Creation of art
Artists when creating a work of art partake in an act of creation with God.
I used to suffer from all encompassing clericalism. Clericalism is the belief and attitude that priests and clerics are above the rest of the Church and that everything important that is done by the Church is done by priests/deacons or bishops. Growing up Roman Catholic I was taught that the priesthood is so holy that it is next to God in holiness. You can imagine my shock 20 years ago when my teacher explained to me that from the Eastern Orthodox point of view the painting of icons was a very holy thing, and that you did not need to be a priest to paint an icon.
It took me years of painting icons to come to the acceptance of the fact that the very act of praying and painting while creating an icon was indeed a holy act and a noble calling in life. That I did not need to be a priest if I wanted to do something that served God. It took me much longer to come to the acceptance that painted icons that are not on the walls of a church do not NEED to be blessed by a priest to be holy, because the very act of painting the icon IS holy. Granted I still do place icons on the altar as a way of saying thank you to God for the ability to paint them, but not because any prayer that a priest prays over them will make them holy. It is not like the idea that the icon was not holy before the priest prays over them and sprinkles them with holy water and then act of his blessing them makes them holy. But rather I just place them on the altar to say thank you to God for giving me the ability to paint icons.
The icon is of itself holy because the act of prayerfully creating the icon is an act of creation with God. In a very real way, creating all art is an act of creation with God. Artists partake in an act of creation with God every time they create art! If you ever needed a reason to pick up your paint brush or to sit down and write the poem that you have been wanting to write but didn’t feel it would be good enough, here is your reason. Don’t worry if it is good enough, God put the idea in you to create it and God does not create junk.
