Preface for Prayers for the Artist

by Laura Botsford

   The story of the artist is a breath page from a book found written long ago in the halls of a poet’s dreams, written with nature’s brushes in quiet places where evening subsides into stillness.  The images, and sounds can be found like bells waiting to be rung. Only some find that these apparitions are fleeting, vivid, and then disappears as one will  wondrously awaken, suspended between reality and dreams. It is in this regard that the desire for the ability to hold the flame, and channel the river, is what we have come to talk about in this book. It is where the in-between moments are saved, savored, supported and scribed in detail for a lasting reflection of guidance and support.

   It is also for those that feel that they are lost in the spheres’ of indifference, casually displaced like mismatched shoes and forgotten languages. Because we know that we are sometimes  thought of as outsiders and unwashed social outcasts, flagrant eccentrics who wander down alleys watching for rainbows, mining out art forms that no one seems to care about. We appear as people who are against the grain of “responsible living.”  Prayers for the Artist is for us, the beautiful, the bawdy; the luminous splendiferous original creative souls.

   Our very presence as artists’ moves people, inspires compassion, and desire for change. We embrace emptiness giving it shape, color, music, and dance. It is a sacred trust passed on to us. Without this essential vibrant frequency in our infinite universes, nothing would exist; we would all still be in a shapeless void. The artist is a consummate patron of this belief, drinking from the communion cup, and sharing in the everlasting kiss of continuous creation. In a sweeter world, all creativity would be recognized as an integral part of sustaining the cultural atmospheres. The arts uplift life, and emanates positivity in our  global connectivity.

  This is a collection of poems, essays and prose dedicated to uplifting the co-creator within us all,  where we soul-fully praise the Source from which all creativity flows.

Thy Art Be Done

  Art is a gift fulfilling itself with every living and willing breath of participation in the creative flux; surrendering to its invisible animated workings of profound spiritual electricity is the power of make and believe, the power of attraction. We affirm in our art what we believe and this fortifies us and each other.

   Our alliance with the Creator is a living expression found in the trusted well-spring of an abandoned ego, a place of allowing the artistic touchstone to be translated.  Tendering these new and trembling fingers with a reflective heart, allows us to traverse along the vivid ethers in nuance and highlighted flecks from an infinite depth of field.  Imagination is God’s divine original motion.

   This enthralling echo unravels in the veins along artisans’ row where masters have left traces of their unique vibration. Their vivid emissions flow into the perfect light curves of history, scaled, and designed for individual interpretation by each of us. We as artists are circled, and highlighted in them with our own artful expressions, and by the artistic testimonies we create. We are a witness to the times, and a new covenant on the earth today. We are about the wonder, and freedom of expression that we whole heartedly express. And in this majestic presence of soul, and mind of all its natural velocity, and vast potential we come to serve original creativity by being on its leading edge.

     It is in the countenance of solitudes’ reflective silence, within a good stream of interstellar inspiration, where I’ve discovered the fullest joy. When I am relaxed and allowed the marriage of the inspired, couples with well honed disciplines to take place, is when something surprising transpires exceeding all my expectations.

   Everyone has their own expression. Each artist desires to be respectful of this shared covenant because it doesn’t belong to us. We belong in it. What we bring to the table is our full attention, and by doing so, we are choosing to generate either negative or positive vibrations. The flow is endless; the healing great, the personal reward is a prosperous, colorful living spirit that is educating and uplifting the world.

    To understand that the productivity of our creative actions generates energy into the universe that aids and alters our collective consciousness is the very and vital purpose for us to engage. It matters little whether our works are masterful or not; this is a personal endeavor. What matters is that creating anything that is artistic in nature draws imagination into not only our own lives but also kinesia generates collective unity into the universal atmospheres thereby sustaining the attributes of all mankind with infinite possibilities, hope, progress, healing and harmony.

    We are incense. We are the wind. We are a door into new lands that is reflected everywhere. We define the times with our works, the fashions, the political tambours in music, media, dance and art; they are all sympatric of this collective flux. Once again, if your heart of art is authentic on some level it is connecting everywhere, and makes a difference.

    The clarity we generate is respectfully recognized by the universe, and thereby influences everything with the intent of our creative purpose. It is in itself a generator feeding from its place in the universe back into the environment with social exchanges, political, cultural and spiritual transformations. It doesn’t matter if you are in a studio painting alone or typing out a screenplay in your home, or dancing around your living room; all of it has the butterfly effect and the flutters are felt everywhere.

      Our creativity encourages individuals in self expressive creative risk taking. We have a tremendous transforming impact in our world, and in the ever-changing atmospheres.

   We are the continuation of muse and masters, craft and devotion to art forms that speak to all with the added spark of life; an effect that I call, the Imaginative Cause.

   This process focuses on creating a positive environment where individual experiences in the arts can be shared, and supported by others.  The second kind of community-making we do is through of importance is in arts development. Throughout this little book are affirmations and quotes that I have found helpful in maintaining a balance between the world and what I think of as, us the spaces between – the connecting dots of what is and what could be.

   It is when we offered our lips to drink from the well-spring of God’s Imagination that we have come alive.   It is a Psalm Song to my Creator, for it is God Source that all creativity flows from. It is the universal spirit that weaves us together. It is up to us to decide which of spectrums colors we will blend, what notes to arrange, the steps to take, the form to make that will make our life vibrate brighter.

   I know that we artists and community makers are in need sometimes of a specific kind of encouraging support. It is with this in mind, and from the heart that we have written this book for you.  I hope that in some measure it brings comfort, courage, and inspiration when you feel adrift in a world that makes you feel less a part of.

   You Belong.  You are Important. Your creative energy is needed now, more than ever. There are many who whole heartedly believe in make and believe. You are not alone without connectivity, we are holding hands in this together.

    Your creative thought process generates a field of energy that penetrates that transcends space and time. In this energy all of us can tap in or out with each other.   We can eliminate each other’s struggle, and celebrate each other’s works simply by recognizing the places we see in each other as being valid.

   We are symbolically associated with the word artist. The definition of an artist is broad, but I like this one best.

An artist, “A follower of a pursuit in which skill comes by study or practice.“ It is all-encompassing; the process, the journey, the expression is where we are united. It is in the commitment to widen the world with love and understanding.

  These accomplishments are intimated with a longing to pull oneself inside out in an expression or craft that tells us something about ourselves or the world.

   The voice of our ancestral beginning’s are from the foundations of when time first began, when the universe was created and everything was open to possibility; it is constantly changing. On this day, right now the paint box we choose from is many colors, words and the trumpeting sound of us all.

   Just as we did then, we do now in a different age. The relevancy is juxtaposed to the era in which we live. Curiously now though, the lines of time are blended more so than ever with the flux of global connection, technology and higher consciousness.  No longer do we have to travel far to see a great work of art or read a masterpiece. It is at the touch of our hands, and in the communing whispers of our souls.  Our artistic expressions will bend the walls, dissolve the divisions, and help change the shape of our collective soul.

   Only some find that these apparitions are fleeting, that they are vivid, and then disappears as one wakes from a beautiful definitive dream. We can allow the ability to hold the flame and channel the river that I have come to talk of here in this book. 

Prayers for the Artist is for us, the beautiful, the bawdy; the luminous, splendiferous original creative souls.

 Leaning Church Painting by Tim Sorsdahl