Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Art and Commerce: A story of my stupidity and God's Grace
On one of the e-lists of which I am am member, a dear woman posted about an exchange in which she was accused of materialism. While I doubt she's materialistic, judging from her other posts, I advised her to check her heart and her motivations and to repent if she needed to and move forward. In the note somewhere I also commented that I was once very materialistic but now give most of my work away. She misunderstood that to mean Selling your work makes you materialistic. I had to tell her my story to set the record straight. Here it is:
First I must apologize. I (Dave Weiss) am the one who made the comment about giving the work away. I in no way wanted to insinuate that there is anything wrong with getting paid to do artwork. There are passages in the Bible that speak of the workman being worthy of his hire, don't muzzle the ox., etc. Notice even I said I give most of my work away and I do occasionally get paid for something I do. I am sort of a special case in that I dove deep into materialism and had to change.
I better explain. I've been a professional in some form of visual communications for over 20 years. Currently, in addition to my pastorate, I am a desktop publisher/editor/graphic designer for a non profit organization. I came to Christ not long after I got my first art job. My first art job was very, very, very, unfulfilling, I was designing circulars for grocery stores. I began to freelance and began to get a lot of fulfillment/pride out of it. I was working as many as 20 hours a day not long after I married my wife and carried that on for the better part of 9 years. Thing is I never made enough as a freelance to not also have a full time job. I considered those jobs failure and was thoroughly miserable the only thing that gave me fulfillment was the freelance work. I worked on some pretty high profile stuff (like for example I worked for a licensee of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but I never earned enough to support my family (I now see that as God's protection). I was laid off from my job the day my youngest son was born so I decided to become a full time freelance which actually made me work more and I still had to go back and get a job. I was a foul tempered miserable person and I blamed my family for holding me back and more than that I blamed God. My life was falling apart. One day as I was driving from one appointment to the next, I was praying, which in those days my prayers were pretty much whining to God or yelling at God, and I felt God say your art is your god. (it's almost ten years ago and I can still see the place on the road where it happened.) I fought him on it, argued but the seed was planted.
A week or two later I went to a Promise Keepers gathering called stand in the gap. I didn't really want to go (probably had work to do :) ) but I went. It was a gathering of a million men and I spent the whole day and many days since if God got all those guys together just to talk to me. I cried most of the day but came away determined in Christ to change. The first step was laying my idol aside. I finished one or two things that I had committed to do and quit art for six months and I told God that I would never pick it up again unless I was doing it for Him. During that time God saved my marriage, changed my life and called me to the ministry. I started in Youth ministry and after a few months, I was looking for a way to make my teaching "stick" and God began to show me how to use art as a ministry tool. I've been doing it ever since. That's why I give most of my work away. It's no longer the end for me, it's a means to an end.
Materialism to me is the lengths I went to. Like the time I started to design a line of parody shirts that promoted drinking even though God saved me from alcoholism. Or the time I was trying to figure out a way to justify doing a freelance job drawing a thousand pornographic cartoons for a screen saver because I needed the ten thousand dollars it would pay. (Thank God my wife put her foot down.) Yes I know I'm an extreme case. I was relying on art to make me somebody but God had already done that. I praise Him that he left me "fail". The bottom line on the whole materialism is where is your heart? Mine was far from God. Sorry this was so long, hope it helps.
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On one of the e-lists of which I am am member, a dear woman posted about an exchange in which she was accused of materialism. While I doubt she's materialistic, judging from her other posts, I advised her to check her heart and her motivations and to repent if she needed to and move forward. In the note somewhere I also commented that I was once very materialistic but now give most of my work away. She misunderstood that to mean Selling your work makes you materialistic. I had to tell her my story to set the record straight. Here it is:
First I must apologize. I (Dave Weiss) am the one who made the comment about giving the work away. I in no way wanted to insinuate that there is anything wrong with getting paid to do artwork. There are passages in the Bible that speak of the workman being worthy of his hire, don't muzzle the ox., etc. Notice even I said I give most of my work away and I do occasionally get paid for something I do. I am sort of a special case in that I dove deep into materialism and had to change.
I better explain. I've been a professional in some form of visual communications for over 20 years. Currently, in addition to my pastorate, I am a desktop publisher/editor/graphic designer for a non profit organization. I came to Christ not long after I got my first art job. My first art job was very, very, very, unfulfilling, I was designing circulars for grocery stores. I began to freelance and began to get a lot of fulfillment/pride out of it. I was working as many as 20 hours a day not long after I married my wife and carried that on for the better part of 9 years. Thing is I never made enough as a freelance to not also have a full time job. I considered those jobs failure and was thoroughly miserable the only thing that gave me fulfillment was the freelance work. I worked on some pretty high profile stuff (like for example I worked for a licensee of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) but I never earned enough to support my family (I now see that as God's protection). I was laid off from my job the day my youngest son was born so I decided to become a full time freelance which actually made me work more and I still had to go back and get a job. I was a foul tempered miserable person and I blamed my family for holding me back and more than that I blamed God. My life was falling apart. One day as I was driving from one appointment to the next, I was praying, which in those days my prayers were pretty much whining to God or yelling at God, and I felt God say your art is your god. (it's almost ten years ago and I can still see the place on the road where it happened.) I fought him on it, argued but the seed was planted.
A week or two later I went to a Promise Keepers gathering called stand in the gap. I didn't really want to go (probably had work to do :) ) but I went. It was a gathering of a million men and I spent the whole day and many days since if God got all those guys together just to talk to me. I cried most of the day but came away determined in Christ to change. The first step was laying my idol aside. I finished one or two things that I had committed to do and quit art for six months and I told God that I would never pick it up again unless I was doing it for Him. During that time God saved my marriage, changed my life and called me to the ministry. I started in Youth ministry and after a few months, I was looking for a way to make my teaching "stick" and God began to show me how to use art as a ministry tool. I've been doing it ever since. That's why I give most of my work away. It's no longer the end for me, it's a means to an end.
Materialism to me is the lengths I went to. Like the time I started to design a line of parody shirts that promoted drinking even though God saved me from alcoholism. Or the time I was trying to figure out a way to justify doing a freelance job drawing a thousand pornographic cartoons for a screen saver because I needed the ten thousand dollars it would pay. (Thank God my wife put her foot down.) Yes I know I'm an extreme case. I was relying on art to make me somebody but God had already done that. I praise Him that he left me "fail". The bottom line on the whole materialism is where is your heart? Mine was far from God. Sorry this was so long, hope it helps.
