God the Master Artist

For some reason last night, giggling over images of me painting by numbers as a child, I began to think about God as artist, which led to thinking about differing artistic expressions, from paint-by-numbers to Impressionism to the line art of Picasso (doodlism?).

Which, I wondered, is God?  Is the Divine the master of the literal genre represented in its most basic form by paint-by-numbers kits?  Does God pre-ordain everything, inviting us only to fill in the lines with a bit of color?

Or is God more an Impressionist, with the brush strokes of light and movement dancing across the page of a life leaving a sense impression far more true to reality than a photograph, for who exists in but a moment in time?

Perhaps God too evolves, departing from the paint-by-numbers exactitude of early art forms and leaving behind the joy of light and movement and the light touch of brush strokes barely perceived back to the line at its most fundamental – a hint, a mere suggestion of form, yet somehow ready to stride off the page of creation into creating, reminiscent of Picasso’s camel, which I expect to bend down for a nibble of grass any second.

I tend to the latter in my own understanding of God in relation to humanity – providing the barest outline, yet in that outline is everything necessary for existence.  In this way does the painting move from still life to life still. . . and yet . . . and again.

Painting by the Numbers

I read somewhere – I think it was Annie Dillard – about the earth looking like a paint-by-numbers canvas and thought about the one time I got one of those sets as a child.  Disaster.  I never was much of a colorer – the lines absolutely defeated me and this was back in the day when staying in the lines mattered.  Shoot, I wanted to stay within those lines.  I just couldn’t.  The perfection of hand and eye moving together simply defeated me.  Did then, does now.  So you can imagine the horror of my efforts to add to the color-line mix a sequence of numbers coordinated to color that had to be the same every time – with just one deviation causing utter failure as the lovely landscape or Raggedy Ann turned into a horror-movie version of itself.  There are no do-overs when it comes to painting by the numbers.  No margin for error.  The expectation of that pre-set ‘you-too-can-be-an-artist’ lie weighed heavy on me before I even began.  Who can meet that kind of demand from a piece of paper?  I couldn’t.  I didn’t.  And I can’t.

So while I absolutely adore the writing of Annie Dillard, I have to say she took me to a far different place than I’m sure she intended with that passing reference to farmland laid out so neat and precise that it minded her of painting by the numbers.

Maybe painting outside the lines is something to be celebrated; but I have to tell you that coloring like a five-year-old when you’re 57 isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.