Thanks so much for reading the Good and Beautiful Things Newsletter. I try to publish this newsletter on Saturdays, but for the second week in a row I’m sending out a Monday edition instead. Thanks for sharing your Monday with me.
I created this collage from a painting that I made over ten years ago, combined with papers that I’ve painted in the last few months.
When I made the original painting it came up short of the vision in my head. I love flowers but I’m usually left frustrated when I attempt to translate the blooms from real life to my sketchbook page. Underwhelmed by my work, I tossed the painting into a pile of rejects.
As I sifted through a pile of artwork this week I came across the old painting. A decade had eased my critical eye and instead of judging the degree of realism in the piece, I leaned in toward the spring color palette and the bold black marks.
The ten year gap since I had last seen the painting also helped it feel less “precious”, which is how I ended up with scissors in my hand, cutting it into uneven rectangles. When I was done, each remnant held a suggestion of the imperfect floral design.
Next, my eye landed on my collection of painted papers and a few minutes later I found myself making something new from something old.
This week I’ve also stumbled across old parts of myself, the parts that I keep trying to leave in a reject pile but seem to stubbornly stick around. Last week, in a poetry workshop, I wrote a poem to a younger version of myself. The poem touched on a difficult experience twenty years ago (you can read the poem in last week’s newsletter). Even though so much time had passed, the memory brought immediate tears to my eyes, my jaw clenched uncomfortably and the degree of emotion I felt caught me by surprise. That’s just one example of how the past still carries pain forward into the present. I long to be an entirely new creation, but similar to the collage I made, God is grafting the old parts with the new.
In recent years, artist Makoto Fujimura has brought attention to a Japanese art called Kintsugi. Kintsugi is the process of mending pottery with lacquer that has been mixed with gold or silver, or sometimes platinum. The intent is for the repair to enhance the pottery’s beauty, rather than disguise the broken parts. In a short video about the process, Fujimura says, “Kintsugi reminds us that sometimes instead of throwing away things of the past, it’s good to work them in and do it beautifully. To me, how the gospel reads is that Christ came not just to fix us but to restore us, to create something new which is more valuable than what we began with.”
As I look again at my collage, I find myself interested in this idea of restoration, rather than disposal, of the past. I find grace in the thought that I do not have to discard entire parts of myself, which I admit, hasn’t seemed possible no matter how hard I might try to or pray. Maybe, I consider, it’s time to make space for those parts instead. The beauty of the collage is found in the broken pieces of the old painting juxtaposed with the newly painted layers.
I don’t want to romanticize the idea. It took ten years for me to pull that painting out of the pile and redeem its value. Once I did, I applied sharp blades until it lay in pieces, no longer recognizable as the original image. Eventually the pieces were incorporated to make something new, but even now I’m not sure the collage is done. I’ve already changed out a few blocks of color and I have ideas for other layers. This is not fast work and neither is the Lord’s work in our lives (I’m looking at you, Israelites wandering in the desert for forty years.)
I’m often impatient, tired of hurting, ready to be a finished piece, but I’m pretty sure God and I have different ideas about what finished means on this side of the new earth. Maybe Oswald Chambers was right when he said, “We have an idea that God is leading us to a particular end, a desired goal; He is not. The question of getting to a particular end is a mere incident. What we call the process, God calls the end.”
Can I trust the Artist with his scissors and glue even when I can’t see where he’s going? Some days I see the beauty in the process and I’m thankful for the grace to see. Other days (the harder days) I take out some paints or some words and make a little beauty of my own.
Words to Consider
Breath of my body,
I would not be alive
without you.
May you fill my body
like the wind fills the sails,
lifting us both up and forward.
May you deepen your reach,
gently massaging every nerve,
inviting my body to anchor
in the present moment.
Thank you for showing up
yesterday, today,
and (hopefully) tomorrow.
With gratitude,
-Me
(an original prayer)
From the Sketchbook
My fourteen year old joined me at my art desk this week and added some birds to the ever expanding aviary above my art desk. Meet Edward and Julia.
As well as a few more from me (nameless at the time of this publication):
Favorite Finds
Newsletters
Pádraig Ó Tuama writes about “The Possibilities of Language” on his Substack this week.
If you want to see the work of an artist who can truly recreate real life with pen and watercolor, check out Samantha Dion Baker at her Substack, Draw Your World.
Blessings from the Guest Nest,
-Aimee
I love the Kintsugi analogy. It fit beautifully with your own artwork and the idea of making something more lovely out of something broken. It's encouraging to me as I struggle with self-confidence in my writing. Every. Single. Day.
We just have to trust that Jesus can make something beautiful out of our brokenness. And it always surprises me when he does!
“This week I’ve also stumbled across old parts of myself, the parts that I keep trying to leave in a reject pile but seem to stubbornly stick around.” Beautiful, Aimee.