Unknowing in Art and Faith

Creative breakthroughs often happen when you relinquish control. This is a maxim most artists understand. Still, it can be a challenge to muster enough courage to trust the process, get out of the way, and let creative work unfold on its own. I grew better at it over the long hours spent toiling in the studio during my art school years. At times, spent from trying to force something into being, my self-consciousness would fall away and my hand would be mysteriously guided by a new set of decisions that would give rise to something enigmatic on the surface before me. It happened often enough that I began to cultivate a habit of surrender. I was learning that once an idea took form, the challenge was in discerning where spontaneity should be allowed to come into play, and then how to respond to what was produced. I had to learn how to be receptive to what emerged in the moment. Sure enough, I’d find that time and again suspending conscious intention—my control—was essential to creative growth and, inevitably, better art.

After obtaining my degree and exhibiting my work for several years, I quit the artist’s life to pursue other interests. The lessons of the studio, no longer applicable, drifted away to settle like dust in the crevices of my mind. It would be decades later, however, before I rediscovered that the mental posture I had cultivated in artmaking was necessary for certain forms of spiritual discipline. Following graduate school, as I exhibited my work and navigated the art world, my spirituality was concurrently evolving under the influence of Eastern religion. Then I discovered the mystical tradition and returned to Christianity over the bridge of meditation to journey on the contemplative path. As I absorbed the mystics’ teachings on divine awareness, I was reminded of the studio.

This essay was published in the Fall 2026 Issue of Comment, which explored themes inspired by Hartmut Rosa's The Uncontrollability of the World.

Marcel Duchamp

Poster for the exhibition "Dada: 1916-1923"

1953