The Artisan Soul

To Kim, Aaron, and Mariah McManus

Kim, my wife, for thirty years you have journeyed at my side always ready to risk everything to create a better world. Time has only made you more of all the things I treasured when you stole my heart. You are my love.

Aaron, my son, we have known great adventures and fought great battles together you and I. Now as a man you have chosen to return from your journeys and join me for our greatest quest. This is a gift beyond words. You are the fire that burns in the night.

Mariah, my daughter, you are proof that beauty, courage, and wisdom are more than ideals. You have stood by my side and carried both sword and shield—and yet you have always made love your greatest weapon. You lead with an elegance that is rare. You are my warrior poet.

   
Dedication

1
Soul:
The Essence of Art

2
Voice:
The Narrative That Guides

3
Interpretation:
Translation of Life

4
Image:
Manifestation of Imagination

5
Craft:
The Elegance of Workmanship

6
Canvas:
The Context of Art

7
Masterpiece:
A New Humanity

   
Anvil and Hammer

   
Acknowledgments

   
About the Author

   
Also by Erwin Raphael McManus

   
Credits

   
Copyright

   
About the Publisher

I
love Paris. I didn't want to because it seems so cliché. I have heard Paris described as the most romantic city in the world. That's hard to argue with. Strangely though, Paris is romantic even when you are alone. I have a theory about this—Paris is a city that romances the human spirit, provokes in us our imagination, creativity, and love for beauty. Everywhere you look you are surrounded by beauty. The sounds and smells are both soothing and exhilarating. Even the language is beautiful. The Eiffel Tower seems like an ancient marker to let everyone know that if you're an artist then this is home. If there is a city that personifies the artisan soul, one could make a strong argument that Paris is it. Paris is what a city looks like when artists create it. I feel more artistic when I am in Paris.

After one particular weeklong visit with my wife, Kim, she asked me on the last day while we were enjoying our final breakfast in the middle of the world's most romantic city, “We're moving here, aren't we?” I was surprised by how direct her question was. She could feel what was happening inside of me, and I must admit when we flew back home I left a part of myself in the City of Light. I had an affair with Paris, but I love Los Angeles.

I live in the City of Angels. I live in the heart of Los Angeles, California. Every day I am reminded of how much Paris and Los Angeles have in common. I live in a world of artists. Los Angeles has the highest concentration of professional artists of any city in the world. As I walk the six blocks from my house to Larchmont Village for a cup of coffee, I pass an endless number of writers, designers, actors, directors, dancers, painters—you name it. If you sit down to drink a cappuccino, all around you will hear conversations about their next great creative endeavors, the stories they are working on, the films they are making, the plays they are writing, or the sets they are designing. It all reminds me of the immense capacity of the human imagination when leveraged with talent, skill, and hard work. It's no wonder that Los Angeles has been described as the capital of creativity. Once the
Los Angeles Times
described Los Angeles's number one export as creativity itself.

We live in the shadow of the iconic sign that once read “Hollywoodland.” Yet, strangely enough, most of these artists were not born here. They come from everywhere, from Detroit and Des Moines, from Atlanta and Albany.

No matter where we are, we live in a world of artists. While it is clear that world-class cities draw world-class talent, it is equally clear that world-class talent comes from everywhere. Megacities rank high in human attributes like intellect, education, and creativity. This could lead us to a false impression of the limited commodity of human creativity. The reality is that big cities pillage small towns by making themselves more attractive to those who are most keenly aware of their talent and take on the discipline to refine it.

While I live in a world of artists and am also keenly aware that artists live all over the world, the artisan soul goes much deeper than simply those who understand themselves as artists and are pursuing careers in an overtly creative field. I have come to realize, after over thirty years of studying human creativity, that the great divide is not between those who are artists and those who are not, but between those who understand that they are creative and those who have become convinced that they are not. The great divide is between those who understand that their very nature is that of an artist and those who remain unaware or in denial of their artisan soul.

The tragedy, of course, is that most of us have never thought of ourselves as artists. Most of us live our lives convinced that we are uncreative. Most of us have spent our lives admiring those who have the gift of creativity while seeing our role as simply celebrating their uniqueness.

Words reveal our values and culture. The more familiar we are with something, the more words we have to describe it. The more common something is, the more nuanced our language and detail becomes. When we describe someone as creative, imaginative, or artistic, we often lack clarity because we consider ourselves none of the above. When we think of artists we tend to think of them as a rare and elite category of people. While great art inspires us all, it also has a subtle way of diminishing us. We create an unconscious category that separates them from the rest of us. Their creativity is proof that we are not creative; their artistry proof that we are not artistic. Yet what humanity needs most is for us to set creativity free from this singular category of the extraordinary and release it into the hands of the ordinary. Creativity should be an everyday experience. Creativity should be as common as breathing. We breathe, therefore we create.

