December 31, 2024 • 12 mins
Ever found yourself at a crossroads in your creative journey, only to discover that the unexpected detour led to a masterpiece? Join me, Matt Tommey, as I invite you into my studio for a candid glimpse into my latest project—a series of nature-inspired reliquaries. While working on these intricate pieces, designed to inspire serenity and peace, I encountered a creative snag that transformed into a serendipitous opportunity for growth. What began as a botched glaze coat turned into a catalyst for a new color scheme, pushing me to embrace the beauty of the unexpected in my artistic process.
Throughout this episode of the Thriving Christian Artist Podcast, I'll share how this experience became a lesson in patience and trust, not just in art but in life. Whether you’re an artist searching for inspiration or seeking spiritual nourishment, this journey illustrates the importance of letting go and allowing creativity to guide us. So, grab your favorite drink, relax, and join me as we explore the twists and turns that make the creative process a true reflection of life's unpredictability.
Pre-register for the Foundations Course now at http://www.matttommeymentoring.com/foundations
Fuel Your Creative Calling with Weekly Encouragement
Join thousands of Christian artists who are growing in faith, creativity, and purpose.
Subscribe to The Thriving Christian Artist Weekly and receive powerful, faith-filled content every week—designed to encourage your heart, spark your creativity, and equip you to walk boldly in your God-given calling as an artist.
👉 Click here. It’s free. It’s faith-filled. And it’s just for you.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the Thriving Christian Artist, the
podcast, where we hope youconnect with God to bust through
the roadblocks that have heldyou back for years, create the
work you love and really livethe life you know.
God created you to live as anartist in His kingdom.
I'm Matt Tama, your host.
Let's get started.
Well, hey, my friend, it's Matt.
(00:23):
Welcome to another edition ofthe Thriving Christian Artist
Podcast.
Super glad that you are here.
Hey, it's after Christmas.
I'm in the studio all this weekand I'm getting ready for a
great 2025.
And I was just working,actually, on a pretty big
painting.
I'm doing these if you've seenmy latest work.
I'm doing these if you've seenmy latest work.
I'm calling themnature-inspired reliquaries.
(00:46):
They're big boxes, I guess, orcradle panels with niches.
I'm making everything fromscratch and then I'm doing a
cold wax painting surface andthen filling the niches with all
sort of nature-inspired wovengoodies that are just special to
me and, I think, evoke serenityand peace and just being with
(01:08):
the Lord.
But anyway, I'm in the middle ofone of these big ones and I
don't know about you, but thereare some times that things in
the creative process go exactlylike you think they're going to
go and you're like, yes, I gotit.
And if you're like me, as soonas things start to go well, I'm
like, great, I can just crankthese things out.
Man, this'll be great, you know.
(01:29):
And so you kind of get apattern in your head of, well,
I'm going to do this and I'mgoing to do that, and we can,
you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And as soon as you do that, howmany of you know that the
bottom falls out and thateverything that you thought you
knew how to do doesn't work theway you thought it was going to
do, and the paint's differentand the wax is different and the
the texture is different, andit just doesn't work the way you
(01:51):
thought it was going to work.
Well, I had one of thoseexperiences.
Uh, this morning I'd beencranking along on this piece and
, um, you know, really feelingvery good about it, and all I
had to do, you know famous.
And all I had to do, you know,famous, last words, all I had to
do was put what I thought wasgoing to be the final glaze coat
on this piece.
(02:12):
And I'm doing it and it's like,oh great, you know, this is
looking really beautiful.
I was going to do this, like,you know, payne's gray, sort of
indigo blue, you know, over thiscream color, really translucent
, beautiful.
And then I thought back, I'llcome back with a gradient of,
you know, some darker brown andmake a beautiful, you know, kind
(02:33):
of drama, but I won't do thattoday, I'll wait till tomorrow
to do that because it needs todry.
Well, of course, me thinkinglet's just get done with this,
let's just get on with it, wrapit up, I started to put the
second glaze coat over the firstglaze coat, and the first glaze
coat wasn't dry.
And so what did it do?
Made a big old mess.
And what did I start to do?
(02:55):
I started to push and I startedto try to fix it and I started
making a bigger mess and finallyI was just like I'm like why
did I do this?
Why did I do this?
I do this so many times, Idon't.
I mean, you probably do as well.
We, we all, you know kind of gofor things that we, we know
need to rest, uh, in the studio.
And so I was just like, well,doggone it, what am I going to
(03:17):
do?
And I had to try to fix it, youknow to, to do something.
And I ended up doing this wholedifferent color scheme of you
know, with this blue.
I started going with this cream, sort of an opaque titanium
white, with some caramel sort ofpigment over that to really
hide all this other layer that Ijust did and blotting it and
(03:40):
solventing it, doing all thiskind of stuff, and all of a
sudden I was like, oh, likesomething totally different than
what I thought was going to be.
