Artistic–My Way

I am surrounded by a crowd of ridiculously creative people. One friend spends hours making the most amazing felt children’s toys. One friend sends me text messages of her latest Christmas table decoration for our church Christmas party. One friend turned her passion for a Scripture verse in photographic art wall pieces. Then there’s my sister who crafts flower clips for my hair (I'm wearing a bright pink one now) and my mom who dreams up sewing projects and then makes them happen. And the list quite literally could go on and on. I just can’t help it – my friends and family amaze me with their creative gifts.

Photography has been my passion for a few years now, and after this past wedding season, I’m settling into winter hibernation and seriously pondering new ways to express creativity. New seasons demand new inspiration. I’m bouncing around ideas from going back to my original love of landscape photography to dabbling in oil painting to dollar store watercolor on kids construction paper to projects that include glitter, ribbon and hammering nails into empty walls. I'm asking questions like "Why be creative?" "What does it mean to use creativity for the glory of God?" "What should I be doing right now?"

Have you ever noticed the joy that children posses while creating art? Their art doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t have to make everyone else happy and it certainly doesn’t have a clean process, but the end product is the joy in their faces as they create and the smiles on others’ faces when they give their art away.

Can you imagine the joy that God had while creating the heavens and the earth? It was new and wonderful and BIG and glorious. He created it all and looked back and said that this—this heavens and earth—these humans—these animals—these skies and seas—all that ran and flew and walked and skipped and lived and breathed—all this was GOOD.

And that’s the desire of my heart. To create beauty by using the creativity that God has given me (though altogether different in practice than everyone else, but that’s what makes us all so interestingly unique!) to make something… and then look back, knowing that it is good. I'm not sure yet what being artistic will look like for me, but it will be good.

Photos of little nieces doing watercolor art at my table. And yes, that’s Uncle Brandon painting, too. He’s pretty fun like that.