Walking with God with Hanna Eyobed

Making Space to Create: Art, Writing, and our Identity in Christ

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Welcome back to another episode of Walking with God with Hanna Eyobed. In this conversation, Hanna sits down with Cameron Anderson — writer, visual artist, and Distinguished Fellow for the Arts at the Lumen Center in Madison, Wisconsin — for a rich and unhurried conversation about creativity, identity, and what it means to do the work God has prepared for us.

Cam has spent over 30 years investing in campus ministry through InterVarsity Christian Fellowship and now serves as Senior Advisor to the SL Brown Foundation. He is the author of Faithful Artists (IVP Academic, 2016) and maintains a blog called https://liminalmaker.com, where he writes at the intersection of art, faith, and everyday life.


In This Episode
Hanna and Cam explore what it looks like to slowly and faithfully grow into the creative person God made you to be. Together they discuss:

  • Liminality — what it means to be “in between,” and why that space is not the same as being lost. Cam draws on the story of the Israelites in the wilderness as a picture of how we move through unknown seasons with our story and God’s promises intact.
  • Becoming an artist and a writer — Cam shares how his love of making things began on a farm in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, led to a BFA and MFA in painting and drawing, and eventually — decades later — to published books and a blog. He reflects on the moment on an airplane in his early fifties when he said “I’m an artist” out loud for the first time and surprised himself.
  • The “builder” metaphor — Why Cam describes himself most essentially as a builder — of art, of essays, of ministries, of relationships — and what that posture of craftsmanship has to say to a culture addicted to speed and instant results.
  • Discipleship as a long journey — Reflecting on how even Jesus’ own disciples, after three years with him daily, were still learning and still asking questions. What does it mean to commit to that kind of patient, faithful formation?
  • Presence, the senses, and haptic knowledge — A beautiful conversation about what we lose when we fill every moment with screens and sound, and what we gain when we stay alive to the physical world — the smell of sawdust, the feel of a legal pad, the sound of birds returning in spring.
  • The creative process — How Cam moves from observation and imagination to the act of making, and the parallels between creating a physical object and writing a text. Both involve stepping into the unknown with only a rough map and discovering meaning in the process.
  • Ephesians 2 and vocation — “We’re not saved by works, but we’re saved to do work.” Cam shares how this passage became a foundation for understanding that the art and writing he was made for isn’t a hobby on the side — it’s the work God set aside for him to do.

Scripture Referenced

  • Ephesians 2:8–10 — Saved by grace, through faith, for the good works God prepared in advance for us to do.

 

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This episode was created by the SLBF STUDIO. Find more media resources at https://slbf.org/studio.

Produced by Daniel Johnson, Dave Conour, and Brian Beatty

Edited by Dave Conour

Introduction: Finding Your Creative Calling

SPEAKER_01

Hey, this is Hannah, and I'm Walking with God. Thanks for listening. As a Madison cold begins to blow over, I've been able to notice the subtle beauty of changing seasons. I've caught myself gazing at the beauty of God's creation and breathing in a little deeper. Campus comes alive again at this time of the year, despite the false springs that occur over and over again. When I first came to study at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I felt the strong push to participate in the world of STEM, of numbers, analytics, experiments, and research. While all these things are good, necessary things, they weren't my passion. Further, I felt the things that I had loved for weren't worth pursuing, that being art, writing, literature, and culture. And this opinion didn't just come from my imagination. Many of my friends had also felt this invalidation of their loves, feeling the need to push all that creative energy down or study something simply for the salary it gave them. I quickly grew discontented while trying to fit into a box I simply wasn't made for. Growing up, I was always writing. I recently went on a family trip to Canada where I'd only visited 10 years before for the first time. And the first thing my uncle said to me was, Do you still journal? I remember you always were scribbling something and you always carried your little purse with a journal in it. This comment and others like it gave me the very sobering wake-up call that there was indeed a thread of love for the humanities that required my exploration. And as I began to step deeper into my faith, I realized that God Himself creates, which is such an elementary observation, but so refreshing to hear. He created art and science and film and every area of the world and its subjects with such intricacy. Through very healing and affirming conversations with people both studying and pursuing careers in the humanities, I found myself growing in confidence and in my abilities and the possibilities for my future. Cameron Anderson, or him for short, is one of those people, one of whom has encouraged me in my writing and dreaming. Cam is mainly a writer and artist, but has also dabbled in the world of teaching and has invested 30 years in ministry through Inniversity Christian Fellowship. He currently holds the position of Associate Director of Upper House, which some of you may know. For me, Cam is a well of knowledge and experience. His contemplative thoughts on God's character, beauty, and presence are things I admire about him. As I've explored who I am in Christ, especially as a creative, it's been a pleasure to get to know and learn from Cam. This is Hannah, and I'm walking with God. Well, Cam, thank you so much for being here today and taking time to end the podcast. How are you today?

