Please Hem Me In
Tuesday, January 31, 2012 at 7:17AM 
(This drawing is by Grace Beerhorst 9 years old. It is her attempt at planning her day.)
Think of climbing roses with out a trellis. They would be all a jumble on the ground with half the amount of blossoms they could be making living in the constant threat of the lawn mower. As much a wild man we like to think Picasso was, it is said that he kept to very tight daily routines, even making the same few walking paths through his disheveled mansions from one room to the other. The great Italian painter Morandi painted the same dozen or so bottles and vases over and over in different arrangements for fifty years. His daily adventures were circumscribed by a room ten feet by fourteen feet.
Creatives need structure. We need boundaries to hem us in. As much as we want to ignore them or jump over them, we know that deadlines and limited budgets are there to scrape us together into a more concentrated pile of pigment that has a more potent color. If every tap is running in the house we are left with a very tepid and shallow bath to soak in.
Reader Comments (2)
I don't know if this relates, but this reminds me of Psalm 139: "You hem me in behind and before, and lay your hand upon me." So there is comfort in knowing that God is in my boundaries and plans. Protection in structure? So often being hemmed in is seen as a negative thing. We're hemmed in our homes when the weather is bad, hemmed in our cars on a lengthy road trip. We do need to get and stretch once in a while, but there is something to be said about being safe and warm.
beautifully said Bob, thanks.