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I’ve never understood China.
Not the country…that’s an entirely different topic for another day. I mean the dishes. The fancy porcelain plates and tea cups with gold inlays, carefully placed on the shelves of my grandma’s China cabinet and never taken down except for Thanksgiving dinner and Christmas Day.
I was born in 1982. My parents and grandparents were of a generation that put a high sentimental value on China. It was a treasured gift, always kept sacred within the family and only passed along during big-time life transitions like marriage or a death in the family. China cabinets were often lit from the inside and placed in a central part of the dining room.
My generation is sort of a “tweener” generation, stuck between a cultural shift around these precious plates. I know what fine China is, and I know how special it was to the generations before me. It’s important to have those cultural traditions. Honestly, I hope that one day my art is proudly passed down in the same manner. But I just don’t have the same awe and admiration for fine China as those before me, and I doubt my kids or grandkids will either.
I tend to move fast, and the farm kid in me is very practical and functional. I like to run lean and mean. As an artist, when I get a spark of creativity and the quick surge of adrenaline that comes with it, I’ve got to push forward and bring that idea to life. I have no time or tolerance to babysit or protect the dainty, delicate aspects of life that need a clear mind and a soft touch. It’s time to plow.
There’s perhaps no better verse in the Bible that describes my life and career than this:
"Where no oxen are, the trough is clean; but increase comes by the strength of an ox" – Proverbs 14:4
I’ve always believed that if you want to do anything remarkable in life, it’s going to be messy. Interstates and sidewalks and well-worn trails are typically clean, flat and easy to travel. That’s because hundreds of thousands of people have already walked there. If you want to blaze your own trail, there’s gonna be briars, bogs and blowdowns you have to fight through. In the movie Moneyball, Red Sox owner John Henry says “The first guy through the wall…he always gets bloody…always.”
When I’m operating at the highest level of my career, it’s messy. I’m dressed like Adam Sandler on casual Friday. Empty paint tubes are strewn about, with or without their caps put back on. Dirty paper towels lie on the floor around the trash can where I missed a no-look layup. Sketches that I like (and some that I don’t) spill over the edge of my drafting table like a waterfall of Strathmore paper and charcoal. There’s almost always unfinished sections of the canvas, often left that way until the last afternoon I work on the piece.
I’m an ox at work, and the stall isn’t going to be clean.
Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t stay this way forever. Eventually the creative campfire goes out and we have to dump a leftover beer on it before bed. I’ve got to clean up the paint, wash the brushes and take the trash out. The piece has to dry and the process of a painting is capped off with a coat of varnish and a frame…until the next painting starts.
But spreadsheets and Windex never created anything. Never have and never will. They’re safe, predictable, organized and boxy. Qualities we want in a closet, but not written on our tombstones.
So next time things get messy in your office or your kid’s playroom, just remember this verse. Buying and caring for an ox is expensive and messy. But much increase comes from the strength of an ox.