What You Are

Once when I was bemoaning the lack of time to produce art, a professional artist friend told me, "Everything an artist produces is art. It is not a thing you do, it is what you are."

That gave me comfort through my hectic years with young children. I was an artist at changing diapers. I was a Picasso with projectile vomiting. I was DaVinci with da babies! But, even though the kids are nearly grown, I never have the kind of time to produce art that I did when I had no children and was in art school. I know the dangers of art now. For example, yesterday I was supposed to pick Asherel and her friend up after Gavel Club and I got involved in artwork. When the phone rang, it was as though I were awakened from another planet. I could not imagine who could be calling me since I was the only human on earth doing the only thing that mattered. Then Asherel's voice telling me they were ready to come home jolted me back to earth.

I have to make a startling admission. I am irrevocably addicted now to digital art. The picture in today's blog was made on an Ipod, using a cute little program called "Doodle Buddy". Now who would not want to play with a program with a name like that? It is like potato chips...you can't just have one.... same with Doodle Buddy.... you can't just draw one picture. One picture leads to another, and pretty soon you have forgotten you have a daughter, or dinner to make, or even what your name is. All you know is that color and form and line can be exquisite and a delight beyond even food and sleep.

There are some things about Doodle Buddy that make it far superior to pencil and paper. First, if you make big mistakes and just want to start over, you just shake the Ipod, and like magic, the screen is clear! It is the ultimate symbol of redemption- sinful drawing...? NO problem! One shake of the Doodle Buddy and you are washed clean as snow. Secondly, with the touch of a stylus you can make your brush huge or just a few millimeters wide. No expensive purchasing of a zillion brushes to fit your every need- Doodle Buddy has it all in one touch of a button!
And thirdly, you have all the colors of the world at your disposal through the use of blending 20 or so major hues to any color you might desire.

And this is not even the best of the Apple drawing programs, I am told. Unfortunately, we are not sure which ones will operate on Asherel's IPod but are busily trying to find one (some require Iphone capability or 3g, which is techno-talk for things rich people have that we don't).


While bonding with Doodle Buddy, I did consider that perhaps God was sending me a message using the language of a technological world I have kicked and screamed and begged not to be forced to enter. What an unexpected joy to find that in a very short time with very technical, specialized tools, I was able to produce some startling results. I had clung to my perception of pencil, paint, and brush as the only true tools of an artist. I did not want to give up the old, and embrace the new. I did not consider the use of Doodle Buddy what a real artist does. I did not really believe my friend who long ago told me that an artist is not what I do, but what I am.

But God is speaking to me, and to you, all the time and His ways are sometimes startling unorthodox and unexpected. If we keep looking for Him in the "old" ways, we sometimes miss Him when He appears in a jingle bell, or an illness, or a wounded animal we give a drink of water to. We are precious and loved, no matter what we do, because of who we are in Him. And every morning, we are His Doodle Buddy, shaken so all the old ruins of bad choices and sin are washed away, ready to create with Him a new day.

Romans 8:34-36 (New International Version)

³⁴Who is he that condemns? Christ Jesus, who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?