Musings: Control and Creative Process

Erika from Rouge & Whimsy is talking about End Quote Studio today. Go  give it a read when you're all done here!

Lately, I've been fascinated with the idea of the creative process, especially in conjunction with my faith. I tend to think of myself as a quasi-creative, a person who sees the world a bit differently, but is never fully comfortable with creating without guidelines.

For my birthday, my mom gifted me the book Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art by Madeleine L'Engle (She wrote A Wrinkle in Time, among other things). The reading has been slow going in a good way. Almost every page has huge chunks of underlining. Each time I put the book down, I'm both inspired and convicted.

You see, I originally liked calligraphy because it felt like controlled art, a way to create within guidelines of words and letters. Control. I'm always fighting God to be in control of my life. But for the creative, or the person who lives creatively, we're called to lose control in order to live out our roles as co-creators with God. We're co-creators! As Madeleine L'Engle said, "If we are to be aware of life while we are living it, we must have the courage to relinquish our hard earned control of ourselves."

Funny that a little book about faith and art would open me up to living adventurously, would make me feel free enough to explore my art and to explore my thought processes.

I'll leave you with this, "If we allow our 'high creativity' to remain alive, we will never be bored. We can pray, standing in line at the supermarket. Or we can be lost in awe at all the people around us, their lives full of glory and tragedy, and suddenly we have the beginnings of a painting, a story, a song."

May we live in high creativity with our Creator today.

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Taylor