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I WAS AT a crowded Monet exhibit in a London gallery, standing on tiptoe craning my neck, trying to see around the people to the paintings. Suddenly a sense of God’s presence surprised me and a sentence formed in my heart. Was God speaking to me? The words were unforgettable.
He just trusted Me and played.
Did Monet just trust God and play? I believed it.
How else did Monet capture the glory of light in interplay with nature? How did he capture the three dimensional sense of life and movement, the constantly changing beauties of creation, on a flat surface?
Those words, “He just trusted me and played” began to set me free. When Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free” He surely referred to more than theological verities like His divinity. Truth sets us free at every level. The thought of Monet trusting God and playing frees me from two religious systems, two strongholds and systems of thought. First, the church culture I grew up with, where vapid Sunday School art sentimentalizes Jesus. And second, the academic culture I was educated into where idolatry often surrounds all that is deemed art by the experts.
That suits me well. With a bit of talent, but almost no training or skill, creating visual art is play alone (and never results or achievement) for me. I often paint ideas and feelings, not objective realities. I add and change colors on a canvas without forethought or plan. I forget about time while exploring where the next dab, blotch or stroke might take me. Most of my “work” (even the harsher darker paintings) has a touch of whimsy to it, a playful or fanciful exploration. Trusting God and playing frees me from constraining external standards, judgments and comparisons. Ending up with strange non-representational art that attempts, and often fails, to objectify my own pre-verbal subjective impressions is humbling; my granddaughters at the age of three made better art than lots of mine. But, it actually puts me on a spiritual path quite similar to Monet’s. His passion for painting his own perceptions of external realities in nature led the founder of impressionism to break from the Academie and all the standards, judgments and comparisons of his world. Ha. That’s a lot of big words
Just to say
Daddy said Okay
I can be myself and play
