Process | March 30

One of my goals for my art residency was to create a piece of textile art from conception to completion - from the moments of feeling and sifting through the sensory overload of a new place to stretching the thing on its frame. Although in its completed form it will hang beside two more pieces, I did reach this goal. And I have the piece to prove it!

You can see more of the process and details on the Morocco | Art Residency page.

In the making of “Tetouan: Street", and the concept work for the whole set, I learned a lot about my creative process. I discovered that right now it’s a rather haphazard cycle of writing, sketching, looking, stitching, and sitting in thought. These are good things to realize at the beginning of being an artist. There is nothing wrong with being a somewhat chaotic person, but it’s important to be aware of the difficulties it might cause. Once I was reading a book by a well-known author and came across a sentence fragment. It was a very powerful fragment, but I, rather foolishly, laughed at the great man for making such a mistake. "If he did it, Mom, why can't I?" Her answer was a very good one. "Carrie, you have to know how to follow the rules before you break them. Once you really know them, then you can break them with purpose.” This lesson was reinforced for me while at GOA. I can let my mind dream this way and that, but I have to be able to draw good perspective before I can bend it. I have to know the human form before I can stretch it to its limits of expression. Being an artist is an endurance challenged of practice, or as a Eugene Peterson says of life, it is a “long obedience in the same direction.” Without the long, faithful trek there will be nothing of substance in the end.

I'm at the beginning of my journey as an artist. I still bear the name “student”, and hope to keep it in some sense my whole life. An art residency is something I once considered as the realm of“proper" artists who had years of experience and strong portfolios under their belts. What, then, was the value of my doing it as a student?

Of course I met artists and “got inspired” and had many enjoyable adventures. But honestly, this was the greatest value for me: I felt the impact of my weaknesses. Given free range in a setting bursting with potential, I couldn’t excuse away my inexperience. At school I love my art classes. I put more time and effort into them than any others. But when I do a shoddy job or am unsatisfied with an end result, it is easy to say, "Oh well, I can’t put all my power into one class when I’ve got six. I’m not really that bad. It’s the lack of sleep.” My blame-shifting heart revels in putting the weight of my procrastination or failure up to the favorite scape goats, Too-Little-Time and Too-Much-to-Do. These Scrooge-like old phrases are nice patches for my wounded pride. It’s one thing for me to admit these as legitimate limitations and another entirely to make a martyr of my fallibility so that I can think I am better than my neighbor. Thank God, I am a limited creature, and he once more put me in a place to see it! Feeling the frustrating impact of my artistic (and personal) weaknesses could have been paralyzing, but instead, they set a realistic and hopeful beginning.

So it is that I’ve come to find a surprising congruence between my theology and my life as an artist. The beginning of both is found in humility rather than self-confidence. Not a nice fluffy pat-on-the-head humility (the kind I use to feed my self-righteousness), but a painful one that has to admit that I’m stalled now because I cut corners when my professor asked me to do twenty sketches. It is a gasp of “Oh, God,” that means what it says. It isn’t a solitary moment of humility either. Theology and artistry continue not without confidence, but with grounding my confidence outside of myself. My spiritual, physical, and creative life must hold onto a hope which isn’t stifled under my own expectations or the expectations of others, but is gloriously free in the gaze of the only One that matters. Fellow art students, take joy in what you’ve chosen to pursue! All people, take joy in your messy, creative nature! There is deep, painful, liberating truth in it!