There are several labels people would give me. Some of them make me feel uncomfortable, even to the point of me feeling like a fraud. But I am a musician, - music is in my bones. I am sure my first cries of protest to this mad world was a melodious arpeggio! And yes, I'm also a theologian. I've been practising theology in many forms for over twenty years.
And then there's the artist bit... I think being an artist is about WHO one is. It's about what lies at the heart, in the depths of the soul. It's what spills over into all of life, no matter the task at hand, or how mundain the job. An artist can't help being an artist. I can never remember a time when I was not creating a mess. I've always been snippering with paper, spilling paint on the carpet, stinking the house out with candle wax on the stove. Like many people I've tried many different crafts and played and experimented with hundreds of creative techniques.
And there's always been the "more", the thing yet undiscovered, the idea that anything might be possible that has been my inspiration and given me the drive a mad artist needs to survive.
I've done a "proper job" for many years because I grew up in a home where being a musician or artist was not something you could do as your life career. You had to have something to fall back onto, like a "real" job, that payed and that gave you a pension fund... Art was always something I did inbetween, but I often snuck my art and creativity into my day job and that gave me more satisfaction that anything I achieved in working hours.
But as the years have worn on I have grown more and more impatient with my profession of choice, more and more irritated by the never-ending telephone requesting more of my precious time, sapping my energy with legitimate demands. I am wanting to play more now, - to let the creative flow its course, to open new doors, to mix new colours! I admit it, there's an artist lurking in my cassock, a colourful person of many different hues.
I play, I mess, I invent. And I'm an artist, celebrating what life offers. And as each new day dawns, I try to be more authentic, more honest, more present to my true calling.
Suzanna Bates
