celestial spray paint

One of my favorite things about La Roma is the street art. It's used
 

to raise awareness for Central American refugees,

to encourage the community to care for the local park,

to accrue followers on instagram,

 

to advertise for concerts,

 



 

and, obviously, to portray humpback whales for the benefit of the general population.

 





 

 

Joshua, Naomi, and I had a couple of interesting talks about art - specifically, what makes art "good" and what makes it worthwhile. As I try to keep Mexico City alive in my spirit (read: sorting through photos, painting said photos, and sharing sketches of Mexico on this ancient blog of mine), I've been thinking back over those conversations.

 

 



 

A few things stand out to me:

 

 

1. The purpose of art matters. When a movie is supposed to be tragic but ends up making you laugh, it isn't good art.

 

2. God is an artist. Why all the different shapes, sizes, flavors, colors, sounds? Why music? Why laughter? There are a million things in the world that aren't necessary to sustain life, but certainly make life sweeter. Ecclesiastes 3:11 is a good verse to mull over: "He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end." Reading those words, I can imagine art as an endless process of rediscovery - unraveling the beauty God long ago embedded in human hearts.

 

3. Art is a way to see the world through another person's eyes.

 

"We're made so that we love

First when we see them painted, things we have passed

 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see;

And so they are better painted; better to us,

Which is the same thing. Art was given for that;

God uses us to help each other so,

Lending our minds out."

 -Fra Lippo Lippi, by Robert Browning

 

Maybe these three thoughts are true. Maybe they are not. For me, they add a depth to the street art in Mexico City, humpback whales and all. Tracing the lines God has already drawn - that’s what we are doing with our pencils and cameras and cans of spray paint.

 

Suppose with me these ideas are true. Then God, the Artist, has wrought His masterpiece (titled “The Heavens and the Earth”) with purpose, to evince His perspective. That is a thought that makes me want to spend more time looking up at the dusky sky and down at the slender blades of grass and around at the people at my kitchen table. Strange to think that these familiar fixtures in my world may be radiating the mind of God. And here I am, wishing I were back in the city where there is more stimulation... who knows what words Jesus might be whispering in the skies and yards and humans of suburban America!