Artist Studio tours fascinate me. Wandering around the creative playground of makers intrigues and inspires. Visiting an artist’s workspace expands one’s enjoyment and understanding of the beauty and wonder created in that place. To understand the art, it’s helpful to understand the artist, yet we often view art in isolation from its maker. Savoring art settles my soul. To see an artist at work on art is a deep joy.
A few years back, an online connection turned into a real-life meeting when an artist I had come to know invited me to her studio. Stepping into Jane’s studio, where she created pottery and paintings, offered a new perspective on the artist. Canvases teeter-tottered upon one another, a feather peeking out in one corner, a flower petal saying hello in another corner. Wonder on every surface greeted us. Opening the shed, Jane showed the potter’s wheel and the kiln. Bright bursts of beauty at various stages of creation stood on nearby shelves. I marveled at the variety of creativity on display. Some of Jane’s works already brought joy into my home, yet the pleasure grew as I came to know the artist.
Learning Through Craftsmanship
If you visit a luthier, you can watch how they craft wood with chisels, planes, rasps, and glue pots. They use knowledge of wood and acoustics to design stringed instruments: guitars, violins, or cellos.
Another friend of mine once created marvelous glassworks. A glassblower shapes molten glass with a blowpipe to design vases, ornaments, candelabras, and delicate, fragile, gorgeous ornamental items. Knowing the artist enlarged my delight at the craftsmanship at hand.
The potter knows clay, kilns, glazes, and artistic design. The types used tell me something about the potter’s heart and soul.
The luthier knows wood and the ways of sound. The choice of mahogany, maple, ebony, or Engelmann spruce tells me about the mind and design center of the luthier who crafts a guitar or violin.
The glassblower understands the malleability of raw, heated glass. The details and designs of the glass tell me about the glassblower.
Suppose I want to know the artist better and grasp the wonder of the mind and imagination behind their handiwork. I inquire about studio hours, hoping my query might lead to an invitation to visit their creativity lab. There, I discover more about the person behind the beauty of artistic wonders. If I want to know the creator behind the craftsmanship, I need to spend time in their presence, and if I’m lucky enough, I will get to do that in their studio.
God’s Studio in the Backyard
I step out the back door between client meetings to breathe fresh air. The unending summer heat and humid Southern air have begun to hide away as October’s cooling ways tumble in. A mockingbird’s mimicry whistles in the gentle wind. Tiny leaves twirl, ballerina-like, swirling off the crepe myrtle tree.
Beyond the fence, my neighbor’s live oak tree hosts hawks, crows, and cowbirds. Gnarled branches display glossy green leaves, cloaked in silvery-gray Spanish moss. This time of year, migratory birds soar in the thermals then grab a perch in the old oak tree, preparing for the next stop as they head south for the winter. Clouds dance overhead. A turtle emerges and treks across the grass.
I know this Artist. His creativity sparkles in the natural cathedral of the world, telling me of His Presence, His Creation, and His heart.
God is in the backyard today, and I’m glad. The bluest skies shout wonder as shadows stretch longer and days shorten into autumn’s golden hope of cooler weather.
I walk around the yard, thanking the gloriosa lily for climbing Jack-in-the-Beanstalk-high, making their way up through towering dormant azalea bushes. A hummingbird hovers at the feeder, stocking up for its upcoming southern migration journey.
A blip of neon green skims across the birdbath. I haven’t seen a female painted bunting for a while. I wonder if she is getting ready to migrate as well. Might I catch a glimpse of her dapper, brightly colored mate? The male painted bunting looks like he performed somersaults through buckets of red, green, and blue paint. Butterflies dip in and out of the last of the summer’s zinnias.
Everywhere I glance, nature is busy declaring God’s glory. I’m reminded again of how good it is to enjoy nature. How wise and kind of God to invite us into His Studio, a lovely place for embodied spiritual practices, where we can be outdoors in the wide creativity of the Creator’s handiwork.
Childhood Wonder and Spiritual Insight
I grew up in an era when neighborhood children were outside from after breakfast until last light, our parents calling us to come to supper before it got too dark to find our way home. My bike was an extension of my body. I rode over to friends’ houses, which circled the woods in the middle of our giant street loop. We’d park our bikes and head into the woods.
Pollywogs squiggled in the creek while salamanders scampered across mossy rocks. Squirrels chattered. Brown thrashers and cardinals darted here and there. We built dams and forts, sang silly songs, and luxuriated in the forest of dogwoods, pines, and maples.
I climbed the three-trunked magnolia in my yard, perched on the plywood platform my dad had nailed into the old tree. From there, I spied on robins building nests and pesky little sisters.
