Spirit and Art

Inching toward a manifesto

Detail of “All is One” Mixed Media on Aluminum 48” x 48” Sarah Bush 2020

The Intersection of Art & Spirit

What interests me most these days is developing an art practice that is consciously wrapped in a spiritual container. A place where I connect to the sacred through the living presence of my tools and materials, and perceive them as my co-creative partners as I engage with the world around me and explore what it means to be alive on planet earth.

Even though I have used the word sacred, this process does not need to be solemn or heavy. Rather, I look for it to be joyful and unfettered. I would like to liberate myself from rushing to make work that is good and instead focus on making work that is true.

I want to set my anxiety aside—to let it sleep in the corner of my couch like an exhausted child—as I learn to genuinely trust my body’s ability to deliver what my imagination conjures up. To disregard the dominant culture’s ideas about productivity, branding, importance, trends, or success.

I want to have a deeper faith in the meandering nature of my artistic path, knowing that I’m following my instincts, receptive to my inner guidance, and listening to the artwork as an entity itself, even if this path appears to slow me down, send me on a detour, or offer little to show for my efforts.

The Art of Possibility

I think a lot about how art has lost the two most important jobs that it held in human culture for thousands of years: serving as a way to make magic or to connect to the divine. I want art to have those jobs back.

I want art to be a refuge for both the viewer and the maker. To offer fresh pathways forward, to be a universal tool for both individual expression and collective connection. An inclusive way to explore our edges, to extend into the unknown, and to be an alchemical vehicle for accessing the supernatural.

But I’m not asking the subject matter of art to offer all this. Make what you want! Rather, I think all those things can happen as part of the creative process itself.

Wholeness

Over the past several years, I have heard a lot of talk about the value of the creative process, the value of the “journey” rather than the destination. But what dominates still is a collective, cultural hyper-focus on the value of the end product or finished artwork. The noun instead of the verb. The greater importance of “being an artist” rather than “making art.”

In order to access the depths that art making has to offer, I think this equation has to be inverted. We need to walk the talk of truly honoring the journey and find out what it has to offer us. To seek to build a deeply supportive and enriching creative practice that serves our souls.

Part of what I’m starting to think of as my personal “art activism” is to embrace my practice and process more fully and be awake to that experience. To take what I learn and empower others with ways of finding their own freeing process as their creative birthright. To conjure offerings that reintroduce people to their own imaginations. To focus on art and art-making as a personal opportunity to connect to magic and the divine. A means to meet and know yourself more deeply wherever you are on the creative spectrum.

Perhaps we can even use art-making and art-experiencing to imagine ourselves into a more balanced future that honors all life on the planet: art as a path to wholeness in all its diversity and complexity.

In the meantime, I will remember that art is not a race or a competition. Art is not even a profession; it is a way to love and make sense of the world.

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