I rarely find anyone who would answer the question “Are you creative?” with a resounding yes. Even those who say yes do so sheepishly. Somewhere along the way, we were told that creativity is a gift given to a rare and elite few. The rest of us have to struggle through life doing the best we can with the little bit we've been given. What makes things worse is that this framework is reinforced by the commonly held beliefs of sincere people of faith.

After breaking the shackles that have held our creative essence captive for far too long, let us never relinquish our rights as creatives and creators. A soul that is free and alive is a soul that creates. We need not only a new view of God but a new view of us. We need a new theology and a new anthropology. Humans create.

Over twenty years ago, I found myself in the middle of this conversation in the context of both anthropology and theology. An anthropological question was at its core: What is it that makes us human? Is every human being inherently creative? The theological dilemma was even deeper: Is creativity an activity that singularly belongs to God? There seemed to be an underlying assumption that any engagement in the creative act was an act of defiance against God the Creator. In practical terms, this has played out in the church over the last thousand years. Faith and creativity seemed to be adversaries rather than allies. In the church, spirituality and creativity seemed to be at war rather than acting as kindred spirits.

I remember the controversy that began when Mosaic, our community of faith in Los Angeles, established as one of its core values that creativity is the natural result of spirituality. I have to confess that when I penned this phrase I was completely oblivious to the tremendous push back I would receive. The integration of spirituality and creativity was as obvious from my perspective as the relationship between inhaling and exhaling. The push back came in various forms and, if I might say, from incredibly creative angles.

One leader in the Christian movement tried to restrain me by explaining that I was putting undue pressure on people by requiring that their spirituality somehow manifest itself in creativity. From her perspective, establishing creativity as a basic expression of being human would doom most people to failure.

And let me be clear on this point—she was exactly right! But it was for exactly the wrong reasons.

Her view is that most of us are simply not creative. Aspiring to be something we are not leads only to failure. This is exactly wrong. But she was right about the reality of failure when we embrace this new view of ourselves. It takes courage to not only accept our limitations but embrace our potential. To deny our creative nature is to choose a life where we are less and thus responsible for less. We see ourselves as created beings, so we choose to survive. When we see ourselves as creative beings, we must instead create.

If we are inherently spiritual creatures, we are by our nature creative beings, yet we live in the fear that if we aspire to be more we will discover ourselves to be less. We live in fear of failure, convinced that failure will prove us to be frauds. We have bought into the lie that creative people never fail and hence failure is proof that we are not creative. So we get back in line, our dreams in check, and condemn our souls to a slow and painful death.

Fear is the shadow of creativity. When we choose to create, we bring light to our fears. The darkness does not prevail over us. The creative act is inherently an act of courage. We are born to far too many fears and far too great a darkness. It is only when we find the courage to create that we are freed from those fears and that darkness. The past will be our future until we have the courage to create a new one. To make our lives a creative act is to marry ourselves to risk and failure.

True creativity does not come easily; creativity is born of risk and refined from failure. If we are at the core both spiritual beings and creative beings, then the artisan soul is where we live when we have the courage to be our truest selves.

This is the courage of the artisan—to know ourselves and be true to that knowledge. The artisan rejects all that makes us false and takes the huge risk of being true. To embrace our authentic selves and live in that raw expression of being fully human is our greatest risk and our richest reward.

We fear because we are uncertain that we are enough.

We fear because we are certain that we are not enough.

We fear because the creative act calls us to be more than we can be alone.

We fear because we were never intended to create apart from God.

We are like children with nuclear fusion in our hands—never fully grasping our potential for good and for destruction. It's easier to control people if we convince them that they are inherently uncreative—everyone simply conforms and cooperates. If we want to create a better world, we had better start to unleash the creative potential inside each person to create all that is good and beautiful and true.

I love the reminder that “perfect love drives out fear” (1 John 4:18).

There is an order to the creative process: we dream, we risk, we create.

We cannot create without risk.

There is no riskier way of life than the artisan way. Anything less is just existing.

Another significant faith leader was more poignant in his response. I still remember his words (frankly, they are pretty hard to forget): “People are worker bees. They simply need a task to be happy. Our singular task as followers of Christ is to obey, not to create.”

I know this seems straightforward. After all, how do we argue with that last statement? Unless, of course, we are commanded to create. Unless, of course, we are created to create. What if the creative act is not an act against nature but an expression of our nature? What if the creative act is not an act against God but a reflection of his image within us? Honestly, I still get a knot in my stomach when I think of human beings being described as worker bees, but what bothers me more is when I see this philosophy played out all over the world in countless numbers of lives.