Vesper Stamper: No time for Shame Part 1 [Eps 23]
Does shame hinder you from being the artist you are? Artist and writer Vesper Stamper came to faith in a creative environment that was “decidedly unshameful.” She’s the artist of the month. Her book What the Night Sings won multiple awards and her new book A Cloud of Outrageous Blue recently released. Vesper and I discuss restraint as the key to artistic longevity and joining spiritual practice with art.
We also talk about:
Being grounded to home
Solace and lifegiving input from gardening
The accident that propelled her into grad school, and unsuspectingly, historical fiction
Using her art to battle anti-semitism and dehumanization
Being believed
Vesper’s thoughts on artistic action:
When we are so focused on the action part of it [being an artist], on the posting to Instagram, on the proving your worth, you know, making the pretty picture, like competing, there is a part of that that will kill you and it’ll kill your creative drive.
The wisdom of restraint:
But what I’ve learned in twenty-something years of this through a lot of like, you know, ups and downs and pitfalls and all of that is the beauty of restraint, and the necessity of restraint to just pull yourself back as a discipline, to not give yourself to everything and everybody, and to nurture that place of being in yourself that is the artist within you. Not just within you, but the artist that you are.
Prayer and art:
When I’m creating, I really feel God’s presence the strongest of any other time. I mean I could probably sit in prayer for six hours and I wouldn’t feel as connected to God as I do when I’ve got my brush in my hand.
Find Vesper at VesperStamper.com and on Instagram. Find her work on locals.com and thinkspot.com.
Links:
Vesperisms podcast: Artistic Action-Creating a Final Work episode
These notes may contain affiliate links, which support the production of this podcast.