SPEAKER_00

I'm doing well and looking forward to talking with you.

SPEAKER_01

Awesome. Well tell us who you are, what do you do? What are you working on? Um yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I introduce myself kind of in a couple ways. Um at the S.L. Brown Foundation, I do two things here. I'm the senior advisor to the foundation, and then I'm part of the Lumen Center, and I'm the distinguished fellow for the arts at the Lumen Center. Um but more often I just simply describe myself as a Madison-based artist and writer.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. So wow, good stuff. Just to jump right in.

SPEAKER_00

Right.

What Is Liminal Space?

SPEAKER_01

You know how I feel about your blog. Um so you have a blog called Liminal Maker on the World Wide Web. Y'all should look it up, um, which is like your digital digital diary of sorts, where you have exhibitions, you have like your like about me section about what who you are, what you've done, and also this amazing blog. Um and I want to ask what the word liminal means to you, what is the si the significance it has. Um, previously you've explained that being in liminal space does not mean you're lost. Right. And I want to just there's a lot of different thoughts there, but I want you just to touch on that and your thoughts.

SPEAKER_00

And for some reason, liminal has become a very uh fashionable word. But um my best understanding of the idea of liminality is that liminality is the space in between. Um so the classic way that's been talked about is that um on our journeys that we we cross over a threshold or a lemon and we enter into a space that's unknown to us. Um but we're not entering into a space where we're lost, we're going through a space looking for the next threshold that we're going to pass through as we leave that space. So this is the big space in between. And because the space is mostly unknown to us or unfamiliar, we're looking for markers or signs or clues for how we're going to find our way through from the one doorway we've passed into the space from, and the doorway that we're hoping to pass out of the space. So I as we talked earlier, um, for Christians at least, I think the story of the Israelites, the people of Israel, after they've left the land of Egypt, they're in the wilderness, and that is a kind of liminal space, right? Yeah. They've come from a place that they knew well where they lived for 400 years. Yeah. And they're going to a land of promise that they haven't reached yet. And so now they're trying to find their way.

SPEAKER_01

That reminds me so much of like the pilgrim's progress, too.

SPEAKER_00

Right, right.

SPEAKER_01

Honestly, just I guess the Christian life. And like, I like that the way that you synthesize that. I think that as a student and people on campus might agree to this, but just like I feel like we're constantly in this space of like the liminal space. Right. I'm gonna does feel like, oh, I'm lost. I know nothing, nothing is happening. But um, I think that the actual misconception is that we should know anything at all. Because like, no, like even adults I talk to, they're like, yeah, like, you know, I'm doing this right now, but I actually like it's just the next step forward. And I think that maybe like what you're hitting on as well as like just faith, because especially when we were talking about the Israelites. And would you would you agree to that?

