A Word of Art

I'm feeling unexpectedly brazen and ambitiously artsy for a few minutes.

I've got an afternoon stretching ahead of me that's completely devoid of plans so I pull out the art supplies I brought home from my trip to Italy last summer. 

I've looked at them since then, shuffled through them, but haven’t actually used them. 

Usually I put them back in the drawer.

But today before this creative mood dissipates into thin air, I spread everything out on the table and pull up a chair.

I see the postcard art instructor Jeanne Oliver gave us in Italy and suddenly notice the lovely figure of a girl she painted. 

I wonder if I could try to copy it?

In Italy my attempts at drawing during the art classes fell a little flat. 

We were encouraged to let our creativity roam free but when I looked at the piles of images and stickers and paints in front of me, I didn't have any ideas. 

I'd sit at the table studying my supplies and when the instructor would tell us to begin creating, my mind went blank. 

Except for that harping, tyrant-voice inside my head telling me in that disdainful tone I always hear that I didn't know how to draw, I didn't know what to do, so wouldn't I look idiotic trying to create something? 

I'd look around the room at everyone busily creating a work of art.

That's when I'd get up to take a photo from the front of the room, hoping to be inspired as I walked by the other artists. 

But now I have an assortment of brushes, paints and some art crayons laying in front of me. 

I pencil in the curves of the girl's figure but draw her lips too far down from the top of the page so I erase and start again. I color with the charcoal crayon and dribble water over it.

I flip through the notebook of word stickers in typewriter font. 

Words catch my eye, like happiness and heartfelt. Destination and dreamer. Beautiful and beyond. 


A lexicon of inventive possibilities.

I start to think of dozens of phrases and sentences I’d like to make with those word stickers and I feel a little flutter of excitement.  

What if we listened to the urge to create when we feel the least inspired and ready, ignoring the voice in our heads that tells us not to even bother? 

What if we picked up our pen or our paintbrush or opened our laptop and met the blank page or canvas or screen with a colorful piece of ourselves? 

What if we played that musical instrument or sang that new song? What if we danced or spoke poetry or sewed fabric?

What if we decided that doing what makes our souls sing from deep within our God-created cores is just as important as tending to the needs of the house or family or friends?

And let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us,
And establish the work of our hands for us;
Yes, establish the work of our hands. - Psalm 90:17 (NKJV)

Maybe this was my kind of art. Art with word stickers. Perhaps it's an artful cousin of sorts to writing?

Then I started thinking it might be fun to make a few bookmarks for myself with these stickers and art crayons. 

You see, I have a penchant for bookmarks.

I kind of like them to match the book I’m reading. I like the colors of the cover and my bookmark to coordinate. 

If they don't, it’s jarring to my eyes if they clash.

{Weird, I know. But maybe it's proof I have some sort of artsy idiosyncrasy?} 

Everywhere I go, I bring home a bookmark as a souvenir. I have a drawer full of them. 

So maybe that's my new little creative project. 

{Because after all, who can have too many bookmarks?} 

Especially when they're words of art.

I'm joining my friends at Holley Gerth's place at Coffee for your Heart. Click the image for some encouraging posts from my blogger friends.