Pivotal People
Join us in conversations with inspiring people doing amazing things. Their insights and experiences help motivate all of us to find our purpose that fits with our abilities, gifts and life situation. Get a "behind the scenes" look at successful people making a difference in the world and benefit from their advice for the rest of us. Our guests include authors, artists, leaders, coaches, pastors, business people and speakers.
Pivotal People
Courage to Create with artist and author Clare McCallan
Author Clare McCallan shares her vision of nurturing the creative side of any reader with her latest book, "Courage to Create: Unleashing Your Artistic Gifts for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness." She believes we all hold the potential to craft masterpieces that celebrate the divine. She started an artists' community in Boston called The St. Joseph's Home for Artisans, which has become a sanctuary for faith-driven creators in the city of Boston.
Art has the profound power to connect us to the core of our humanity, a theme we explore in this conversation with Clare. We discuss the beauty of adding depth to everyday life through art--in whatever form fits with each of our individual personalities. Be inspired to explore your creative side after hearing from Clare.
Connect with Clare:
https://www.instagram.com/clare_mccallan/
🖊: @avemariapress
🎥: @catholictv @christianchanneltv
🏡: @stjosephsartisans
www.avemariapress.com/products/courage-to-create
Order Stephanie's new book Imagine More: Do What You Love, Discover Your Potential
Learn more at StephanieNelson.com
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Well, I would like to welcome Claire McCallan to the Pivotal People podcast. I'm really excited about this. She has a book that just came out and I read it and I honestly thought, well, this looks like a good book. It doesn't apply to me, but I'm going to learn something new. And then I read it and I'm like, oh my gosh, this applies to all of us. So let me tell you a little bit about Claire.
Speaker 1:This is what the back of her book says, and the book is called Courage to Create Unleashing your Artistic Gifts for Truth, beauty and Goodness. So I'm like, okay, that's a good book for artists. But here's what the book says you know God is urging you to use your creative gifts for his kingdom. But in a world that quantifies success by the fame and fortune that few artists achieve, how do you own your identity as an artist for Christ? Encouraged to create, host of Catholic TV's, the Renaissance Room, claire McCallan and her artist friends share their wisdom for overcoming common obstacles in the creative life to help you fulfill your artistic calling and truly serve the Lord and what I like.
Speaker 1:I'm not an artist, I thought, but Claire doesn't define an artist in a narrow sense. Claire defines an artist, as our lives could potentially be masterpieces to glorify God, and when we look at it in that context, then every single one of us is an artist, if we want to be. So welcome, claire, I'm excited to talk about this book and to talk about what's going on with you, and she's the creative director of St Joseph's Home for Artisans. Now, this is a big part of the story in the book. It is fascinating. So, claire, I would so love to open up with you, sharing your story and what the home for artisans actually is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. So I got my start as an artist, actually as a spoken word poet, before I ever got into writing books or a lot of what I do now. I started as spoken word, which is a pretty intense way to start, pretty funny medium to choose. But I'd been in Calcutta. I had gotten super sick while I was in Calcutta and was bedridden for a little while and all I could do was watch YouTube videos all day and I stumbled across this thing called spoken word poetry and while I was watching these videos I just had that kind of Holy spirit feeling of like I don't know why, I don't have any reason to believe this, but I kind of think I could do this. And so I made a promise with God. I said God, if I make it out of here, which, like, I was never going to die, I was being such a drama queen, which is another hint that I maybe had a future as an artist. I was like I'm going to move to New York city, and so I did.
