An Artist’s Heart
I come from a family of talented artists. My dad made almost all of the bedroom
furniture in our house. My mother could
sew beautiful dresses. Both my parents
played the clarinet. My brother Tom
could draw well enough to do commercial art for a major department store chain
and he had my father’s talent with wood.
My sister Sharon could also draw beautifully. My brother Mike is talented with metal work. When I think of all that they could and can create,
it sometimes make me feel like the art gene ran dry in my family at #8; me
being a bit too downstream at #9.
It’s not that I have no interest in art. I can imagine it all. I just can’t translate what is in my mind’s
eye, what is in my heart to something tangible.
For example, I love to listen to good singing, but even I describe my voice
as ‘baritone monotone”. At church I am
only there for volume. I leave all that
going up and down the scale for others.
Three of my own children played musical instruments in
school. My daughter Elizabeth was good
enough to play her flute in the marching band and the woodwind ensemble. My wife sang in choirs even in college and
she played the piano. When I wrote the
post “Playing Dreams” (see post dated May 1, 2023) about my mother’s mandolin,
it spurred a conversation with Michelle about how I wanted to play a musical
instrument, but never received any encouragement along those lines from my
parents. My loving wife shrugged her
shoulders, looked me in the eye and said plainly: “Well, you’re tone deaf,
dear.”
The one thing I can do successfully is use feathers,
silk, and other oddities to make a fishing fly that will fool even the wariest
brown trout. But, unless one also uses
flies to catch trout, it is doubtful that you would recognize a trout fly as
art. And, even if you conceded that much,
Dr. Bennett, my writing mentor way back in my under-graduate days at St.
Norbert College, taught me that all truly great art helps the beholder
contemplate God. Even my flashiest and
most complicated fishing flies are designed to catch fish. They are utilitarian. Although I admittingly have invoked the Lord’s
name, for good and for bad, while casting for trout, I must admit that my
fishing flies rarely lead me to contemplate God.
It is at that very moment when the child Jesus lets go
of Mary’s fingers that I would sculpt the moment. Yes, we normally see Mary holding Jesus safely
in her arms. That’s well in itself as it
is certainly appropriate to picture them as mother and child. But, ultimately that wasn’t Mary’s
mission. Her mission was, and still is,
to bring Jesus into the world. Her
mission, is an eternal letting go, so that her son can go out to find all of
the lost sheep to bring them home to the Father. Some day someone else may
carve it, or paint it, or make a beautiful mosaic of it. Me, I just have words – hopefully the words
to bring that image to your imagination, to your mind’s eye, to your heart.
His Peace <><
Deacon Dan
Photo by Sema Martin on Unsplash
Photo by Octavian Iordache on Unsplash
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