When He Leads

It's really funny to say this, but I've never felt God so much in my life leading me where He wants me to go, meeting people He wants me to meet, than now.

Today was another one of those days where I went to the Lowertown Arts District to basically get out of the house and get coffee. I'd totally forgotten that it was the start of Quilters week (Oh man.. my sea of people phobia is already twitching in sympathy for locals), but this led to the fact that A LOT of galleries were open.

Coffee in hand, I decided--yet again, on a whim--to leave Cas (my car, the trooper that he is) behind and have a stroll around the few blocks I'd grown to be vaguely familiar with to see if anyone new was open.

The studio space I'd been in temporary negotiations over was open, and I'll admit I was initially skiddish standing on the corner of the block staring at the Open flag as I debated popping in. Thoughts of awkward 'Hi, I was the ceramicist that didn't get the space. :D' scenarios swam through my head... mostly because while I'm actually glad I didn't get it, I didn't know if they'd think I was a spiteful little hoodlum. (I'm not, I really just like meeting everybody!) But, I felt pulled to go, so I sucked it up and wandered along to see what was what.

I got to meet Gretchen Smith, a fellow Christian artist, and we had a PHENOMENAL conversation. She was a wealth of information, who bluntly and truthfully told me what I'd been wanting to hear about the business side of being an artist for months now. It was a very real, down-to-earth talk that I am so thankful I got to have, because it's helped reaffirm my want and need to be realistic about this lifestyle choice. It was also great to finally openly connect with another Christian artist. One of the things that upset me about Murray was I often felt that Christianity as a whole in the department was looked down upon as a close-minded and even ignorant mindset to be in. It hurt, a lot. And I let myself close up about it to get through. I regret it not really being shown until I started working on my senior thesis show, but at the same time, what better way to show them? It's a struggle I feel that's finally over, I've a bit more backbone now, so hopefully I can continue this line of art with its spirituality.

It also brought up further understanding of my growing compulsion to expand my abilities further into more craft-but-art aspects such as the business of soaps, oils, and so forth. I think in a way, I'm being told I can do both, and it wouldn't be too much like if I worked a regular weekly job and then had to scrounge the time to build up the will to work in the studio.

It's quite the opposite.

I had the revelation that this draw toward pulling things from nature to create things we could use to take care of ourselves is my wanting to reconnect to nature, and through that, connect further to God, who provided it for us. And I want people to be able to be supplied for and reconnected in the same way. Is it the start of a witness? I'm not sure. But artistically, it coincides with my sculptures' yearning for connection and understanding, so maybe so.

I've had people having to sit through me standing in front of candles and incense sections pulling from different areas to create scent bouquets for rooms, and its that scent combination trait that I love about oil perfumes and the like. They have the ability to strike chords in people through memory almost--if not just as strong as, a piece of art, and a part of me believes that this ability to create something is just as much an artform as my throwing out slabs of clay and building body parts.

So can the two interact and become some means of conglomerate function? I hope so. I think I'm being told it can be.

Either way, I've had a very rewarding day, and I wouldn't trade it for the world.