Amen! I think drawing puts me in touch with myself. It becomes a form of meditation, awakening my powers of observation and appreciation for the natural world while allowing me to express my unique view.

Danny I love that line near the end..."to see beauty in people and things, to cherish what I have.......to find peace and feel more alive." I have read it over and over...what else is there? That's what we all should want (and have)...I still don't keep my sketchbook going though...It get's too heavy...a "got to" not a "get to" I've got alot of Artist with a capital A baggage, but I feel really free with my rug-making, and I sorta want everyone to hook rugs.

Thank you for this letter, Danny. I feel like I am beginning to really understand that same connection to drawing you must be feeling. I sort of look at drawing as meditation, a way to focus the mind on one thing and feel a connection with what is around us. I guess it's just nice to hear your own thoughts on this side of drawing. Keep drawing and writing,
Mac

You've found the great Creator, and your own creativity.

Namaste....

Danny -- this is beautifully said ... just beautiful. Touching, moving, evocative.

Though it wasn't drawing for me at my worst of times. When I was going through a horrid divorce (involved three wee children), it was the woodlands that 'rescued' me ... those long, slow, quiet, solitary walks in the woods that restored my soul, my spirit, my HOPE, and made me feel connected to something larger, something healing, something worth living for. And for years afterward (and yes, even now) I feel a special affinity with trees, nature, gardens, and the restorative power of those places. I've even made a career out of teaching others about gardening and nature not for anything more than to return my gratitude for the grace that saved me.

I think folks going through horrible times, if fortunate, tend to find the things that 'work' for them. For some it's church (it wasn't for me, sadly), for some it's people, for some it's writing (yes, did that a LOT), or for others, drawing.

I think what matters most is that SOMETHING, some form of GRACE is found, and we who find that particular form of grace return to it's fathomless depths to keep ourselves and our hopes alive.

Your words and thoughtful reflections never fail to stir me Danny ... many blessings to you and yours for sharing such a gift with all of us.

"Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground." - Rumi

Danny said: "What with my website and my books, I have found myself in this weird position of being an evangelizer for drawing. I'm not sure how it happened and I sometimes wonder if I am spending more time on the prosthelytizing than on the drawing and whether that's a particularly good thing."

Where would any of us be if you weren't here to inspire us, give up hope, teach us, and show us the way. You keep prosthelytizing and I will keep following your lead and your teaching and thank My God for you EVERYDAY, 'cause it MATTERS. Please continue to let your light shine on all of us and Blessing to you and yours for the time you give to us.

Danny, the most spiritual thing we can do or experience is that deep connection within us and within the world. People from all kinds of spiritual backgrounds have named this connection all kinds of names. The beautiful thing about your "prosthelytizing", it is helping hundreds and thousands of others make that same connection. What could possibly be more beautiful or needed in times like these. I am so very grateful for the work you do, for I am one who's life it has changed.

Hi Danny. I love your blog so much that yesterday I went out and bought your new book and so far I'm just loving it. Thanks for everything!

Thank you for the reminder that connection and community can be found just about anywhere, not just in the officially sanctioned places (where it feels so forced and false to many of us). And that it is a beautiful thing when it happens in the unexpected places, nurtured by people like you.

You've written before of the drawing of Patti that began everything for you and I've always wondered about it ... thank you for sharing it!

Oh, Danny, you are such a lovely gift!

Dear Sharon:

Thanks very much for your note and your prayers.

As you gathered from my post, I have never had the sort of sense of connectedness or personal experience of God that you seem to have but I share your belief that art probably has a spiritual function and helps to draw one closer to the other creatures and objects that share our universe. Sadly, so many religious institutions and the men that run them have lost contact with the purest form of that power and connection and have turned their institutions in to instruments of power and oppression. Sadder even, too many people have felt so oppressed or confined or just plain bored by these institutions that they have given up on spirituality all together. Occasionally, the more benign and benevolent spirituality of art will reach those people and bring them back into spiritual practices like contemplation and meditation and appreciation and self esteem and community and so on. These days I am trying to get people who have taken that first step of opening their eyes and letting themselves draw to move on to opening their hearts and feeling the power of connection.

Your thoughts on icons make me wonder whether this spiritual connection comes when observing others' art as much as it does in making art. I think it is a similar impulse but it seems less powerful and all encompassing when one is simply an observer, akin perhaps to being a passive congregant rather than a preacher or at least a member of the choir. Churches at their best are certainly places of art. They often have beautiful architecture, are decorated with lovely sculptures and stained glass and decoration. They are filled with beautiful music and poetry and costumes. As a virulent anti-authoritarian, I just bristle and balk at the tendency of those churches to control and judge and condemn their visitors.

