Creating Art and the Veil between us and the Truth

By Lethargic Lizard

I think creating art is a wonderful thing that God has blessed us with. He's given us the ability to create, how amazing is that? God has blessed us with many gifts and talents and it is His intention for them to be put to use. Why give someone the ability to design a beautiful garden or the ability to paint if those who are given those abilities will never put them to use? He wants us to use them. He loves it when we use them, actually because when we do, we are honoring Him. Even if we are creating a sculpture that depicts violence or filming a movie that has a lot of sexual content. It’s not about being “clean” or “family-friendly,” it’s about telling the truth and doing our best to do that truth justice. The world is not pretty, but there are endless lessons that can be learned from it.

But here’s the thing, there are countless lessons that are to be learned and no one is going to learn the same lesson as someone else and it is impossible for someone to learn that exact same truth as someone else useless they have experienced the same thing themselves. (It's like how people say they know how someone else feels, and yet they might not have any idea of what the other person is actually feeling. )What's more is that somethings only happen once or differently the second time around. There is a veil between the actual truth and what our idea of the truth is and the only way to fully know the truth is to experience it yourself. Art does not break through that veil completely, nothing does, but I would argue that it does bring us closer to knowing the actual truth. By letting some of the mess of the world into our creations, we are allowing others to learn from those lessons too by bringing them closer to the actual truth of a situation and to know the effects of it.

And because we have been created by God, there will always be a part of Him that shows through our own creations, by filling us (the artists) with His spirit, as stated in Exodus.  I don’t think it’s a question of being “clean” at all, but rather about telling the truth through our art. No matter what, God’s truth will be portrayed one way or another and I think it is important to explore all forms of art and creation so we can bring justice to that truth.