The following is a post I wrote for Preston Yancey’s blog. He’s hosting a series of over 50 posts from varying authors about the beautiful, mangled Church. He’s calling it #ATLT or At the Lord’s Table: A Conversation. The posts will continue until February 22. Feel free to join the conversation in the comments on Preston’s blog.

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“Believing that traditional religion failed to address and soothe the trials of modern life, he [Vincent] regarded art as a potential source of faith and enlightenment. He thought that, if artists assumed a missionary role in society and that if they joined together in a compassionate fraternity, they could bring hope and consolation to a troubled world…Art had now replaced Vincent’s traditional religious beliefs.”

- The Art Institute of Chicago’s Van Gogh and Gaugin

Late last year I was speaking to one of my artist friends about community. She shared with me that she is going through a Bible study on the book of Acts. Now normally, the Bible is causing a bit of a cringe in me right now. I tip-toe towards its mention because I’m not in a place of being able to read it without feeling the weight of legalism within the commands to obey each and every rule. I just don’t have ears to hear it as life-giving lately. But hearing it through a trusted friend’s perspective is very helpful.

A couple weeks after hearing about Acts from my friend, I was sitting in a coffee shop on date nite with my husband, and we were both reading and journaling. I decided to read a bit of Acts myself, and test the waters. If I got too frustrated, I could just stop reading, I told myself. {continue reading}

There are things we’ll never see unless you show us. We wait unknowingly for art created by you. Will you let it spring forth? Will you have the patience to be you?

I changed a tab on this blog to read Art Store instead of Bookstore. About a year and a half ago, I thought for sure I needed to devote my life solely to the art of writing words. But as this last year played out, I’ve felt pulled, as many artists do, to dabble here and there in other mediums. Photography, mixed-media collage, painting, art-journaling to name a few. So I’m letting the Muse take me where it must, and I’m trying not to build a box with walls so high I can’t scale them when necessary. I think my gypsy artist heart is prone to wander and needs the thrill of wide open spaces at times.

In the Messy Canvas Art Store you can still find my four e-Books.

In addition I have included a link to all the digital scrapbooking products I design for Scrap Girls. My latest product is a set of digital papers in both 8.5×11 and 12×12 sizes, called, Vulnerable. I feel like a part of my soul kind of bled out in creating these. I look at them and feel a bit exposed.

I have also include links for my products at Etsy. I re-opened my Etsy store this past weekend with a line of 5×7 #secretmessage art pieces. Maybe they’ll be a secret message hidden for you somewhere in there!

This morning I spent some time working on a #secretmessage art journal I’m creating for someone special. As I pushed my brush across the pages of an old book and listened to a familiar Anna Nalick song, my heart welled up for an instant because I truly felt in my element.

I’ve been a scared person the last 24 hours, scared at all I am attempting, hiding in my closet so I didn’t have to face myself. Wide open spaces, though thrilling, can be entirely daunting as well. But this morning in those moments of brush strokes and #secretmessage circling I felt certain I have to keep pressing on.

This dream living business is certainly not for sissies. I’m thankful for a husband that doesn’t balk at my hiding. For a neighbor that doesn’t flinch at my inability to answer the door. For a anam cara that calls me braveheart. May we all be bravehearts as we try to let the person out that lives inside us. And have grace for ourselves on the days when we hug the carpet of dark rooms, shaking and breathing shallow gulps of air.

Once upon a time I sat with my husband and some of his friends in a packed bar listening to a couple called Over the Rhine intermingle their music with the cigarette fog in the air.

Once upon another time I sat in a little 2-story coffee shop, the upper story being more balcony than floor, and I listened to this same Over the Rhine, the woman tossing me in the waves of her vocal ocean and the man pulling my heart strings in and out and in and out with the motions of his accordion.

Once upon yet another time I reunited with a band called Over the Rhine and I let them play their random selections on Pandora as I soaked a tired body in hot water by candlelight.

And when the lyrics shown above fogged up my mirror with their truth and mystery, I pushed a soggy wrinkled finger onto the image of a thumbs-up icon on my iPhone screen, because I wanted to remember to return to these lyrics on a later date (that date is today) so they could “Remind Us.”

I wonder if we know we are all Charlottes.

Have you read Charlotte’s Web? I almost have the beginning chapter memorized. Not word for word of course, but I can see the line-drawings of Fern fighting her daddy with his ax, desperately needing to save the runt pig. And I can see her pushing the pig in a baby stroller, and I can see her feeding that pig a bottle. And at first, you think the book is about Fern.

But then you meet Charlotte. She’s quiet and mellow and talks elegantly and calmly, even when she speaks of wrapping up flies and biting them and eating them. She’s brave and smart and confident. She’s undaunted and unafraid, like a friends of mine. So then you think the book is about Charlotte. And really it is. I mean, the book is named after her right?

But then you see that Charlotte sort of falls in love with Wilbur, the pig. Wilbur, the ordinary runt of a pig that eats slop and sleeps in poop and is so petrified of being butchered he can’t even think straight. Charlotte sees Wilbur. I mean REALLY sees him. She sees a life worth saving. She sees a life worth celebrating, and so she creates art to try and make everyone see what she sees. She spins a web, and with her silver threads she writes the words, “Some Pig,” Suddenly the book becomes all about Wilbur because Charlotte has made it so.

And the people take notice. And the people start to believe. And the people crowd around to see the T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C pig. All because Charlotte saw something nobody else did, and she wasn’t afraid to stand behind that vision and share it.

I met a couple amazing artists in the Oklahoma City area. They have all sorts of creative plates spinning, but one plate in particular caught my attention. They use the app Instagram and a hashtag of #treecult to document with photographs a local tree they fell in love with.

One solitary OKC tree that sits on the corner of a piece of fenced in spacious farmland. These artists, they took notice. They got a vision. They wrote “Some Tree” in the inner-webs of Instagram. People started believing it was a magical tree. Why not?

I ventured out to take my own pictures of the tree, and as I stood there with my car hazards on and my kids sitting in the car cheering me on, and cars zooming by with drivers staring, I snapped my own photos of this T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C tree. I romantically imagine some day we okc instagramers will all convene there, under that tree, climbing the barb-wire fence to get to it and sit beneath its tiny branches and eat a picnic lunch, all because someone believed.

