'The Artist' - A Blog About Time

The Artist: Oil on canvas by Avril Thomas.
Used with permission 

My husband, Marc, and I recently celebrated our tenth wedding anniversary. We booked a gorgeous B&B at McLaren Vale and snuggled together in the warmth as the wind blasted rain against the windows. It was great to spend quality time together in this cosy retreat.
      When we checked out on Sunday morning we decided to look at some art galleries. We considered a list of local galleries but in the end we only braved the weather to take in one exhibition, that of South Australian artist, Avril Thomas, at Magpie Springs winery in Willunga.
     Avril’s works are striking. I immediately liked the large portrait of South Australian politician, Alexander Downer, and a series of paintings commissioned by the Flinders Medical Centre. These are unusual: Oil paintings of medical professionals, including doctors and nurses working in an operating theatre.  I enjoy Avril’s ‘tonal realism’ style and the humanity that seems to imbibe her work.
     But there was one painting that stood out for me. The Artist (pictured above) depicts a woman in the act of creating. Colours on her palate stream onto brushes and onto the canvas as the woman paints an image of herself in the act of painting. On first impression I thought it a passionate, unusual work, but then I saw the small hourglass in the lower right quadrant of the painting.
     The beauty of art, whatever its form, is that it can pierce us in that place which is the core of who we are. It doesn’t matter whether the medium is oil paint or music or words, art can get inside us and bring conviction. The small hourglass in the painting suggests that time is passing. The notes to the side of the painting explain that the hourglass symbolises the finite nature of time – the artist only has so many days to do the things they’ve been made to do.
     As I looked at this painting I sensed that God was speaking to me. ‘Are you doing what I made you to do?’
     The conviction didn’t come with judgement. There was no, ‘Come on Susan, you need to do more. MORE!’ It came instead with a sweet sense of grace. I’m in the middle of my life and God has spoken things over me along the way: A call to ministry, a call to write and I think to visual art as well. He has given me some wonderful promises that have budded but are yet to fully flower and fruit.  Am I tending those promises as fully as I can? God reminded me that the time available to do that is finite. I need to seek his face and make some tough decisions.
     In Ecclesiastes 3:1 it says there’s a time for everything under the sun. So I don’t think Jesus wants us to drop everything and make our art the sole priority. There’s a right time and place for everything. But I sense that for some reading this, like me, God is saying, ‘You’ve been patient, you’ve waited, now it’s time to do the things you've been made for.’
     What things has God put on your heart to do?

Sue Jeffrey was born in Scotland but moved to Brisbane, Australia with her family when she was just a wee lass. After a childhood spent reading, drawing and accumulating stray animals, Sue studied veterinary science and later moved to Adelaide where she worked as both a vet and a pastor. After a sojourn of several years in the Australian Capital Territory, Sue returned to Adelaide with two dogs, a very nice husband, and a deepdesire to write. Sue has a MA in creative writing and her short stories and poems have appeared in several anthologies including Tales of the Upper Room, Something in the Blood: Vampire Stories With a Christian Bite and Glimpses of Light. Her e-book Ruthless The Killer: A Short Story is available on Amazon.com. Sue also paints animal portraits.

Do Creative People Always Have To Say 'no'?

I recently read this interesting article, which was posted by one of our authors on FB, entitled ‘Creative People Say No’. https://medium.com/thoughts-on-creativity/bad7c34842a2.

It’s a challenging one and got me thinking. In it the author quotes various creative people who insist that saying ‘no’ is the cornerstone of their work, including Management writer Peter Drucker, who says : “…productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.”

The article also included ideas which I resonate with to some degree, like ‘Creating consumes. It is all day, every day. It knows neither weekends nor vacations. It is not when we feel like it. It is habit, compulsion, obsession, vocation. The common thread that links creators is how they spend their time. No matter what you read, no matter what they claim, nearly all creators spend nearly all their time on the work of creation. There are few overnight successes and many up-all-night successes.’

The thread of this article is that as creators we must become very good at saying ‘no’ to those things which distract us from our creation. “Saying ‘no’ has more creative power than ideas, insights and talent combined. ‘No’ guards time, the thread from which we weave our creations. The math of time is simple: you have less than you think and need more than you know.”

The author of the article concludes “ Creators do not ask how much time something takes but how much creation it costs. This interview, this letter, this trip to the movies, this dinner with friends, this party…  How much less will I create unless I say “no?” A sketch? A stanza? A paragraph?... The answer is always the same: ‘yes’ makes less. We do not have enough time as it is. There are groceries to buy, families to love and day jobs to do. No makes us aloof, boring, impolite, unfriendly, selfish, anti-social, uncaring, lonely and an arsenal of other insults. But ‘no’ is the button that keeps us on.’

For years as a psychologist I’ve taught people about boundaries, and often have to return to my own words about the need to say ‘no’ to things that take time and resources away from the most important things in my life. Whether as Christians, parents, friends, or authors, it’s often a hard lesson to learn, and many of us find ourselves overwhelmed by other people’s agendas, to the detriment or our own calling, creative process, or energy. I don’t pretend to have this issue completely in balance in my life. But in the discussion of whether we support others in their creative work, I feel we need to be very careful not to go overboard on saying 'no'.

Of course we need to protect time that we can give to our writing, editing, planning of stories and then to promotion of our work. But I believe we must also remember that without the support of others; editors, publishers, promoters, and other writers who give great encouragement as well as their own precious time, none of us would succeed.

The creation of a work of art, be it writing, or any other project, may be the inspiration and vision of the writer, and no writer would dispute the enormous number of hours we need for our writing, the agony and ecstasy of digging deeper and deeper into ourselves for creative ways to present our stories, the ominous task of editing over and over again, the painstaking planning and execution of promotion.

However, surely most writers would acknowledge the absolute necessity of the support of others in the completion of our art. What if others always said ‘no’ to our requests to read our work, to give feedback, to consider publishing, to review, to promote through their own networks? I cannot overestimate the help and support I have received from other writers, readers, promoters, not to mention my publisher.  I feel that being part of a writing community, supporting each other and achieving something together for the world of publishing, reading and writing, is very worthwhile. I believe this is a vision we share together, a calling we have from God to share ideas, stories and challenges to a reading public, and I can see that together we can achieve so much more than any of us can achieve alone.

So in this case, in spite of any teaching I’ve given on boundaries – and I certainly believe we must be good at setting boundaries in our lives – I think we must be very careful that we acknowledge the value of saying ‘yes’ to helping the work of other people.

Carol Preston

With thanks to all those who have said ‘yes’ to helping me create, publish and promote my Turning The Tide series of historical novels.

www.carolpreston.com.au
www.amazon.com/author/carolpreston