why i am not a very good artist...

so i have been reading this book called the war of art (along with several others i am reading right now) by steven pressfield. i started reading it because i have been really trying to write music lately. i always get writer's block or feel that what i have written is crap. well, i don't just feel it is crap; i know it is crap. the book is quite interesting and inspired my blog about how we are boring people (and will inspire several more that will be coming soon that i have been thinking about). the book talks about how to break through what pressfield calls "resistance," which is personified as being the thing that holds us back from being creative. for someone coming from a secular perspective, i am finding many spiritual applications. i encourage you all to read it if you feel you are struggling with the same sort of thing. it is a super easy read. any way, i have been thinking a lot about what holds me back, which sort of morphed into trying to figure out why i think i am a crappy at art and being creative. you see, artists have this ability to see things in ways that no one else sees them... to see beauty where others just see ordinary things. but even more than that, they have this ability to express and present things in a stirring but ambiguous manner that invites the viewer/listener/etc. in and allows one to come back to the work of art time and time again and find new things (perhaps that the artist didn't even think of). no good artist just comes right out and says what they mean. there is always something deeper there. that is the point of art, right?

so i have discovered two reasons why i have failed at being creative. first, i am simply no good at not just coming right out and saying what i am thinking. this is probably good in the practical world, but i wish i could turn it off sometimes. i am too dang literal all the time, which probably makes me a pretty dull person. for as much as i love art, it is sort of weird that i really hate to beat around the bush. maybe that is why art appeals to me so much... because i need to escape myself sometimes! i think i have this fear of being misunderstood. i want people to hear exactly what i am saying and see exactly what i am seeing. this is why i spend hours working out sermons questioning just how people will interpret every single word i say and making sure that it is just right. but i have always been jealous of people who can just let things be put out there for others to interpret. this is what makes art both great and risky. it demands interpretation but does not demand a particular interpretation. it only invites. laura foxworth used to write songs while i was preaching at intermission. she was literally doing what i could not do. i could say, "okay, here is what has really inspired me this week (and that is what i preached in a very literal way)," and she would take that (while i was preaching it) and turn it into something that was expressed in a way that allowed others to enter into it wherever they were at that moment. amazing. i could have just preached to her before the service and just let her sing my sermon. it probably would have been a lot more effective (and time saving!). so this brings me to my second problem with being creative... inspiration. art requires it. where exactly does a song originate... or a picture or a poem? this is not to say that i don't have plenty of inspiration (i have an infinite source actually), but i don't think that i spend enough time keeping my eyes open to see things in a deeper way than they first appear. anyone can look at a mountain or an ocean and say, "that is beautiful." but we are constantly surrounded by beauty in the ordinary things of our day. and i miss it 99.9% of the time. this is what makes a good artist good. they take the ordinary and show it to us in a new light because they have kept their eyes open in a way that allowed them to see it in a new light. and the art invites us in and we relate to it because it is ordinary things (just expressed in a moving way). perhaps this takes special talent. perhaps it just takes attentiveness.

figuring this stuff out helps me move forward because at least now i can practice putting thoughts out there that don't demand a certain interpretation and keeping my eyes open. i am also very open to any suggestions that any of you may have.

cheers,
jw <><