I wonder if we know we are all Charlottes, creating ways to attribute great worth to the people and places and things surrounding us. Creating ways to make someone, some place, something, larger than life.

All it takes is a little soul thread and some passionate gumption to scale the barbed-wire and make something T-E-R-R-I-F-I-C.

A few months ago my kids and I volunteered at an art festival in the Plaza District. Zoe made balloon animals, and the kids and I manned a table of one long sheet of white paper for kids to draw on with crayons outside The Society building.

I’d like to say that it was a powerful experience. That I felt validated in my artistry. That we were a glorious example of a creative family spreading a love for art to others. That we inspired someone.

Hardly.

It was hot that day. Like wicked hot. And my kids had head colds and maybe even a touch of a fever before the morning was over. Zoe didn’t even have a voice. Zoe my people-person, couldn’t even talk. Luther, my 3-year-old, but gosh, I guess he was 2 at the time, spent most of his time under the art table, the only cool spot, whining about how he was hungry and hot and when could we go home.

People came to our table and gave us a look like, crayons and paper? That’s it? You’re kidding right? You’re supposed to entertain us. Apparently crayons and paper don’t hold a kid’s attention anymore. And the parents, you would have thought I had asked them to sell their home and live on a park bench, the way they stared at me when I asked them to draw something. Only one adult drew the whole day.

I felt like a wanna-be artist that day. The real artists were in the building. In the studios. Maybe the real artists didn’t have kids. They had freedom. They smoked cigarettes and drew nudes and grew up making art and teaching art and being integrated in an artist community. The real artists were on the stage in the same parking lot with us, strumming their guitar and singing the songs they had written.

And then, something interesting happened. The eclectic guy on the stage, singing his songs with powerful lyrics, he paused. He paused and he came out of his performance bubble and he said, sarcastically, into the microphone in a half-whisper, almost like we were hearing his inner-dialogue, “Wow, big crowd here today. So many people to play my songs for.  ” He chuckled nervously. For one split-second he was real and vulnerable, and I heard it. And then he went into another song. His lyrics were stellar. Was anyone hearing them?

His performance was followed by a girl songstress. She was a little less mellow, had some real energy and charisma. A real crowd pleaser and confident. She was confident.

During her performance one of the guys from The Society brought out some puppies he was fostering. Five puppies to be exact. 5 black puppies, each with a different colored collar. My kids went running to hold them and follow them. Others were pulled in by the puppies. Their attention diverted from songstress stage to wagging tails.

And then, something interesting happened. The eclectic girl on the stage, singing her songs with energetic chords, she paused. She paused and she came out of her performance bubble and she said, sarcastically, into the microphone in a half-whisper, almost like we were hearing her inner-dialogue, “Apparently the puppies are more exciting than my music. I am singing here people. Hard to compete with puppies.” She giggled nervously. For one split-second she was real and vulnerable, and I heard it. And then she went into another song. Her stage presence was stellar. Was anyone noticing her?

I left that day raw from the expectations that weren’t met. Raw from feeling like I was piece of sandpaper rubbing along the walls of the artistic community, scraping instead of breaking through. I left that day raw from a sense of failure that crayons and paper aren’t the tools that will free creative spirits, not even my own kids’ creative spirits, no matter how hard I try to sell them.

But I left that day hopeful, that maybe, just maybe, we’re all a bit nervous from time to time that what we have to offer isn’t enough. And we’re all a bit nervous that we aren’t going to break through the noise to draw attention to the message that burns within us. And we’re all a bit nervous that the crowd won’t have ears to hear or eyes to see. And maybe that’s just part of being an artist.

Sometimes we’ll blurt out sarcastically a half-whisper of our inner-dialogue into the microphone of life and then we’ll laugh our nervous vulnerable laugh and then with that out in the open, we’ll quick tune our guitar and just get on with our next song.

Back in December I connected with Sam Mahlstadt over Twitter and email where he shared with me his new book entitled Creative Theology. I read it as an e-book, but it is also available on his blog for pre-order as a book.

My first response when I opened the PDF file? This is no ordinary book. This is because the design of the book is an artform in and of itself. Each page crafted to convey the message of the words with added visual touches.

I read the book in one setting.

The book reminds me a bit of Frederick Buechner’s Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale and John Eldredge and Brent Curtis’ The Sacred Romance. It is certainly a Christian book, but it also zeroes in on creativity as central to who we all are, ingrained in our humanity. And of course this rings true to me because I believe we are all artists.

Last weekend when I met Laura, she mentioned to me that she was teaching a knitting class. She said,”I feel like if I can just get people to re-connect in one small way with the potential of their creative self, then that will open up doors for them to see God.”

I think this is what Sam is doing with his book. I think Creative Theology is a way for us to brush up against God through the avenue of beauty. I went on a solitude retreat at a monastery with Benedictine Sisters last winter. The nun I felt the most kindred towards left me to myself to wander the grounds with this comment, ““Look for God. You’ll find Him. He’s in everything.”

Am I looking for God or is God finding me?

Yes.

And I think it is this sort of paradoxical creative theology that is the only thing that has helped me personally to maintain any sort of belief in a God at all.

I know there are artists that feel no connection to God, that don’t believe in a Divine Being’s existence. I’m friends with some of them. But I do believe when we hold onto beauty (even beauty in the ugly) we are holding onto a piece of what matters, and sometimes in the darkness, the beauty is all any of us have.

My favorite line from the whole book is this:

“When you begin to live as one who ushers in the future, there is a beautiful transition that takes place. You stop waiting for things to happen to you and begin to actively create a new reality.”

-Sam Mahlstadt, Creative Theology

This is Sabrina Ward Harrison’s, “Create what you most need to find.”

And this is the reason I believe in #secretmessages.

And this is the reason my artist commune(ity) feels other-wordly. Like my 5-year-old told his 3-year-old brother recently, “We live in a different dimension. A dimension is a world we make up because we can make up any world we want.”

This is my faith lately. It is about what I give myself permission to create just as much as it is about what God has and is creating. It’s both/and movement. Check out Sam’s book. See if it moves you too.

