How to Love an Artist

Wow, do I owe you guys a post or what! Chalk it up to lots of new stuff going on, impromptu travel and subsequent chore obligations, a whole day spent(/wasted?) writing a poem (which I will spare you, in the name of staying on topic) and the most preventable cause of all: I don't have a stash of backup content for when I don't get the chance to blog. That's why they tell bloggers to always have a stash. But, am I about to finish writing this post and then go write another one for my stash? No. I can't be expected to write when I don't have to. But, my fellow bloggers: Always have a stash.

Now, I consider myself an artist. (This idea of myself was stolen away from me at some point after the age of 6, and I have only just begun to recover it. Maybe another post on that soon.) I am claiming I speak for all artists when I tell you how to love them, whether or not it's actually the case. This post is actually for the church as a whole, but as I've said, I have full confidence that my awesomely lateral-thinking readers will be able to figure out how it applies to whatever they care about. Because really, we all need to learn to better love the artists in our lives, whether that means ourselves, our significant others, friends and family, colleagues, employees, parishioners, or competitors. Not because artists are superior, but because they're different, or maybe just flawed in ways that others aren't, or maybe just obnoxiously sensitive.

I won't go into the whole idea of artists in corporate culture, since Seth Godin's covered that nicely in Linchpin. He has his own definition of what an artist is, which I love. But here I'll just use it loosely, to mean anybody you consider to be an artist. And I'll deal with the church, which if you ask me, desperately needs to be good to its artists. This is because the church is in desperate need of good art. Remember how good it used to be?--the Sistine Chapel, etc. Nowadays, we've got all this stuff we call Christian music, Christian movies, and--bleh--Christian romance novels (no. there's no sex. ugh).

The world of Christian art is almost completely insular, content with itself and its current market, and worst of all, without the ability to transform anyone outside of it. Out of all the people currently shaking up the worlds of visual art, film, dance, poetry, fiction, music, etc, how many of them also profess a faith in Christ? Very few, I think. If you don't think this is an issue because you don't think art has the power to influence and transform people... we're not going to get along.

Let's just take a guy like Dan Brown. Yes, perhaps many stupid people have read The Da Vinci Code and use it as an excuse for why they don't believe Jesus was the son of God. But I wonder, instead of grumbling about Dan Brown and other stupid people and the state of America, why hasn't anyone stepped up to write a novel that instills new faith in everyone it reaches, and is a bestseller? I know, unthinkable, right? that a novel written by a Christian could be compelling, and actually resonate with people. My point is, what if it isn't unthinkable?

The church needs its artists.

My church has taken a step in the direction of doing something about that. They announce the passages that the next few sermons will be based on, and ask for people to submit art that the passages inspire them to create. Then they pick one thing from each week and show/read it on Sunday.

This is a cool idea. But even with this system in place, having interacted with it myself, I still think they could love their artists better (one of the problems having to do with this "it"--not a person). I know, we're supposed to be motivated to create great works purely by the desire to obey God, or from being moved by the Holy Spirit, and we're not supposed to look to other people for validation etc--but bear with me. I'm a fallen artist, after all. Many of us are. If you're going to ask us to do something that goes way beyond just showing up at church, we're going to need the extra prodding, reassurance, encouragement, praise, and recognition that it takes for anybody to do anything extraordinary.

Here are some ways to give your artists what they need to do extraordinary things for you:

Ask for our help. Most of the time, artists don't feel needed. We look at the people making a lot of money and tithing it all, and the people standing out in the cold to greet people on Sunday, and the people singing on stage, and we look at ourselves and think about throwing ourselves off the George Washington Bridge. You need us. I just established that. Make your artists feel needed, when the rest of the world doesn't, and they will stick with you.

Give us plenty of feedback and praise. Okay, so last year my church asks for some art. I send in a bizarre little poem-like thing that I can't actually imagine them having any use for. They never reply, and they don't use it. I figure I better get used to that sort of thing when submitting my writing anyway, so I forget about it and move on. Half a year later, I find out that my pastor thought it was brilliant, but just that it wouldn't go well in the service.. and that was because I went and talked to him. I might never have found out that anybody even looked at that piece. Why didn't someone just take one minute and let me know? What you think about doing, but don't do, is useless to me.

