How Do They Know?

My town hosted a celebration of one of our most well-known artists last week.  It would have been Dr. I.B. Beale’s 100^th birthday, were he still with us.  He was a painter who captured a multitude of scenes around the area during his years in Centerville.  I loaned my two Beale watercolors for display and as I was taking them off the wall, I recalled an article I wrote about “Doc” many years ago. 

 

By the time I wrote my story, he was a considered a senior citizen, although thinking of him as a “old person” would not enter the mind of anyone who knew him.  “If you never sold a painting,” I asked, “would you still paint?”  He looked at me like I was crazy.  “Of course I would,” he said.  It was the answer I expected.  If a work of art appears and asks an artist to serve, it’s the duty of the artist to serve.

My great aunt’s drama teacher took it a step further.  She said that if God gives you a creative gift, it’s not only a duty to use it, but also a sin not to use it.  My great aunt took it to heart and, as comedian Minnie Pearl, gave the gift of laughter to audiences all over the world for over fifty years.

I have been fortunate enough to have known and been around many creative people in my life.  Musicians, writers, painters, needle-workers, woodworkers, performers – all had one thing in common and that was a dedication to their gift, whatever it was.  I’ve also been fortunate to have a tremendous love of reading, which has introduced me to the creative process in people I’ve never met, during times that were not my time.  

Even after all that, it’s still a mystery to me how it works. I have, in a small way, experienced creation myself.  Time spent staring at a blank page, hoping words will eventually fill the pages.  Waking up with words tumbling through your head while you scramble for a paper and a pen that will write.  It’s not always easy.

There is something that compels the artist to paint, the musician to play, the writer to write and the sculptor to sculpt.  But how do they do it? How does a cook know exactly what herb is needed in a new creation, or when to stop adding the spice that makes a humdrum dish a masterpiece? How did a 24-year-old John Prine know how to write Hello in There? How did Kris Kristofferson know to put together the line about echoing "through the canyons like disappearing dreams of yesterday?" How did a deaf Beethoven know how the Ninth Symphony would sound?

How does an artist know exactly which color to use for that little glimmer of light in the corner of his painting of a storm – or know to place a golden leaf in just the right spot on a gray tree trunk?

How does a sculptor know what image lurks in the clay?  How does a woodcarver know what is contained in the heart of a block of wood?  How does a quilter know just what colors to place side by side in a patchwork stitched together with love, a quilt that warms not only the body but the soul?

I don’t understand it – no one really does.  But somehow creation still happens, in spite of the hurting world we live in and maybe because of it.  Artists still paint their souls on canvas.  Musicians still pour out healing words, whether it’s in a stadium filled with cheering fans or on a dusty stage in an out of the way honky-tonk.  Writers still are compelled to share secrets of life and love, to make readers laugh or cry, to help them understand what they didn’t even know they needed to know. Filmmakers and photographers still know just how to capture the moments that tug at our heartstrings or inspire us to try to heal the hurting people in the world.  The more I think about it, the more I believe that the artists are the real prophets and preachers.  We will never know exactly how they do it.  Maybe we don’t need to know.  We just need to be grateful that they do.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Poets, Pickers, Preachers and Prophets

 

 

I grew up in a house filled with music.  Some of my earliest memories are watching, listening and singing with my Nanny at the piano.  She was a wonderful pianist, playing both by music and by ear.  She played all the old songs - Sioux City Sue, Mr. Sandman, Moon River, Last Date.  She did a killer imitation of Jo Ann Castle from the Lawrence Welk Show – we used to laugh over that one until we were in tears.  I found out much later that, as a teen, she was part of a local combo – Hard Tater and the Syncopators.  I wish I had known while she was still living.  I would love to have heard those stories!

My daddy sang in church and sometimes was asked to sing at events around town.  How Great Thou Art was his usual choice for church.  People still talk to me about his renditions of that song.   It was one of the early hymns I learned to play and, after my Nanny died when I was about 12, I sometimes accompanied him on the piano.  My piano playing is basic at best and my brief attempt at guitar never got past 3 chords and “Hey, Mr. Tambourine Man.”  I wish I had worked harder at both instruments.

Nanny played piano just about any time they needed someone to provide music around town.  Singers who did not have their own accompanists enlisted her help and she always played for the beauty contests.  They used to have entertainment during breaks in the competition and I remember singing myself once or twice.    I cannot imagine why anyone thought the audience wanted to hear a little girl with extremely rudimentary singing ability; the only thing I can think of is that Nanny wanted it and they were afraid if they didn’t agree, she wouldn’t play the piano for anybody else!  The two songs I remember singing were Treasure Island and Sioux City Sue.  Thankfully, there were very few tape recorders at that time so I never had to listen to my performance.  

It seemed inevitable that I married a musician.  Robert played and sang at local events from the time he was in junior high school.  Not long after we were married he formed a garage band, and I became a roadie.  (I was in charge of the tape recorder.)  Our parties usually turned into jam sessions and friends invited to our house knew to bring their guitars along.  I went to sleep many nights listening to him tinkering with his guitar and trying out new songs.  Every time I hear “This Old Guitar” now, I still want to cry. It was our theme song.  I am glad I had the chance to share just a little bit in the magic that happens when a musician takes the stage and shares that incredible reciprocal energy with an audience. 

Robert’s cousin, Howard Forrester, played fiddle with Grand Ole Opry star Roy Acuff and the entire Forrester clan paid frequent visits to their roots in Hickman County.  They and whoever tagged along with them spent “Sundays in the Country” jamming, laughing and eating vast quantities of food at the home of my in-laws.  Some of the tagalongs were pretty well known – Charlie Collins, Brother Oswald, Larry McNeely and a hammer dulcimer player named Kathy Barton, who was a fairly well-known folk singer. 

You could count on three things during these sessions.  Robert’s dad, Floyd, would say, “Howard, play Liberty” at least three times, Robert would play and sing John Prine’s classic “Paradise,” and Robert’s grandmother would ask him to do “Easy Loving.”  That request always seemed to me an odd choice for an 80-something year old lady, but Robert always obliged.  I smile every time I hear that song on the radio.

Even now, I can sing the lyrics to almost every oldie I hear, largely because of a game Robert and I used to play.  We would take turns picking a topic and singing every song we could think of that had anything to do with that topic.  Our home, like my childhood home, was filled with music.  Willie, Waylon, Kris, Kenny Rogers, John Prine, Crystal Gayle, Linda Ronstadt, John Denver, Don Williams – we practically wore out those records.  And even though Robert has been gone from this world for many years now, I still hang out with good friends who are musicians.  They bring me great joy.

Those old favorites, along with new discoveries, have saved my sanity during the last couple of years, when Covid raged and live music was shut down, along with most everything else.  Thankfully, we now have YouTube and Amazon music and a multitude of other ways of listening to music.  We don't have to travel to a record store; we can buy and download favorite songs online. Thanks to a bluetooth speaker, I can sit on my porch and listen to concerts every night.  Music is a precious gift to this world, and without it, I’m not sure we could bear life at all.  Musicians are preachers and prophets (in the words of Kristofferson) and the best of them tell more truth than the empty-headed pseudo-preachers who spread their versions of religion on the airwaves and television nowdays.  They still bring their guitars full of songs and stand on stage to pour out their hearts.  Some people lament the passing of “the old guard” of music.  But musicians never really die; they leave so many pieces of their hearts behind – pieces of their hearts to touch our hearts and make us laugh or cry and inspire us to make our own music, whether it includes a melody or even a sound.  God blessed us beyond measure when he created the possibility of music.  I suspect he knew we would need it.