If you like this post you might also like:

The Life We’ve Been Creating

A Week of Wonder – Part 5: Mystery

Beauty Does Matter!

Once upon a time I was asked to hang some art in a gallery, and that blew me away.

This past weekend, I took another baby step in that direction. I vulnerably requested access to show my art in what the owners call a “Community Living Room.” It’s a local venue in Edmond, Oklahoma called Conversations.

A friend of mine heard they were looking for local artists to display their art on consignment, and she texted me, thinking I might be interested.

I sat on that text for a few months, but after Christmas, I splurged on some art supplies needed to make three product lines for Messy Canvas. I worked over the course of 2-3 weeks on getting everything ready to present. Then last weekend I had the vulnerable meeting with Laura, a kindred spirit and fellow artist who said with great enthusiasm that she would love to display my work. Whew.

I decided to display a few of my paintings, some 5×7 #secretmessage photo art and one solitary #secretmessage art journal.

The art journal took a long time to create, but I was so pleased with it when it was done. How fun to create my own journal line. I included writing prompts, and all sorts of messy pages awaiting someone’s words. It is a goal of mine to work on the local aspect of my networking as an artist, in addition to my on-line networking. My plan over the next few months is to create additional items both for local shops and for my on-line people.

Messy Canvas #SecretMessage Journals will be $50, #secretmessage 5×7 photo art will be $6 and paintings will start at $50 (plus shipping). If you are interested in pre-ordering, send me an email at mandy.steward@gmail.com. Some pre-orders would be good incentive. Oh, but yes, I should say that I am trying to edit a book too, and there is only so much set-aside art time in my day, so maybe I’ll be running this race more like the tortoise than the hare. Hence the banner I keep waving that has big black embroidered letters that say – BABY STEPS.

One more thing…wouldn’t it be fun to have an on-line and local art journaling class? Don’t worry, I’m writing this all down on a dream list.

How’s your dream list coming?

I had always said I would never get a tattoo. I had always told my tattooed friends that I had the ability to get completely naked, while they were claustrophobic-ally stuck behind their tattoo forever.

OK, maybe I was also a bit scared to commit to the artwork. I mean, what if I changed my mind?

But a friend of ours convinced me that a tattoo is not about your whole life, it’s about one milestone in your life. It’s about recognizing who you are at a distinct moment in time. I suppose in that way it’s kind of like sticking a stake in the ground. (It reminded me a bit of when I went to do this.)

Then I went and wrote a book. A book in which the sole purpose was to give me (and consequently others) permission to hear my own artistic voice and not just hear it, but trust it, believe in it, follow it where it wanted to take me.

There are times (almost daily I’ll have you know) where I have sudden lapses into fear, and I think, surely I must be out of my mind to listen to what is calling within me. To attempt big things. To rebel against convention to give my soul some breathing room. And so I decided it would be nice to have the ever present reminder close that though there is indeed freedom granted to me from a bigger Someone, if I don’t free myself to travel where I need to travel, then I will remain enslaved.

As I was looking for a way to celebrate my artistic voice and my book contract and my daily choice of self-evoked freedom, I came across these words that one of my favorite artists, Sabrina Ward Harrison, wrote in a personal message to me on the inside front cover of her book in 2008. The word “free” was really important to me then because it was my first time at picking a word for my year. Seeing Sabrina’s words made me realize how far I have come, and how much truth there is to that statement, “Free Yourself.” And I knew instantly I must celebrate my book contract with my first tattoo.

You can watch a short video here.

And so I did it. Quickly. Because I think you can over-think these sorts of things, and my soul was screaming yes, and I’m learning to listen to that. My favorite part is that the red is colored outside the lines.

The artist I used was Gage at Beauty from Pain. He did Tony’s tattoo as well, and I highly recommend him.

(The above photo is of a painting he altered.)

A side story to getting my tattoo is that my kids and Tony went with me to get it and while Gage was creating the stencil, my youngest son choked on a piece of hard candy and then puked it out. Gage helped me clean up puke off myself and my son and the floor without even balking. I told him if the tattoo wasn’t enough to bond us for life, the puking definitely was. Never a dull moment.

If you have tattoos, I want to see them. Stories behind them? I want to hear them. Leave links or stories in the comments please!

{*in honor of a friend who is doing something brave today.}

So I have this love/hate relationship with rules. I have come to hate them in religion and as an artist. We artists are mavericks, right? We see a rule, we break it. We get a bit squeamish at the word discipline.

And yet, AND YET…

I am finding myself in need of a few of these rules if I am to accomplish some of the goals I’ve been listing out in my journal pages.

I don’t think it’s coincidence that I am slowly reading through The Artist’s Rule and Radical Hospitality, both which make mention of the Rule of Benedict. Are there healthy, necessary rules as means to a certain end?

Maybe the rules I need are similar to what I learned about with mysticism, where we create rules only so we might better experience where we are in life. And when life moves on, so do the rules. The rules have to shift as needed. They have to be both hard-nosed and flexible. Both non-negotiable and sustainable. They have to be rules I’m okay with keeping because I know why I am keeping them, and that “why” matters tremendously to me.

Tony said recently, “If I create too many rules for myself, then I rebel against my own system.” And this, I guess, is what I’m trying to avoid.

How can I create just enough rules to sustain my goals, but not enough rules to suffocate? Just enough rules to create forward momentum, but not enough to make me arch my back and go stiff in defiance?

This is what I’m questioning as I try to put together a weekly plan for how to get the most out of my time.

How have you learned to dance with rules? What signs are you posting on the walls and fences of your life to keep moving you in the direction of your dreams? We can always change out the signs when we need to, right?

I’ve been attending a figure drawing session periodically with my artist friend Rebekah. In the last class we went to, we did a series of drawings where the model posed for 1-2 minutes before changing positions. This was incredibly challenging for me, because I haven’t gotten the knack for quick sketches yet. I can see how this training would help me to get over the fear of a blank page, as well as teach me how to quickly assess the basic shape and angle of shoulders, spine and hips, so I can scratch my pencil about freely. But to a newbie, it’s a bit frightening.

It reminds me though of what we used to do in creative writing class in high school. Free-writing on a topic for 1 minute, 3 minute, 5 minute, 10 minute increments. Recently I cut out the beginnings of sentences I found in books or magazines, so I could use them as writing prompts. This exercise again helps me to get over the fear of a blank page and teaches me how to throw words about freely.

