“Now I stand on the knoll before the grave of Jacob Kahn, the cypress tall against the blue morning sky and the wind warm on my face. It is the only sense left me, I hear him say. There are colors in the wind, Asher Lev. Find your demons again and return to your work. Colors wait for you in the wind. Things were too comfortable for you. An artist needs a broken world in order to have pieces to shape into art. Isn’t that right, Asher Lev? Comfort is death to art.”

~ The Gift of Asher Lev by Chaim Potok

This passage struck me with an unforgettable and indelible impact the very first time I read it. To appreciate the whole, one must read the book – but only after reading the one that precedes it: My Name is Asher Lev. Asher here is visiting the grave of his teacher/mentor/friend, the artist Jacob Kahn. More poignantly, Asher is visiting with all that Jacob taught him – the messages he planted and nurtured within him through years of painting side by side – listening to Jacob’s voice embedded within his heart.

When I was in elementary school, my classmates and I were one day given the assignment of writing about and illustrating what we wanted to be – what job we wanted to have – when we grew up. My picture is still vividly clear in my mind’s photo stream. I drew myself at an easel, paintbrush in hand, beret on my head, being an Artist. When I went to college the first time, after some deep breakage in my world, I was an art major for two semesters. Only now do I look back at the works I created and see and feel that I was shaping some of the broken pieces into art – trying to express thoughts I had no words for.

For many years, I covered up what was most broken in my world. I my mind, I would often create pictures of how I felt. So many of us have been conditioned to hide the truth of brokenness even from ourselves. We live in a comparative world where we either want others to think our broken pieces are more jagged than theirs – or inversely, we do not want others to think we see our broken pieces as being nearly as numerous or sharp as theirs. I remember the first time a friend said to me, “We all have shit. We don’t have to compare it.” When we live “safe”, how much creativity do we miss out on? In the passage above, Asher had been living safe – closing the doors on the reality of his heritage and of his own past.

All of that said, I have long believed that there is more of Beauty in each day than Ugly – more good than not good – more to smile at than not smile at. I do not want to ignore either.

I am not now what most people would label an Artist. The only other thing I ever wanted to be was a Musician, as in playing music for a living. I never wanted to be a Teacher of any sort. Today, I believe the label is not the deal. I am a person first – I am also a Teacher, a Musician, and an Artist – along with many other roles. Much of my artwork right now takes place in band rooms (or random classrooms or cafeterias), a setting I never drew a picture (either on paper or in my mind) of myself working in. I have been given the privilege of teaching some students whose lives are far more broken than any child’s life should be – and I get to make music with them. I have seen children come in angry or sad and leave class with a smile.

Before class: “Do I have to come to band today?”

Me: “Yes, you get to come to band today! Let’s play – just trust me, you’ll feel better after we play for a while.”

After class: “You’re right, I do feel better. Why is that?”

Me: “Because making music together is magic.”

I believe that for now, this is one way I shape the pieces of my broken world into works of art. I have been given a gift in how I connect with children who seem different in every way from me, whose childhoods could not be more different from my own. The smiles on my students’ faces and the joyful feelings in their hearts will never hang in a gallery. This does not make them any less real or any less beautiful.