Leaf by Niggle, leftover art, and the pursuit of mediocrity

I didn't expect to become obsessed with a short story about a middle-aged male painter. I read it reluctantly. I'm not even into visual arts. 

My last post discussed Hutchmoot: Homebound's online conference on creativity and faith, but I left out the part that most deeply impacted me: J.R.R. Tolkien's autobiographical, allegorical short story "Leaf by Niggle." Hutchmoot organizers encouraged all participants to download it and some related nonfiction, read them, and participate in the discussion forum. At first I grumbled that I couldn't make time before the conference, but I'm glad I did.

I first skimmed the introduction and learned that readers often find it confusing and unremarkable at the first read-through, but that it's profoundly impacted many. Of course I wanted to be one of the star-studded few who instantly grasped its weight, and of course I wasn't. I tracked pretty well at first, but got stuck trying to decipher the allegory about 2/3 of the way in. (Later I read an interview with Tolkien saying to treat it more as a myth - it came to him one night and he didn't try too hard to make everything correspond.) But once I read comments from other readers, re-read it myself, and watched a Hutchmoot lecture on it by Matthew Dickerson, it consumed my thoughts. 

Tolkien put himself and his Lord of the Rings writing into Niggle, an aging painter, more eccentric than gifted. Despite all our differences, I can relate to Niggle. Like him, I struggle to focus, seethe at other people interrupting to request help, and worry whether others think my work is any good. Like him, my talents are ordinary, barely enough for a decent attempt at painting a leaf. Like him, I watch in dread as time melts away, trying to forget that I am mortal. And though I can't say I have a vision for my life's greatest work like an epic trilogy or the great tree Niggle scrambled to complete, I too can glimpse aching beauty in distant forests and glimmering mountains, far beyond my ability to capture. 

I'm also like his neighbor Parish, a no-nonsense gardener who finds it easier to notice Niggle's weeds out front than his lush landscapes in the studio. I can struggle to say something kind about others' deficiencies and completely miss their gifts. I can focus on my pain and be blinded to theirs. I can convince myself that their time, wood, and canvas would be better served patching my leaky roof than fulfilling an artistic vision. 

Like both of them, how I use my life matters more than I know. And it's not too late for good to come of it. Tolkien follows Niggle's story through his "long journey" away from home and into the afterlife. Despite some gloomy bits it's a hopeful story: not necessarily hopeful that things will all work out just in time, but hopeful that all is not lost when they don't. Readers watch Niggle grow in ways somehow akin to the Velveteen Rabbit.

I coerced my three fellow Hutchmoot participants into reading it with me, and we had a follow-up discussion focusing on it. We talked about art and community, how they feed off each other, and how to find our place in both. We talked about holding onto vision and being generous with our time amid a frenzy of demands and requests. We talked about savoring the form of art instead of trying to reduce it to a point and move on. We talked about the power we hold to encourage and support those around us who share their creations. 

I asked my friends, "Is it worth trying to do something when I know I'll be mediocre at best for quite a while, possibly forever? Let's say I attempt songwriting. If the first 100+ songs I write are bad to middling, and I may never make it past those to anything decent, is there still value in my effort?" For Niggle, there was. He was a painter. Even if his best work never surpassed mediocrity, painting is what he was made for. What am I made for? Have I even found it yet? 

My grandma just moved into the nursing home in her retirement community, and my parents and her other kids have been cleaning out her cluttered apartment. Recently I went through 169 photos to sign up for items in her home: silver from her parents' wedding, quilts she stitched, figurines she collected, baskets she wove, paintings by her and her Uncle Ed. Fresh from reading Niggle, my eyes brimmed up looking at the list.

Mamaw always told me she wasn't artistic, not like Uncle Ed, the professional. I never met Ed and knew him only by his oil paintings in Mamaw and Papaw's house: rundown farms and European cityscapes and abstract shapes and lifelike portraits. But a few years ago, I heard he was also such a good cartoonist that a young Walt Disney had tried and failed to recruit him. 

As a child, I asked Mamaw for help drawing a girl's feet wearing tights. She grudgingly attempted it while decrying her efforts, which I thought were perfect. Mamaw grew up with her widowed mother, grandparents, and an adolescent Uncle Ed (much her mother's junior), who later drifted in and out between travels. I wonder how often her childhood drawings and paintings were compared to Ed's. Intimidating!

Mamaw's in the middle, with one of her Uncle Ed's paintings behind her

An Uncle Ed painting that my sister claimed

Unlike Niggle and Uncle Ed, Mamaw's never been "a painter." Sewing probably best defined her creativity, along with crafting, dancing, and cooking. But in her 70's, she started taking painting lessons with other retirees, I think mostly copying pieces by more prominent artists. Her work eventually brightened her walls next to Uncle Ed's paintings, tangible examples of pushing through insecurity toward creativity. 

