*Sidenote #51 on making art people might not like
wrapping up lent
The post is simply a continuation of #49 and a reflection on Lent.
For lent, I gave up trying to create within tight time constraints. I gave up being tight with my time. The focus was to spend time in the things that bring me joy, peace, and communion with God—especially when my world feels on fire.
This was a lofty, sacred goal.
I was able to set aside most of a day each week. Trying to create in a quiet environment proved to be hard—not that this was the goal. But if the idea of this long creative time was to spend with the Creator, then shows, movies, or podcasts might get in the way.
During the first half of Lent, I created with yarn and fabric. In the last half, I focused on painting.
During the week Lent began I listened to a podcast interview and could not get the sound clip out of my head.
Here is the quote from Dr.
in his interview with Preston Sprinkle speaking about his new book: The Affections of Christ Jesus: Love at the Heart of Paul’s Theology“But a macro is we experience love, we experience joy when we feel like what we are engaging with leads to thriving, leads to goodness, leads to things that are going to be ultimately good for us. So the way I like to explain this, Preston, is think about your soul.
This is kind of weird. Think about your soul and you having tentacles. And when we love something, we are allowingourselves to wrap our soul's tentacles around that thing.
So you think about your spouse, you think about your children, you think about your parents, your best friends, that sort of thing. But even with hate, I've come to understand hate is actually kind of, it's kind of a form of love because you're taking the same tentacles of your soul and you're wrapping them kind of in a stranglehold around something you shouldn't, right? When you hate someone or something with that kind of deep hatred that we have is you're using up your love tentacles on the wrong thing.
And so what's really fascinating, Preston, is how often the Bible commands emotions. Rejoice, be at peace, do not fear. And I remember thinking to myself, how do you just produce joy”
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I highly recommend listening to the whole episode. Not to understand what I am doing here, but because it is a good interview.
The keywords my brain latched onto in this episode include: tentacles, love, grasp, soul, and joy. I kept thinking, "How might this work its way into a piece of art?" Later that week my friend went to a museum and shared a picture of an octopus in her stories. I took a screenshot...tentacles!
This was all stored away for a few weeks to tumble around in my thoughts. I found myself drawing doodles in my journal of it. Mainly asking, "How do you draw a soul?"
And then because I love a good reflection moment. I thought, “What have my soul's tentacles been latched onto?”
I love—and hate questions like that. They usually come when it's time to release something.
It was time to release, a new layer of people-pleasing tendencies. I may expand on these in another post for another time and another place.
Just know that I needed courage. And to not grow weary.
Below are the verses that guided which words the tentacles of the soul would be holding on to in my painting as I thought through what I needed to release and hold on to.
“I remain confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord.”
Psalm 27:13-14
“For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life. Let us not lose heart in doing good, for in due time we will reap if we do not grow weary.”
Galatians 6:8-9
And finally, here I reveal the work. It is not made for any particular audience or reason—other than the idea had a hold on me and I had to make it.
May your heart be of good courage on this Good Friday.
Things to think on:
What have your soul's tentacles been latched onto?
What do you need to release?
Is your heart growing weary? What can help regenerate it?
