Creativity & Hospitality

Communal art for dark times

My thoughts last week on creativity continued stirring in my mind this week, and thanks to many interesting conversations and events, I was gifted with some delightful opportunities to continue diving into that exploration. On Wednesday evening, I joined some friends in attending a song-release event for my friend Tiffany Thompson, who is slowly releasing singles each month from her brilliant new album titled “Found Love.” In addition to sharing some gorgeous songs with the audience, she also invited several artists from varying mediums to share in a celebration of communal creativity by offering their gifts and speaking about their work.

One painter, Erin Shaw, had a conversation on stage with Tiffany during which she commented that many people don’t think of themselves as being creative, but the reality is that, “We are all already creating, every day. But the question is - what kind of story do you want to be in?” Her observation and question resonated deeply with me. I don’t have any specific outlet per se where I direct my artistic inspiration, but I’ve long felt that curating my own life has been a constant act of creativity. All of us design how we’ll live our days given the ingredients (relationships, beliefs, cultures, experiences) that we’ve inherited and that we’ve picked up along the journey. While we certainly often have very little control over the combination of ingredients we have to work with, we do have agency to at least attempt to fashion them together into a story of our own making. The question is what kind of stories are we forging with how we design our individual journeys, our community endeavors, and the evolution of our societies?

Collective artwork from Tiffany’s single-release event, featuring calligraphy by David Chang

At another point in the evening, each of us was invited to think of a future that would make us hopeful and to choose one word to best describe it. My first thought was a memory of when I walked the Camino de Santiago and I stayed at a hostel that had a lush vegetable garden and clean beds for all the pilgrims. I then pictured a future world full of roads like that - with affordable places to stay all along the way, with healthy food at every meal, and with lovely strangers mingling with grace and kindness. To sum it up in one word I chose “hospitality.” I know that there is an entire capitalistic industry given that title, but I mean something far different than luxury hotels and exclusive dining experiences. I want to live in a story where people extend gracious welcome to others, and where those who receive hospitality look for ways to return the gift to others when they get the chance.

Albergue Verde in Hospital de Órbigo, Spain - one of my favorite stops along the Camino Frances

Making that story into a reality would be desirable at any time I think, but it feels especially needed in this season of darkness descending on our nation. As Ezra Klein said this past week in reflecting on all of Trump’s actions over the past months, “This is not just how authoritarianism happens. This is authoritarianism happening.” It makes me curious about what hospitality has looked like historically during times of high tension, violence, and fear. How can gathering intentionally to share time and food and camaraderie make a difference in societies that are crumbling?

Thinking about it made me wonder about how Phillip and I have offered hospitality so far throughout this first summer of living in the cabin. Reviewing back over my calendar, I tallied up that since we moved in on May 19th, we’ve hosted 9 overnight guests, 2 happy hours, 6 small meals (3 guests or less), and 4 parties or larger events (4+ guests with meals.) I feel proud of us for trying as best we can to share with others what we have to enjoy, while acknowledging that we’ve thus far only really extended our home to folks we already call our family and friends. There is room to grow into thinking about how to invite people we’re less familiar with, as well as how we can think about offering hospitality to all the non-human living creatures that surround our new home. (They are of course experiencing their own threat in the form of expanding human development and the growing climate crisis, and we have much to learn about how to help species stay healthy as our ecosystems face harm.)

I lamented last week that pursuing my creative ideas doesn’t always feel like it would be of much use to the world. And while I don’t think we always create to be of use – there is a deep beauty in creating for creating sake - I am encouraged this week to think about how the artistic practice of hospitality is indeed something that can give me joy and possibly help nurture goodness too. It’s at least a version of art that I’m excited to pursue.