What is your Blog Name?
Questions:
How does your faith influence your creative process?
The artist is a servant who is willing to be a birth-giver. In a very real sense, the artist (male or female) should be like Mary, who when the angel told her that she was to bear the Messiah, was obedient to the command.
Obedience is an unpopular word nowadays, but the artist must be obedient to the work, whether it be a symphony, a painting, or a story for a small child. I believe that each work of art, whether it is a work of genius or something very small, comes to the artist and says, “Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to me.” And the artist either says, “My soul doth magnify the Lord,” and willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses; but the obedient response is not necessarily a conscious one, and not everyone has the humble, courageous obedience of Mary.
JG I LOVE This book, and the Mary imagery here has been a powerful inspiration to me time and time again.
Sometimes I feel as if writing, parenting, and the practicing my faith are all drawing from the same well inside me, that they tax the same part of my heart. This means that quite often I find that I have depleted all of my resources pouring into just one of the three, leaving the other two wanting. Do you have this same issue, or is it just me?
JG- Yes, music is a huge influence on me as well. And each project seems to end up with it’s own soundtrack.
JG- that doesn’t sound hateful to me, that sounds sane. I always thought that Mother’s Day should be a national day-off from mothering. All I ever want is one whole weekend to myself.
JG- Yes, yes, yes and amen!
Do you have any advice for other mom’s out there who are also trying to learn how to live out their callings as artist, mothers and followers of Christ? What is something you wish someone had told you earlier on?
JG- I have never heard that quote from Toni before but I am going to cling to it from here on out.
JG- Not at all! I once asked a small group to pray that my oldest sleep for at least 3 straight hours. And he slept for 4 the next night. I thought I had died and gone to heaven!
JG-This is something I am going to have to establish again this year as I dive into book two. I keep trying to convince myself that I can fit it all in after the kids go to bed, but there just enough of me left at that time of day to create much good material.
My biggest creative blocker is just getting started…at least in this season of my life. Interruptions are so frequent that I hesitate to get started for fear of having to deal with them. The only way I can overcome this is either by asking my husband to watch our LO for an hour or two giving me absolute uninterrupted time (usually means I have to leave the house too) or allow that there will be interruptions and try my best to set my LO up with an activity that will hold her attention as long as possible.
I related so much of this post. My biggest creative blocker is lack of sleep and feeling stretched too thin…. Also, I love her advice about making yourself get up early. I'm always so sleep deprived that I don't do that. But I know if I did, and spent some time with the Lord early, I would be a much more pleasant mommy!