A painting by Mamaw 

I was one of the last grandchildren to peruse the list of items and make my requests. Unlike Mamaw's hand-woven baskets, colorful quilts, and award-winning smocked baby clothes, none of her art had been claimed. Dismayed, I sat pondering. On one hand, though I signed up for a painting, getting things to Cambodia poses a hurdle. On the other hand, I love Mamaw, and her artwork is way better than mine. 

Without a family to inherit his paintings, Niggle's work is soon scattered and discarded. One charming leaf on a corner of the canvas makes it into a local museum... which later burns down. What about Mamaw? If her paintings end up in thrift stores, even during her lifetime, does that mean they didn't matter? How can I celebrate this prolific, feisty woman who no longer has any use for her paintbrushes, sewing machine, tap and ballet shoes, or gigantic stash of knitting needles? As her memory and daily life shrink ever smaller, I want her legacy in my life to stay far bigger. 

One of Mamaw's intricately smocked dresses, passed down from my cousin to her daughter

So I started writing music. I've long appreciated great songs and enjoyed making up new lyrics or arranging hymns and carols for guitar, but I've never attempted anything original. The past few weeks, I've been playing around with lyrics and a few guitar riffs. (Mine aren't nearly as rock'n'roll as "riffs" would suggest!) It's been tricky trying to merge together music and words, since they tend to come to me separately and resist each other. But after multiple spurts that went nowhere, something is starting to gel toward a song. I keep making changes to both lyrics and music, trying to wrangle it into expressing my heart and satisfying my ears, but it's felt cathartic starting to get it out. 

I shared my newborn song with the other Hutchmooters, a much more supportive audience than Niggle's neighbor Parish. I was nervous, but performing it felt less risky because I'd invested only a couple weeks into it, not years or decades. I don't think I missed my destiny as a singer-songwriter, but I do think I'll keep experimenting. Whether we're teachers or painters or basket weavers or organizers or personal trainers or a little bit of everything, we're God's image-bearers who are meant to create boldly and wholeheartedly.

The lyrics are based on a story that's not mine to tell, at least not in a public forum like this. So instead, here's a scrap of guitar music that's been rolling around in my head, waiting to be fleshed out with vocals and more guitar. I'm kinda stuck on where to take it from here, but it feels like it has more life in it than this. 

It's far from an opus, but Niggle taught me that even fragments can spark imagination and gleam joy. If you have ideas for ways to nudge it forward, I'm all ears! Art and community are meant to interact and nurture each other. This is my way to carry on Mamaw's legacy of courageously creating, of hanging imperfect pieces on the wall. (FYI: Several of Mamaw's paintings are now on her grandchildren's walls, including this one below, which my sister just put up.) Like Niggle's, maybe the value of Mamaw's endeavors... and mine... isn't limited to the prominence they receive. 

Hutchmoot: Homebound

 What is Hutchmoot? 

“Unexpected. Curiously delicious.” 

"A conference about the intersection of faith and creativity." 

“I’m going to hang out with my nerd friends. Stop asking questions while I’m reading.” 

 “A gathering of Christians who try to tell the story of Jesus in all art forms.” 

“Hutchmoot is like a man who traveled east to see the dawn, and saw it — its first beams piercing furtively through the trees, its advancing golden fingers stealing away the silver mists; its light dancing in resolute, hopeful eyes, and playing in limbs and fingers not its own. And the man, having seen it, traveled west, back to his home, to announce: ‘Dawn is coming!’ But his face betrayed him, so that even before he could draw breath to proclaim the news, a little girl walked up to him and asked: ‘Mr. Man, what is the morning light like?'”

- Previous Hutchmoot participants 

The infamous difficulty of describing Hutchmoot made me put off sending invitations for weeks. But eventually I did. Even better, some friends responded by coming to join me. 

I've been intrigued by Hutchmoot for years, ever since growing from an Andrew Peterson fan to a Rabbit Room fan (which is almost by definition also an Andrew Peterson fan, since he and his brother founded this community to foster art and gathered artists to foster community). Rabbit Room blogs, music, book discussion groups, liturgies, and children's books have resonated with me. But Nashville in October never seemed very accessible given the fact that I was either in Cambodia or a broke and busy grad student.  

This year, courtesy of COVID, Hutchmoot became Hutchmoot: Homebound, conveniently located in my living room and those of a few thousand friends. A solid weekend of content, often with 4 simultaneous sessions, was livestreamed and then posted. I knew I wanted to participate, but staring at a computer alone occupies too much of my time and defies everything that Hutchmoot stands for. Though I missed the livestream, I listened compulsively the following week during workouts, meals, bus rides, cleaning, baking, and occasionally even sitting still. The website is based on the idea of a home. Content is organized into "rooms" including the sound booth, backyard, porch, art studio, and kitchen, where the ukulele-playing chef demonstrates recipes and recites original spoken-word poetry. There's even a secret tunnel to the "Field of Glory," featuring challenges ranging from a collaborative quilting project, to leaving a mysterious note for a stranger, to reenacting a favorite movie scene, to playing "Ode to Joy" on kazoos. 

