I have a lot of friends who are getting into growing their own food. I think its admirable, though I myself lack the particular interest to do it myself (and I suspect I also lack the ability to keep plants alive). That, and, I have never been a big fan of most vegetables. We juice them, and I happily consume them that way. Anyway, I have seen something of a philosophy emerging in the conversations of my friends that is more than a simple desire to eat and live healthy. There’s a desire to be a part of the land, to give oneself to it, to belong to it as it belongs to them. This is craft. I shall call it Vegetablecraft.
In the Anglican church, ordination begins with a fairly involved discernment process that invites others in on the assumption that if the Spirit is telling you that you have a call to ordained ministry, the Spirit is going to tell others as well. I think this is deeply responsible, and I admire the church for having a process in place that involves the community and the Spirit at the same time. When Kaitlin and I began this, it was mostly because I was exploring ordination and she was interested, but generally there as my wife and partner. But, interestingly, we have found ourselves at different places now. I have found the discerning process to lead deeper into my artistic journey, and Kaitlin has become very interested in the Diaconate as vocation.
So I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what I want to do. What I love to do. Piggybacking on an earlier post* about art becoming more community driven and niche because that’s what the internet seems to be really great at helping artists do, I’ve been thinking about what it looks like when you strip out enormous commercial goals. Commercial goals are fine, I think we’d all like to make a living doing our art, and there’s no problem with that, but enormous commercial goals can create false failure. It can blind you to the success you do have, to the people you are connecting with, because you aren’t achieving the larger goal you wanted.
This is another facet, in my mind of loving the thing you’re doing instead of the thing you want to have already done.
I think my Vegetablecraft friends are onto something. They’re working not only for their own health, but to connect to their surroundings and to contribute to their community. This is art, in spirit, and my gut tells me that some of my friends would say that their craft is a kind of art in itself. I’d agree. A tomato that someone has gotten the best out of is a better tomato. And what it returns to you is a delicious experience. Hard work produces a vegetable that is sent out into the world and somebody eats it and says it was delicious. Transmission and return. Communication theory. Art.
I hope somebody thinks one of my movies is delicious someday.
