The Artist and Learning Through Creation

Greetings, one and all! It’s an interesting thing when you learn that other people are learning the same lesson you are, at the same time, even if they’re living thousands of miles away. This last week a self-educated film group I’m a part of held a live stream on screenwriting. Later in the session one of the attendees asked if anyone else had noticed that writers sometimes write scripts or novels that teach a lesson that they, the author, needed to learn. Several of us said yes, and the host noted that rule three of Pixar’s original rules of storytelling was “Trying for theme is important, but you won’t see what the story is actually about ‘til you’re at the end of it. Now rewrite.”

That was interesting because I had just been thinking about our didactic nature as Christians, how we always feel like what we create has to be useful, how it has to teach something. Apparently that’s a consequence of our distinctly Calvinist roots in America, to the point that it’s not just a Christian thing anymore, but that’s a topic for another time. See, we think that we have to teach, but I’m not sure we ever stop to consider that maybe we’re the ones who are supposed to learn something.

There are rabbinic schools that believe that the creative act is an aspect of the wisdom of God. Thus, it would be logical to assume that, if you are creating a thing with a focus on Truth, you will be taught by the act of creation, and what you create will have more impact because it didn’t come from your own mind, but rather from His. However, if we go into it having decided what it’s all about, we short-circuit the learning process, and we force the story to mean and say only what we want it to. But there’s another word for that.

In a lecture on creative thought the speaker said that art is an exploration of an idea, you learn as you go through the process. But if you go into the process knowing what the message is going to be, that’s propaganda. In a funny way, he was saying exactly what we had been learning. Art, done with the right heart, teaches the artist as well.

So, with that in mind, I have been trying to approach my writing with an expectation of learning. It’s really quite freeing when you don’t have to agonize over how your work will be useful to its audience, what lesson it should teach. I’m actually kind of excited to find out what I’ll learn from making it, and discovering what it was supposed to say all along. Because if I am willing to be taught, to be flexible and listen to His guidance, then maybe I'll be more effective than I ever was before. It should be an interesting adventure.

Well, that’s about all for this week. Until next time!