Art, Artists, and Patrons Of..

I don't consider myself an artist...I write, I make my house pretty, I used to craft lovely pots on a wheel and burn them into something lasting. Now I craft tiny people, and the days that pass us by.

               "To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts."

                                                                    ~            ~Henry David Thoreau

True enough, but it doesn't make me an artist, not really. 

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I believe in art. I believe that "beauty will save the world," that it has saved the world, in fact, because Christ is Beauty, and Beauty is Christ. And so I believe that both art and the artists who create it are worthy of my support. 

Like all of us, I'm limited. Limited financially as I try to spend within our means to feed and clothe and nourish our family; limited spatially in that I have one room, 24 feet in diameter..about 75 feet totally of wall space, most of which is covered in tall dressers, bookcases, cupboards, and especially Icons.

Most importantly, though, I'm limited by my own judgment. I support artists. Co-creators of beauty. I determinedly pass over artistes - 'throwbacks to the disease of Shellyism' (in the words of Kathleen Norris ), or stagnating 'talents' who have never developed a voice of their own.  That last category which gives me pause though. I want to support them. I want to help them find a voice, a style, a medium that truly speaks for them. But I don't have the time or the money. I can't really be a 'patron of arts' so much as I can just be a tiny signpost on the path the artist has to walk. Saying softly - and I hope gently - "not this way.." or else "almost"; and most importantly, with Rilke, reminding them to:

“Keep growing quietly and seriously throughout your whole development; you cannot disturb it more rudely than by looking outward and expecting from outside replies to questions that only your inmost feeling in your most hushed hour can perhaps answer.” 

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With my small resources, I'll buy a beautiful, handcrafted bookshelf here, a vivid painting of trees against an October sky there, textured photographs and well-lettered altar cards..Art and crafts by those whose voice is strong, or growing well within them. I'll nourish them with words and actions, at the same time nourishing my own family with the beauty they've created.

Society needs artists, just as society needs prophets..and both are rare, shy creatures in our culture. It's a dangerous calling. It's dangerous to have any calling, "the ideology of our time is that we can live an uncalled life, one not referred to any purpose beyond one's self."(Walter Brueggeman)..and our society hopes that in encouraging such a life, everyone will be essentially the same, and the prophet, the artist, the 'necessary other' will recede into distant memory. But it is a calling, and not everyone who desires it is called.

Creative Updates

We are in full on 'Artistic Mode' here! Which means lots of trading off play-time with Yarrow, cleaning up, and making tea. It's a fantastic time for us all - except Luba, who resents what she sees as yet another intrusion into her time and space. She wanders the house deliberately looking for a problematic place to lie down: the couch-full of silk birds, the bed-full of Yarrow's blocks, beneath the table - exactly where we need to sit and type. All of our enthusiasm (Luba excepted) my have something to do with the weather - gray skies and cold, blustery days make for some wonderful indoor afternoons - if Yarrow didn't keep inviting my to 'come to Mass' with her ('Mass' apparently means pushing a chair around and around the house, occasionally kneeling down to pray) I could sit all day with my little pink writing book and my piles of reading.

Both contemplating destruction..notice the plastic potty-chair, and admire!

With a little over a week left of NanoWrimo, I'm nowhere near 50,000 words, but I do have a story I like, characters I'm committed to developing, and lots of inspiration to grow on..along with a handful of new poems..and Seth..well, I can't wait to show you what he's been doing! I have to wait just another day or two, but very soon we'll be all ready to share his winter project!

What sort of work are you getting done this month? I feel like November is such a productive month! Too cold for yard-work, too dry for snowy-fun, just right for letting the imagination take over a bit! Right?

Reflection: Art and Motherhood

The week off has been good for my writing, and for the Christmas projects, now almost done, Yarrow's red dress is only waiting for embellishment. I drove everywhere Friday, picking up the meat, storing it, bringing my husband to and from work, yet somehow I spent most of the day in happy ignorance. When I learned what had happened I was overwhelmed. My prayers go out for all those poor babies, their families, and for the killer.  I was more than usually grateful for my quiet home, for a weekend - extended by storms through Tuesday,  for the wood piled high beside my stove, and for lots of time to think.

 

In times of reflection, I often retreat into Rilke whose poetry captures so perfectly all the nuances of the soul.  Rilke, who believed that women artists should forego motherhood for the sake of their art, that the creation of art was incompatible with motherhood. I've been thinking of this often - he believed this, primarily because he saw motherhood itself as an artistic path, and felt that each artist must commit himself (or herself in this case) to a path without dividing the creative passion. It is one of the reasons he also struggled with faith.

 

I can see the either/or aspects of art in motherhood, but I think there is room for them to coexist. The artistic life is a challenge to anyone who pursues it. Unmarried, an artist has more freedom and fewer distractions than married - if like a priest he is able to give his art a position of primacy. Married, the artist has more to overcome: I know that one of my primary distractions is my housekeeping. I don’t like to work, and often I can’t work when things are out of place. Some days the house is a constant frustration, failing my ideal again and again until it’s time to make dinner and go to bed - unorganized firewood really shouldn’t prevent me from working, but too often it does, and once the firewood has been rearranged, the bits of wood need to be swept up, and then the rugs should be shaken out, and then the disorder of the yard comes to my attention, until the stove needs to be tended again - leaving tiny bits of wood on the floor again and leading me to notice that the walls really are dirty…

Motherhood, of course adds to the distractions of the married artist - now in addition to this particular artist's intense dislike of mess, there is a mess-making little one: destroying the neatly swept piles of tiny wood-bits, delighting in destruction, and encouraging the dog in her evil tendencies - Rilke never mentions the effects of a dog on the artist, he should have, they’re even more distracting - children may possible nap or play quietly at the right time, a dog is designed by nature to discover a menace hiding in the trees every time the artist settles down to work.

I do think that Rilke missed the art producing aspects of motherhood. The inspiration children bring, and the possibility that each daily task - whether mothering or straightening the rugs which the dog insists on putting out of order - is capable of producing beauty, nourishing the artist’s other children : her poems or pots, canvases or stories. It may be that I just don’t like seeing limitations in life but I believe that art and life and faith all feed each other, and I hope that, while I may lose the moments that might have been spent writing or throwing feeding croissant dough to Yarrow, who can’t help but share with Luba, the long, lovely days when nothing is written are more creative than all the hours spent scribbling when I was single and free to ignore everything for the sake of a line.

 

Any thoughts of your own to share?