Pretty Pictures and Divine Revelation: What They Never Told Me in Art School

It's 2009, and I have 33 pieces ready to ship to Philadelphia’s Whitestone Gallery. I just received a huge break in my career: a solo show of my and John’s collaborative work.

We have been fighting for every sale since the economy crashed last year. The show will take place for 45 days starting July 1st, in the city where our country was birthed and its Liberty Bell rang out the sound of independence, with the inscribed words, "Proclaim LIBERTY throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

I am incredibly excited and have never had a solo show before. All the work is done, and the paintings are lining the walls of my studio in stacks.

I think about my life as an artist and how I got here. My professors in art school had a unified message that if we were studying art in college, we were the sacrificial lambs dedicating ourselves to something no one appreciated or wanted. We were unlikely to make a living at it and would join the ranks of the other elites to make art for art’s sake.

Whenever a painting looked too beautiful or attractive, we were accused of making just a “pretty picture.” I heard words like “Bourgeois” and “overly decadent” for the first time in my life. I wasn't very clear on what it all meant, but I knew I didn't want to do it.

Art school was very much indoctrination camp. All the teachers, admin, and professors worked in a coordinated fashion to keep us from thinking in terms of providing a service and instead convince us that we were the revolutionaries who would take down capitalism once and for all with our giant abstract vagina paintings. Weirdness, darkness, and obscure themes derived from the small library of existential literature were encouraged. Self-portraits were celebrated. A simple landscape, still life, or beautiful portrayal of nature or animals, on the other hand, was publicly ridiculed.

Each critique was rife with 20-year-olds lamenting their angsty life and childhood traumas. “Father” was a dirty word. We were pressured to make sweeping judgements against overpopulation, consumerism, and upward mobility. But the very last thing we were allowed to paint was just a “pretty picture.” Every student aspired to be anything but a “pretty picture artist.” The last thing we wanted was the scarlet “PP” label and to become the constant scorn of this fine art community.

I used to think, “I don't really care what these 20-year-olds have to say about the world. They haven't even ever left the country. They hardly know anything and haven't lived life yet. Who are they to be the thinkers and philosophers of our age? The daddy they hate paid for their education, only to learn they would become baristas and waiters unable to make a living as an artist.”

The whole system seemed rigged and very much opposite of how I was raised by my Rush Limbaugh-loving father. He was very much a proud capitalist and wanted me to make pretty pictures and marry an engineer.

When “Pretty Pictures” Aren’t Enough

I look at my studio filled with pretty pictures and realize I have made a whole career of selling one pretty picture after another and have been able to make a full-time living as an artist. My husband doesn't have a “real” job to support me. He is also an artist, and together we cracked the code and are making a great living solely by selling our art.

I smile thinking about my art school and how they would never have us back to share with the others that you CAN make a living as an artist and we were living proof. There would be no keynotes or art school graduation speeches, nor would we even get a line in their newsletter highlighting our success.

To them, artists who create pretty pictures are not real artists. Real artists make artwork with an accompanying thesis statement using elevated vocabulary, building a lavish word salad that no one understands.

I sit enjoying my success, feeling for all of the artist baristas out there with half-filled tip jars. But then I see an email flash across my screen from the gallery. The gallery director is asking for my artist statement, titles for each piece, and blurbs about what the paintings mean or what inspired them!

My heart sinks, and my entire art career collapses in one second of reading her email. What do the paintings mean? I am immediately back in art school feeling that sickening pressure to dredge up some kind of meaningfulness about the art I created that will impress the snobby fine art police.

This art isn't about anything. Most of them are abstracts with color palettes that will match the couch. I’ve sold close to 8,000 pretty picture paintings, and now that I’ve finally landed a solo art show at a beautiful white-walled gallery, I have to suddenly be meaningful and deep.

I think about calling the gallery director and telling her I’m a giant fraud and I just paint pretty pictures. My paintings don't have meaning, and I am a capitalist just like my dad. I enjoy making spaces beautiful, and just the act of spreading paint or collaging paper down is enough for me. But then I realize my opportunity would disappear and this gallery would no longer represent John and me.

Lying and Ladders

I decide to just make something up. I’ll conjure a meaning right out of thin air and use big words and write long, confusing, looping, esoteric pontifications. I need a name for the show as well. I decide to begin with titles.

I stare at the largest painting in the show, a 48x60”. I felt conflicted asking God to help me creatively come up with a lie, but I ask God nonetheless for a title. In one moment, it’s like the veil splits in two and the heavens shake just a bit. I hear loud and clear the word “Traffic” in my head.

As I stare at the painting, the meaning of it is instantly revealed to me. I can see this painting is about the traffic between heaven and earth. I see little round portals floating up, and if I look closely, I can see little army men descending little drawn ladders and coming down into an abstract city. My heart beats a bit faster as I look around at the other abstract paintings.

There is a group of abstracts in various sizes that are close-up portraits of a prayer bubble from the other large painting. The prayer portal has a mitochondria tail that makes me feel like every prayer has its own DNA and is regarded in heaven as something singular and precious. The meaning of each painting is revealed to me easily, and I start to see a theme. I decide the abstract landscapes will hang next to the abstract city pieces, and we’ll call them “Blessed in the Country” and “Blessed in the City.”

Then the name of the show came to me: “Heaven’s Exchange.” I sit in my studio chair shaking at the glorious wonderment that God showed me. I am completely entranced in my thoughts. I see my entire career race in front of me playing like a movie on fast-forward and rewind. I begin to see every poppy painting differently. Each still life, animal, and abstract becomes a hidden treasure of communication from the Divine. God speaks through paintings!

Bringing Heaven to Earth

God cares about art. The act of creating a piece IS the message. Creating, bringing forth what was only just a faint, distant, murky image in our hearts, is miraculous. The Divine Hand holds our brush with us and records the messages from heaven in every brushstroke. Obedience, devotion, and humility are the art supplies heaven needs to pour forth its speech. The heavens speak 24/7, every moment of each day, awaiting a willing brush, pencil, or palette knife to make manifest all that is hoped for.

I sit in my studio alone, stunned at the most glorious and profound revelation of my career. This is the bridge that brings the summit of “meaningful” art to the ledge of my couch art for money.

The whole wondrous world begins to open for me. I transition from the liar and thief to a simple conduit and willing heart to transmit a hidden message. An ancient scribe that sits in the storehouses of heaven and brings forth the things of old and the things of new. A messenger of hope, that the divine is present and actively participating in life.

We are not alone. There are entities that support us, and whether we know it or not, we consort together in threading and sewing God’s present tapestry that shapes history. We are the present-day brushstrokes that construct the masterpiece of the future. Our couch art for dollars is God’s secret weapon to bring about transformation, that invites heaven to earth, replaces beauty for ashes, and brings freedom to the captives.

It is the pretty pictures that will change the world.

Have you ever found unexpected meaning in a work of art?

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