The second time around, I send them another poem. This time they did use it... but I still never got a reply. I guess their act of choosing it to read should mean that I know they think it's good, or something. But the fact that through that whole process, no one interacted with me personally, makes me feel like I, along with all the other artists, am working to create something that is going to get thrown into a black hole, where it may or may not get chosen (for one reason or another) to be shown to the world for about 1 minute, and that's the end of the interaction.

You're asking people to set aside hours of their lives to pour their hearts into something they're creating for you. (And we are doing it for you, because it's unlikely that someone's personal project is going to coincide with John 10.) If you make us feel ignored, how many times are we going to send you stuff until we give up? Even scarier--how long are we going to keep believing we're capable of making good art, if even the people who think it's good don't tell us? If we're not too busy to make you a poem or a painting, you're not too busy to let us know what you thought of it. Or even to thank us. My art is a gift to you. Don't be that person who asks for a bunch of stuff for their birthday, gets what they wanted, and doesn't bother to thank the givers, or ever talk to them again.

Give us plenty of credit and recognition. At my church, they don't reveal the names of the people who made the art they use. I kind of get that. For your own purposes, you can decide whether or not to acknowledge people by name. But still. When it comes to things that really make an artist feel loved and appreciated and help convince them to keep doing what they're doing, credit and recognition go hand in hand with praise. You would throw all your door greeters and all your music people a dinner for everything they've done for you; why not do something nice for the people who made all the awesome art that's sitting in your inbox?

Luckily, there are several ways this can happen, one of which I outline in my next point.

Publish us. What artist doesn't want to be published, seen, or otherwise "exposed"? (Heh.) By publish, I just mean to show off in some semi-permanent format that's available to the public. My church has produced a CD with a bunch of songs written by people in our community. It's awesome. But for all the other mediums--if not a physical book, or a digital book, what about a website where you post the writing, pictures, and videos of performances/films/slideshows that you get?

Sure, I could post my poems on my own blog. But if my church also posted them on their blog, I could actually reach out to people who aren't already my friends, thus facilitating the beginnings of an art-loving community, rather than just a bunch of isolated artists, feeling like we're in competition when we're all trying to do the same thing. Publish your artists. Don't say that you don't have the resources to do so when you mean that you haven't tried. You can probably find someone who has the ability and willingness to do it for free. (Me, for example. Unless I'm not in your church--then you can hire me to do it.)

Pay us. Whoa, whoa, whoa. I know this is going to sound crazy. But all I will say is, this is not about making a living. Artists who have been at it for a while know that it's [often!] a waste of time to count on making a living doing art. This is about putting your money where your mouth is. Capitalism says art is not useful unless it can turn a profit. The church is supposed to believe that art needs to be created for its own sake--in other words, that we should create because the Creator creates. We don't tithe because we think God needs our money to make things happen; we do it to put our money where our mouth is. I don't need a salary from you, or for you to buy everything I make for you--like I said, it's a gift. What I need is to know that you value what I do like you value the Uganda charity you might occasionally give to, and more than the rest of the world values art that's not very marketable. It's crazy, I know. But it might just be the kind of crazy that the church could use right now.

Support us when we're making art that's NOT for you. Remember that novel that's going to stir faith back into the hearts of Americans everywhere? The movie that's going to be a hit because it's not about violence, sex, or the utter pointlessness of life, but reminds us why we get up in the mornings? They're going to take a while to finish. While we're working on them, we'd love for people in the church to be some of our most devoted cheerleaders--to kick our asses if we're being complacent and not producing stuff, to remind us over and over that we can do it, that we NEED to do it, and at the same time to make us feel loved, no matter how much or how little we get done. It's a delicate balance to strike, between pampering and ass-kicking, but essential for anyone trying to encourage an artist they know. It's another crazy thing to ask, I know. Practically a pipe dream. But if you're looking to recruit a generation of people to help you transform the world, you're going to have to do a little cheerleading.

Now that you know how to properly love an artist, I'm going to end this here so that I can start waiting for all the praise, recognition, money, love, and cheerleading to fill up my inbox..