Speaker 2:When we finished up our time with the missionaries of charity, I moved to New York. I was, I think I was 23. And I spent a couple of years getting involved in the spoken word scene there, learning so much from the communities in New York performing, I started touring at universities and churches. It was going really well. I quit my job. I was ready to start touring full time and then there was this. There were whispers about this, some sort of cold, some sort of big cold that had landed in Seattle and was maybe coming to other cities. And COVID was a pretty bad time to for everyone. But to be a traveling performing artist, it's not a great time to try to be touring and getting groups of people to congregate for your shows. So I mean, there it was everything I'd worked for kind of gone and I moved back to Boston, which is where I'm from, to settle and I had to pivot because I couldn't perform anymore and so I started self-publishing poetry. Collections Stations was my first one and then, once restrictions lifted, I was invited to have my first performance back at a church I'd never been to before called St Leonard's, in the North end of Boston. I did a couple pieces and it was pretty rusty because I hadn't done it in a while at that point. But afterwards the parish priest, father Michael, came over to me and he said I loved it and I want to invest in young Catholic artists. How can I do that? What do you need? And I said we need a house Because I was acutely aware at that point that housing was the greatest obstacle housing and community for young artists of faith.
Speaker 2:I think it's very important for artists to be present to communities, especially the city communities, where there's so much rampant, inspiration and opportunity for artists to act as witnesses to people who are often in a hurry or in a lot of pain. We know this about cities they can be a really emotionally, spiritually, tough place, and having artists there, whether you're in the secular world or the spiritual world, I think it's something we all agree on. And we needed a way to put these artists in the city. But in a city like Boston it is so cost prohibitive, and so what we really needed was housing, but none of us could afford to be here and be artists. And he said that's okay, I've got a spot for you. If you can fix it up, you can move on in. And he had an old convent here in the North end, and so we spent maybe three months stripping this place down.
Speaker 2:My friends and I, anna and Fernando we started in March, march 19th and we moved our first person in June 1st, our first cohort of very brave young Catholic artists who we were no one. We had nothing. The place was in really scary shape. We describe it as perpetually dirty. It was the type of thing, no matter how many times you scrubbed the floor, your feet still kind of stuck to it. It was just decades of grime. We only had one. You know, when you turn on the burner on your stove top, the little click, click, click the knob. We only had one, so we'd have to pull it off and put it on the other one if you wanted to cook with the other one.
Speaker 1:Oh, only one plug. Oh how funny. One knob, oh my gosh For years.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, they were just very brave and generous with their time and youth and artistry and we started so humbly, which is the way you want to start right and sloppily. I made a lot of mistakes as the creative director, but somehow God was still good and in his grace, he kept sending us photographers, videographers, writers, musicians, dancers, printmakers, designers from all over the country. And now fast forward. It's been over three years. We've housed over 40 people in this building At different times.
Speaker 1:It's a seven bedroom house.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this summer I mean we're really in a season of harvest we're having an entire filmmaker cohort, so I've got these now mid-career artists coming. I have one individual who's directed over 30 Hallmark movies. I've got someone who's in the Sundance Film Festival incubator, another young woman that was chosen by Margot Robbie for her women writing action films initiative. So, and these are all young people of faith. And now this group's really interesting because they're in Hollywood and that can be a pretty isolating experience to be a young person of faith in Hollywood. So to bring them together and give them this collaborative experience.
Speaker 2:And now we're partnering with Catholic TV, where I ended up getting my show, the Renaissance Room, and I've been co-hosting their morning show for a couple of years now. So now I'm able to offer our artists things that we couldn't have dreamed of three years ago. I'm able to offer them studio space and equipment opportunity to put their work on television. One of our artists just won a massive award for an original design she made at the Eucharistic Congress. It's just a really exciting time and it's nice. On the I don't know, we didn't know what would become of it, if anything would become of it, but it's nice to see it actually working a little bit after all this time.
Speaker 1:What a great example of someone who said you know, like Bob Goff says this, he's like just bring what you got. You didn't have a whole bunch of money, you didn't have a whole bunch of resources, you had put some time into your own art, you had put some time into your own art and someone else witnessed that. I think of the priest who you talked about, how he said okay, here's an opportunity for me to lift someone up. He gave what he had. Bob Goff always says just bring what you got. So you brought what you had. The priest gave you what he had. Everyone put in all that elbow grease to make it a livable place and 40 people have benefited. And, as you said, you now are able to offer more in terms of exposure on the Catholic TV network and in terms of studio space and resources in a very expensive city. I mean in your offering. So I listened to this and I'm going to tell everyone. Claire is 29 years old. This is what she has accomplished by the age of 29. And she's extremely humble about it. And what I loved about your book.
