The Artisan Soul (14 page)

It was Michelangelo who said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” I am certain this is why the designation
craftsman
wasn't as well received as that of
artisan
at Mosaic. To be called an artist feels like you are telling me I have talent; to be called a craftsman sounds like you are describing me as a hard worker. We believe that one is about essence and the other about effort. Can you imagine what our lives would be if we valued both? Only when we realize that craft is rooted in character can we begin the journey to mastery. In the discipline that comes from passion, we find our way to mastery.

Henri Matisse once said of his process, “An artist must possess nature. He must identify himself with her rhythm, by efforts that will prepare the mastery which will later enable him to express himself in his own language.” The mastery of our craft should be paramount, for without it we will never have the language to tell the full story of our lives. To leave our gifts and talents unmastered and undeveloped is to leave unwrapped precious treasures entrusted to us.

We have no control over the gifts and talents given to us, but we have every responsibility for their stewardship. This is our creative act; this is our work as an artisan; this is our craft. There is only one you, just as there is only one me. Each of us is unique and original. Each of us has been given all the materials necessary for our lives to become works of art. For this very reason, because of all that has been placed within us, it is both our duty and our privilege to give ourselves and our lives the time and attention they deserve. The craftsman is patient and deliberative when it comes to his life as a work of art. The masterpiece takes time—it takes a lifetime.

W
hen I was studying art in college, we were forced at times to use particular mediums. Whether it was pen and ink or pastels or charcoals, whether we were instructed to work with clay or other unexpected materials, the challenge was always trying to translate what we saw in our imagination using the medium provided. It was a painful exercise in coming face-to-face with reality. Every time we engaged a new medium, I discovered new limitations. I discovered both how limiting the materials were and how limited I was with the materials.

There are few things as humbling as those moments when the classroom turns into a gallery, when your work product is a declaration of how little can be done with a particular medium, even as a nearby work demonstrates the limitless possibilities that come when those same materials are informed by imagination, talent, and skill. If I remember correctly, one of the questions I asked most was, “How did you do that?” I remember asking that of a little boy when he drew a cat that actually looked like a cat. I was astonished by his talent and asked him quite spontaneously, “How did you do that?” He looked at me as if it was a strange question and responded, “I just looked at the cat and drew what I saw.” It's that easy, you know—except that it's not.

Every creative endeavor becomes a realization of both how limited and how unlimited we are. Regardless of medium, when imagination, talent, and skill are infused into the artistic process, the work product seems to promise almost boundless possibility. Yet the medium can also be a cruel reminder of how limited we are.

One of the great misconceptions about creativity is that it only exists where there are no rules, no boundaries, and no limitations. Often people who find it difficult to express their true creativity blame external forces. They point to rules and boundaries and limitations as the reasons their creativity has not flourished. They become convinced that creativity blooms only when we are free of boundaries. Yet this understanding of creativity is exactly wrong. The artist always has a canvas. There is always a context for art.

Every medium carries within itself inherent limitations, and every artist also comes with limitations. True creativity is not the outflow of a world without boundaries. The creative act is the genius of unleashing untapped potential and unseen beauty within the constraints and boundaries of the medium from which we choose to create. Creativity not only happens within boundaries and limitations, but in fact it is dependent on those limitations. The true artist sees boundaries not as the materials denied to us but as the material that allows us to harness and focus our full creative potential. There are things we can do with clay that we cannot do with stone. There are different rules of engagement when our medium of choice is wood and when our medium is metal.

Part of the artistic process is understanding the rules under which mediums express themselves and learning how to work within them so as to materialize your imagination through them. The canvas informs the creative act. This may be painful for a person who values creative freedom. Our creativity is not in conflict with boundaries but must work with them. To break free of the limits of any medium, we must first embrace them.

All colors are nuanced expressions of three primary colors. Our creative capacity to mix these colors and create through unexpected hues seems unlimited, but in the end it all comes back to blue, red, and yellow. We can spend our lives lamenting that there are only three primary colors, or we can spend our lives imagining and mixing those three and beautifully defying the limitations.

We could abandon painting and move to music so that we might find more freedom, but here once again the limitations are clear—at best you get only twelve notes in the chromatic scale. We could see it as a vicious cycle: do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, and then back to do, just an octave higher. Not Mozart, Beethoven, John Lennon, or Bon Iver get to add a thirteenth or fourteenth note into the mix. Creativity isn't about finding the thirteenth note; it is about arranging twelve notes in a way the world has never experienced before.

Could anyone's work be more different than that of Frank Gehry, Frank Lloyd Wright, and Antoni Gaudi? In the end, all three are defined by the same three simple expressions—circles, triangles, and squares. From the time of Michelangelo to our most modernist expressions of architecture, everything is human creativity expressed through curves, angles, and lines.

If creativity exists only where there are no boundaries, then some of our most creative minds wasted their time in architecture. Not only is their medium profoundly limited, but their environment is also limited. Architects are not measured by their ability to simply create beautiful things; their work must be functional as well. They must contend with the harsh realities of gravity, topography, and environmental conditions. Yet if we ever have the privilege of walking into one of their buildings, the experience might cause us to believe in magic. We have to wonder how in the world these exquisite works of art are also some of the most trustworthy and resilient structures the world has ever known.