SPEAKER_00

I would, but I but I'd point out, you know, that the Israelites enter into the wilderness with a story and a history, right? They're the people of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Um, Yahweh has been their God, Yahweh has delivered them. So they're entering into a space that's unknown to them, but but they're coming with a story. Um the the wilderness is just the next part of their story that they're gonna live into. Yeah, the contemporary application works out in all kinds of ways. We're going to forever be coming into spaces and relationships and opportunities and challenges we haven't been into before, but we bring our story with us. And then for the Israelites in particular, um, they also carried with them the promise that God was going to lead them to a place of promise, right? A land flowing with milk and honey. So their job was to keep hope alive and to trust God and not turn to idols, right? Absolutely, which is central to that whole 40-year narrative. Yeah.

Cameron's Background in Art & Writing

SPEAKER_01

That's so good. And you're talking a lot about stories and history, and I'm just curious, um, especially as an artist, a writer, having all these amazing like backgrounds and spaces. Um I'm just curious, like, what is your history with art? What is your history with writing? Where did that begin for you?

SPEAKER_00

Right. They didn't start at the same time. Um I grew up on a farm in the upper peninsula of Michigan where I lived for the first ten years of my life, and um I discovered that I like making things because my we lived with my grandfather, and um he had a a shop. Every farm has a shop full of old tools, and as a boy, I just spent a lot of time playing there, and I discovered that I liked making things, and that was very core to my identity. Eventually, you know, I went on and earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts and Painting and Drawing, and then a Master of Fine Arts and Painting and Drawing, so I had that kind of formal training, but um I knew early on that I that I liked making things. It wouldn't have occurred to me to call myself an artist at that time. Um that was something I would live into and and work toward um later in life. Um and then writing came actually a lot later.

SPEAKER_02

Really?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I've been an avid journaler for decades, and I would often write to solve problems and capture my feelings. But um at one point I started talking about and talking about in words and language in my journal, trying to make a connection between um my faith, my decision to be a follower of Jesus, and um my love for art and try to sort out all the tensions related to that. And I took more course work here. I did postgraduate studies here at the University of Wisconsin and studied yeah, I studied art history and art theory, and uh just wanted to beef up the kind of intellectual side. Yeah. And then I did some grad studies at uh Regent College as well. So um I was trying to put that picture together. So eventually all that writing, you know, turned out to be a book um called The Faithful Artist.

SPEAKER_01

So nonchalant.

SPEAKER_00

An Innervarsity Press Academ IVP academic published it. And I realized that, you know, I'd become a writer, right? Once I started publishing, I thought, oh, you know, actually, I guess I am a visual artist and I am a writer. Yeah. Um all that preceded uh, you know, the creating a website and becoming a blogger and all that. But and then there were more invitations to you know, contribute chapters to other books and and then I publish another book later on with IVP Academic. And so um if you go to my website, you can see the whole list of stuff kind of things where I've, you know, had the privilege of publishing stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it just goes on and on. Like it's not that it's incredible. I I would say so. Maybe I'm just crazy.

SPEAKER_00

But it wasn't that I it wasn't really that I that I set out to do that. I uh I just realized that that I like to write. And um and then after you know a number of years, I realized that I actually I wrote well, that uh that I was an effective writer.

SPEAKER_01

All that legal pad journaling. Right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's exactly right, right? I it's my basic equipment, uh yellow legal pad, a nice pen.

SPEAKER_01

And um can't do online journaling, guys.

Owning the Identity: "I Am an Artist"

SPEAKER_00

No, well, not for me. It's so I yeah, so the it's the physical materials, and I'm I'm sure that I do some kind of writing every day, usually in the morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And okay, you talked a little bit about, I'm just so curious about this. The idea of like identifying as an artist and identifying as a writer. Um, in both those areas, like what did it take? I like I know that you were saying like it took a lot to like reconcile or like understand or let yourself say. No, that's right.

SPEAKER_00

I mean, this is gonna sound really odd, but I think I probably after undergrad and after grad school and and all that, and you know, after my BFA and MFA, I became a high school art teacher at a Catholic boys' school, and then I joined the campus ministry of intervarsity Christian fellowship. And my art making during those years was really kind of uneven because I was mostly had another job, right? So if I was gonna make art, I needed to fit it in the cracks. And I had some seasons where I was making a fair bit of stuff, but sometimes a couple of years would go by and I wasn't making things. So it was, and I remember it really vividly, like sometime in my early 50s, I was on a plane, and you know, when you're flying, you know, the person you're flying, well, what do you do? And yeah, you're just chatting.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Which is sometimes welcome, other times, you know. Yeah. No, I just want to be here and be by myself.

