why art?

I was reading Michael Gungor’s blog earlier this morning. Gungor…I love…because of the song “Beautiful Things.”  He was writing about working on the album and how he looked at it in a different way compared to previous records, especially in light of the Christian music industry - how they ask, “What’s more important, the message or the art?” and usually imply “the message” - which he disagrees with. He wrote:

Art is sacred not only so far in what it contains in a message, but it can be valuable as an end within itself. I saw this most clearly when we were in Africa last year. We spent some time painting murals for an orphanage where everything else in the village was brown. I saw with my eyes how the color and intentionality of the art felt like Heaven breaking into earth. We wanted to treat our record with that kind of sacred approach.

Ever since I became more serious about writing and poetry, the question of what does it mean to write, or make art, has been nagging me. The relationship between what you do and why you do it has always seemed so much clearer for other professions, for example a teacher who has students, you can see the direct impact (whether good or bad… I know about that!). I’ve always wanted that kind of clarity that I didn’t get as an English major, no set path to follow, the uncomfortable feeling of being able to do anything, but with the risk that it could turn out to be nothing. So why create something? How do my beliefs about God and what’s important in life influence what I write or why? It’s a relief to think that art, even without a message, is important and says something just by existing. But it seems like you need to consider the context too. What if he wasn’t painting the murals at an orphanage, or in Africa - what if it was in a middle class or wealthy neighborhood? What if brown was already beautiful? I wonder if that weighs on the art in a different way or changes its value at all.