Why not use one of the journal prompts above and time yourself to leave a 1 min, 3 min or 5 min comment? Don’t edit the words, just let them come out as they will. And if you get distracted, just type, I’m distracted until you get your words back.

Sometimes using a timer to place a limitation on our creating opens us up to a reservoir we didn’t know existed, because if we don’t have all the time in the world, we better just get busy.

I’ll play along too:

1 min:

Growing up I heard the story about how my mom was captured by pirates. I can still remember the white t-shirt with the pirate on it that they gave her as a souvenir. I am not sure if this was a joke or not. I always mean to ask my mom to tell me the story again, so I can get the details firmer in my head.

3 min: After two decades of wrestling with how I look, you’d think I’d have this figured out by now. But just yesterday I was staring into the mirror and thinking, what a mess I was. I should have never dreaded my hair I suppose. And why am I still breaking out with pimples like I’m a teenager? And should I pluck out the grays or leave them for character? And why is my nose so red around my nose-piercing? My bangs feel oily against my skin. I wish I was smooth. That’s the word that always comes to mind. Smooth, like that Megan girl in high school who had this complexion that was creamy and glass-like. Why can’t I look like a porcelain doll with the blush properly applied and the features chiseled into perfection. I don’t want much, I just don’t want my leg-warmers to flop, or my boobs to sag or my eyes to look so tired sometimes. Is this too much to ask?

5 min: I grow up watching my older neighbor play soccer in my front yard. He comes over alone. Just him and the ball and the wide expanse of grass. My house sits on a lot with an extra empty lot beside it. We own all that land, and I push mow it often as my chore. My dad used to say, if I mow it they will come. I walk in lines, thinking about life and what I’ll be when I grow up, if I grow up. When my friend comes over to play soccer, I don’t play with him. At least not often. I think this is because I am not a soccer player, and I have no idea what I’m doing. I still remember that one time at summer camp where the first kick of the game saw me grabbing the ball in my hands to protect my face. And then the whistle blew and they said, you can’t use your hands in soccer, and I knew this must be the most horrible game in the world. My feet have no chance of doing what I ask them to do. But me being bad at soccer isn’t the only reason I don’t play with my older neighbor when he comes into my yard. I also don’t play because I don’t want to interrupt him. I know the magic of playing by yourself. Of having a chance to escape into your own world. And so I let him do that. Alone. But I still watch, from a distance.

When I can carve out a chunk of time to sit still and listen, this is two places I like to go. I always walk away with something inspirational and stirring from these podcasts. I consider these a goldmine, and wanted to share them with you.

APM: On Being

Sounds True: Insights at the Edge

Do you have any goldmines you’d share with us?

This weekend I went to the art store to spend my investment capital.

The money my grandparents sent me for Christmas, well the money that was left after I bought Indian princess moccasins and a feather necklace for my gypsy heart, this money I decided needed to be used to put some dreams in motion.

Recently Tony and I had a somewhat difficult conversation in which I realized some truths about myself that were hard to face. By the end of that conversation, which happened in the car on the way to a bike race, I had come around from wanting to strangle his neck to wanting to kiss him. Love is a strange thing this way because love sometimes says the hard things, and if you’re open to really getting to the bottom of those hard things, you might find some treasure.

Essentially what I learned is that there are deeply buried dreams inside me that keep resurfacing. Some of these dreams don’t logically make sense to me, and since they don’t, I find it easier to 1.) ignore them or 2.) convince someone else to champion them for me, so I don’t have to take the risk. My conversation with Tony was basically an awakening to the fact that I need to own my own dreams. Own the possible failure. Own the possible foolishness. And own the hard work, sacrifice and plan-making that it takes to really go after them.

As I’m talking to Mandy about this recently (sometimes Mandy and I believe that since we have the same first name, we are actually the same person, just alter-egos. We are each other’s Tyler Durden, if you will. And if you don’t know Tyler Durden, perhaps it’s time to watch Fight Club). Anyway, as I’m talking to Mandy about this dream-owning debacle, she laughs and says, “Maybe you need to read your own book. I mean, you practically yelled at us. No, you DID yell at us. You YELLED at us in your book about not making excuses. Maybe you should read it.”

Shortly after I got off the phone with her I took my investment capital to the art store and spent it. I spent it all. And I could not believe how gingerly I had to walk myself through that process of spending all my cash on something that might be a total flop. I kept waiting for someone else to show up and say, “Oh yes, you are doing the exact right thing with this money,” but that person never materialized. Or rather, I had to be that person for myself. And the way the cashier took my money, with an odd little gleam in her eye, well, I’d say she was onto me, and she was laughing as she tucked those bills under the money clips in the register drawer, because they were hers now and no longer mine.

Then I came home and spent the last of my other money I had socked away on a few other supplies I needed off of Amazon. And I nearly hyperventilated, because I’m the person that plays Monopoly and hides the golden $500 bills under my leg, so no ones knows I have them, so when everyone else has bet the farm and gambled their money away, I still have my goose-egg to live on. I’m so responsible that way. I feel so secure. And buying these art supplies did not feel responsible or secure.

How timely that I wake-up this morning to write this post, and my friend Paige has sent me this helpful little article about art being pointless crap.

This isn’t easy for any of us. But we can still do it, even with that lump in our throat.

My plan is to keep up a baby steps list (I think the Right-Brained Planner woud approve), so I can make sure that I’ve done everything in my ability to own this dream, propelling it forward, so it doesn’t stall out.

Here’s to creating risky pointless crap because we must. And here’s to bigger-over-arching dreams that beckon us into foolishness. And here’s to vulnerably admitting, I may just need to read my own book.

If anyone needs me, I’ll be up in this tree. Living my life in thin air, with my head in the clouds. *gulp*

For 2012 I have chosen the word vulnerable. Over the past few weeks I have been collecting tools for this journey:

I’ve packed a metaphorical bag with headphones to listen to my theme song.

And I purchased a visual artistic reminder (from Jerrod) that hope is for the birds, so this year I’d best be sprouting vulnerable wings.