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

So the person kind of asked me, you know, that question, and I said, Well, I'm an artist. And I was surprised that I said I'm an artist out loud, because I I I often I I really didn't self-identify that way.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Ephesians 2 & Creative Vocation

SPEAKER_00

But I think in that moment, what I realized, and I knew to be true, is that at my core, I really am an artist. And I really am a writer at my core. And it took me a long time to catch up with that. So it wasn't just a matter of earning a degree and another degree and being in exhibits, whatever, but that at my core, at my essence, I'm a visual artist and I'm a writer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I'm curious, kind of going along with this flow of like identity, like when you um in your time with the Lord and like in as a man of faith, what did it look like to come to this realization with God?

SPEAKER_00

And also like how does how is he poured out into you in that way and kind of clarify, like, yes, this is Well, I've really um I've always liked those verses in in Ephesians 2 where Paul talks about how we're saved by grace, by faith, not our works, because if if our works could save us, we would be bragging forever into eternity, right? So it's grace God's grace that saves us. But very quickly it says, But why have we been saved by the grace of God? Well, so that we could do the work God has for us in the world. So work doesn't save us, but we're saved to do work, right? And that that that's the thing that I began to realize. If before time somehow God has work that he wants you to do and me to do that, I began more and more to realize that that at least part of that work was to like make paintings and and and write books. That was that was work he'd set aside for me to do.

SPEAKER_01

I like that. He set aside for me to do. That's really beautiful.

SPEAKER_00

And therefore I should delight in it. Yeah, it's a labor for sure. Sometimes hard, sometimes discouraging, frustrating. Why am I doing this? But it's also joy and pleasure, right?

SPEAKER_01

And similar to every vocation, it's like there are so many processes, so many steps, and um like looking at a blank document and being like, what am I trying to say? Or like things of that nature, which I know that you there are so many nuances to that. But I'm also curious on your website, because I'm always on there just hanging out.

SPEAKER_00

Um it's great to know I have one fan. She's she's right here. Right here.

The "Builder" Metaphor

SPEAKER_01

Um, or you're gonna have some more. No worry. Um you talk about in your bio, it just says like all the different like I am kind of statements, and you are like a writer, an artist, builder, connector, and reader, among other things. And I'm curious which of those most resonates with you, or you rep feel most represented by.

SPEAKER_00

I don't know. I had the privilege of taking a a writing course at Regent College uh with the poet Lucy Shaw. Lucy passed away recently. Um an amazing woman. I had a w a a week with her and a small group of people on an island out in the North Pacific. It was absolutely enchanted. And and we took the class for credit and and the the follow-up assignment to the week was we were supposed to each pick a metaphor that we thought w was descriptive of us and then write a short essay on it. And I describe myself as a builder. And I th I think that I still like that metaphor a lot. So I'm a maker of work, but you know, I I think about building art and I think about building essays, but I've spent a lot of time in nonprofit leadership. So building ministries, building teams, building up people. Yeah, building up myself, right? So so building's just a for me a great metaphor. And I'm just a very hands-on person. My fingernails were always dirty, there's always calluses. I'm just always making stuff.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

Slow Formation in a Fast-Moving World

SPEAKER_00

Just finished remodeling my daughter's kitchen, right? So yeah, I'm a builder.

SPEAKER_01

And I know that we've talked previously about this, but in terms of building takes so much endurance, especially when you're talking about helping build like a ministry, helping to build relationships, and then also building a kitchen. Right. Um, more practically.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

But what would you like what is kind of like maybe like a grievance you have for like where we're at in today's world where everything is so fast?

