Hevel

I used to be angry at my desire to make art.

Even if I could become as skillful as I desired, so that I could express accurately what I see beneath my own eyelids, and perhaps then truly create things that communicated, and meant something; even if I could come to that point, I would be doing something purely 'metaphorical.' A representation of reality, a viewpoint, an idea - but nothing real and tangible in and of itself. An image would not put clothes on the back of a naked child, or fill the bowls of starving families with the food they need. Oh, I was told, but perhaps the profits from selling your work could do so, perhaps you can raise awareness and cause something to be done by inspiring others. Perhaps your images can tell the stories of those who hurt. Then they will yield something tangible.

Perhaps.

Yet that does not soothe the itch that frustrates and torments me; I want something deeper.

I do not want to accept that art is simply an aesthetic means to a valuable end. That it is only luxury, something that does nothing real on its own but hangs on a wall while the meaningful work is done. It passes away without moving, walking, breathing.

How can you worship, and please God, and bear righteous fruit without that motion? How is art, not the offshoots of art, worth anything?

Paul does not write about color and shape, line and space, balance and rhythm - the elements of artistry that catch my breath and make my heart constrict. Yet I see them in the world around me, and I am joyful in who God is in such a way that I rarely ever am in a sermon about what He does for us.

Depart from me,

I never knew you.

I know a piece of Him in the kind of beauty art is - His art in the world I know around me.

I still only catch a glimpse, a fleeting moment, where I understand why my passion truly matters, why there is a Divine magnitude to its importance. I am remiss when I do not catch those moments to my chest and press them into my very person, understanding it and recognizing how it is woven into the everyday work of my hands.

One such moment I wrote last year among my prayers, and it echoed through my mind as I watched a film in design class this afternoon. Rivers and Tides is a documentary that displays the work of Andy Goldsworthy, explaining some of what it means to him as the pieces are shown. His materials are moss and earth, leaves and petals, stones and reeds and icicles. He works on the beach, in rivers, in pools of water that have been caught in the rocks. The artwork and sculpture he creates are specific to the land he is working in, and much of what he does will not last more than a few hours; some of it will scatter within minutes. Ice melts as the sun rises, sand shifts with the wind, red pigment in a stream dissipates and settles on the river bed.

Yet his creations are beautiful, and while they do not last, that doesn't diminish their beauty in any way. Somehow instead, the beauty is intensified, because it is so real.

Show me, O Lord, my life's end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting is my life. You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath. Man is a mere phantom as he goes to and fro. He bustles about, but only in vain; he heaps up wealth, not knowing who will get it. But now O Lord, what do I look for? My hope is in you.

And so I will fling my diamonds heavenward.

The documentary is called "Working With Time." I am struck by the 'with'. He intentionally builds a sculpture on the shore, knowing that the tide will come in a few hours. Instead of ignoring, disguising, or attempting to run away from that reality of life, he uses is, and allows it to give life and beauty to what he does. I was watching him spend hours gathering together driftwood and branches - bustling about for what seemed in vain - arranging them into a swirl that captures the motion of where the river meets the sea, and remembered my prayer. The waves come in, the tide carries away the swirl of wood, and the sculpture itself moves in the way that the art was created to communicate.

I wrote last fall in my prayer book about Psalm 39.

My life is small and fleeting, and I can take nothing from it but my love and the things I send ahead of me - the offerings of beauty and sincerity lifted up for my God. I could live my life here, gathering sparkling gems to the edge of an ocean cliff to throw them into the sky above. I could roam the world collecting precious pearls and amethysts to pour into the sea for Him, just because it is beautiful, even for only a moment.

My earth-life is a fleeting second as existence stretches forward. So am I going to be a glittering second of time that was dedicated to the God of everything who has no beginning and no end?

My art is small and fleeting and I do not know if any of it is sent ahead. But it can be a diamond flung toward heaven.

And that is why I think it matters most.