The Yellow Ochre Newsletter
Turn your art from a hobby into a purposeful blessing for your community and culture.
We All Make Melody
If you’re a songwriter..and you’re trying to making things come alive that didn’t exist already, your greatest success in that field would be somebody humming that song on the way to work or listening to that song in the car dropping their kids off.
You want to be able to permeate everyday life with a melody.
Jack White on Seven Nation Army
On one hand, creators have a God-like characteristic: they make things that didn’t exist before…sort of. Jack is right. Seven Nation Army, technically, didn’t exist before he wrote it.
It’s easy to feel nervous talking this way because such statements are only one or two steps away from dethroning God of his ex-nihilo activity.
What White isn’t acknowledging in this clip is all the pre-existing earthly raw materials that he cannot take the credit for.
Guitar strings, the local music shop he bought his first guitar, his fingers, the pentatonic scale he inherited from his Western ancestors, his brain, his imagination, the origin of his desire to play, the divinely placed architecture of his life and up-bringing, his traumatic experiences, the social networks which opened the doors for The White Stripes in their hay-day, the “accidental” connections, major TV networks (MTV, ESPN, etc.), and even his sense of it even being meaningful that someone who hum his song in their car.
White is voicing something explicit though that artists get already: they’re makers. They already recognize their ability to create.
I believe they’re just one step ahead of many “non-artists.” For the non-artist, it’s easy to compartmentalize the “artist” in this god-like cupboard. And because the artist resides “there,” non-artists are “not there.”
Here is the problem though.
God made all of us creators. We all take the raw creation and fashion it to make something of the days of our lives. We all have worldviews, we all use words, we all create moments with those around us, we give (or don’t give) birthday presents, we make food for ourselves and others, we make work and in exchange we receive money.
Art is never the work of mere artists.
We’re all called to bless others, to put a melody of God’s kingdom in someone’s imagination.
Art Under the Bed
“Everyone is born creative;
everyone is given a box of crayons in kindergarten.
Then when you hit puberty they take the crayons away
and replace them with dry, uninspiring books on algebra, history, etc.
Being suddenly hit years later with the 'creative bug'
is just a wee voice telling you,
'I'd like my crayons back, please.”
Hugh MacLeod
Maybe you’re an artist wondering, “I’ve got young kids, a full-time job, and by the end of the day, I’m completely spent.”
I get you.
Maybe you’re like I was.
I spent years in art school, once filled with dreams of all the many ways my art would act in God’s creation.
For a long time afterwards though, I found my undergraduate artwork sitting under my old bed at my parent’s house, collecting dust. No sales, no function, and no apparent service to anyone.
Often the art-major’s first job out of college is called life.
Full-time jobs, families, other hobbies, binge watching, sleep, repeat. This is the cycle that becomes our lives.
But somewhere in there is the child asking for their crayons back.
Glories of Books
Westerns churches are like libraries or bookstores.
They’re for some people. But not all.
For those they’re for, they’re treasure.
When you travel to other towns or cities, you visit them.
You love the smell of books, fresh or musty.
Some may even design entire vacations around visiting their favorite used bookstores or historic libraries.
Yet, these spaces are not for all.
For the non-converts, they’re symbols that communicate “classroom” to the imagination before ever stepping foot in one or tasting the glories held within the books themselves.
Shaping Culture One Early Adopter at a Time
There is no magic wand for changing culture.
Well, that’s not totally true. Those types of changes come through enforced laws and totalitarian regimes.
But there is a more nuanced way to shape a culture: one artifact or ritual at a time.
It takes time, and even some grumbling with the masses. But stick with it long enough, and one early adopter will catch on.
Useful vs Usedful
Today’s artists in the church face a dilemma they might not know how to verbalize. But they definitively feel it.
I call it the the Useful vs Usedful theory.
Being useful is to be relied upon for your artistic wisdom and insight to bless others in a way you know will be meaningful. Summoned upon or not, you have a vision to see a gap somewhere and intuitively know how to fill it. Being artistic means you have an imaginative frame that allows you to dream some and innovate. It might not be safe. And it might not even work out. But the process is part of the fun and joy of it. You at least moved the needle further to closing the gap. You are useful.
To be usedful is to merely have utilitarian function. The artwork isn't just a tool. You are. Being usedful it to be a tool for someone else’s vision. Your given a paintbrush, but someone removed your eyeballs to start the painting. You’re a singer with no voice. Like a puppy on a leash of her master, you bow to someone else’s heart.
When you’re useful, your wisdom is leaned upon. You are treated like a human.
When you’re usedful, your utility is hired. Your heart is in a cage. Your work is a container for another’s message.
Useful artists are co-laborers. They’re partners.
Usedful artists are mops, brooms, or new chairs. They’re machines.
Poverty of Art
Calvin Seerveld, “Imaginative Grit and Everlasting Art in God’s World” (Lecture):
“My conscious condemns me for thousands of children dying to malnutrition and preventable malaria in distant places.
But I also am aware the ten thousands of youth dying from formulaic meretricious songs.
Listeners are deceived and cheapened, musically anesthetized.”
Follow the One
If we walked around with the Spirit throughout the moments of the day, what would we witness Him do?
Follow the One, on His hands and knees, serving mankind, all their needs.
Follow the One, who smiles amidst all. Filled from above, while this world crumbles and falls.
Follow the One, His weapons laid down. Though at war, no violence be found.
Follow the One, who puts up with others. Thousands of years, no sheep and no slumber.
Follow the One, watch Him respond in kind. While all be reacting, He has soundness of mind.
Follow the One, watch all the good of His works. The garments of kindness and all of its perks.
Follow the One, Whose steps I can trust. A billion promises, not one a bust.
Follow the One, Whose able to crush me. Yet always able to hug me so gently.
Follow the One, watch Him speak and act. Every and all circumstances, emotions in tact.
Ignore 90% of What You See
Artists can teach us to be hyper focused on something specific. What is the simplest way to tell this story?
Just because we see the whole of something doesn’t mean we have to focus on all of it.