SPEAKER_02

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Um, even especially, I guess, even in the Christian world of like um people are like saved for a year, then they're like gonna be a pastor. And it's like wait. What do you what are your thoughts on that, I guess? On the quickness of everything now.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's too fast. And and build so I I guess you know, what sometimes we talk about building things to last or building things that endure, or maybe building things that are beautiful or valuable, and um you know, the examples are abound. You know, to do that kind of work is gonna take time. You want to master the violin, then get ready to spend the next couple decades practicing your scales every day. That's what it's gonna take to play the violin well. Yeah, that's what it's gonna take to have a great friendship. Make a commitment and check in regularly and and learn how to have conversations and how to care and how to engage with each other. Yeah, I I don't I don't trust the way the world is mediated to us right now. That you know simply a matter. You know, pull out your debit card and make a purchase and then you're gonna be in the promised land we were talking about before. Like it's gonna happen that way. No, it's not. The sort of um consumer capitalism that we're you know enmeshed in uh can make us feel pretty powerful and feel like if we have resource and if we spend and buy, we can gather up all the experiences that we want to have, and then we'll be satisfied. Uh but I don't think we we're we're gonna be satisfied. And discipleship's the same way. You want to follow Jesus, then get on the journey.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, because I I even think about Jesus, like people will be like, okay, but what was he doing when he was twelve? And it's like, he was a carpenter. The entire time he was carpent he's being a carpenter and like building up that skill set. Um I don't know what that reason was necessarily, but I think that it does say something about God's character. And it's like he was perfecting a craft of some sort. Right. And he was also a builder. So y'all have that connection.

SPEAKER_00

At least we imagine he was. If it if he grew up in a typical home and his father Joseph was a carpenter, then pretty likely he was working with wood as well. One of the things I think is interesting about discipleship is that Jesus called this group of men, and we know lots of women too, right, to follow him. And um even after spending some three years with him every day, day in and day out, they still didn't understand exactly who he was, and they're still needing to learn from him, right? And make mistakes. So um, if we're gonna be followers of Jesus and disciples of Jesus, we should plan on spending the same long kind of journey with Jesus, right? To understand who he is. And we shouldn't be surprised that we have questions either.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00

They did, and they were welcome.

SPEAKER_01

They were. I love Peter so much in the Bible. I just really he's always asking the dumb questions that everyone is thinking, but no one wants to ask.

SPEAKER_00

Right. And he's brave enough to ask it out loud.

Presence, Sacrifice & Putting Down the Phone

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, and then he ends up being the rock of the church. I think that's so cool. I love that we're we're kind of hitting on this like idea of presence a little bit, like especially with endurance and and building longevity, it requires something of us. Like it requires sacrifice. And I think that that sacrifice is presence because I think that right now, when we're all like on our phones and like doing all this stuff, and I love, even though you might think it's like whatever, um, I love that you like use a legal pad to write and that you're like letting yourself, letting the form of the medium like do its work on you, like even I mean, even like reading like a physical book, I think, is different for me than like reading like a article online. It's just a different experience.

SPEAKER_02

It is.

SPEAKER_01

Um and previously you have um in a in a conversation we had about beauty, you were just talking about how we have to be alive to all of our senses.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

Um, and I was just curious, like, how has he like experience of like being present, choosing your mediums wisely, and also limiting your mediums? How has that affected your experience of beauty, um, of truth? I know that you've explained that beauty is not just beauty itself, but like talking about truth, the things that are good inherently.

SPEAKER_02

Right.

SPEAKER_01

So yeah, just that's a lot of thoughts again. Yeah, yeah. But I just like whatever from sticks out to you. I know.

