Art in Process

This week’s posts will appear in a triptych, a series of posts developed through a process.

Have you ever had the luxury of watching a potter's wheel in action? What about a metalsmith and his anvil? Or, a weaver and her loom? How about a painter constructing a large mural? One of the many gifts that I have received in my life is a visual catalog, a brain that files visual memories in "photographs" to be used at another time or in another place. Often in my life, vivid visual memories will pop back into my mind after having lain dormant for quite some time, connecting themselves to a new occurrence or a new season in my life. Because I am a visual learner and experiencer, these images play a large role in enabling me to process my life.

There are three vivid artistic memories in my life that have continued to re-surface since both my mom's death in 2013 and my accident in June. It would benefit you most for me to describe them each then build the visual processing that has taken place since their reentrance into my life. This series will address each memory as it has related to my life.

First is a very early memory somewhere around the age of 4 when my mom was in charge of a Student Council event at Cabrini. She and her students were constructing a paper "bonfire," made of red, yellow, and orange streamers and a fan. She is not here to ask, but I believe I can recall that it was very large in the middle of the gym. In my mind, it was also fascinating. Maybe it was because I was 4 or maybe because it truly was, I'll never know. Also, somehow, connected to it in my memory, is Garth Brooks' song "Standing Outside the Fire." I believe they utilized the song for their presentation.

Second, my parents were very devoted to Festival International as I grew up. Fortunately for me, I was also raised in a wonderful French program at Cathedral and we had the honor of hosting various French performances and events on our campus during the festival. One year, I can vividly remember standing in the middle of the field at school watching a large weaving loom undulate with great beauty. As she worked, the weaver explained her process to us. I was too young to articulate any thoughts about that process then, but it was a powerful image that has resurfaced very recently in my life.

And, lastly, one of the first times we ever took the boys to Acadian Village to see the Christmas lights, I made it a point to pass through the blacksmith's shop and to stay awhile as he presented his work. (Speaking of Festival, I can also recall watching many metal smiths at Festival International, too.) I can remember that the kids were held captive by the sparks that flew with each drop of the hammer. But, that night at Acadian Village, I thought long about the beauty of that specific kind of art and its meaning that is often lost in this world.

For clay to actualize into a vase or a mug or a bowl, it is given life through the hands of the potter. It is thrown, scored, pinched, and lifted into beauty. For a textile to evolve into its purpose, layers and layers are woven over and under, over and under. The very backbone of the process is the great amount of tension placed on the warp thread, producing some of the world’s most beautiful fabric pieces.

For metals to achieve their beauty and value, they are burned, refined, buffered, and waxed. Hammered and scored, it is forged into its outcome.

This is the beautiful commotion of art in progress.

Burning, weaving, melting, spinning, digging, carving, sloshing, layering, erasing... art gets to the end after hours of process. That process is the very means to its beauty.

The flames of that bonfire, constructed by my mom and some of her earliest students, remind me of the fires that are meant to refine our lives. Do you know the intensity of the fires that refine gold? Reaching temperatures in excess of 1000 degrees Celsius, this ancient process, even mentioned in the Bible many times, is set to burn away the impurities in the metal, but not destroy the very material which it purifies. How fascinating… that this intense heat would melt away only the dross.

Similarly, the events in my life that have refined me the most are the ones that have hurt like hell. But, here I stand. It's often hard to endure the temperatures of life, but I know that God is using that process to work out in me the attachments to a world that is fleeting.

I have lived seasons in my life where I did not engage the fires. I did not love deeply. I did not attach. I did not risk. I did not expose myself. It’s certainly “safer” out there, living life at a distance. But, as my most favorite musician Garth Brooks says: “Life is not tried, it is merely survived, if you're standing outside the fire.” There are many days where I briefly consider living safely outside the fire. I consider never traveling again; I consider detaching myself from the things that could potentially burn; I consider secluding myself; I consider simply sleeping life away. However, living at a distance and choosing fear is certainly choosing a life unfulfilled. In counseling last week, I described my desire to walk straight through it all, the hurt and pain and confusion, in order to reach the other side. I do not exactly know what God has for me on that side, but I have certainly learned that the only way to it is through it.

I have chosen to endure this process of refinement with Jesus because I cannot imagine doing it alone. I believe it would simply burn too much. The visual photograph of that bonfire in the middle of the gym that has re-surfaced in my mind is both a warm memory of my mom and a reminder of what Peter encourages in his first epistle. Describing “A Living Hope, and a Sure Salvation,” he encourages us to rejoice even in the midst of trials in order to obtain an inheritance reserved for us in Heaven. He says: “In this you greatly rejoice, even though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been distressed by various trials, so that the proof of your faith, being more precious than gold which is perishable, even though tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 1:6-7). Somehow, at the end of this refining fire, I believe the reward is great for me in Heaven. In the midst of the most difficult season of my life so far, I believe that choosing Jesus is choosing proper healing. I believe that my process is only made possible in Him.