Why We Need the Artists

 I recently read an article that referenced something about 'the true, the good, and the beautiful.' Isn't it a bit audacious to state anything about these 3 things? Isn't it a bit presumptuous? A bit, you know, not very inclusive? I mean, who gets to say what is true, (like, is it only 'your truth'?), what is good ('what's good for me may not be good for you!'), or what's beautiful? Just referencing these three things, without qualifiers, without inclusive language and disclaimers, is bold, daring and even more than a bit assertive. It says, in essence that truth exists without qualifiers. That goodness exists without my deeming something good. And that beauty is more than simply in the eye of the beholder - that beauty exists alone, without me giving some special framework or caveat about my individual kind of artistic expression. I mean, I play at art, but I'm not sure I'd call it beautiful (nor would anyone else with any taste, I imagine). I do not say this to downplay my artistic talent (because I have none when it comes to visual art skills, and this is no difficulty for me to state plainly). It just is true, in the 'truth-that-stands-alone' kind of way.

I thought about beauty, specifically - what is it that all consider universally beautiful? Last night the sky was brilliant blue with golden hues and the setting sun. I can't imagine anyone not seeing the beauty in that. God, of course, is the ultimate Artist, with finest taste and delight in colour and radiance and contrast and beauty. 

I thought how I am not really fixated on visual beauty, but am more of a word artist - I find beauty in certain words combined and the lack thereof in those that are not well-combined. Since I produce words as I think them, and write them, I suppose I am some kind of artist, but it is hard for me to see if my own creative expression has any value since it is an internal construction of sorts. I can't exactly step back and view my own work with a neutral eye. 

For a few moments I lingered on those words: true, good, beautiful. These words stand alone and seem to throw down the gauntlet: "I dare you to challenge me! I am Truth! I exist, even without your approval!"  "I am Good. Even when you don't feel it. Even when you don't like it! I declare what is Good, even without your affirmation!" "I am Beauty. Some will see me and agree! Others will not, but my beauty stands alone, without your blessing."

These 3 words beckon an argument; a fight, almost. 

And I realized that artists are obsessed with what they find beautiful. They will paint, draw, create, arrange, re-arrange, re-paint, re-order, align, combine, and re-work something, - all with the goal to make something beautiful; pleasing to the eye. Artists love beauty.

And artists seem to speak another language. I use word-language - you know, these small letters that combine to make a word, then a sentence and tell something that's inside my head, to you my reader, or you my hearer. 

An artist speaks with pictures, colour, arrangements. Sometimes they tell us things we can't understand right away, but we can sit with the beauty they create, and simply enjoy. They speak without words, but with no less (and often, more!) passion. Artists whisper and shout in colour and boldness and contrast and delight.

I really know very little about art. But I've thought lately about time and attention. We know, because of the social media constructs, and the advertising industry, that what we give our time and attention to matters immensely. A new year has dawned and often we reflect on time - our use of it, our abuse of it. We lament our distracted souls, our frittered lives. We guilt ourselves by shoulds and coulds and might-haves. I'm not really into this - I have ultra-guilt-radar and usually steer clear. But even I get dragged into this kind of reflective process and have to sit with it for a while to make sense of it all. Time. Attention. Where do I give my time and attention? An artist gives her attention to beauty. What will be most beautiful? What will be most evocative? What reaction do I want to elicit from the viewer? What in my soul needs to come out in this depiction? The artists give themselves to beauty - the hunt of it, the quest for it, the yielding of it. 

Artists are doing a bold work, I imagine. They have the audacity to say, 'Here's beauty. It exists without your approval.' Of course there is art that lacks beauty. But I'm not dwelling on that here. I'll let the critics handle that. Even art that isn't beautiful means that someone was at least trying, or giving attention to, what might be beautiful (unless of course the intent was to depict the opposite).

Artists tell us, 'I took my time, my effort, my brainpower, my thought, my bold-daringness to bring you this work.' We need the artists to take the risks they do to empower us and embolden us to take the risks we need to take. 

Relationships require risk: will I allow you to know me? What if what I bring forth of myself isn't to your liking? Yep, that's a risky one, I tell ya. I don't have courage for this. But an artist takes a part of themselves and puts it out there and we might not like it. Their quest is for beauty, and maybe they make something *not* beautiful. That is scary business right there! The Artist took the first step and shows me: there is a way to be vulnerable. Beauty may come through risk-taking. Beautiful relationships might come through similar risk-taking.

What about with God? God proclaims Himself in the skies, the grandeur of all He has made! God is the ultimate Artist: He puts Himself on display, His power in the wind, the crash of thunder, the radiant sunshine, the raging storm and the serenity of a newborn faun in the hushed corner of a forest. God gives us His beauty, His joyful expression of Who He is. He comes to us in a baby in a manger, enfleshed with our own frail, yet beautiful, humanity.

God stands as Truth, Goodness, and Beauty, without apology, without need, without our disclaimers. God is bold, audacious and yet invites us into relationship with Him. We need the artists because they reflect their Maker, and He is our ultimate need. 

Beauty is inviting. And God may yet be inviting you into an experience of all that He is. 

I am making bold statements here; I am not unaware that certainty is an emotion, and so let me speak from this emotional place of certainty: I am convinced that God longs for each of us to share in His beauty, to boldly live into who He created each of us to be, to bring His beauty forth through our lives. This is both an individual work and a relational one: relating with our Maker, and each other and our own selves. 

And that's why we need the Artists, because they expose us to vulnerability, risk-taking, beauty-making and ultimately, the Artist Whose art we are.