Sunday, August 17, 2014

The Cry of An Artist's Heart

I would like to dedicate the following reflection to us artists...

Several days ago I found myself dancing in my room to the song "Take Me Away" by Worth Dying For.....this SHOULD sound like a normal thing I do every day, but the sad reality of this fact, is that this happened for the 1st time in 6 months. For some reason, the past half year I lost my inspiration to dance for Jesus, and coming from someone like me, that indeed is a great artistic tragedy that should be unheard of......For some people, a song is simply a song, but we artists, I know for me, a song to my heart is like kissing the soul of who I am, it moves me so deeply like nothing else in this life can.  So when I am truly inspired by a song, I can't help but dance it back to Jesus. and as I was dancing like a 5 year old girl "twirling in my twirly dress" (Flyleaf), God gave me yet another revelation of His heart. I realized,

  even if no one else expresses our art, we have to be the orginators and expressors of our art.
I'm no naiive soul that I once was, in today's society we artists are so brutally murdered, artistically speaking. Society judges the artist like no other and somehow we must learn to express our art anyways regardless of this issue. Just think about it for a second, who can express you? I know that might sound like an obvious question, but do you realize dearest friend, that no one in this ENTIRE WORLD can express that song, dance, painting, guitar strum, speech, sport, dress style like YOU CAN. Try as your best friend might, he or she, cannot be the originator of your art, it is truly up to you, to show the world an artistic interpretation of who YOU are, which I believe is one of the most important beauties of this life.  Simply put, If we don't express the art that is in our soul, who is going to express it for us? 

  Also, we have this skewed global image that the world "must see our art". What if just our close loved ones see it? Isn't that enough? Will we still have motivation to do our art, even if it is never shown to "the world?"

I sense that we as a society get so caught up in "making it into the scene", wither it's music, art, academics, sports or something else that we forget our original purpose of why we do this certain art. Let's be honest, how many of us have got so caught up in "making it" that we end up feeling SO disappointed, rejected, judged and lonely? At the end of the day, was it "really worth the world's approval? Was it really worth to lose the heart and soul of who we are in exchange for gaining the whole world?  I'd like to think NOT. Sometimes we as humanity, think too BIG. We forget that the smallest steps can make the biggest differences. So even if you sing that song with your guitar to just your grandma or best friend, I believe the simple act of putting your creative thought into living and breathing action, is one of the greatest and most crucial steps that you can take as an artist. 

What is the motivation of my art? For Jesus or people?

(If this question REALLY intrigues you.....and gets you thinking......I will be doing a bible study this year that goes into great depth to explore this topic....just an fyi =)

This question really starts an UNCONTROLLABLY OUTRAGEOUS FIRE in my soul....

The longer I live this life, the more I realize that each artist that walks this earth, we are SO DIFFERENT from each other. Our styles and interpretations of life are definitely unique. That's the beauty of the artist, he or she offers this fresh perspective that the rest of the world never thought of.  With this, comes great pain, and great pleasure. I know for me personally, I am open to hearing people's stories and getting to know what inspires them, what passions, visions, and dreams lie hidden deep within their beautiful soul.... I realized that not everyone in this world shares, such an open perspective as this. I personally decided that I WILL NOT judge, reject, mock or disrespect someone's artistic interpretation of this life. It is simply not my place. I carry this mindset with me wherever I go. Unfortunately, I have met people throughout this life who are the opposite of this, and they judge the bloody hell out of us artists. It's sad to watch their narrow mindedness and lack of understanding. But I suppose there is a reason why we as humanity are the way we are, there had to be some situation, circumstance or person to make us like we are today.

So I would like to personally address the following to all those people in today's society who JUDGE us artists...this message is FOR YOU.  WE ARTISTS were created to start a GREAT CONTROVERSY for God's love. Wither you like how BOLD we are or not, WE WILL NOT BACK DOWN. WE WILL BE LOUD, COLORFUL, CRAZY, WILD, IN YOUR FACE, and most importantly PROVOCATIVE. As a Christian artist, we desire to PROVOKE others with our art to make a BOLD expression of how we desire to see society TRANSFORMED and CHANGED. If you have a problem with our PROVOCATIVENESS, then I suppose we can't be friends sadly.  WE WILL NOT CHANGE WHO WE ARE AS ARTISTS TO FIT INSIDE YOUR BOX THAT WE WERE NEVER CREATED TO FIT IN ANYWAYS.  WE WILL ARTISTICALLY EXPRESS OURSELVES UNTIL OUR LAST DYING BREATHS AND INTO ETERNITY. YOU WILL NEVER STOP THE ARTISTIC RHYTHM IN OUR HEARTS AND SOULS THAT JESUS SO GRACIOUSLY PLACED THERE.

At the end of the day, I believe that it's important to do our art for Jesus, from our purest of heart....He will bless it, wither it's just for our loved ones or for the whole world to see. 


















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