“Perhaps creating something is nothing but an act of profound remembrance.” –Rainer Maria Rilke
A Holy Wonder is a reader-supported publication. To receive essays like this one, subscribe.
There’s lots of advice out there on getting us out of a creative rut—going for a walk, working on something else, etc. They’re all very practical and often work. But I’m more interested in seeing the opportunity that exists in the lack, or the void, of creating—an experience that can feel dry and empty. So there’s more to the creative rut than just fixing a problem. It’s noticing that our imaginations are looking to be nourished. So here are three ideas to help us recall the true purpose of the creative work at hand:
1. Find your haystack like Monet. Monet observed a single mundane subject (haystacks) at different times of day and during different seasons in order to reveal nuances in our perception. We can see how light changes and transforms a scene. His Haystacks series is a reminder to me that the mundane can help shape our understanding of how we inhabit time. (And if you want an interesting philosophical/memoir read on time, I suggest James K. A. Smith’s How to Inhabit Time. We all carry a history after all.) There is a particular window in my house where I can see a cherry blossom tree that changes very distinctly through the seasons. Looking at this tree framed by my window is my haystack, ushering in memories that I thought had evaporated. It’s a convenient way to participate in Monet’s observational experiment and aesthetic practice.
2. Discover beauty in the ordinary like Cézanne. Many art critics found the still life to be one of the least imaginative genres. However, Cézanne, who mastered the still life, creatively arranged and imagined different compositions and viewpoints through the still life. Many of his paintings feature fruits, and he explained his draw to them in this way:
They exhale their message with their scent. They reach you with all their smells and tell you about the fields they’ve left, the rain that made them grow, the dawns they watched. When I’m outlining the skin of a lovely peach with soft touches of paint, or a sad old apple, I catch a glimpse in the reflections they exchange of . . . the same love of the sun, the same recollection of the dew, a freshness.
3. Remember that creativity serves the “gift economy.” In Lewis Hyde’s The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, he writes:
It is the assumption of this book that a work of art is a gift, not a commodity. Or, to state the modern case with more precision, that works of art exist simultaneously in two “economies,” a market economy and a gift economy. Only one of these is essential, however: a work of art can survive without the market, but where there is no gift, there is no art.
Commodity exchanges are typically related to productivity with material goods traded at a particular price. This transaction establishes a utilitarian relationship between buyer and seller. Gifts, unlike commodities, track a different type of exchange because we understand gifts as holding unique meanings to us as human persons. Gifts are always “bestowed” and meant to be received. Knowing that, we understand what it means to create.
In case you missed them, I’ve written three articles over at Catholic Women in Business that might help you in serving your work:
1. 3 Lessons from Dorothy Day on Work
2. Discernment and the Gift of Surprise
3. Learning Prudence to Overcome Perfectionism
Thanks for subscribing to A Holy Wonder. If you’ve enjoyed the newsletter, I invite you to share it with others.
Ooooo … I’m wondering what my “haystack” could be. I’ll be exploring that this week. 😍