On a lighter note, we see the same dynamic when it comes to the culinary arts. Historically we have known four flavors—bitter, sweet, salty, and sour. Every meal we have ever eaten and every flavor we have ever experienced is expressive of one or a combination of these. Only recently have we identified the existence of a fifth flavor detectable by human taste, called umami. It is ironic that while we have somewhere between two thousand and five thousand taste buds located on the back and front of our tongues, there are only five sensations of taste that we can experience. Yet any foodie knows that those five taste sensations can be combined to create an endless number of extraordinary experiences.

The perceived limitation is in the medium, but the actual limitation is in the artist. Everyone begins with the same material; it's what we do with the material that matters. It's what we can do with the material that distinguishes the mundane from the unique. We aren't limited because we have limitations; we are limited because we haven't embraced them. The canvas is the context for all creativity. What makes you a chef is what you do with those five flavors; what makes you a musician is what you do with those twelve notes; what makes you a painter is what you do with those three colors; what makes you an architect is what you do with those three shapes; what makes you an artist is what you do with the material you have been given with which to create.

My hero as a kid was my uncle Richard. He was more like an older brother than an uncle. Back in El Salvador, Richard was our hero. He was a musician and an artist, the lead singer of a popular Central American band called the Mustangs, which played Spanish rock and roll. I still remember him wearing a fake mustache to try to look as old as the other band members. Throughout the day, random girls called our home hoping to talk with our own rock and roll star. And Richard was also a martial arts expert. Not only was he an artist, but he was a man's man, the kind of guy who could play the guitar and then break bricks with his hand. But there was something about Richard that went far deeper than the cool. He was also intensely compassionate and proved to be a true humanitarian. Our modest house in San Salvador became a haven for the poor. It was impossible for Richard to ever turn anyone away. He was always giving food or whatever was available to those who had greater need.

He was also a hero to me personally. I had the greatest grandmother in the world. Mami Finita was like an angel to us—except when we made her mad. She wielded a belt like an old-time cowboy wrangling the wild mustangs into the stable. I can't even remember how many times Richard defended me and my brother Alex from our grandmother when she had had more than enough. I still vividly remember her saying, “If you won't let me hit them, then I'm just going to hit you.” At the age of five, we were more than willing to hide behind Richard and let Mami take it out on him.

Years later, Richard worked in Madrid, where he focused on bringing international development to developing countries. Before that, he worked in the dangerous arena of bringing freedom to the poor and standing against the injustice and oppression wielded by those in positions of power. I am sure there are many things about my uncle Richard that I did not know and that would make him seem more than human, but for me he was a canvas of what it meant to be a man. He was a warrior poet, humane and heroic, kind and strong. More than once he served as inspiration for the person I hoped I would become. Whether Richard realized it or not, he was not only making his life his own work of art, but he was painting on the canvas of my soul as well. So much of who I imagined I could become I first saw in him. The colors we use to paint our own lives splash all over the souls of those who are close to us.

Humanity is our most important canvas, our most important medium. As we strive to make our lives our most meaningful works of art, we quickly discover that our humanity is both our gift and our curse. The bigger we dream, the greater we risk. The more we want to create, the more we become aware of our limitations, our boundaries, and our deficiencies. It is easy, then, to look at other people's lives and wonder why they do not have the same deficits. It is easy to convince ourselves that successful people are simply made from different material than we are. It's easier to believe that creative people are simply different rather than to believe they are the same but choose to live differently.

Regardless, we each have a place where we are supposed to stand, a place where we are intended to create, a context in which we are to live out our lives and turn them into masterpieces. The challenge is that the longer we fail to fulfill this creative intent, the more we become aware of our limitations and lose touch with our possibilities. This tension can be very subtle. We can live our lives in such a way that outside observers marvel at what we've created while we drown in our own emptiness. Our lives can be marked by achievement and success and even celebrity, and yet our souls remain unfulfilled, unsatisfied, and unawakened. There's nothing more frustrating than creating out of a vacuum, and nothing more debilitating than allowing ourselves to be defined by our limitations. When we find ourselves living a life that is unsatisfying and unfulfilling, we begin to believe that we cannot create a life worth living, that the obstacles keeping us from that life are beyond our control.

Growing up, I never felt talented. I felt that when God cut the canvas, he was unfairly frugal—perhaps even stingy—when it came to me. My brother got a lot of canvas—he was supersmart, supertalented, superpopular. I can't even begin to describe the immense talent, intelligence, and capacity in my sisters. All around me was proof that something went terribly wrong with my genes. All my cousins were doctors, and every family member seemed to be multilingual and multitalented. I spent the first twenty years of my life overwhelmed by the sad state of affairs and the cruel injustice of how talent is disbursed in the universe.

I remember the first time we saw the
Mona Lisa.
It was at the request of my daughter Mariah. She ran through the Louvre as if nothing mattered except finding that one painting. I don't know what I was expecting, but I was definitely expecting more. Have you ever seen the
Mona Lisa
up close? It's really, really small. Framed, it's about 31 by 21—inches, that is. I don't know if you can imagine those dimensions, but you could pretty much put it on the back of a T-shirt. I had to wonder if da Vinci was rationing that day or if canvas was somehow a rare commodity. I mean, if you're going to make a masterpiece, couldn't you spare some extra canvas? Still, Mariah was not disappointed. Its beauty and elegance escaped the narrow limits of the frame and easily traveled into the depths of her soul.

Great art is not limited to its canvas any more than it is limited by its medium. Great art transcends boundaries and travels in the infinite space of the human soul. All around us, there are examples of artists realizing extraordinary creative potential by embracing limitations and understanding that those limitations do not hinder the creative process but in fact become conduits of our most creative selves.