“Did you know Matt Foster of Foster the People used to write commercial jingles?  I thought those made you a lot of money….”[why would he stop that to start a band???]

I heard that statement on the radio the other day, along with the inflection, and the unspoken question at the end in the DJ’s voice, that he thought it was a dumb decision to give up a presumably good paying job for something as uncertain as creating a band.

Art over money?  What craziness!

Not everyone is going to like or understand our actions, especially creative ones that might not make financial sense.

“We lower our expectations by training ourselves to crave the cheap mass-produced, convenient option.” 

“We have an epidemic of addiction to the cheap, ugly, and disposable.”

In Life After Art, Matt Appling challenges us to look at the world, and look at ourselves.  He reminds us that we all were made to create, that most of us used to create intentionally, and how we need to get back to that intentional pursuit of creation.  We’re also reminded that creating is not limited to the art room.

“We were created to rule and subdue the earth, to reshape it as we see fit.  When humans see a problem or experience some kind of discomfort or frustration, we create a solution.”

Matt explores the common belief that creativity is a commodity that only some of us have.  He describes why we have forgotten how to be the creative people we were as kids, and challenges us to face our laziness, apathy, and fears.

“When we ask ‘is this good’, what we really mean is, is it good enough?”

Good enough.  The status quo.  Only doing enough to get by, to look good.  We don’t challenge ourselves because it’s hard and we might fail.

Stretching ourselves to create beauty – to challenge the ugliness of our world, of ourselves, is not an easy task.  But Matt reminds us of why it’s so important, and why we hold ourselves back.

“We dull our senses to this sad reality with heavy doses of escapism.  Like a drug, it takes our mind off the fact that the world we live in is quite ugly.  We settle for ‘good enough’.”

Like the DJ not understanding Foster, our efforts towards creating beauty aren’t always going to make sense to people.  When we live in a world reduced to money and good enough, – the most original, natural things like truth, beauty, and goodness, are going to appear as counter-cultural concepts.

How meaningful is it to live a life of mediocrity?  Is this what we want for our kids?  For ourselves?  When we die, do we want the people we know to remember us as people who were satisfied with the dismal reality that is our world?  Or do we want to be remembered as people who pursued beauty and love?  Who worked hard and became vulnerable, risking failure and ridicule to pursue something worth doing?

Yes, beauty is not essential to our daily life.  But, “God’s life is not just about existing.  It is about beauty.”

In his excellent book To Be Told, Dan Allender shows how to read the patterns of your life.  He says that the pain of your childhood is related to your purpose as an adult.

In a similar way, Matt uses Jesus’ command to be like children to give you a vision for your life as an adult.

“What kind of child were you?  Were you climbing trees and playing in the mud?  Then go get your hands dirty.  Were you making up stories?  Then make up a great story and live it.  Were you building with blocks?  Then find a complex problem and create an elegant solution.”

Our life does not occur in a vacuum.  We are surrounded by ugliness and beauty, internally and externally.  We are influenced by people around us, and we are influencers.  Our childhood, the lessons we learned long the way, and how we continue to form our lives, keep shaping us into the people we are, and will become.

There is only one thing that I was hoping to read that wasn’t included, and that would be a definition or some kind of standard of beauty.  Matt makes the provocative statement that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder.  But it’s one thing to say we are surrounded by ugliness, and God is our standard of beauty, and another thing to say, these are marks of beauty.  If beauty is not entirely a subjective quality, then how do we move towards deciding if something is more beautiful than ugly?

Despite the paintbrush on the cover, Life After Art is not a book about being an artistic person.  It’s a book about rediscovering a core part of our being that is intimately connected to a core part of God.  We all were made in the image of a beautiful, creative God, and by pursuing that aspect of our lives, we can give witness to the God who is at work in the world.

 

 

Matt, and the good people at Moody Publishing have also given me a copy of the book to give away!  To be eligible, answer this question:  How are you pursuing, creating, or surrounding yourself with beauty in your everyday life?  I will pick the winner Monday, April 1st at noon, EST.

Also, if you buy the book, email your receipt to LifeAfterArtBook.com, and you will also get three free resources from Matt and Moody Publishers (the deluxe ebook with bonus chapter, the Life After Art Field Guide, and The Art of Storytelling.)

In our family, since most of us tend to be more artistic, I lean towards making the arts a priority.  So one thing I’ve done is put up cheap prints of classic paintings (art.com) in the kids’ bedrooms:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Other fun ideas for art appreciation:

Go Fish for Art games

National Gallery of Art lotto game

Modern Art memory game

Artist baby books (also, cute baby literature books!)

 

How are you pursuing, creating, or surrounding yourself with beauty in your everyday life?

 

I received a free copy of this book to review. Opinions are all mine!

 

 

 

****Update – Anna is the winner of the free book! Congratulations!!!****