scripture reading, and art to lead worship and contemplation at the service.  We accepted the invitation, and I excitedly looked forward to the service.  A service with Art!  I couldn’t wait to see what was in store.

Good Friday came, and we went to the service.  It was indeed dark, solemn, and in a way, mournful, and rightfully so.  It’s the day we celebrate the death of our Lord.  And as I said to Robert with tears in my eyes after service, “We can’t have a resurrection without a death.” I left the service very quiet and hardly talked the whole way home.

Perhaps it was the visuals.  The darkness and the candlelight helped.  So did the solemn songs of sorrow.  But the Art.  Images from the hands of the old master painters, images of death, sorrow, agony, pain…and love.  Combined with the scripture reading, the impact was powerful.  It was like seeing the Bible come alive!

The Art used at “Tenebrae” took time to create.  Time to plan and execute.  Time to ponder. Inspired by scripture, the masters intentionally created emotionally and spiritually-driven Art.  Whether commissioned by the church, or painting of their own inspiration, the intended impact still hit me like a ton of bricks: our glorious Lord gave Himself for us in love.  And I could now, through the painters, see that love on His face.

The beauty of Art is that it can stand in time.  A sculpture can be seen in a glance, a painting for a second.  And yet a fine piece of Art can keep one gazing and contemplating long after the first impression.  But to make that happen, it takes time!  Even those crazy paintings I don’t fully understand by Klee and Pollack…those took time to create.  They took intention.

I believe that Art will soon become an important part of the Protestant church.  Human beings need to express themselves through art.  As created beings, made in the image of our Creator, we must create.  While the mechanism by which Art is incorporated into our worship is still to be fully defined or even tried, above all, I believe the Art used in worship must be intentional.  Even a painting that looks like a Pollack has a place.  But it must be intentional.  Intentionally worshipful of and to our God and King.  Because only then will others also be encouraged to worship.

(Part 4 in a sometimes weekly series on Arts, Faith and Inspiration)