Make bad art
Last week, on one of those evenings when it was just too muggy to do much of anything outside, my son asked to have a family art night. We all love to make stuff, but my son, Amos, is the only one among us who has any drawing skills. So, to make it more fun for the rest of us, we chose to make left-handed portraits.
Amos handed out blank pieces of paper and sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga pencils. Each one of us in my family of four sat on a side of our square dining room table. Amos set a time for three minutes and we each picked up our pencils with our left hands. (We are all righties.)
Each of us quickly realized our portraits would not be good, by any standard. But we found delight in the attempt, in letting go of any need to be good, and just make something for the fun of it. Drawing faces is difficult. Who knew how hard it is to draw the shape of a nose?! Using our non-dominant hand made success impossible, and the task became surprisingly enjoyable. The fun came as we looked closely at the shape and details of the faces we knew so well, and then completely failed at translating those details onto paper. And then, of course, laughing together at the hilarious results.
I recently read an article by a seminary professor, Brian Bantum, claiming that we’ll be saved by bad art. His premise was that we can only grow, only learn, only become better by first making something awful. In falling short, we discover who we are and maybe even improve. For too many of us, our fear of failure keeps us from trying. It inhibits our ability to trust ourselves.
Making things, even if it’s bad, is a human and hopeful, and even faithful thing. We are not the Creator and perfection is unattainable. So, the best response is to embrace and celebrate our limitations and just try. A response to all the AI generated content and elegantly edited photos surrounding us is to celebrate imperfect yet authentically made creations by humans made by our Creator. Making things, just for the pure joy of creating, of working hard, of testing our capacity, opens us to see what God can do through our beginnings.
There’s such grace in creating something, anything, and allowing that thing to be terrible. A left-handed portrait, a wobbly table, a delicious but ugly pie, or a lousy poem that speaks truth from your heart.
St Paul director of music ministries Chris Nelson (who can play the organ not just with his right and left hands, but also both feet, all at the same time) often quotes Psalm 100. “Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth!” A joyful noise. The psalmist doesn’t say make a perfectly pitched tone in 6-part harmonies. We’re called to make a joyful noise. Bad art.
Our praise is not about perfection, it is about joy in whatever sounds come from our bodies, imperfect and beloved as they are. The goodness comes from just being a part of it all, giving thanks to God for noses with impossible curves and voices in every pitch and tone; where we get to participate in bringing more beauty into the world, even when that beauty is ridiculous and noisy.
