reflections on creativity and the art of living

In 1983, I was a young seminary student working as the assistant pastor of a church in Columbia, SC. The senior pastor would sometimes allow me to preach on Sunday nights, I suppose minimizing the possible mess he’d have to clean up later. It was a smaller crowd. About half of the people were of the “grandparent persuasion” and quite tolerant. They kindly let me practice my public speaking skills on them.

Odell was a retired coal miner from the mountains of West Virginia who faithfully attended that church. He lived with his son, a master sergeant in the Army who was stationed at nearby Fort Jackson.  Odell had a healthy mane of pure white hair, a hawk bill of a nose and steel gray/blue eyes, one of which was glass and never quite synchronized with his good eye.

After speaking one Sunday evening, I came down from the pulpit and walked to the back of the church to greet the folks as they filed out to go home. Odell shuffled up to me, cocked his head back, sighted down his good eye and said, “young man, if you want to ‘expire’ others, you’ve got to be expired yo-seff!” Humm, I thought, ”expired”? “Did he mean, ‘inspired’?”

Whether pastors or painters, we often struggle to obtain and maintain inspiration.  You know when it’s present. It is like a thermal under your wings lifting you effortlessly to a higher place.  Inspiration connects. You connect to your medium in a different way; the brush and palette become extensions of your psyche. Your work also connects with your audience or viewer. And I would suggest that there could be a spiritual dimension to inspiration that for many of us, connects us to the Creator.

There are many opinions and theories about inspiration. The ancient Greeks believed that inspiration in the arts was a gift of goddesses that they called “the muses”. They erected shrines to them called “museums”. Sonic inspiration is called, “music” and to ponder a thing is to “muse on it.” The quest for inspiration, this “muse”, is an important aspect of creativity.

Back to Brother Odell. “If you want to ‘expire’ (inspire) others, you have to be ‘expired’ yourself.” I have been rethinking that statement. Maybe he was unintentionally on to something. Could expiration (death) also be a key to inspiration? What if we just quit struggling with some things and let them die? Might that “death” open the door to new possibilities, indeed a “resurrection”?

Stay with me here a moment. Set aside the mystical or philosophical implications of that statement and step back and look at it from a practical perspective.

What about that painting that you are so highly invested in yet somehow can’t seem to get right. What if you just let it die? How might you do that? Paint something out? Start a new painting? Burn it? Simplify it?

What about that project or relationship that is sapping all of your finances and draining the life out of you? You have done everything that you know to do yet in your heart you know, it’s over. Maybe it is time to let it expire.

I realize I am treading on shaky ground. I am not saying give up at the first or even second wind of adversity. Don’t go home and divorce your spouse and say I told you to do so. There are many relationships and battles that are worth fighting and hoping for despite the cost. By all means fight the good fight and keep the faith.

But it is helpful to understand that very often the “death” of something forces us to evolve and see things with new eyes. This can open the door for fresh inspiration. In “expiration” we can find “inspiration.”

There is something very liberating in allowing things to “expire”. You become free of all of the drama, and manipulation that you tend to put up with when you are deeply invested. For example, I normally limit the time that I am willing to invest on any given painting to a maximum of one 8-hour day. I might work on it 2-3 hours over 2-3 days but my limit is normally around 8 hours.

Because of that, I prefer acrylics to oils. I do not strive for photo-realism. I tend to concentrate on design elements such as composition, and I often leave parts of the surface unpainted. I rarely erase or correct my drips, runs and splatters. If I haven’t gotten the thing down before my 8 hours expire, I usually just let it go. I do not struggle with it. Sometimes I will come back to it later, but only after months have go by. Since in the meantime I let it die, I see it with new eyes. Those paintings can often be resurrected.

Anyway, that works for me. Not everybody is attracted to my work. In fact some folks think it to be quite under-painted. That’s ok. I have died to the need for everyone’s approval. Still I have found that there are a lot of people in this world who get inspired by the same things that inspire me. 

If you are at an impasse and just cannot seem to find your muse, perhaps it is time to let something go. You might find in its passing the freedom to see with fresh eyes and a connection to a new audience. Maybe Brother Odell was right all along, “if you want to expire others, you have to be expired yourself.”