Summertime found me at the Georgia or Florida shore with my parents, in North Carolina’s Pisgah Forest picnicking and sliding down slippery rocks while visiting with cousins and my maternal grandmother, or catching lightning bugs in my paternal grandparents’ backyard in the red-clay portion of south Georgia. I spent most of my childhood outdoors.
The love of the great outdoors didn’t necessarily correlate back then with the fact that an Artist had made such delights. Upon meeting Jesus during my junior year of high school, I began to grasp the reality that creativity in the world sprang from the creative mind and heart of God the Creator!
There is not a square inch in the whole domain of human existence
over which
Christ, who is Lord of all, does not exclaim,
“Mine!”
– Abraham Kuyper
Well, my goodness, yes! All of it, all its beauty, all its beginnings and endings, all of it, God’s!
My appreciation for nature grew as I entered a relationship with Jesus, Lord of all and Lord of me. St. Francis of Assisi’s “Canticle of the Sun” provided language for my new viewpoint of God as the Creator, God, whom I now knew in a new way. Assisi’s literature refers to creation elements as “brother” or “sister,” consistent with his deep love of nature. I returned often to his words:
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Sun,
Who brings the day and gives us light through him.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Sister Moon and the stars,
In heaven, You formed them clear and precious and beautiful.
Praised be You, my Lord, through Brother Wind,
And through the air, cloudy and serene, and every kind of weather…
In the decades since first experiencing the joy of Jesus, my young faith has matured as Paul urges in Ephesians 4:12-15. Indeed, that’s happened in fits and starts, tossed about easily at times, with failings and falling away, yet ever returning, desiring a deepening union, sweet intimacy with God. Listening to words about nature in Scripture, those spoken by Jesus, or in places like Psalm 1, rooted me in the delight of His handiwork in creation. I invited my children into such wonder as well.
Savoring Sabbath in God’s Studio
Yet most of my spiritual practices have seemed rather ethereal and mostly sequestered to indoor spaces. I even co-authored a book, The Life of the Body: Physical Well-Being and Spiritual Formation, with another writer, in which we examined the role of the physical body in spiritual formation. Yet nature played almost no role in that book.
However, as I’ve continued to explore spiritual practices, I’ve discovered that visiting God the Maker’s studio is yet another way for soul care to happen. If studio visits give insights into the artist’s work, moments in Nature indeed reveal insights about God the Artist and His creativity. I see the attention to detail in the delicate lines traced in the bark of our neighborhood’s live oaks, dogwoods, and crepe myrtles. I savor this vast cathedral studio under my feet and above my head.
“Look at the birds of the air… your heavenly Father feeds them.” – Matthew 6:26
Jesus spoke of the birds of the air, and they teach me to trust in the Creator whose character is to provide for His creation. Nature, too, invites a realignment, space to slow down, and recenter my soul with God, who is present in all the corners of my backyard!
If screens and schedules constantly stimulate, being outside helps me sustain wiser spiritual rhythms. Even a five-minute break, watching hawks and eagles soar on aerial thermals, reminds me of God’s greatness and my smallness. It humbles me and helps me release the weight I may carry from the frazzle of the day. Inhaling the beauty in God’s Studio offers invitations to be with Him and be quiet and joyful in such a space of wonder. Solitude, stillness, and silence lead to contemplation and delight in the Creator of such awe.
Makoto Fujimura, a visual artist and author, writes in his book Culture Care: Reconnecting with Beauty for Our Common Life,
“Beauty is a gratuitous gift of the creator God; it finds its source and its purpose in God’s character. God, out of his gratuitous love, created a world he did not need because he is an artist.” Love created this beauty where I can roam.
Being around art evokes emotions. Just watch the faces of folks in an art museum, an ancient cathedral, or at a natural wonder. Art gives us space to linger when words fail. The hush of an art museum replicates the hushed awe I experience when I glimpse the moon winking at me from between Spanish-moss-laden branches. I mingle with God and behold His majesty. This gives way to worship in the presence of such beauty. I’ve been known to dance a little jig or bow in worship as I perceive the goodness of the Creator’s gift in the night sky.
Exposure to art and nature decreases mental and spiritual fatigue: awe, gratitude, and mindfulness increase. Pain and hopelessness ebb when viewing art, beauty, and nature. When I enjoy God in His studio, I interact more with Him, which moves me to desire to be more with Him.
Sabbath days are vital to our souls, but so are Sabbath moments.
Being in nature offers Sabbath space. It quiets me to the pace of delight. The more I am in nature, the more I want more time to linger outdoors in God’s Studio. I savor time and space to connect with the Artist Himself, enjoying quiet reflection, rest, and rejoicing in all He has created. Here, I move into a rhythm of unhurry, unclutter, and intimate presence with my favorite Artist.
Want to join me on an Artist Studio tour? Just step out your door. God’s in your backyard, and mine.
