As I’ve mentioned, for various reasons I’m reluctant to share with the general public anything from my personal journal. Still, sometimes I write things in it that I get a hunch I’m supposed to share. I’ll post an excerpt from an entry written today:
“…Right at this moment, I’m taking a short break from inking the 183rd installment of my comic strip, RAMEN NOODLES. A man named Steven Pressfield wrote a nonfiction book called THE WAR OF ART. In it, Pressfield reminds readers that resistance to actually sitting down and focusing on one’s craft comes in all forms and will always be there, so anyone who feels called to create art might as well get used to detecting and overriding this resistance. In fact, even my choosing to compose this entry could be viewed as resistance - as a stalling tactic, to be more precise.
Pressfield’s points certainly have their place, and as someone who feels the urge to write and create comic strips, coupled with the often even stronger urge to resist writing and creating comic strips, I don’t take exception to them. Still, I hope to find the PEACE of art, not just the WAR of it. I hope to, increasingly more often, have the grace to be willing to experience the peace of my Shepherd-King while creating comic strips. I don’t want to view my relationship with my craft as primarily tumultuous.
Recently, I happened upon two items on social media that made a great impression on me. The first was a short promotional video of a man with cerebral palsy promoting his series of books about his relationship with Jesus. Unlike how I sometimes entertain preconceived notions of already-prosperous people of faith making sales pitches promoting their ministries and resources, I viewed this man as genuinely humble and at peace with his Creator - not only in spite of, but because of, his condition. The other item I came across recently on social media was another short video, this time of an amazingly advanced and ultra-realistic watercolor artist. The video featured pleasant background classical music as the camera captured her brush meeting her canvas, rudimentary stroke after rudimentary stroke. The video also featured accompanying text - quotes from the artist about her love for exercising her craft. It occurred to me that while viewers look at her finished work and are rightfully stunned by her photo-realistic depictions in watercolor of objects such as empty transparent jars, she, as the artist, knows all too well the imprecision inevitably involved when any human being creates visual art without computer assistance. Therefore, she had to be patient, trusting that the finished work would turn out much greater than the collective sum of her pencil efforts, brush strokes, wiping of excess paint, and corrective measures. And the truth is, for all her work’s photorealism, its source of charm and beauty lies in the telltale signs of its having been done by an imperfect human being, no matter how skilled.”