Haptic Knowledge & the Senses in Making

SPEAKER_00

Well, um, I mean, I I I I think in terms of making art, making physical art, there's a kind of knowing um that I'm really interested in. And it's called haptic knowledge, the kind of knowledge that happens when um you use your hands. And what's happening when we're making is that um physical things is that our eyes are engaged, our sight and our mind is engaged, but we're also using our hands. And there's a kind of memory that our there's a muscle memory. That our hands have, and so we're all that's happening all at once. And so the senses are involved, right? I'm looking at something, I'm touching something. I might even be listening to what's happening while I'm making things. If if I'm using power tools or working with wood, there's there's the smell of the sawdust, right? So it's highly sensory, high, highly sensate, and um those are powerful ways to know things. God made us with all these senses, right? So He gave us all these um opportunities to know things. But I uh for me they're not anti-rational or or they're not over against the cognitive and the intellect. They're they're they're just part of the whole being that we are. So I th think making gives us access to all kinds of ways of knowing. I suppose that's why I like the physicality of actually pulling out a a legal pad and pulling out a pen. Um and opening a book.

SPEAKER_01

Touching a page and touching paper.

SPEAKER_00

The smell of the new ink, pencil and hand, marking it up. I I guess I just sort of prefer those things. Um Or the smell of an old book, maybe.

SPEAKER_01

I sometimes like go to the library. I I'm an English major, but I'll go to the library and I'll I have to like gr get a book or whatever from like the really old stacks. And I'm like, it smells like whatever 1970 smells like. Um but it's like this is real. Like I don't know, like I just like you said, like it's very sensory, and I think that was that's always a funny.

SPEAKER_00

I'm not anti-digital, digital, by the way. I mean, I do maintain a website and I I post online all the time. And so um no, I and I and I and when I write, I I'm grateful for the internet to do research and it's no I certainly there are more tools and I I like the tools. But um but I do worry about the digital space um that we're all facing these days. I I I do worry, you know, I you can walk through campus with your headphones on, and you know, I noticed a couple days ago that the birds in my neighborhood have returned, which fills me with joy. But you can't have things plugged in your ears if you want to hear when the birds show up. But but one morning, a few days ago, I woke up and there was just all this noise outside. I thought, oh, the birds are actually back in my neighborhood and they're singing again.

SPEAKER_01

And it's like you have the little signs of spring, the very small signs, um, and these false springs that happen. But it's actually funny you mentioned that. I've actually had friends in the past who for Lent will fast wearing headphones.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

That is so legit. Because yeah, you just are just able to pray while you're walking or just think. I was in a class last semester that we were not allowed to have any device. And our teacher told us like the most productive thing you can do when you're bored in this class is stare into the distance. And I was like, you are so right. Because whenever I'm on my phone, it's just like I'm just bombarded. But my when I'm just looking out and staring into like the wall, my mind is just like free to roam. And I I think that I'm able to like organize thoughts or like just think about what I want when I want to eat for lunch. And I think that it's more productive than just I don't know, a bunch of things happening that are.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I mean, this is not limited to like young generation or old.

SPEAKER_02

Like we're old.

SPEAKER_00

We all have these screens in front of us all the time. And um we understand the benefit and all the ways they connect us and you know what powerful tools they are, but they're at some cost. And I think they make uh it harder to pray and harder to read carefully. And I mean it's illustrated for me sometimes. Uh I love coffee shops, right? You know that? And I'll sit in a coffee shop and a mom or a dad will have their toddler with them in the coffee shop, and so the toddler's got something to drink, water or milk, and something to eat. But the mom or dad is looking is on their cell phone the whole time. What's the point?

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And then I'll I watch the same thing. I'll watch couples go up for coffee. Oh no. Watch them both look at their phone the whole time, and I think, well, this looks to me like a relationship that's not going well.

SPEAKER_01

I'm that's funny, actually. Because I I say that a lot myself, and I I think I kind of am a I do that myself sometimes, unfortunately. But kind of pivoting back to art.

Art as Exploration & the Creative Process

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, let's go back to art.

SPEAKER_01

But I I love this conversation for a different time. But when you're creating art, does art serve as like a way to emotionally process things for you?

SPEAKER_00

It allows me to explore. I mean, I I I can't I can't quite I don't have any good way of explaining this, but um ideas just come to mind about things I want to make. And it might be something I've observed or some material I have. I I save things and I'll pick up some stone or a piece of driftwood or some piece of lumber I've been saving in my shop or whatever. Um, and I'll realize that you know this thing has been there for a long time and like I want to make something with it.

