Teacher, author, and creative Matt Appling has written a new book, Life After Art. Life After Art is not a book about becoming an “artist” in the traditional sense. It’s about a journey towards becoming more human – living the lives we were created to live. This is a book for everyone from teachers to truck drivers.
The goal of the book is to help adults get back in touch with the “child artists” that they used to be. Matt believes “You will be creating your entire life. You might as well do it on purpose.”
In Life After Art Matt addresses coming to terms with our limitations in life – limitations on our time, energy, resources and ultimately ourselves (something that perfectionists like me struggle with). Developing a healthy concept of failure – most of us have completely overblown concepts of what failure means, while missing the purpose it serves in life. As well as asking What will my life mean when it is over – what am I leaving behind? Am I striving for a “good” life, or have I settled for a “good enough” life? How much time to I spend being defeated by limitations in my life that cannot change? How much effort do I spend just trying to avoid the appearance of failure?
As an artist you probably need to read this book. I got the chance to interview Matt:
1. Tell us a little about yourself. You have a unique occupation mix.
- Yes, I took a really winding path to where I am today, so I sometimes feel like a jack of all trades. I started out by studying graphic design in college, because I was always a child artist. But rather than go into the design industry, I worked some freelance and went to seminary where I got my Masters of Divinity. Somewhere in that time, I decided that I wanted to be a bi-vocational minister, supporting myself as a teacher. So I got a teaching license. But teaching art was not even on my radar. It was complete providence as many doors closed and just the right one opened. It was amazing to see my life come back full circle to my first love in art.
2. So you started your blog in 2008, which is more fun for you blogging or book writing?
- They are both unique and fun disciplines to me. I’ve probably poured 450,000 words into the blog. It’s been my twenty mile march, the thing I’ve done three times a week for four years. I just could not have written the book without all that practice. The book felt like a moment of nearly divine inspiration really. It came like a lightning bolt, and I just wrote constantly for several weeks, knowing that if I didn’t it would be lost forever.
3. As an art teacher what is 1 thing creative people don’t realize about art?
- I think about how kids are so generous with their work, which is a major theme in the book. Children are not pretentious. They just want to share what they have made with people they love. I think sometimes the art world has an image of being less about “look what I made for you to enjoy” and more about getting attention for the artist. It seems a little bit more narcissistic, rather than being a humble offering of work for others to enjoy.
4. If you could meet one artist in all of history who would it be?
- Claude Monet. Impressionism is one of the high points of art history for me, and he basically founded the movement. It was his first impressionist painting that caught the ire of critics. The man wasn’t afraid of what the critics would think. I think he painted the way he wanted because it brought him happiness. I think I could learn a lot from a man like that.
5. You decided to write a book. What made you feel like a book was the right thing?
- I tried twice to write a book and it actually did feel all wrong. The tone, the subject were just not working. It was a complete struggle. So I scrapped it. It wasn’t until I became an art teacher and started discovering all these things about myself, about life, about spirituality that were coming through these little art lessons that I finally had something that really inspired me. Life After Art has been one of the easiest things I have written – because it was “right.” It’s not that it wasn’t a lot of work. But the inspiration was finally there to make the book work.
6. What do you hope people glean from reading your book?
- I hope people gain a healthy concept of themselves as beings who bear the image of a creative God. There are so many people who I think have achieved the American dream – the career, house, car, kids, but they aren’t happy with themselves. They feel like they’ve missed the mark and their lives don’t have much meaning. My own conscience has been racked many nights by this very fear. But sometimes, it’s not about “growing up” to find our purpose, it’s finding out who we were when we were children that we can truly find ourselves.
7. The cover is great, did you come up with that concept?
- I had no idea who the designer was until I got my own copy of the book. Connie Gabbert did the cover art, and I could not be happier. She has several great book covers to her credit, including Bob Goff’s Love Does. And just the fact that my book is pictured next to Goff’s great book is rather incredible.
http://conniegabbertdesign.com/category/book-covers/
8. Explain the premise of “Church Of No People”
- I started the blog a few years ago just as I was finishing seminary, and the idea was: what if I showed up to church with a sermon ready to go, but no one showed up to hear it? I could say whatever I wanted, without fear or reservation. There are lots of messages and topics that are taboo in church, but if no one showed up to church, they could finally be safe topics to discuss. So the blog has really been a sounding board where my thinking on a lot of topics has evolved and grown as I engage with people who actually do read it.
9. How do you feel art and faith exist in the same place?
- That’s a tough one, because a big chunk of the book is dedicated to the sad reality that in a lot of places, art and faith don’t exist together. I think that’s just sad. I think part of it is the old division between the “haves” and “have-nots.” A whole lot of people feel they are not qualified to be “creative” so they sit out. A lot of people don’t feel qualified to stand up and pray in church, so they sit quietly.
- Art and faith go together because they are fundamentally human activities, able to be engaged by anyone, equally accessible to anyone. And everyone should be able to pray, to sing, to worship and to create – to approach God through all their faculties and derive joy from it.
10. Where do you go when you are stuck and need to be inspired?
- I go to the book store. I’ll browse a couple of biographies. I’ll pick out a book from the art and architecture section, maybe a book on tiny houses (because tiny houses are the most creative.) I’ll even go to the children’s section, which is not at all creepy even though I don’t have kids. There are some incredible artists and writers dedicating their best efforts to children today, and they never fail to inspire me.
You can grab Matt’s book HERE. It is very much worth the purchase.
Trackbacks/Pingbacks