I’ve certainly packed my field journal, emblazoned with a fabric V on its chest, to remind me that my fragility is my paradoxical strength. I will conduct experiments and collect vulnerable data on these pages.

As I spot other visual reminders of my word, I will document them with my camera so I won’t forget.

Brene’s Ted Talk will be on repeat for me this year.

And I have the phone numbers for a few close friends written on a scrap of paper in case I should need some help. (I will most certainly be needing some help.)

I’ve made a working list of why I want to become vulnerable:

• To not be so quick to judge the crumbles, chips, cracks & peels of my life.
• To be authentically me.
• To show others the value I see in them.
• To learn not to cower when I make a mistake, feel embarrassed or when I anger or disappoint someone.
• To include others in my life (on differing levels of intimacy).
• To say what I must.
• To withstand those damn beams of love. (William Blake reference)
• To keep my ego in check.
• To be less alone in my humanity.
• To penetrate surfaces and crack exterior shells (both mine and others).
• To not be shocked by that exposed feeling of rawness.
• To learn to love myself through the fluctuation of emotions that vulnerability will invite.
• To be known.
• To not be so defensive out of insecurity.
• To find common ground.
• To not shy away from artistic pursuits.
• To love in the face of anger and indifference.
• To say things no one else will say because they are meant for my saying them.
• To live my self-reliant aloneness out amongst intimate community.
• To implement faith in a Fierce Sustain-er.
• To feel things out loud with less apology.
• To be less bristly.
• Because in the past I thought this word meant to be walked on, beaten down and emptied of life, and now somehow in the walking and the beating and the emptying that occurs naturally in life, I see it to mean coming fully to life, because no one has power over me, but the power I choose to give them.
• To come out of my cave on occasion, walking on my hands and seeing the world upside down, as only I can handle it.
• To understand dependence in the most healthiest sense of the word.
• To stay alive.

My friend Teresa made a list of all the synonyms for vulnerable. The list is a tad bit daunting:

• conquerable
• dangerous
• insecure
• unsafe
• defenseless
• unprotected
• threatened
• indefensible
• compromising
• penetrable
• susceptible
• endangered
• unguarded
• open (vs. private)
• assailable
• undefendable
• undefended
• weak
• under fire
• under attack

The only way this list looks even remotely approachable is if paradox does in fact exist, and true living is offered right on the other side of the mirage. And so I head off on my journey friends, right into a new year, with Brene Brown whispering sarcastically in my ear, “Good luck trying not to numb these feelings.”

I love finding obscure texts at thrift stores. The past 2 days I read a tiny little book called The Majesty of Calmness and transferred meaningful quotes into my art journal for safe keeping.

What’s a meaningful quote you’ve read lately?

I’ve always had a thing for self-portraits (if you can’t tell by my blog header). At times they have been hard for me to take, but still, I am drawn to them. I always try to encourage people to take more photos of themselves, because I think it’s a powerful action. (You know you want to take some!) It’s also vulnerable, which is my new word, so I’m in for a year full of self-portraits.

We’ve been using Ambleside Online to give us a basic, yet flexible schedule for some of our learning, and the past couple weeks we’ve been looking at Albrecht Durer’s paintings. (The Wing of a Roller pictured above is my favorite of his). Lots of artists choose to do self-portraits in one way or another. I think as artists we are drawn to really giving something our attention, and so it’s only natural and healthy that we would be drawn to studying ourselves.

Looking at Albrecht Durer’s paintings and then thinking of some of the paintings I’ve seen Rick Beerhorst create, led me to this self-portrait project with my kids.

They picked out costumes and then posed in a chair by a window, so I could take their pictures with good lighting.

We talked about how the painting of Albrecht would probably have had to been created with him looking in a mirror. We talked about how the light hit his face, making it appear lighter on one side than the other. We talked about where the light source must be coming from and we decided it was probably candlelight. They studied his painting and tried to pose similar to him, sitting up tall and maintaining their best straight faces.

I printed the kids photos out and then they went to work drawing their self-portraits.

Later, I added my own versions of the self-portraits, drawn with pencil on lightly gessoed scrap cardboard.

For the sake of full-disclosure, I should tell you that this project did not go smoothly. But a bumpy life is far more exciting, right?

My 3-year-old was sick with a fever and so he took a nap and missed the whole thing.

My 8-year-old got frustrated because she started with an ink pen and couldn’t erase. I tried to tell her about Danny Gregory who encourages the use of ink pen and not being perfect, but she wasn’t buying it. So I gave her a pencil and passed out giant artist erasers to each kiddio.

My 5-year-old son knew he couldn’t possibly make his drawing look as realistic as Albrecht Durer’s self-portrait, so he didn’t want to participate. Not. At. All. I got out one of my new favorite art books, Basquiat, and showed him how Basquiat made his guys. He started to smile through his tears, as I re-explained Ish, and reminded both of us that we create our own unique art that does not have to look a certain way in order to make it right. I also told him I would be his partner through the whole entire process, helping him when he got stuck or felt scared of failing. He faltered a few times in the costume selecting and in the actual drawing process, but overall he stuck it out and created his best realism drawing to date.

My word for 2012 will be vulnerable. (More on this soon.) Many of you shared a link with me of Brene Brown’s Ted talk about The Power of Vulnerability. Thank you.

One part that sticks out to me when I hear that talk is the idea of being the first to say, “I love you.”

Mandy and I have been having frequent video conversations. Recently we talked about doing little special things for those you love, and doing them without feeling like you have to or you ought to. Doing them simply because you want to. Now this stirred up a lot of messy stuff for me that I am having to process, but at one point she mentioned that it is possible I’m making all this a little too difficult. Saying you love someone can be as a simple as an email, a text message, a handwritten note to say, “Hey, I was thinking of you, and I wanted you to know.”

With that in mind, I created some notes today for a few friends of mine with the heading of 5 Things I Love About You. Then I thought, “Hey, maybe you’d like to create some too!”

Please download the artwork and vulnerably share your love with a friend.

Get the JPG file here (Right click on the image and save to your computer.)

Get the PNG file here (Right click on the image and save to your computer.)

Come thou long expected Jesus

Born to set thy people free

From our fears and sins release us

Let us find our rest in thee.

