It's All Performance Art 106

I heard something interesting on the CBC yesterday, an interview with George Steiner, the recently deceased Jewish-French-American intellectual with Eleanor Wachtel on the program Writers and Company.  He mentioned that there appears to be a fundamental incompatibility between the arts and ordinary human life.  Everything he was saying made sense to me.  He stated that neither Mother Teresa nor anyone in Medicin Sans Frontiers would ever have made it as artists, not because of a lack of talent, but because of a difference of calling.   It is to suggest that arts and culture provide a kind of a bulwark or an insulation against the vicissitudes of real, ordinary life. 

I wonder if this could be why there is a strong trend with some prominent visual artists to portray and glorify in their artwork the ordinary.  They have to do it in order to feel grounded.  They are never going to do much that is really useful to humanity, outside of their lovely or challenging works of art.  So, this is like second best.  The beauty of the ordinary.  But those artists are not, and never are going to be, ordinary people. 

I suppose I already had my kick at the can.  But nothing happened.  Sour grapes, perhaps?  I don't think so.  I was told that I had the talent and the ability to do really well in the art world, but there were obstacles, some that I couldn't surmount, some that I didn't want to surmount.  I really worked, hours every day, at paining, seeking to grow, improve, develop a vision, technical finesse, and I was doing very well.  But there were two little things in my way.  For one, I was on my own, and had to work at a day job in order to pay the rent.  It was also really difficult to find a good and reliable agent or gallery who would represent me, since such entities prefer to take their chances only on already proven stock.  And I simply didn't have the extra time or energy for being all things that I was going to be needing from others in order to progress from being  an emergingl to an established artist.

But there was something else at play.  I was, and am a Christian.  I felt, and even more keenly still feel, a strong call to serve others in Christ's love.  There is no way I could give my all to the muse and still justify myself as a Christian.  I have seen others try, and they have done very well as artists.  I wouldn't say they have really gone anywhere as servants of Christ. 

The two worlds, art and service to others, are incompatible.  It is serving two masters.  I am happy to go on making art, to go on littering the world with my drawings and paintings.  But to become famous, or simply just well-known,  as I mentioned to a friend yesterday, I could only do this by sacrificing what for me is the most important part of my soul, which is humility and joy in serving.  I will never be known for anything, and I am happy with this.  As long as my life has been useful for helping others find joy and meaning, to learn to see God, and to love more strongly and more purely.  I can't think of anything that would honour me more, than sacrificing such honours to the glory of God.