Scribbles and dots...

Art is freedom.

I used to feel that art was constraining.

If I was to draw a picture it had to look like the real thing. If I was to take a photo, it had to be perfectly framed and make sense. This must have stemmed from my elementary art classes where paste had to be conserved and paints should not be mixed.

Someone once told me that if you're going to create art, you cant be afraid to make mistakes.

I love this idea.

Sure, perhaps that picture is fuzzy, but it captures the feel of the moment. That story doesnt come to a conclusion...yes but it may just be a small snapshot of life, and sometimes in life conclusions are not made. It is the ultimate frustration, but oftentimes conclusions are miles and miles away: soaking in some rays on some tropical beach, sipping martinis while we are freezing in the rain, huddled up in some alley.

2009 has been a year where I have felt a bubbling of creativity, spouting up from places I knew it might be residing and from some places I had no idea it was there. There have been some key participants in my life that have seemingly unlocked this discipline in me. And it has been exhilarating.

But the most freeing thing is that I have come to love art and expression as a place with no rules: it can make perfect sense and come together or it can be completely nonsensical and just be.

I am so grateful for an outlet to just create something planned and poignant or perhaps to just throw some abstract concept that may have been floating around in my head down on paper. That is the beauty, it is ultimate freedom to just do. Do something that makes you satisfied.

Create for the sake of creativity.

I just really appreciate that. I love that you don't have to be good or smart or calculated to create something. Just go for it. Don't be afraid to make no sense. Everything can have its place and should be appreciated for what it is. I actually think we go wrong when we actually try hard to make it too good.

When trying too hard comes off in art I think it leaves a bad taste in the observer's mouth. The artist shouldn't have anything to prove to people. Therefore, don't try to. Just go, go, go.

Its as if we need to take off the parking brake and just let our minds roll down the hill, gaining speed and not stopping for anything.

I want to encourage creativity because it has been a huge outlet and a place to enter into worship for me. I am thankful for a creative God who literally speaks and creates. And I am thankful that he allows us to jump in there and make our own creations.

However grand or slight they may be.