Art and Spirituality

Have you ever considered the strong link between art and spirituality? Some say art is an interwoven process where the two are inseparable [i]. During interviews with scholar Karen Buckenham (2011), South African female artists described creativity as a divine spiritual power. Some said creativity was a form of sacredness. Maslow (1968) found that creativity contributed to a greater wholeness of a person.[ii] Maria Popova, in Marginalian, showcased Susan Sontag, American writer and public intellectual, who considered art as a form of consciousness whereby the artist accesses silence which she considered “a zone of meditation, preparation for spiritual ripening.”

Indigenous scholar, Gregory Cajete (1994), Tewa, says “art making may act as a conduit to the more than human world,” (p. 95) and can be viewed as a tool to access our inner dreams, express what can’t be said in words, and connect to the natural world.[iii] Many Indigenous nations do not have a word for art, for they view them as inseparable (p. 32),[iv] and believe that, “a life lived in balance is a work of art, and… an artfully crafted object reflects the true path of life being walked by its maker”[v] (Schmidt, p. 27). For those of you who are creatively inclined, I’m sure you can relate to some of these perspectives.

I didn’t discover art until I started a doctoral dissertation, and as part of our course work, we were required to spend 30 minutes a day in nature in the same spot. This small exercise transformed me, for I developed a new relationship with the land that opened my senses and urged me to make meaning out of my experiences. Before that, I hadn’t I realized that I had any artistic abilities at all. There are many different art mediums, and I found myself drawn to a number of them such as clay and mixed media using found objects in the woods where I was sitting. If it wasn’t visual art, I was writing poetry or taking photographs of the more-than-human world that Mother Nature gifts us. These artistic pursuits are another way for me to connect with my spiritual self and a form of knowledge not otherwise accessible. For me, it’s delving into a divine energy that gives rise to creation.

I encourage everyone to find a way to create and tap into “a kind of magic. And in this magic of creation, the artist becomes immersed within his media and the mind of creation”[vi] (Cajete, 1994).

[i] Buckenham, K. (2011). Creativity and Spirituality: Two Threads of the Same Cloth. Religion & Theology, 18(1–2), 56–76.

[ii] Maslow, A. H. (1968). Toward a psychology of being (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Van Nostrad Reinhold Company.

[iii] Cajete, Gregory. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of Indigenous education. Durango, CO: Kivaki Press.

[iv] Dinelli, M. (2018). The work of artmaking. PhD dissertation. Simon Fraser University.

[v] Schmidt, Jeremy. (1994). In the spirit of Mother Earth: Nature in Native American Art. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.

[vi] Cajete, Gregory. (1994). Look to the mountain: An ecology of Indigenous education. Durango, CO: Kivaki Press.