SPEAKER_01

So just like uh like observation based. Like, oh yeah, let me just put this and this together and see what I'm just always curiosity.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I'm always creating in my mind and imagining things. And so when I actually physically get to work, it means oh, it's time to do something with this object now, or with this idea. And I've been noodling around with my little sketches, but I actually like need to walk out into my studio in my shop and actually start making something, cutting some things up or stretching a canvas or mixing paint. Um then then we've gone from an idea, from a kind of ideation, to now I'm into my practice of making, right? And so now something different's gonna start happening because I have an idea, at least a notion of where I'm going. I've I've imagined something in my mind's eye. But I've made some little drawings and done some preliminary kind of sketches. Um but now we're gonna see um if that idea I have in my mind's eye is gonna become an actual thing.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And sometimes the point between A and B is kind of direct, and other times it's a liminal legend. I would call it liminal, yes.

SPEAKER_01

Wow. It's so it's like mostly coming from a place of curiosity and also like I have so many. I know you've talked about having so many like documents and like things that you've thought about that you keep kind of in like a back burner for a second. And then like whatever you feel like ready, like, okay, I think this has been cooking for a while. Let me check her out. Okay.

SPEAKER_00

But I'm always making something. I'm I'm yeah, I'm always making a text or an object or something. And I think one of the things that has surprised me, like in my early 70s, uh I have more ideas right now about things I want to write and make than I ever have had in my whole life. Which just surprises me.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I'm running out of time, so I I gotta stay busy.

SPEAKER_01

I feel like you are very busy. You were talking about about five projects right now.

SPEAKER_00

Well, it's not it's not manic or frantic or anything.

SPEAKER_01

It's just like I just fully I have the time.

Planning Your Creative Output

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I have the ideas, I have the opportunities, and I wanna be about it. So uh what I have tried to do though is to really think carefully about what things I should write about and what kinds of things I should make and how I should organize myself. And what other things I had to just let go of.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah. And what what is that process? Like what is the like, okay, I should go for this.

SPEAKER_00

Well, I think that uh the the writing kind of works its way out in in two ways, actually. Because I've I try to post a blog every month. I've with with act our colleague Kate Austin here has helped me. I've I actually do have a writing plan for what I'd like to post month by month, probably for the next 18 months, next year and a half. Yeah. Kind of have things lined up and sort of started. So I have an idea where I want to go. And then um and then I've got a couple book projects, you know, uh one a book project I want to work on personally, and then a book project I'm gonna do here with the Lumen Center. So those are bigger writing projects, and they require um more time and energy and finding a publisher and figuring out, you know what it will take to more practical. Blogging really helped me though, because I could get some ideas out quickly. Um not quite that quick, but you know, once a month I could post a 1500 word piece and and put it out in a nice format that I hope is attractive to people.

SPEAKER_01

And it is. I really I really love like I think this this is very apparent by the way that you're talking about all of these things, um, experiences, memory, all these things. Um whenever I read your blog, I'm like, okay, I I we're starting somewhere, and I know that this is like he's talking about making something out of wood, and I'm like awesome. And then you go in, you're talking about how like your father like farming and and then like it gets into like the deeper, the deeper you go, the deeper it gets. Oh, well, thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01

And I think that it's so fun and interesting. And um I think that because I'm also a journaler. So whenever like, and I think that I have a hard time. This is more of a personal anecdote, but like I have a hard time being honest in my journaling. I'm like, who is this for? And I think that the more I've grown, the more I'm able to be like, okay, well, actually, this is the the format can change. I can make it bullet points, I can draw a picture, I can write a poem. And I think that like, I feel like you've I mean, obviously I didn't know you when you first started writing, but from what I understand, you have definitely like just been able to just express yourself so clearly and so um deeply as well, where I feel like even though I've only had so many conversations with you, I feel like I know you very well.

