Portrait of the Artist in Flip-Flops

“Creativity is an act of faith, and we must be faithful to that faith, willing to share it to help others, and to be helped in return.” –Julia Cameron

A friend recommended a book to me recently called The Artist’s Way, by Julia Cameron. My mind is definitely ripe for this kind of material lately—the encouraging kind, words that someone seems to have written especially for you.

I agree with much of what Cameron says in the opening chapters, that “art is a spiritual transaction,” that “artists are visionaries.” What I imagine Catholics call grace, I have felt in the moment when butterflies lift my body after a good poem.

The first time I heard the term “artist” applied to work other than paintings was my first year of college. The flighty professor—his suit jacket no doubt masking a leprechaun suit—had us read Wordsworth’s “I Wandered Lonely As a Cloud,” and I was moved by the idea that this writer was actually an artist, reflecting on what it was like to see the world differently with “that inward eye…which is the bliss of solitude.”

I am an artist. I have always been. Since I was a young child, I watched adults closely. I asked questions and critiqued. I formed stories in my head, I held words in my mouth in between breaths, marveling at their nuances, continually astonished and mesmerized by all that I didn’t know. When I went away to college, I finally got to tap into that part of myself. With no one else to care for, with no one else’s rules to follow, I was able to float and wander and think and create. Every day, it seemed, was an opportunity to make sense of the world, to explore and imagine and take intellectual risks.

Unfortunately, college didn’t last forever. Ten years later, I am with house and husband, two growing children, and a daycare of laundry. When we grow up, we have a tendency to let our artist go, to pack her tight and deep like we’re stuffing a suitcase. Cameron says that instead of continuing to ignore who we are, we need to recover, to push away the censors and harsh voices that weigh us down so that we can tap into our creativity. In order to do this, she suggests a few things in the first week: write something she calls “the morning pages” religiously, and take yourself on an “artist date.” One thing I found rewarding about reading these ideas is that they are all things I inherently know and have done. I know that I feel better, brighter, after writing down my rambling thoughts. I am drawn toward opportunities to revel in art–whether it’s watching a well-written movie or television show (The Good Wife or my latest infatuation, Justified), or hearing a writer speak at a local college or library.

This past Saturday, I had an artist date, but rather than being by myself, it was with my family. (You take what you can get.) We visited The Rodin Museum in Philadelphia, a place I hadn’t been to since freshman year of high school. I remember the joint English and History program that took us to different museums, places I had never been as a child. And I remember walking into the Rodin Museum, amazed by the way the sun shone through the ceiling, lighting up the sculptures of brave men and artists and thoughtful women. I thought I, and I alone, had discovered “The Kiss.”

Going back there two decades later, I was delighted to take in the sculptures again, this time, with my children. Since I’d visited the Musee Rodin in Paris two years ago, I was able to hold both experiences in my mind simultaneously: me, five months pregnant, wandering around a beautiful garden, listening for American tourists and eating a baguette with ham, and me, a mother of two, trying to squeeze in some beauty on a warm Saturday in July. I found myself lifting my daughter to a sculpture called Mother and Child, then chasing her as we passed scenes of women doing arduous tasks.

Outside the museum, on the concourse filled with shrubs and gravel, I watched my children wander and stop and stare, my eyes, at times, mistaking them for sculpture. I began to see human figures as pieces of clay, molded and transforming from moment to moment, day to day: “Father in Doorway,” “Boy kneeling,” “Young Girl Clapping.”

Children are always artists, and mine are helping me embrace my own nature.

Wistful Four Year Old.

The Thinker As a Young Child

Flamenco.

Enfant Avec Jambon (Translation: My kid is a ham.)

I have not figured out what will be my artist date this week, but I am grateful for the permission to be inspired, to store up scenes that satisfy my soul. And I am so happy to know I am not alone in my journey.

Are you in recovery? How do you honor your inner artist?

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Tagged as: Julia Cameron, Justified, Philadelphia, Rodin, The Artist's Way, The Good Wife, The Kiss, The Rodin Museum