Why do we make things? Art doesn’t have to be beautiful, but the making of art, no doubt, is an act of beauty. We are called to beauty.
“Beauty isn’t all about just nice loveliness, like. Beauty is about more rounded, substantial becoming. So I think beauty, in that sense, is about an emerging fullness, a greater sense of grace and elegance, a deeper sense of depth, and also a kind of homecoming for the enriched memory of your unfolding life.”
These words from John O’Donohue’s On Being interview “Inner Landscape of Beauty” invite us to consider that the invisible and visible are one and always at interplay.
These times of interiority are calling us to creativity beyond a value statement of “good” or “bad” or “beautiful” or “ugly.” Beauty as substantial becoming, emergence and depth may be found in the act of creating.
“It isn’t to make a career. It isn’t to be famous. It is to sing up the earth,” says artist Paulus Berensohn in “Why We Create.” He speaks of his conversation with an aboriginal elder who told him that the purpose of making art is to “sing up the earth.” He defined it as showing gratitude to the earth that provides sustenance and life. It’s an obligation to the land, a reciprocity with creation, a calling forth of life-giving energy.
If we were to practice singing up the earth, what would that look like? What creative pursuit is calling us to discovery?
—Jessica Lien, Prairiewoods development coordinator