Born our people to deliver

Born a child and yet a king

Born to reign in us forever

Now thy gracious kingdom bring

Come thou long expected Jesus

Israel’s strength and consolation

Hope of all the earth thou art

Dear desire of every nation

Joy of every longing heart

I first met my friend Marcy when we sat beside each other at a birthday party. I had been watching her sing from a distance in church for awhile. In fact, I can still remember the first time I saw her. I was well into my 8th month of pregnancy and she was singing the lyrics, “ God of heaven come down. Heaven come down. Just to know that You are near is enough.” It was not long after that I carried those words and the visual image of her peace into labor with me. The girl has stage presence, and oh, her voice.

So back to the birthday party… At the time, I was working on putting the finishing touches on my FREE Messy Canvas e-Book, and in the course of conversation I mentioned it to her. I asked her if she’d be interested in reading it and reviewing it and though I can’t remember her exact words, I’m sure she said something like, “I’d love to da-a-a-rling,” with a flip of her wrist. She’s fun like that.

She read the e-Book:

“Thank you Mandy Steward for your honesty and genuine desire to call out the artist in each of us. I have no doubt that Messy Canvas was meant to minister to me in my own life as an artist. Perfectionism is definitely something that has held me back from running forward full force. I don’t want to allow another day of negative thinking rob me of the time I’ve been given to create and have new adventures. I know I am not alone–ANY artist will be awakened by this book. A MUST read!”

- Marcy Priest

This birthed a relationship within us and we met for coffee. This was last Fall. The night we met for coffee another guy by the name of Grant happened to come through the doors of the coffee shop. Marcy is one of those people who knows everyone, and so when Grant walked in, she said, “Oh, speaking of artists! Do you know Grant?!”

“No, I don’t. Hi Grant. It’s nice to meet you.” I said, extending my hand.

“Grant works on the Media and Design team at church. You can sit down and join us if you want, Grant.”

“Oh, no I wouldn’t want to interrupt your time,” he said politely.

“I was just talking about being a rebel artist,” I said to Grant. “Kind of scandalous talk about how I’m not sure artists fit in the church setting.” I paused, looking at Marcy with wide nervous eyes and then asking, “Do you think he’s safe to join the conversation?”

What I really meant was, do you think I’m safe to keep sharing my struggles with the church when a church staff member has just joined the conversation? What I really meant was, does this conversation belong underground?

Grant didn’t miss a beat. “Oh, I’m in! Let me get some coffee.”

I was relieved. Maybe I’m not the only artist who struggles merging art and faith. Who feels that art may be replacing my traditional religious beliefs. The conversation was rich that night. Rich and impromptu and healing. For me at least, but I think a bit for all of us.

We met a few times after that, adding some other Christian artists into the discussion. I didn’t have a clear agenda, I just wanted to ask pointed questions and hear how others were making sense of their art and their faith. I was in a tough place.

So now, this Fall comes around, and I’m struggling sitting in church. Again. (Welcome to the merry-go-round that is my life. Everything is cyclical.) We sit through one particularly hard message for me, and I feel all squirmy again in my chair. Feeling the guilt pecking on my temples like a woodpecker. The message winds down, and the campus pastor says, here’s a look at what’s coming up in the weeks leading up to Christmas. They cue up a promo video, the one you see above, and there is Marcy. “My” Marcy who believes in my art, who has seen me wrestle with the tremendous weight of religion, who knows the ache of just wanting to know what is real and what is worth giving yourself over too as an artist. And in the video artists are gathering, like we gathered artists together around a long table, so I could seek clarity, so I could find some stability, so I could ask hard, uncomfortable, vulnerable questions amongst people who speak my language.

And then she sings, “Come thou long expected…”

And I realize as the tears form in my eyes and my lower lip quivers with the warming vibrations of becoming un-numb, that church life has become a place of holding my breath. A place of waiting for something to change, to break, to give under the mounted pressure of expectancy. There has to be more to all this, right? There has to be more.

And she sings a hymn that I could only tolerate from her mouth, with her voice, with her stage presence because we have history together, and I look to Tony, and I blubber with my hand motioning towards the screen, “Ah, now this is church to me. This is why I had to come today,” I whisper, barely getting the words out.

At home, I write the words “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” on the chalkboard hanging on my kitchen wall.

I write it to say, “I think I’m okay with you Jesus when Marcy sings of you. And maybe it’s not that we don’t have ears to hear you, but maybe the deep desire of every nation is just to hear of you through the right lips at the right time. The lips that only they can tolerate. The lips that cut though pretense like a razor blade cuts through packing tape to get into the gift. And maybe it’s okay that I finally grasp you and then you are gone again. I haven’t given up saying come, oh please come, because I have intense longing.”

Like Jim Harrison says, “I keep waiting without knowing what I’m waiting for” and “I’m trying to think of what I can’t remember.”

This Christmas I throw myself headfirst into the darkness of expectancy, the hope of what is to come, of believing now without seeing because even though Jesus has already come and that is meant to solve everything, there is still a disconnect of maintaining any sort of grip on grace. The world speaks Jesus in a thousand different ways, and I can only stomach a few of them. (But maybe a few is enough.)

Stop getting so lost in translation, Jesus. I want to believe, help my unbelief. Help our collective unbelief.

I have this piece of art that I started creating in the wee hours one morning. It’s actually one of a set of three. On this painting, in big bold letters I wrote the word “MY TRUTH.” Scrawled in pencil beside those painted words I wrote these: “Say what they will I will not lose you again.”

Now when I created the painting those words were intended to mean, I will not lose myself again. The dream I had been awoken from when I set to work on creating the painting was a dream where close friends had turned their back on me, angry that I had started to have questions and hiccups in my faith. Angry that I was not being the polite, quiet, nervous little thing I had once been. They liked me better when I didn’t disturb and disrupt. They like me better when I wasn’t me out loud. They liked me better when they could have some sense of control over me.

So I had to work through this dream, this nightmare, because it’s scary to think of losing friendships with those you love. Brandon, a good friends we’ve met through Tony’s cycling told me once, “If they can’t accept you for who you are realizing you truly are, then they don’t really love you at all.” And I think of the line from a song Rebekah shared with me that says, “Better to be hated than loved for what you’re not.”

