I love movies that deal with the subject of awakening of an artist, or the re-awaking of their gift. In the movie Shadows in the Sun, the main character Wendell Parish, has become a recluse for the past 20 years, wallowing in his grief and choosing to ignore his passion and gift of writing. He tells a younger aspiring writer to remember that “you don’t choose to be an artist – it chooses you”. Films such as this one, Artemisia, Mostly Martha, and Baghdad Café (one’s I have recently watched) are all about the process of letting the artist within choose you.
Imperfections in the artist are revealed through their wrestling with fear, despair, heaviness that is carried because they are so sensitive to their environment. Yet there is the euphoria that comes with the release of a perfect note or melody, colours that entwine and reveal the perfect sunset on the canvas, words that draw the reader in to the story, or nature’s architecture that causes you to inhale and brings tears to your eyes.
What did Michelangelo feel as he lay on his back creating intricate stories on the ceiling of a sacred chapel, or as he hewed David’s image out of marble? Or what did Van Gough feel as he painted the purple and greens together in the Iris so that somewhere someone who felt the depth of pain as he did could find a moment of beauty while looking at the canvas? Did Sibelius know how his rich earthy music, singing of nature, stirs one to sit in stillness and wait to hear the next note while visualizing streams running toward the sea? Would Teresa of Avila know how much her love and passion for Christ would be inspiring poetry 500 years hence? Bernard of Clairveaux could not have known when he wrote “Jesus the very thought of Thee”, that almost 1000 years into the future these words would still be sacred holy words of song to many.
When I think of “art” my first thoughts are of colours moving out of solitude and blending together to form something definable for me to ponder. Lines that cross and blend and create form, or notes that come together and create a melody that is a vocal and visual journey. The delicate sounds of crystal being clinked against crystal, the plethora of threads that give tapestry a story to hold and tell. Drawings in the sand which stay for a moment and are soon swept away by the tide, or paintings on the sidewalk that will become a confused blend of colours in the rain – all are works of art. When I place the raw ingredients on the countertop, smelling the fresh produce, feeling the smooth texture of the skin of various vegetables and fruits, then chopping, blending, sautéing these ingredients, I find the culinary art coming to life with scent, texture, colour, and flavour. I anticipate the wonder of the placing the final product on the table and we partake of it together.
So if the Almighty placed within us the response to the calling to be an artist what were the feelings when They created us? Only recently, after reading a passage on this idea, did I think about the awe and wonder that God must have had as each individual work of art/humanness was under creation. Hands that sculpted every curve and bone, outlining our frame and knowing it before we were even in the womb; from the colour of our hair to the intensity and depth in our eyes, the timber of the voice, fullness of the lips, the shape of our hands and fingers and whether or not we have dimples in our cheeks or our chin. Did God sit back at times and ponder where to go next or even laugh out loud in delight knowing the story of beauty, pain and redemption this life would hold? Did God’s hands rest in infinite tenderness when creating the heart, knowing it would break, mend, break again, and still courageously choose to keep pursuing life? What did my soul look like as the Creature placed it in the centre of my being and wrote the words “you are Mine” upon it? And how did God entwine love and art together so they would call to each other?
Perhaps Mechthild of Magdeburg, who lived some 800 years ago, was an artistic soul whose medium was words. Her words of love speak to me of the beauty of an artists’soul and of the Almighty sitting creating:
God Speaks to the Soul
And God said to the soul:
I desired you before the world began.
I desire you now
As you desire me.
And where the desires of two come together
There love is perfected
HOW GOD ANSWERS THE SOUL
It is my nature that makes me love you often,
For I am love itself.
It is my longing that makes me love you intensely,
I yearn to be loved from the heart.
It is my eternity that makes me love you long,
For I have no end.
Mechthild of Magdeburg