Speaker 1:I had three key takeaways from your book that I think impact everyone. One is what I've already mentioned is that we all have the opportunity to be artists in a way. So it's being an artist is creating, and you could be creating. If you're raising kids, you could be creating. If you're working in the business world, you can be creating if you're making chicken salad. I always talk about that. That's one of my favorite things to do.
Speaker 1:If you are creating, then the next question is who are we creating for? And when we create for the affirmation of people, which is just natural and human we all fall to this then naturally we become insecure and then we question the value of our art, whatever it is. But when we are creating to glorify God, when he is our audience you heard Him speak to you in Calcutta then all of that other stuff doesn't matter. You know, it's Colossians 3, 23 to 24, right. When we work as if working for God, not for men, now that is when the beauty of art can really be free. And so the first piece is we're all artists. The second piece is who are we creating for? I am six years old, so I've actually forgotten the third piece, but we're going to come back to that.
Speaker 2:I love it. That's okay when I hear it from you, because these concepts are so much larger than I am. There's nothing new that I made up in this book, right? I'm just communicating universal eternal truths. So when you phrase them your own way, I'm like that's so good, I should write that down. That's a really good idea.
Speaker 1:I got it from you, Claire.
Speaker 2:Every time I hear it. That's okay, I got it from John Paul II.
Speaker 1:Oh, your third piece. Now, this is not your only piece, but the whole idea of encouraging other people. So, even if you don't feel like you are, you know. Oh, and also okay, third piece we do not measure. We should not measure. Let's stop measuring the value of what we do based on the amount of money it earns, because when we do that, we're looking at God and we're saying it's not enough, you're not enough.
Speaker 1:I mean your quote I want to do great, small things with great love. I want to do small things with great love, and anything can be a masterpiece if we do it with love, right? So when you look at artists who are saying I loved your story, of saying, well, I'm not a writer. You know, I'm a writer, but I don't get paid, so I'm not a writer. Well, yes, you are a writer. I mean, can we take that away?
Speaker 1:I was on a walk today thinking about this and I thought, wait a minute. There are plenty of people who do things that get paid a lot of money and if we look at what they're actually doing, I think we might say in some cases oh, that's no big deal. How does that add value to the world? How does that add beauty. You can't see it if you're listening to this podcast, but, claire, the painting behind me is painted by one of my best friends in the world.
Speaker 1:She is a beautiful artist. She wouldn't tell you that because she is so humble, but my home has her beautiful paintings all over and it serves two purposes for me. One is they're beautiful. The other is I think of her when I see them. So when my husband and I pick up a piece of art, we'd like to do it at small places like small art festivals, where we get a chance to talk to the artists and we understand, and then that piece of art has meaning, because it's not what I paid for the piece of art, it's the person who created it and it's an ongoing message forever that whenever we look at it, so you're adding beauty to the world.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and my metric for art, and whether something is art is it true, beautiful or good? And the one that gets really overlooked, I think, is goodness, because it's such a general sounding word, or at least we've reduced it to in our daily language Like good is, what is the difference between good and nice? Right, we use them interchangeably, but goodness actually does have a definition, and it means whether or not something accomplishes its purpose, and so, therefore, inherently, art has to have a purpose. A lot of what is being created out in the world right now is simple self-expression, which can be very self-indulgent, and I would say who we're creating for and why we're creating for larger story and a larger beauty through her work, and I think goodness is really something that struck me while you were speaking. It's something a lot of us forget, and if you're looking at your work and you're saying, oh, what is this? This isn't even good. What do you mean by good? Is it technically advanced? Are you a master artist? Spoiler alert, you don't need to be. Did it accomplish its purpose?
Speaker 2:I'm looking our poor listeners don't have the advantage of being able to see us right now but I'm looking at something that was given to me during my book launch party last week, and it is a colored pencil drawing that a friend made, and it's. She drew a picture of all of us artists the day we got rid of our old scary couches and we put them all out on the sidewalk and we all sat on them. We look like the cast of Friends. She is very simple drawing. She's an accountant by profession. It's beautiful, it's true. It speaks to a real thing that happened and even larger than that, like the reality of community.