SPEAKER_00

Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01

Because I think that it's just so just deep and um emotional and and just wonderful. Well, and so and when when did you start the blog, actually? I'm just curious.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, a couple of years ago, um I I know why I started it. And then I want to come come back to the parallels between uh making objects and and writing text. Um I started it because I I would have the these conversations, right? Um, well, like maybe you and the fellows programmed, someone would say, Oh, you're an artist. Well, what do you do? And then I would always fumble for my iPhone, and then I would try to pull up some cheesy shots I'd taken of something I made.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

And I would always think, Oh, it looks so much better than this. And this is such a you know, and then you sort of push the phone in somebody's face and here, see, I'm an artist, right?

SPEAKER_01

Promise.

Making Objects & Writing Texts: The Parallel

SPEAKER_00

And and so uh a good friend, uh Barry Scherbeck, a photographer in town here, um, also builds websites. And he and I had worked on a lot of things before. And I said, Barry, I need a website. And he said, You really do. And so he designed a space for me so I could have all my kind of creative capital in one place, right? So you can see the bodies of artwork that I'd made and things that I'd written and things I'm writing about, and um, and it just solved the problem instead of trying to offer these verbal descriptions for these physical objects like here. Here's my website, go log in and you can see what what I do. So um and again, thank you for being a reader. One of the things you realize when you write is what a gift readers are. Means a lot. And so I find that the the parallels between making objects and and creating a text are very very similar for me. Um they're they're multi-layered things, right? So, you know, visually I'm starting out with some materials and in the process of making things, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna begin to understand what it means. I don't always know what it means when I start out, but uh what story is it gonna tell? What parts of my life are being connected? How does it engage with, you know, the bigger conversation about these are all things I'm exploring when I start making? And then writing is the same way. And so I write a lot of really bad early first drafts, but I don't worry about it. I just have to get the thing down.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Um and then, like you were suggesting, then actually there's some childhood memory that's just come up, or some something I read, you know, by Wendell Berry, or, you know, um, or something, some biblical text or some experience I had recently, or something a friend said, and then it becomes a process of a building, right? Kind of process uh of sort of pulling these things together. So in the same way that making an object helps me start to understand what it means. Writing a text is very similar, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's just a process of understanding something.

SPEAKER_00

Aaron Powell So I wrote several blogs that I never intended to write. I wrote a very tender piece about my mother that that I never knew I was gonna write about, and I wrote a piece about my dad, too, that I never knew I was gonna write. It was just in the process of recording things and paying attention with words, right? That I wrote some of these pieces. So um just recently a new piece showed up that I'm gonna write something about my maternal grandfather. I mentioned that I grew up on a farm.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I didn't know this, but I'm gonna write a piece about him.

Why Liminality Is Where Art Gets Made

SPEAKER_01

It's amazing. It's like you're like arriving at these things. Right, oh wow. Like aha moments go.

SPEAKER_00

You can see why I like the idea of liminality.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's like you're just like always arriving at these things.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, I think uh I mean, I I think the reason liminality appeals to me is that um I think most that's where most art is made.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Closing Reflections

SPEAKER_00

In that liminal space where we're bringing our story and our memories and we're passing through over a threshold into a space that's new to us. Wow. And it might be the making itself, right? Uh but you know, in the end, we're gonna try to publish a text or a book or show a piece of art or table around the whole thing. Put a bowl on it, right, and move on.

SPEAKER_01

This was a very beautiful conversation, Camp. I really appreciate you taking your time. Um, you are such like an enriching presence um in my life personally. Like I feel like I've learned so much about you and from you. Um about art, about writing, and about stepping into becoming oneself and in the Lord, and also just as a creative person. So I'm just really grateful and I just I'm thankful you came today. So thank you. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_00

I feel like um I just feel like there might be other things we could talk about.

SPEAKER_01

There are millions. But only if we had more time.

SPEAKER_00

But thank you for hosting me today.

SPEAKER_01

It's a great privilege to thanks for everyone who's listening in. Yeah, awesome. Thank you guys.