I appreciate, though am not convinced by, your calculus that a love of art = a yearning for God. As I explained in my essay, in my case the exact opposite was true. I searched for God and found Art instead. My case may well be exceptional and particular to me. (The off-putting thing I often found in people of faith is their tendency to be absolutist, to say that the truth is such and such, and I prefer to assume the subjectivity of all human experience.)

Sharon, I am overstepping my bounds and saying a lot about things I don't know that much about. I haven't devoted much time or thought to the things we are discussing here, i have simply experienced them and am only now trying to analyze and organize my thoughts. Thanks for pushing my thoughts further.

Your pal,
Danny

For me, the Creative Spirit does and is all that you express in your description of drawing. Any word like God or religion or evangelizing only confuses the Oneness feeling with human power needs. Let's throw out all the words and just create!

Some of us have come to know you quite well from spending time on your website and reading your books. Some of these feelings have seeped through much of your writings over time.

For a person like myself who belongs to an organized religion and consider myself a person of faith I find myself quite alone at times with my creative friends who are don't share my views- I feel quite a minority with these friends who eschew organize religion and God. But with all the doubt I find I share with all of you a sense of spirituality when I create.

Danny!

I picked up your book CREATIVE LICENSE and I truly enjoy it. I have around a dozen other books given as gifts, but somehow I was drawn to read yours first - even bought a small sketch pad and some pens. Who knows?

Last October, I started a blog partly because I wanted to teach myself to be more creative, to write better, and to capture simple everyday things - observations, ideas, stories, reflections, experiences. This is partly because I'm frustrated with my PhD dissertation (I only embarked on it because I love teaching, hence, it is a necessary evil), and my work, because I feel my creativity is stifled. Through my blog, I am able to express myself thru the pictures I take and the paragraph I write to accompany each one. I haven't missed a day, and I've had around 250 entries in three months.

Thank you for voicing out what I - and most folks - feel inside. Your artwork, your words, your stories are truly inspiring. I'll be visiting this site regularly from now on.

Cheers, Joey

Beautifully said. As a fellow believer (and fervent soapbox standing drawing encourager), I think there is great value both in drawing and in encouraging others to do as well. I meet so many people who need to draw but don't think they can, permission granted to others is permission granted to myself. Off to draw ...and thank you!

Hi Danny,
I just found your site. Googlewandering.
I like to sketch and I admire your site and what appears to be a prolific amount of work! I have a hard time imagining myself taking up such a challenge though I've often fantasized about doing so.
Keep it up!

Having read your article, I just wanted to recommend a book which might help you in understanding our place in this world. Each person will come to his or her own conclusions to be sure. It's not a book with an answer but a book with a bunch of revealing stories about just how little any of us really know about God or where we came from or where we are going to end up. It's a science book, not a religious book. Oddly, that helped me to understand religion a bit more.

It's called "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson.

I find such books much easier to "read" when I take them in as Audio Books. It's hard for me to find the time or patience to sit and read. But I can listen in the car or on lunch break or while taking a walk etc.
iPods are the trick for Audio Books.

You can get it at Audible.com or Amazon or at the local bookstore of course.

Bryson is an easy read and the Audio is read by a most eloquent sounding english chap. Very easy to listen to.

I am buying your latest book today by the way. I am searching for inspiration :-)

Danny...I'm a little late in reading your comments here, and feel compelled to throw in my two cents on the God topic, being a weak and selfish believer myself. In your search for God, try to keep your focus not on other PEOPLE, but on God. There are no perfect people, and those who profess to be believers are always targets because they are fallible, just as are non-believers.

Art is a vehicle that draws us closer to the wonders of the world and of the "other world". Keep your mind open. God created you/us and loves you/us beyond what we can understand. Seeking to place your trust in him is the purpose of your life. The world keeps us distracted, especially in our younger years...most people feel they will give more in-depth thought to these things "someday". But time is of the essence. No one knows (thankfully) how much time we are allotted in this life. So keep this one on the front burner, mulling it over and over, until you settle it in your mind and heart. You will have peace in the midst of anything, and the courage to face whatever happens because you will not be facing it alone.

Thanks for sharing your art and your thoughts with all of us.

Danny, this is a very late comment too but I just wanted to say this was a great post and I feel exactly the same way (having been brought up as a Catholic). And how relevant are your thoughts today to what is happening in my part of the world. If only more people could open their eyes and start thinking about humanity as a whole and not just those in their own 'clubs'. It's very interesting getting to know you little by little!

Thank God, whoever She is, for inspiration from Danny Gregory, Danny's friends who share their art and thoughts on his website and for Dan Price sharing his thoughts and drawings with us in his Moonlight Chronicles. Amen.
Doris