When To Stop

The Rule: There is a clear ending in any artistic endeavour.

When do you stop an artistic endeavour? I think every artist comes across this predicament. Of course sometimes it is easier to know then other projects, but still there always lingers a hint of should I keep going? Take this blog entry for example, it is easy for me to end when I have made my point, but when it comes to a story, a painting or a piece of music, how do you know the story's character has reached its objective, there is the right about of color and shadow in a painting or the right number of notes have been written?

It's a tough call for anybody.

The most creative being in this universe is always fine tuning His creation. God ever since the beginning of time has been tweaking mankind to emulate his son Jesus so that his creation can love him. Of course by looking at the sate of any human being or the state of humanity, God has a lot of work to do. Maybe he will never be completely done with humanity- it is to be his unfinished symphony. Is that Mean Old Man in the poem from a previous blog a complete masterpiece of God? Masterpiece? Yes, Complete? No. This goes to say, maybe all pieces of work are never completed. Look at the mines and the volcanoes, and the micro evolution, and environmental adaptation. They are always changing. He enjoys the process more so the completion. The greatest expression (which is art in its purest form) was however completed, and that was the death of Jesus. But through that death, mankind is saved, well only if mankind chooses to let God save him, and the process of pursing mankind and loving them is an art that can never be finished.

Then this goes back to us feeble artists who emulate the mere dirty, muddy shadows of God's creations. If God can take comfort in not finishing his work in humanity, why can't we take comfort in finishing our artistic piece? Maybe we seek the perfection that is found in God's pure creation of Jesus? Far fetched I am sure to say, but we seek such higher and higher standards in our art that we refuse to settle with anything other than pure perfection. But a piece will never be 100% completed because the pieces is stuck in the world in which it was created. Mankind is free, the pages of the future always blank. As for us we only have the power to stop something and start something else.

Ultimately, we stop when we fill that we reach the standards of our audience, or that we will never reach their standards (in that case we quit). An author has to write to the standards of the publisher and readers- they set the rules. But for God his audience is just himself- he sets the rules. Then as Christian artists we should complete our work only if it is pleasing to our number one audience and that is God, but how do you please God in your art.

That requires another blog, for I feel that I have finished what I had to say. I think God is pleased.