Easy on the Eyes

When people find out I edit words for a living, they often ask, "Do you read books for fun?" The truth is, not as much as I'd like to. My eyes get tired of looking at the same thing over and over, and life fills up as life has a habit of doing. And as I was reminded recently, I need to be inspired and refreshed with mediums aside from the one I work in all day.

One of those mediums is visual art: paintings, sculpture, photography, interior design, graphic design, etc. Art was my second love as a child (after books), and I spent many hours of my childhood in art classes—up until I was in high school and had to choose between singing and art (that's public schools in rural Alabama for you). I was extremely slow and meticulous at my art, thus always behind my class, which was why I chose music.

Since those days, I've known I love art and have a good eye. But I haven't been as intentional about making it part of my life. I took a couple of photography classes in college and was surprised by how satisfying and inspiring the process was. In my senior year as an English major, I was still as much the procrastinating perfectionist as I had been as a child, which meant big papers were left until two days before they were due and rough drafts were not a part of the process. It was crank-it-out-at-the-last-minute-perfect-or-don't-do-it-at-all.

Strangely enough, photography taught me that rough drafts were okay... there were countless rolls of film that I left in chemicals too long or over- or under-exposed prints that were ripped up and thrown away. There was sometimes work without a perfect ending, but it was more about the process than the end product. Pun intended. And it was refreshing, exhilarating even.

A couple of months ago, I went to The Birth of Impressionism show at the Frist Center and I was surprised by how engaged I became in the show. My eyes were eating up the colors and brush strokes, the shadows and light, the mysterious faces captured forever in a time long gone by. I didn't go to the show thinking I was hungry for art, but I quickly became enraptured in the stories of the artists and the beauty they felt called to express. I saw, in their diligence and passion, their hard work and quirkiness, a reflection of our great Creator. And a little bit of myself.

How many ripped-up canvases did James McNeill Whistler go through before "Whistler's Mother"? In Degas' "The Rehearsal," you can actually see where the artist tried to "edit" the stance of one of the ballerinas. And it's still considered a masterpiece.

The two hours I spent at the show were far from enough. I could have stood in front of some of those paintings for an hour or more; some of them even made me feel like weeping. I knew then—I need to be more intentional about including this kind of beauty in my life.

I think sometimes when we have a love or affinity for something and we don't end up doing it for a career, we think we have to reject it altogether, or that we won't be able to appreciate it without a nagging sense of regret. But what if, just maybe, God gives us certain affinities simply for our enjoyment and refreshment, and we get confused thinking we're frustrated artists?

Maybe He gives us certain loves to teach us that life is more about the process than a perfect ending. Without photography, I might not have become an editor.

He's creative like that.