Speaker 2:For something to be true, it doesn't need to be a historical event, right, but it speaks to the truth of our community and it is so good. It's not gonna get hung in the mfa, right, but it is so good because this accomplishes its purpose so well. Every time I look, look at it, I'm reminded of how much I love these people and this place and how much I'm loved and how much it meant to me. And someone took the time to immortalize that moment for us and I have. It's the only thing on our refrigerator right now. I took everything off because I wanted it to be spotlit, and to me, that's the example, because a lot of people have been talking to me about this, about the book and I just keep pointing to that picture, that colored pencil drawing.
Speaker 1:I love that and you know what it makes me think of, Claire. It makes me think of people listening, thinking okay, so how? I don't know, I can't draw, I can't paint, how do I create in a way that would be good, accomplish a purpose and show love? And I'm going to say, one of the things that has impacted me most in the past few months are personal notes that people have written to me. Mm-hmm, there are three handwritten notes that people have written to me that I saved.
Speaker 1:Of course, that meant so much to me and it made me think oh my gosh, I have to write more handwritten notes to people, especially in this day where we rely on emails and even worse, text, I mean in terms of preservation. You know you might be able to search old emails and find something, but you're rarely going to find an old text. And the other gift is going out on the limb a little bit when you write someone a note who you don't even know that well, a woman in my neighborhood read my book. I had a book that came out last year and she wrote me a note about it and it made me cry and as a result, I mean she had to go out on the limb a little bit to write that note, and now I feel like we're getting to be friends because she did that, and so then I go visit her and then we had a better quality instead of just neighborhood small talk, and there is a connection.
Speaker 1:And shouldn't it be our goal overall just to do more to connect with people, especially people who you might not ordinarily connect with, but you have something in common? When she wrote me the note, she ended it by saying I was pleased to learn that we share the same faith. I've seen her at neighborhood events for 12 years. We've chit-chatted very briefly, we never got to that level, so anyway. So my thing is, even if you don't think you're an artist, you can create with something as simple as writing a note. It doesn't have to be writing a book or writing a poem or writing something that you think is more challenging. It could just be writing words to someone who would really love to read those words.
Speaker 2:Art is an opportunity for connection Exactly, really special One of the chapters I have.
Speaker 2:I basically draw out a metaphor between the conception and pregnancy and labor and delivery process and your creative process, because any of us who have ever tried to especially you know, as an author, the process of writing the book.
Speaker 2:It's like first you need to conceive the idea.
Speaker 2:You need the idea to plant within you, and then it's that full labor feeling and as it grows on and this is always so funny when I talk about this because I've never been pregnant, but I've seen a lot of pregnancies that full feeling of like the growing is exhausting.
Speaker 2:And then as you get closer to the goal, the carrying becomes very heavy and it really does take a toll on you as you sacrifice so much of yourself for this and the process of bringing it into the world can be pretty painful and very vulnerable. And then arguably the most vulnerable part is having your work out in the world and knowing that it's of you but it's not yours per se. It's its own sovereign entity now and it's so wonderful to have your creation out in the world. So I really did want to draw just a very obvious line between maternity and the creative process. But I was just thinking about this when you were talking about the note that was sent and encouraging people to send those little notes. That isn't very much. It's a conception process. Somebody took a risk.
Speaker 1:They planted a seed of friendship, of connection, and you just now mentioned it is that there is a vulnerability to putting any kind of art out there. There's a vulnerability to writing a note. There's a vulnerability to painting a painting and putting it on the wall. The person who gave you the colored pencil drawing they were giving it to someone who is fully immersed in the artistic community and she's an accountant, and it's a colored pencil drawing. So that was vulnerable. But you have a chapter.
Speaker 1:I love the whole idea of dancing Now, the whole idea of dancing, and I've read before. There are only two circumstances under which people can actually dance. Okay, one is if you are with a group of people you feel completely comfortable with. Like I dance at family weddings. None of us are good. I dance with my college girlfriends when we go on a trip. None of us are good. Who cares? We've known each other too long to care.