So I made this piece of art to say my truth is important, and if I can help it, I’m not going to lose myself again.

The interesting thing about this painting, is the other day I passed by it, hanging on my dining room wall. This time when I read the words, “Say what they will I will not lose you again,” I read the “you” to mean God. I had never thought of this double meaning, but that very day I was feeling some guilt about not doing my religion “properly,” and upon seeing this painting I was reminded that when I went through that dark place of nearly losing me, I also felt close to nearly losing God. And I had to unlearn and unschool myself on who God was, so I could find the very mysterious and wildly personal God I needed to survive. I had to take the chance that the wild voice I was hearing spoken to my heart, the voice that was loosing chains of duty and ought and legalism, was God himself or herself or rather, the Unquantifiable Love. I love finding new names for the Divine, like the Indian name Great Spirit that I read last night in a book. These names hold my hand and walk me through the dark places. The #secretmessage names that help me to not lose either “you” again. Because somehow I am defined based on how the Divine is defined. My definition abides deep within Unquantifiable Love.

Let’s say you’ve picked a word for 2012. You think you have the word of all words that’s going to transform the new year. It’s taken A LOT of work to decide on that new word and then you think, “Ack! What do I do with the word now that I have it?” Here are some ideas:

• Look for the word everywhere. I find it shows up a lot when I’m on the lookout for it. Kind of like when you buy a new car and then all of a sudden you see lots of people driving the type of car you have. The word will show up in books, movies, music, conversation.
• Treat your word like a research project and find all you can with that word tied to it. Look up definitions, origins of the word, books with that title, art, etc. Google that word and watch out.
• Write your word. A lot. Paint it. Ink it. Color pencil it. Crayon it. Type it. Spell it out with those plastic colorful alphabet magnets. Write it in dust. Write it on a dry erase board or a chalkboard. Write it on your dirty car. Spell it with spaghetti noodles. Cut out the letters from a magazine and collage it. Just keep writing it.
• Make lists of what you want the word to bring out in you. Why is the word is so important to you? What sort of self-love will that word give you? Make lots of lists. Cast vision so you can step into the word fully.
• Bring the word up in conversation. Let friends and family know it’s your word. In doing so, they’ll keep an eye out for the word as well and give you further insight and research into your word. I like to think that they’re passing you #secretmessages.
• Journal or blog about your run-ins with the word. This helps you process how the word is affecting you.
• Create an entire journal based on your word. This doesn’t mean you have to limit what you put in the journal, but just be willing to looks for hidden threads of how that word is naturally showing up in your life. You maybe surprised to see it weaving it’s way into everything.
• Do not, and I repeat, do not, feel guilty if 3 months go by and you haven’t thought of your word a bit. Sometimes the living with the word happens below the surface. Be intentional to think back over the time that has passed and look for ways your word has been growing roots without your even knowing it. (I like to do this around 6 months and then again at the end of the year.)

I’d love it if you’d share with us other creative ideas you have done or you plan to do with you word.

The following is a post I wrote for the Creative Every Day blog:

Yesterday a friend of mine shared a picture of his piled books for Winter. I felt a surge of inspiration tickle my fingertips upon viewing his picture. What is it about books and Winter? What is it about gathering some of the great authors to “sit with” through the cold months? I feel as though I am a squirrel, collecting acorns and tucking them into the hole of my oak, because when my artistic soul is ready to hibernate, I want to give it something to chew on. Winter does this to me.

I think back on last winter. I rose early. 5 AM. Sometimes 4:30 AM. The increasing amount of darkness that accompanies the winter was my protective blanket to push into vulnerable areas as an artist. “It’s safe here,” I felt the moonlight saying to me. You can read the novel Wicked and Madeline L’Engle’s Walking on Water and there is time to simply ponder what secret messages they are whispering to you. You are cocooned by the warm walls of the Muse, and there is time. A white expanse of time, like the snow that makes everything look equal and tranquil. A heavy sheet of cushioning to freeze time, allowing you the luxury to sit with ideas. {continue reading}

I have something to tell you. I officially have a book publishing contract with David C. Cook! And I am bubbling over with excitement! I’ve written a sort of spiritual memoir about my dark night of the soul and it’s expected to come out in Spring of 2013.

How did this happen? I mean, I only have been dreaming about it since gradeschool.

Well it happened when I signed the contract this afternoon.

Or it happened when my amazing agent Greg believed in me.

Or it happened when a friend from California gave me a lead on an agent.

Or it happened when I put myself through a self-directed study called writing school.

Or it happened when I took a November to learn the discipline of showing up to write, every. single. day.

Or it happened when I believed I was an artist.

Or it happened when I sat in Japanese Literature, Short Story, and Novel class in college.

Or it happened when I did internships with newspapers and magazines.

Or it happened when I sat with Fred, and Sauer and Shoemaker in high school English classes.

Or it happened when I took Creative Writing in a summer 4-H program.

Or it happened when I read Boxcar Children, Where the Red Fern Grows and The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe for the first time.

Or it happened when I wrote in my gradeschool journal that when I grew up I wanted to write poetry or fairy tales.

Or it happened when my mom and dad told me I could do and be whatever I put my mind to.

Or it happened when my lungs puffed up with an inhale for the first time and Someone blew an extra dose of poetry in through my wind pipes.

What I am really trying to say is that it happened one small manageable step at a time. It happened by what my friend Teresa calls baby steps and it happened by what Anne Lamott calls Bird by Bird. And it will continue to unfold in this way. Because while today I celebrate, tomorrow I face another beginning. My tomorrows hold the process of editing and writing my manuscript with the publisher. My tomorrows hold the process of marketing a book. My tomorrows hold the process of facing another blank canvas and starting another writing project.

Tonite Teresa calls me and as I explain the patience and energy required to keep facing yet another beginning she tells me, “But this is not the beginning. You are not starting over. You are just picking up where you left off.” I am quiet, pondering. Realizing on the other end of the phone that she is right.

