Let There Be Art - by Rachel Marie Kang

This is an inspiring book about the power and purpose of our creativity as people of faith. Each chapter is an exploration into a different facet of our art-making and features insights gleaned from her own life and from the lives of others. I love how she blended her poetic prose with prayer, practices, and prompts at the end of each chapter. Her words about play and breath were especially meaningful to me!

Somewhere in the midst of all of the unknown and fear that came with 2020, I found Rachel. Rachel’s words speak to my spirit and I am lifted. Let There Be Art is not simply a book of art that one might find on a wall. It is a book of words that provide hope and courage and grace and love that are healing. There is art to be found in home and fairytales and silence and remembrance. I look at art in a new way that would not have happened without Rachel’s words. Rachel’s words fill me.

This one's a special one. Truly, truly special. I came across Rachel on an episode of Morgan Harper Nichols' podcast in the midst of all that was unknown in 2020. I had never heard of her, never seen her work, never dreamed that what I'd hear that day would send ripple effects and ricochet over the next season of my life. She painted a picture with words of all that I might hope to be true – making sense of the tug to make, to create, to show up in all the ways we might feel called to. I started following her then, among other artists and authors I admired, piecing together this collective of people purposefully doing and showing and sharing. Even though I was personally walking through one of the hardest winters of my life, Rachel's words and ways of making anyway carried me in a particularly needed way. Almost every time she'd share or write or ask, it's like my soul would cry a resounding, "YES." In the spring of this year, I decided to throw my name in the hat for her coaching sessions. To my delight and surprise, she had time and space for me. From the moment we started meeting, I felt so deeply known, seen, and understood by her. She is one of the most creatively refreshing and sincere people I've ever met. There are authors in the world who write from a kind of separation, but there are others who you can tell seek to be integrated with all that they wrestle with. Rachel embodies all that she's embraced and navigated in writing this book you can now have in your hands. Over and above anyone else I listen to or hear from, Rachel has a way with words that is poetic, inspiring, filling, and fueling. Her perspective and articulation of how and why we're made is invigorating. This book is full of real-life, real-deal wonderings, wanderings, and ways to engage what our hearts long for (and are made for). This isn't just for the "creatives" or "artists", per se, but it calls to the art and creativity inherent within you. “Art as a way of climbing back toward the light. Yes, art as a way of pushing back the darkness within ourselves, within our world.” And as she so artfully points out, "art" is much more than what you might picture. Let it be any and all ways that you need – painting or playing, writing or wrestling, moving or making, showing up or staying, connecting or reflecting, pausing or producing, laughing or lamenting. “Any and all art that helps, heals, names, entertains, redeems is good. By and through art, we are led out of hiding and into hereness — out of obscurity and into the obvious.” “The act of creating does more than create things; it restores things. It calms things. It heals things. It saves things. It lets light into our lives, and it pushes back darkness.” So let there be art, friends. And let there be many purchases of this book because honestly it's so, so good.