"An Artist's Journey Into the Heartland"

My aunt Melinda forwarded me an article by an artist friend of hers this morning. The artist is Joyce Koskenmaki. She writes very eloquently of a shift in her art from the work being an elite statement to a loving, relational communication. Madeleine L'Engle states, "Art is communication, and if there is no communication it is as though the work had been still-born." [Walking On Water, p. 34] Please take a moment and read Koskenmaki's article:

As Virginia Woolf writes, "Truth, it seems is various; Truth is the be pursued with all our faculties. Are we to rule out the amusements, the tendernesses, the frivolities of friendship because we love truth? Will truth be quicker found because we stop our ears to music and drink no wine, and sleep instead of talking through the long winter's night? It is not to the cloistered disciplinarian mortifying himself in solitude that we are to turn, but to the well-sunned nature, the man who practices the art of living to the best advantage, so that nothing is stunted but some things are permanently more valuable than others." [On Not Knowing Greek, p.13]

Here is a picture of exhilarating openness, grounded in what is permanently valuable.

Often the process of growth is joyful, through an opening, deepening or sharpening of our sensibilities and desires: through vista, knowledge, gift, epiphany, or revelation. Sometimes though, the process by which we learn what is permanently valuable can be contrary to what is expected of us, or what we in our youthful solipsistic lack of perspective desired. At times the submission to Truth is painful, while at the same time essentially freeing and life giving, because it is life affirming. The submission to what is permanently valuable often is in conflict with putting self first: gaining our value from what we do, rather than the manner in which we do it; from what we are called, rather than how we are named; from how much recognition or compensation we receive, rather than how happy we are to serve. It is through this sometimes joyful, sometimes painful process that we actually come to see ourselves more clearly. Koskenmaki writes of when she began finding more and more in common with others who are pursuing their lives in humility and the work of a common project. Her original ambitions, and even painting style, were at odds with the reality with which she was confronted. It was only through the pain of this realization that she began to recognize, I think, what L'Engle writes about creativity as communication, and as a broad understanding of a way of life:

"Creativity is a way of living life, no matter what our vocation, or how we earn our living. Creativity is not limited to the arts, or having some kind of important career. Several women have written to me to complain about A Swiftly Tilting Planet. They feel that I should not have allowed Meg Murry to give up a career by marrying Calvin, having children, and quietly helping her husband with his work behind the scenes. But if women are to be free to choose to pursue a career as well as marriage, they must also be free to choose the making of a home and the nurture of a family as their vocation; that was Meg's choice, and a free one, and it was as creative a choice as if she had gone on to get a PhD. in quantum mechanics. Our freedom to be creators is far less limited than some people would think." [Walking on Water, p. 90]

In serving others and serving her work Koskenmaki encountered the pain of seeing her own qualifications as lacking: the qualifications she had in the art world did not apply to her life, or to her work any longer. She felt unqualified to be so isolated in motherhood and geography. But here again, L'Engle comes to our aid:

"In a very real sense not one of us is qualified, but it seems that God continually chooses the most unqualified to do his work, to bear his glory. If we are qualified, we tend to think that we have done the job ourselves. If we are forced to accept our evident lack of qualification, then there's no danger that we will confuse God's work with our own, or God's glory with our own." [Walking on Water, p. 62]