We do well to celebrate our baby steps. We do well to let our loved ones bring us over-sized vanilla cokes from Sonic. We do well to document the thin threads that have woven us a bridge to get us to where we are at. We are tightrope walkers, we artists. And we advance one foot before the other, heel in front of toe and when our foot touches some sort of actual steady ground, we are wise to throw hands up high overhead and yodel echoes across wide caverns. Today I’m yodeling and twirling with my friends and family. And I’m yodeling and twirling with you who are chasing after your own dreams and weaving your own thin thread of a tightrope.

This is the life, the one we are creating! Let’s celebrate the milestones and catch our breath here for a bit. Let’s sleep tonight on our pea of celebration like princes and princesses and wake tomorrow with that sort of joyful disturbing ache of, oh yes, I am so ready to continue. Because when it’s art, and we are artists, we do it because we must. Because we haven’t a choice. Because we love it all…the fear, the hope, the vulnerability, the failure, the risk, and the teeny tiniest tastes of triumph building upon ever mounting triumph.

i have conversations with god.

I’m writing that in all lowercase so maybe you’ll be less likely to notice it. Maybe you’ll skim over it like the stones my mom used to skip across West Virginian creeks. Your eyes will bounce one, two, three times until you land HERE. And HERE I can start the conversation with a quite acceptable phrase such as, “Yesterday I went on a date with my husband” or “This morning I need to pack our lunches for homeschool co-op.” This would make it easier on all of us, and in particular, easier on me.

But, what if I do have conversations with God? Wouldn’t it be something I’d want to share? To scream aloud? “Hey, I hear from God and surely if I, in all my impious living, can hear from Him, surely you, dear Artist, can to?!” (If you are checking out now because I called you Artist, and certainly that title doesn’t apply to you, would you please stop here and go read why I think you are most definitely an Artist. Come back when you’re ready to hear it.)

But I don’t want to scream it. I want to mumble it. I want to whisper it like the little boy who says, “I see dead people.” Only he was less ashamed I think. More in awe of the fact that he could in fact do something that others might consider ludicrous. I want to be the childlike version of myself, I just keep tripping up on all my adult parts.

So I whisper it. i have conversations with god. And then I read that sentence over to myself, and I think, is that really what I mean? But of course it’s what I mean, I am just a doubter, still shaking my head at the fact that sometimes it really does occur.

This morning at 6 AM, after my usual morning routine of peeing, filling up my water glass with cold water, checking my email and perusing the rss feeds of those who speak my language, I sat down on the couch with my pen in hand and my journal sprawled out before me like a sleeping cat. It was lazy. It didn’t want to receive words. It wanted to just lie there and let December 1 be just like every other day (even though Teresa was inviting something more grandiose into my life). Nothing magical. Nothing stirring. Nothing for me.

So I wrote along the top of a blank page: : “Oh December…what do you want from me?”

And then I wrote out a short sentence. A desire of my artistic heart. Something I know is brewing, yet feels so unreachable still at this point. I wrote it and then I wrote, “But I feel scattered, unfocused, unable to point in the right direction. Am I just scared of starting? I am. Oh, I AM!”

Then I continued, letting the words out on paper, taking the garbage of my crowded mind out to the curb for pick-up.

“Ok. Come on out. I know you’re hiding, Fear. Proceed with the what-ifs…”

And I listed out all the what-if scenarios that would make my next creative dream impossible. I filled up half a page. And then, without warning, I wrote the words, “Someone wants to speak to you.”

I knew when I wrote them I was transitioning in my writing. This was no longer a dump of fear. The gathering group of critics that had converged and made a ruckus in my head started to disperse and I let the Someone know I was listening, (just like I told that Someone a month or so ago in my closet when I heard the internal question from another Source say, “So, are you going to listen to me?”)

“Yes I’m listening. I told you that day in my closet I would listen.”

And then we proceeded to go back and forth. The Someone talking and the me responding. My pen was flying. I couldn’t write fast enough. The words. The out-pour. The direction. The next steps. The clarity and yet, always and yet, the sheer mystery of it all. The Someone spoke and I asked questions. Certainly You couldn’t mean this. And certainly You hadn’t considered this. But the Someone met me point for point. With each swing of my ping-pong racket he counter-swung and without hesitation. I wish I was making this up, and yet I’m so glad I’m not, because I really did need a little help from the Creative Director.

At one point I even tried to turn the conversation a little more religious. Afterall, I’m talking to God, right? Shouldn’t we be saying holy things? Really, I think I threw in the question to try to trip the Someone up. I wrote, “What about Jesus?” The question had nothing to do with our conversation, but I have so little answers about this Christ-figure I keep believing in, so if I was really having a conversation with merely myself, this question should stump me. Right? But the Someone just went right on talking, although a bit annoyed that I had tried to change the subject. The Someone said, “You let me unpack the details.” And so I hushed up, and I let the Someone keep talking.

Half a page more and then just like that the conversation stopped. The Someone told me, “You have no idea how much I love you. You are on the ride of your life. I’m picking you to run this baton.”

And that was it.

Now tell me someone (or Someone) what the hell am I to make of this?

I eek with excitement because I just heard from God, and then those critics start to reconvene into an angry mob in my head and they tell me I’m just making things up. Well if I am, I’m about to embark on a path where I make a whole mess of things up because that’s what the Someone told me to do. If that isn’t an artistic adventure I don’t know what is.

Maybe the Someone wants to give us the words we most long to hear, and we just need to be brave enough to let the Someone speak them to us.

“We are put on earth for a little space that we may learn to bear the beams of love.”

- William Blake

I don’t know when the Someone will show up again like this, with such boldness and such clarity. I have tried to force this sort of conversation and it never seems to work. Most of the time I hear the Someone in tiptoed footsteps of nature’s winds and moonbeams or in the turning pages of a good novel or in the unhurried measures of a clearly inspired song. Most of the time I feel the Someone in the 3-year-old rubbing his cheek on mine, the haunted aching longing of the dark place, or the scratchy thick shadows of my husband’s beard. And most of the time I actually prefer these mysterious untamed comings and goings of what Rilke calls, “the Shadowy One” and “the Great Homesickness we could never shake off.”

“I don’t want to think a place for you. Speak to me from everywhere…When I go toward you it is with my whole life.”

- Rilke

But every now and then it’s nice to feel like you’ve actually touched the Someone. Like the Someone actually sat down long enough to look into your eyes and say, “I see you” and “I need you.”