Perhaps most of your experience with the creative arts stems from when you were younger, whether that was learning to play the piano after school, constructing a vibrant collage during art period, or studying British literature in college. Unfortunately, for many of us, that might be our only experience with the artistic world. As we grow older, some of us put aside the easel and metronome and stop participating — both as active creators and observers — in the creative arts.
Erwin Raphael McManus, artist, author, and pastor at Mosaic, a church in Los Angeles, recently wrote a book titled, The Artisan Soul, in which he explores our universal call to be creative. The book is appropriate, since many today view the creative arts as something to which only a limited few have claim — professional musicians and writers, critics, scholars, and so on. Whether we have busy schedules, or a deep belief that we are not artistically inclined, many factors can hold us back from spending time devoted solely to the creative arts.