One of the essential elements of creativity — one of the things that makes art “art,” — is that it begins out of nothingness. When we create, we echo and reflect God’s creation of the world out of the darkness and void. All things are creatio ex nihilo; they come into being from nothing, and that’s what makes the creative process a sacred one.
That’s not to say that we break new artistic ground each time we face an empty canvas, an empty page or screen or sit with our hands perched above the clay, the keys, the strings, the fabric. As in so many aspects of life, we stand on the shoulders of the giants who came before us. We write out of everything we have ever read. Compose because of what we have heard. Paint and sculpt and sew and assemble because we have walked through museums and experienced the works of others’ hands. Still, however humble, our own work begins from a moment of nothingness.
In talking and corresponding with writers, they will often say that they don’t have anything to give the world that hasn’t already been given thousands of times and by writers far more talented than themselves. And they are right, of course. If I worried about the originality of my ideas every time I wrote a blog post or a reflection in Living Faith, I would never write at all. Indeed, in the world of literature and art, so much attention is often paid to the idea of originality that would-be artists can become disheartened. Each time a sanctimonious critic decries the work of someone as “derivative,” someone lays down their pen, their brush, their journal of ideas and mutters, “what’s the point?” (As if that critic has anything new to say!)
For in this rarified air of the world of high art, such an approach to art criticism leaves many with seemingly nothing to do. But for people of faith who create because something deep beckons them to do so, the call is not to originality above all else. Rather, it is a response to a moment of inspiration out of silence — nothingness — that might serve to direct others’ attention to the Creator.
The subject of the art needn’t be religious in the typical sense of the word, of course. A simple still life watercolor of an apple — its reds and yellows and greens summoning up our senses to “taste and see the goodness of the Lord” has the ability to draw us near something sacred, if we allow it to do so, if we put ourselves in a place of openness to God and God’s creative, Holy Spirit.
The canvas or paper may begin blank and the light-bulb moment of creation is perhaps ours to savor and celebrate, but only when we realize that our moment of creation out of nothingness come out of our everything. For in that moment of silence is God, and in God is all that we need.
Ask yourself in silence: What can I create today? What image grabs me and demands incarnation?