Speaker 1:The other condition, which is when most people dance, is when they've been drinking or something else, when they can remove whatever self-conscious stuff they have. But to be able to dance with is vulnerable and if we can do that, like just dance, without either of those conditions, there was a neighborhood dance party we had. My husband and I got out there and danced. Were we good? Of course not, we were terrible. But it feels good when you can get over that you know self-conscious thing and say let's just dance because it's happy thing, and say let's just dance because it's happy, let's just create art who cares what people think? Because it makes me feel happy. There is definitely a lot of research that talks about the positive stuff that goes on in our head. You know all those emotional endorphins and stuff like that when we create, even if creating is as simple as cutting up vegetables to make soup.
Speaker 2:Can you talk about that? Yeah, absolutely, I love that. You brought up the dance chapter. I'll be honest, I don't. I'm sure you're the same way. I don't sit around reading my own books. So you said that and thought, oh yeah, I did. Yeah, I, oh gosh, that was a.
Speaker 2:That was a very vulnerable one for me to even write, and I think that for anyone who is a little nervous about the vulnerability of creating something like giving someone a picture you drew or dancing in a crowded room the ultimate freedom giving experience for me as a creative was rejection and being told that I didn't have what it takes and that it wasn't good and I should be embarrassed and I should stop, cause once you endure a couple of those, you realize like, oh, I'm actually, all my parts are still here, I'm okay, I didn't die, and you have no choice but to attach your worth and the work of your creative work to something larger than yourself and your ego. And there's so much freedom in that just biting the bullet, taking the no, taking the rejection, the bunted pitch there's so much freedom in that. So I just encourage people to do the vulnerable thing and maybe make a little bit of a fool of themselves, and I'm here to promise you it's okay when it doesn't go well, when the manuscript is not accepted or nobody comes to your show, because Lord knows, I've had that too. You survive and you're better for it, and it really you'll see with time. It bears no weight on whether or not your work is true, good or beautiful. As for what you also said about the kitchen space, that is such a creative space for so many of us, I just, I was just. I was just cleaning my canvas right before we got on this call, it's those little things.
Speaker 2:What I say in the book and this is borrowed again from St John Paul II we are he uses language that we are craftsmen made in the image of the creator. Creator is a term that we reserve for God, because he's the only one who can make something from nothing. Everything we ever do, no matter how original it feels, is just us working with the materials our dad gave us and us rearranging things to point back to him and to represent something he's already made. And so we are craftsmen with the tools, since he created everything. They're all his. We are craftsmen creating in his made, and so we are craftsmen with the tools, since he created everything. They're all his. We are craftsmen creating in his image and I tell everybody, you look the most like your dad when you act like him. So if he's creative, you're creative.
Speaker 2:You don't need to paint, you don't need to sing. It doesn't need to be these things that we've boxed creativity into, into these obvious arts. It can be. I love to cook, I love to. An example I use for a lot of people is skateboarding. I think it's so creative. They're always doing these combinations and they're really moving with their environment. And I find it to be such a creative thing that people don't think of as creativity how you arrange your space, your home. For so many of us, that's creative. The act of parenting is inherently so creative, not just in the process of giving birth, but actually what you have to do as a parent, if you reframe everything in your life under the auspices of truth, beauty and goodness. There's a lot there and life is really beautiful when you see it as a creative process.
Speaker 1:I love that. Life is really beautiful when you see it as a creative process, when we see our lives as masterpieces we can create for the glory of God. If we see it that way, and you talked about and I think this applies to everyone as well you talked about originally okay, my son would call them the haters, the people who say negative things about what you're doing and kind of like they're saving us from something like oh, I don't want you to waste your time on XYZ project or why are you doing that? That doesn't make any sense. I've heard a lot of that in my life and I loved what you said. Is that okay?
Speaker 1:We just have to understand that people see it differently and maybe they do think they're helping us and maybe they have other motives, but the bottom line is seek out people with similar interests and be supportive of each other, in a way creating a new social circle. I've discovered this wonderful group of people like me who are writing like me, this wonderful group of people who are writing their first book like me. No one knows who we are. We are not famous, we are mostly women around my age and we have this thing in common and it's been such a wonderful support group. In your case, you live with a group of artists, and how did you originally cultivate your new social circle of artists when you first decided to be a spoken word poet and perhaps people who loved you were telling you that wasn't the best use of your career?
