Episode 12: Love Dwells - Vulnerability in Love

12/15/21
Growing Creative Podcast
S1E12: Love Dwells

Join Jane in a conversation on vulnerability. You can check out her accompanying collection, Love Dwells,  at janeboutwellstudio.com

Jane Boutwell is an artist & creative coach based in Atlanta, Georgia. She loves to nurture and empower others to pursue their creative callings.

"I am an artist with an inquisitive mind, a heart connected to nature and a soul yearning towards God…a child of dirt and dance…a beauty bringing blessing writer… a poetic painter and potter.

Starting with mud pies as a child in the backyard, my creativity includes tactile, intuitive, and deeply-in-touch-with-nature ways of being in the world. I see myself as an apprentice in God’s art studio of the natural world that is full of metaphor, imprinted with the character of the Maker.

It is my passion to share the shimmering beauty and deep truths I find in the creative medium that seems most fitting. Those creative expressions include gardening, quilting, writing, painting, sketching, ceramics, dancing, creative coaching, podcasting, and family life with my husband and four children in Tucker/Atlanta, Georgia."

Join the email list to learn more about special offerings : https://www.janeboutwellstudio.com/contact
Free Sketchbooking resource here: https://view.flodesk.com/pages/5f7b3597322e6ae12d5c774e

Follow @janeboutwellstudio on IG for more.

Transcript

Today's podcast. Episode is another one where I am sharing the behind the scenes, letting you in on the creative process and hearing the backstory behind a collection of work. This body of work is called love, dwells, heart, beating sheltering among us. It's about incarnation. It's also about vulnerability and what it's like for us as humans to face the reality of our mortality and hopes that leads us to more love.

I hope that encourages you today. If you stick around until the end, you'll get to witness me experiencing extreme vulnerability and sharing a song with you. It's my gift to you this season. I hope that you'll sing along. If you know the song and it can be like we're singing together. Hope that you have a beautiful holiday season. If you're listening to this in December,

and I hope that this podcast encourages you and meets you and your own vulnerability, you're listening to the growing creative podcast and I'm your host Jane Boutwell, I'm an artist and a creative coach. This is a space that will nurture your heart and empower you to pursue your creative calling, whatever that may be. I got the call in the wee hours of the morning from a friend,

a dear friend, could I come to their home? She needed to take her husband to the emergency room for chest pains, and she didn't want her girls to wake up and find their parents gone and be afraid of the worst. So I got in the car in the dark and drove as I drove. I remembered our trip to the emergency room. When my husband had chest pains,

something we might not have taken too seriously had his mother not had a heart attack at a very young age. Thankfully, my husband's chest pains were not a heart attack. As I was very pregnant with our third child, my relief was immense. I arrived at my friend's house and gave them a hug and sent them on their way. Then waited in silence and that early morning darkness,

my heart was with them. As I usually do. I thought of what possibilities could come. I tried to prepare my mind and find strength to face what could be possible. I'd done a drawing of a human heart recently thinking about all the emotions stored there. As I researched photos to study the structure of the heart, I've found so much power and the form and the shapes like rivers flowing out of it so much symbolism the rivers of feeling emotions,

strength, the very heart's blood or deepest love. And that structure. The heart gives us a rhythm and numbers. Our days by the number of beats, I opened my sketchbook and let my hand move along. The page, processing all these feelings for my friends and reliving our own experiences of a brush with mortality, the vulnerability and fear, the shape of a human heart appeared on the page and this thought of what if it were me?

What if I were the one facing this possibility of a heart attack, this very tangible experience of knowing that my days are limited on this earth, our reality that we all face, but we are not all very keenly aware of. And this thought came to mind when faced with my limits. Let me choose love. I knew the end, my friend's heart.

He would feel the same way if indeed his heart were showing him his limits, a limited number of days left years, maybe that an overshadowing reminder of limitations, when we face those limits, we realize we can't choose everything. We can't do everything. We face the need to prioritize. The harsh reality of our mortality brings a stark clarity and it becomes quite easy to then see what matters and what doesn't.

And may we all let the guiding force behind those choices be love when faced with my limits. Let me choose love this drawing in my sketchbook sat for about a month or so before it grew into an idea, as I wondered what to offer in my art studio for the advent season, I'd made angels in the past, this image of the human heart,

the drawings that I'd done just kept growing in my mind and in my heart and developed into this picture of God's heart beating for us, the God of the universe, choosing to step into this limited mortality, this raw vulnerability of having a muscle beat out a limited number of beats restraining life into the rhythm of heartbeats. That original sketch grew into the print sculptures and mixed media pieces with imagery of the human heart sheltering among us within a simple structure,

a home here on earth, the maker of the stars. What's really amazing about this image that came to mind is I sketched it out to remember about a month before our whole world shifted and COVID-19 became reality. The whole world was sheltering in place and experiencing home in a new way, experiencing the reality of our mortality in a much more tangible, visceral way.

And I hope there's a comfort. And knowing that we're not alone in this feeling of vulnerability of sheltering here, because the God of the universe came and sheltered with us loved Well's heart beating sheltering among us To close out today with this advent season, I wanted to give y'all the gift of a song, hearing hymns and carols sung and singing them as one of my favorite ways to celebrate the season.

So I'd like to share a song that has become one of my favorites over the past few years, it's really helped me in a set and reverence and awe of the amazing reality of God coming to be with us. Latimar it'll flash key heaps silence, and with fear Trembly, he and ponder nothing. Mostly he minded for, with blessing in his head and cry,

stuck to and a full homage to man king of Kings. Yet maybe as of all the hotter he stood, but of Lords in Humana and the buddy and blah, he will give to, well his own self for the rank on rank. The hosts of heaven spreads its fan got on the other way. Hey, as the light from light T he Sandy from the realms comes the powers of Hal to anguish as the darkness creatures at his feet,

this six week cherubim with sleep, blah, I failed their faces to the as with ceaseless voice. They hate crime. I, they Lou they Lou Thank you for joining me and listening to the podcast today. I would like to invite you to join me at the beginning of January for a special free opportunity to grow creative together in the new year,

I'm going to be spending five days with you January 3rd, through seventh, each day, you'll get an email with prompts for different ways to spark your creativity and dive a little bit deeper together. The link to sign up for free is in the show notes. I hope that you'll also always check out the show notes for anything that's mentioned in the show. If you found encouragement today,

I hope that you will share the podcast with a friend that might also need the same, like to thank shepherd Martin for sound editing. And the music is by sod Moses, once again, thanks for spending your time with me. And I hope that you will keep growing creative.