Over the past few years I have begun to really get in touch with who I am in Christ ~ mainly how God has wired me: my personality, gifts, what energizes me and what drains me. The more I figure this stuff out the better I learn the most effective ways to find some balance in my busy life, which will, hopefully, keep burn-out from creeping in {or at least not as often}. Through this process the world of art journaling opened up to me and I found an incredible venue for "filling" the spaces in me that have been drained each week/month through the daily struggles, stresses, ups, and downs of life and ministry. If you are familiar with the practice of lectio divina, then you have an idea of how art journaling flows for me - Bible study, meditation, prayer, then I journal (written) for a while, and then I express myself in art for a while. It may or may not be connected to what I studied, but it relaxes me, energizes me, and refills the dry places within me. It also combines many creative areas that I dabble in: paint, paper, Photoshop, color, photography, typography, collage, words, images, etc. {I have never been satisfied with being fully, exclusively in just one creative area.} I have found over the past two years that it is the process of making art that holds the restorative, energizing and filling qualities for me. So I may or may not finish things and I create with being creative as myonly purpose.
I am driven by the interweaving of my faith and my art. After all, in following Christ, we are striving to live our whole life, our whole being, as a reflection of Him incarnated in us. So why would our hobbies not be an expression of that. I am amazed how time spent studying the Word and time spent doing art have very similar effects on me spiritually.
Creativity
No comments:
Post a Comment