Speaker 2:yeah, and the people they really did. It came from the people who loved me. My parents have just kind of come around in the last six months so like, okay, she has a tv show and a book. Maybe it is working, and all they ever wanted to do is protect me, right? All they ever wanted me to get is health insurance. That's great parenting. You can't blame them for that, right.
Speaker 2:Being in New York was helpful in a lot of ways. Spiritually it was very hard. People really live a different lifestyle there and believe a lot of opposing things to what I believe. But being in the artist community was really special because if you're going to be a big, bold risk taker, it really helps to be surrounded by other risk takers, because they're the only ones who get it. And God bless the people who are going to discourage you. They don't really mean it most of the time. A lot of times in my experience, the people who are going to be trying to caution you and save you from your own risks are the ones who maybe wish that they had the opportunity or the courage to do it, and so you just have to love them and have a lot of empathy there. Who wouldn't want to get to create an artist community and write books and make television I am acutely aware of how blessed I am and make television.
Speaker 2:I am acutely aware of how blessed I am. I'm also aware of how hard the process was and how many sacrifices were made. Everyone says everything's about hard work. In my experience, yeah, hard work has something to do with it, but it's really more. It's not really about what you do, it's about what you don't do, it's what I've sacrificed for. This has been the much heavier cross than what I've done for this, and my goal with creating the artist house was to create an infrastructure that would make it possible for more young people of faith to take these risks and hopefully they won't have to make some of the sacrifices I did because of this. They don't worry about rent the way that I did in my early twenties, and they're not babysitting and dog walking and scraping quarters off of the floor of the retail place they work at so they can buy a dollar slice of pizza. They have faith-based communities, so they're not isolated spiritually or socially. They've got a nice, clean, warm place. They have a place to create, a place that encourages them not just to create but to create work for God.
Speaker 2:I think, like many people, I started my ministry because, in an effort, subconsciously, for healing, I wanted to provide what wasn't provided for me, and it's really definitely a gift to be in that season of harvest, as I mentioned, and the best thing you can do for the haters is give them the opportunity to do the courageous thing and to step forward, because truly, most of those people are just the people who feel that it didn't work out for them and they're trying to protect you from what happened to them.
Speaker 2:But the better thing we can do, instead of trying to overly protect the next generation, is to empower the next generation and create the infrastructure they need so they can take the risks and do what we couldn't. I mean my artists that are getting a headstart on me, who have this space and are able to create full-time from a much younger age because they're not babysitting and dog walking. They're going to be able to do a lot more than I did. They get a headstart. There are wounds that I have that they're not going to have and it's a really good thing. So the best thing we can do is kind of empower others and give them that infrastructure.
Speaker 1:Claire, you are amazing. You are really amazing. That's an overused word, but I could sit and listen to your lessons all day long. And she's only 29 years old, she's almost 30, but I have no doubt you are going to launch and help so many people over your career in ways that on this side of heaven, you're not even going to know how you impacted the world. But you are, and it is so beautiful and so wonderful, and I'm so happy that I had the opportunity to get to know you a little bit and to read your book, and I would encourage other people to read Claire's book. The world would be a more beautiful place, no doubt about it. It's called Courage to Create. It's on Amazon, her name is Claire McCallan and we can also find you on Catholic TV. And what's the best way for people to get in touch with you? Because I have a feeling people are going to want to have you on their podcast and see how they can see you when you perform in Boston.
Speaker 2:I really appreciate that I have claremcallencom, which forgive me ahead of time. I'm the one who designed it and I'm a writer, not a visual artist. I'm also easy to connect with on Instagram at Claire underscore McAllen and it's Claire with no I.
Speaker 1:Okay, and I will put that on the show notes too, but it's going to be fun to watch you and I just thank you so much for your time and I wish you the best of luck with your book launch.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. This was a joy.
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