When art becomes bigger than its subject

I have always loved writing, as far back as I can remember. I essentially had a reclusive disposition, and I found writing to be a very enjoyable and satisfying way to express myself. Of course, I didn't think about it like that back then. I simply wrote and I had great time doing it!

As a child I would write one or two paragraph stories. In high school, when it came to writing essays, I didn't necessarily enjoy writing about subjects that didn't interest me, but yet I was still good at it (at least I got good grades). And when it came time to pick my own subject or to write about a pre-chosen subject that interested me, I never had a hard time using my imagination to come up with material.

I've always enjoyed writing poetry and song lyrics (although I have no musical sense whatsoever, as far as writing music). One of my favorite things that I used to do all the time was to take existing songs and rewrite funny lyrics for them. That was the "Weird Al Yankovic" in me. :) I also remember being at parties in my late teenage years, and I would sometimes sit down and write a funny story or poem and end up passing it around and watching people get a kick out of it.

(By the way, I'm getting to something here... eventually...) ;)

I wrote both to amuse myself and to amuse others. I wrote for my own benefit - for the purpose of being able to express the "story" that I had going on in my heart - and also for the purpose of sharing that story with others.

Today, I still write for the same purposes, although the content of what I write has changed over the years. What I write is simply an overflow of what's in my heart. I love writing. I love sharing my heart with others through writing. I've got about 350 blog posts from the past year and a half if you need proof. ;) Not only that, but I used to spend hour upon hour in online chat rooms and forums, discussing things that were in my heart. And if you think any of this is too much, I've got notebook upon notebook with page upon page of stuff that I've written over the years that no one but me has ever seen. Not to mention all the Word documents on my computer. It's almost as if "I write, therefore I am." Haha!

Writing is my "art," so to speak. I didn't say I'm the world's best at my art! But someone who paints or someone who sings doesn't have to be the best at what they do in order for it to be their thing.

They just do it, and it just is.

What is your "art?" Dancing? Painting? Drawing? Speaking? Administration? Organizing? Giving? Encouraging others? Tenderness? Showing up to help? Being there for others? Any of a trillion other ways of expressing what's in your heart?

As someone who loves writing, writing is naturally where the overflow of my heart is often expressed. It's usually not a "performance-based" thing for me. I don't do it to please anybody or to prove anything to anybody. I don't do it so others will focus on me as a writer. I do it so that the story (whatever story happens to be in my heart) gets told.

But I readily admit that there is definitely a temptation - sometimes a very subtle one - to change the angle of the spotlight that I'm supposedly shining on the the subject of my art more towards myself. See, I don't want the telling of the story to outshine the subject of the story. Yesterday I read a very humbling blog post that was a great reminder to not fall into that very temptation of making the art (or the artist) bigger than its subject.

The blog post, entitled Why Do I write?, explains this temptation very well I think, and succinctly. It's written by one of my brand new MyCCM Peeps (similar to MySpace Friends), Mark Geil. He draws upon a section of the C.S. Lewis book The Great Divorce. I won't give it all away. Just read it!  It's a great read - well worth it no matter what your particular "art" in life is.  (Update: "MyCCM" is no longer available, and so the article is also no longer available).

By the way, I don't mean to downplay art at all. I don't mean to say that we shouldn't enjoy art nor the artist. The artist's own personal expression of the story - or subject matter - can be a great big part of the enjoyment of the story! Each person's unique personality can add a certain "flavor" to the story. And different people who behold the art may have different tastes and may enjoy the very same stories being told according to those different flavors. Does that make sense? Anyway, I'm just saying that as artists - and I can't repeat enough: whatever your particular art is - it's good to keep in mind that the very reason we're creating art, even in our own unique ways, is to shine the light on something else, not ourselves.

Derek Webb on Christians and Art

The video below is currently on Derek Webb's myspace site. Webb was formerly a member of the CCM band Caedmon's Call and has enjoyed a solo career in recent years. This clip shows him on a program that appears to be called "TN Mornings." He mentions Nashville and it appears to be a local Fox morning show.

Anyway, based upon this interview, it appears that Webb has a similar view on "Christian Art" as I do. I don't think the subject is black and white at all and I know there are all kinds of view on this, but again, my views seem to line up closely here. I would perhaps word things a little differently, but the part of the interview that caught my attention is when Derek says this:

"Every artist has a way they look at the world... and the art that people make... reflects the way they look at the world. Most of what's called "Christian art" or whatever is typically about the most, like, spiritual 2% of stuff. I think we need art about all hundred percent though. I mean, not just transcendent moments, you know, like, worshipful moments and the afterlife. I mean, you know, that's part of it but it's only like 2%. We need Christians writing songs about the government and relationships and family and sexuality and everything... like the other 98% of the stuff..."

(If you watch the video, this part of the interview begins at around the 2:30 mark).

I totally agree with the essence of what is being said here. The way in which I would word things differently would be in a way such as this: "ALL of life is 100% spiritual (including government, relationships, family, sexuality, etc), so we need Christians writing about all 100% of life."

I totally get what he is saying, though, and again I fully agree with the gist of what he's getting at. We worship God. We praise Him. We love Him. We honor Him. It's great to sings songs about Him. But every single detail of our lives is lived in HIM, and if it's on an artist's heart to sing, write, draw, imagine, think, paint, perform, dramatize, film, etc, etc, etc, then that artist should just DO IT! It doesn't have to have a "Christian" theme to be "Christian." It doesn't have to be a presentation of the gospel in order to be part of the 100% of our lives in Christ.

Agree? Disagree? Anything to add?