The next Sunday morning, three friends and I gave Hutchmoot five hours of undivided attention. We read a liturgy aloud, watched several speakers and a one-act play, listened to music, discussed a short story, drank tea, and ate food I made following Hutchmoot recipes. Scones are a fixture of Hutchmoot conferences, so I made my first-ever scones, cranberry orange. Am I the only one who grew up reading the Redwall series, children's fantasy novels about forest animals who engage in epic battles? Their lavish victory feasts always made my mouth water, and until college they were my only exposure to scones, which sounded simply divine. So scones seemed superbly well-suited for a conference that revels in fantasy literature. 

My invitation cast a wide net, and I wasn't sure who would bite, but we had an interesting combination of participants. None of these three friends really knew each other. None were from the same country. None were into quite the same form of creativity. None had ever heard of Hutchmoot or most of the presenters or artists. At least we all shared a love for Jesus, C.S. Lewis, and J.R.R. Tolkien, all of whom have deeply inspired Hutchmooters. Part of me was wistful that I couldn't join with fellow Peterson fans (I know several in America and one in Africa), but I'm glad these three were willing to take the plunge. My take on Hutchmoot was enriched through their perspectives: what resonated, what confused them, what parallels they saw in their own lives and work. Our time passed far too quickly for my liking, leaving me hungry for more.

Some themes that ran through multiple sessions were the need for excellent art and the power of fiction, particularly fantasy and poetry. (One conversation was inspired by Tolkien's essay "On Fairy Stories." Another is available free in this podcast on "The Integrated Imagination," republished from Hutchmoot.) Story can lower our defenses by removing us from the reality we think we know so well. It presents us with a world in which anything is possible and nothing is taken for granted. It can gnaw on our thoughts and emotions and imagination, illuminate our relationships and struggles, make us ache for something we didn't know existed, until it seeps into our very way of being. The best fiction reorients us to something truer than mere "reality" as shown in the daily news or HGTV. 

I've been trying to appreciate and enjoy more nonfiction, and while the nonfiction I've read has generally shaped me in positive ways, Hutchmoot made me desperate to plunge into good stories. You too? Join me in choosing original new fiction from The Rabbit Room. I think a top contender for me is Helena Sorenson's The Door on Half-Bald Hill, which Amazon lists under the unlikely combination of "Christian allegorical fiction" and "dark fantasy horror." Prior to Hutchmoot, her name sounded vaguely familiar from Rabbit Room posts, but this month I find myself arrested by her speaking and writing. 

But it wasn't all about fiction. Andrew Peterson read a chapter from his forthcoming book on trees. Trees? I went in skeptical, but it made me cry. I enjoyed seeing artists and musicians peel back the curtain and show their crafting, reflecting, and revising process. I was moved by Andy Gullahorn's song "I Will," stirred by Ruth Naomi Floyd's commentary (and demonstration) of the blues as modern-day lament, and captivated by a discussion on the Holy Spirit being breath. And what lingered perhaps most of all, what's made my fingers itch and my brain scramble unbidden to untangle melody lines and piece together lyrics, is the Arcadian Wild's 4-song EP. Please go watch their two music videos, tell me what you think, and wait impatiently with me for the next two to be released. 

Truth. Beauty. Light. Darkness. Love. Sorrow. Hope. Hutchmoot was a kaleidescope refracting goodness in ever-shifting shapes and hues. Not every session was my cup of tea, but their cumulative effect on me was significant. Unlike entertainment that numbs and distracts, this seemed to heighten my emotions and plunge me into big questions. 

I'm inspired by A.S. "Pete" Peterson's words on the main page:

I think it’s safe to say that one of the central, yet unspoken, tenets of the Rabbit Room is a belief in the virtue of paying attention.

The world is full of distraction, and each of us are full of the tendency to read lightly, just the headlines, and jump to conclusions, to look quickly and come to quick judgements, to listen to samples and claim we understand the whole, to see a social media update and assign a neighbor to a stereotype. We do it all the time.

One of the things I’ve most appreciated about Hutchmoot over the years is that for one weekend a year, we get to overturn those habits and tendencies. We pay our attention to good things, and in return our attention rewards us with deeper empathy for those around us, and a deeper understanding of art, music, story, and ultimately of our God and the inevitable coming of his Kingdom on earth. (emphasis added)

Touchée, Pete. You exposed my chronic distraction. For a few talks when I wasn't sitting still, I needed several listens before I could recall even the gist. I still fall for the lies that I can multi-task well, that slowing down to focus isn't realistic, that peace of mind beckons like a pot of leprechaun gold at the end of my to-do list rainbow. My addiction to busyness and efficiency threaten my ability to be fully present to unexpected joys, to think deeply, to connect. No wonder I'm left brittle and ill-equipped for life's challenges.

Hutchmoot and its many gifted contributors have renewed my reflections on how I spend my time (and why), and my desire to choose more intentionally what gets my attention. Creativity and community are inextricably intertwined, and I want to cultivate both in my life - not just in October, but all year long.