practicing beauty in the middle of all this mess
noticing beauty, creating it, sharing beauty... it's needed now more than ever.
i was raised in a community, and in a protestant church denomination for that matter, that didn’t value the arts and beauty very much. it was considered frivolous. too much focus on it was, in fact, considered a sin.
but i was also raised by a woman who was an artist, who noticed beauty on the side of country roads and brought buckets of it into our home, creating beauty in abundance even when we had “nothing.”
thankfully, i take after my mother. not thankfully, those voices from the community of my youth still question this drive i have to create beauty and help others see beauty in their lives too. i think it’s my calling, really, if you believe in such a thing. (my vocation if you don’t.) it’s who i am and what my hands are for: creating beauty, sharing beauty, helping others to notice beauty and value it in their own lives too.
but not all that infrequently, those little childhood community voices whisper in my ears. “but is it really that important? aren’t you just avoiding the world? haven’t you just given up on trying to fight the bad things in life? do people really need art on their walls more than they need justice in their lives? and what about their eternal souls?”
you know, those voices. and those voices are cackling in my ear this morning, as i spend my morning in the studio when so many other things are pressing (our visa appointment is one week from today!) but today, because or those voices, not in spite of them, i have to return to what i know is the actual truth:
we can have both in our lives-we can have art on our walls and justice in our lives, and we don’t have to wait for one to also have the other
creating beauty is a rebellion against those “bad things,” the ugliness of the world
beauty in our lives a matter of survival: to still have beauty, to still seek out beauty, to still notice beauty, especially in the middle of all the ugly, keeps us going in those times.
i remind myself that practicing beauty in an ugly world is indeed a rebellion.
and i remind myself that creating beauty isn’t just a frivolous act for the rich, who already have all their other basic needs met. i remind myself that my own mother, when we were anything but rich (financially) made our lives rich (in beauty) without spending money. beauty is not expensive, it’s not exclusive, it’s not something to put off until the ugly is taken care of.
beauty is a necessity.
learn more:
did you know i wrote a book about practicing beauty? and then distilled it down into a zine? you can get a copy of it here. it’s available in digital form, too.
visit me at the studio before our departure:
we’re having a farewell shindig on june 27 at my studio before we fly off to spain- and i’d love to see you there. it will be your last chance to purchase my artwork for a while (or you could pick up one of those zines about beauty!) but most of all, i’d love to toast to our community here before we leave. all the details are here.