This piece started to emerge Nowfor me in my journey.
I wish I could just say youknow, I do everything perfectly
all the time, but there are manytimes in my journey where
(04:02):
things happen like that, wheresomething happens that I didn't
expect and it turns in acompletely different direction.
Listen, I don't know about you,but for many years in my life
when that sort of thing happened, that would set me off on
depression, anxiety, it wouldmake me want to give up, it
(04:24):
would make me stop the piece andjust not go in the studio for a
few days.
I would start having theserecurring thoughts like why are
you even doing this?
Nobody wants to buy your work.
Like what makes you think youcan even sell this?
You can't even mix color, likeyou know.
Just all these, theseoverwhelming thoughts of you're
no good, you're stupid, why areyou doing this?
(04:45):
You messed it up again, allthis sort of thing, and it just
debilitated me for years.
I don't know if that's yourstory as well, but I find that
for many, many, many artists,the very natural thing of things
taking a turn in the studio andnot going the way that we
thought, unless it just turnsout to be this wonderful, happy
(05:05):
accident that we all want tohappen immediately.
If it goes the way you don'twant it to go, all of a sudden
it can really turn into adirection that is pretty
devastating emotionally for youand can even paralyze you
creatively for a few hours a daya month.
Whatever it is for you.
Thankfully, I've learned in mylife some strategies to be able
(05:30):
to take situations like that andhear them and process them
through the voice of the Lord,not through the voice of the
enemy.
I've learned that being able totake my art as it comes and my
life as it comes is does notmean that I'm a failure, that
you know I didn't plan well,that things didn't go right
(05:52):
because I'm not a good person orI'm not a good artist.
Things just go, don't go wellsometimes because they don't go
well.
Sometimes your art process takesa turn because sometimes things
just you know, you, you put astroke there that you didn't
mean to.
You use a piece of materialthat was rotten, you, you do a
color that you thought was goingto work, you were convinced,
and then it just doesn't.
(06:14):
But those things don't have todestroy you, and yet for many
artists they do.
And so I'm thankful in my ownlife and you know, thankfully
that as I've mentored othersover the years, I've been able
to teach artists strategies tobe able to take situations in
their life that typically woulddestroy them, paralyze them, set
(06:37):
them back, set them off intodepression, anxiety, fear,
whatever it is, and processthose through a different lens,
to see that situationdifferently, to be able to
welcome those things as asurprise, as an adventure,
rather than some sort ofaccusation against you that
(07:01):
you're not a good person or nota good artist.
Listen, there are so many thingslike that, not just our art
process, but the way we dealwith others, the way we see
ourselves, the way we see God,the way we deal with issues in
our life and situations thatjust don't go the way they.
You know we thought they wouldgo, and I want to invite you
(07:22):
just for a second.
Can you think of situations inyour life like that, where
somebody said an offhand commentor something didn't go the way
you thought it was going to go,or you didn't get in the show,
or you've not sold a piece for awhile, and those things have
become a place of torture and aplace of just frustration in
(07:46):
your life, to the point where itmakes you just want to give up.
Listen, if that's you.
That's exactly why I createdour foundations course.
Our foundations course that'scoming out in January is
actually designed to help youuncover these sort of roadblocks
(08:06):
internally that cause you and Ito process life in a way that's
unhealthy, to disconnect fromthose things and to learn to
connect our heart and our mindto the Lord so that when it
rains on the just and the unjust, as Jesus said, when we have
trouble in this world just likeJesus said, when art projects
(08:28):
don't go the way we thought,when we don't get in shows, when
we don't get the affirmationthat we thought we were going to
get, when our friend doesn'tcall, when our spouse doesn't
recognize and celebrate our gift, whatever it may be, those
things don't destroy you.
Listen, jesus came that youmight have life and have it to
the full.
(08:48):
But that doesn't just happen onautopilot.
It happens when you and I learnto cooperate with God's
strategies for transformation.
Not just hoping that it willget better and not just trying
to pray it away, but actuallylearning strategies to cooperate
with the Lord to see actualtransformation happen in your
(09:09):
life.
So, my friend, I want toencourage you.
There's a link in the podcastepisode today all about the
foundations course.
Um registration opens for thaton January 2nd.
Uh, for all those who arepre-registered.
You can pre-register right now.
Uh, just to let us know that.
Hey, I want to be on that list.
I want to make sure I get um.
(09:30):
You know the firstnotifications for that and the
course actually starts onJanuary the 14th.
It's a nine week experience.
Uh, there are going to bemultiple opportunities for live
Q and a with me.
You're going to be a Facebookgroup with the ability to open
posts and connect with withother artists from all over the
world that are on this journey.
There are art projects everyweek, not only to to get your
(09:54):
creative juices going, but alsoto help you process the
information that I'm teaching somuch valuable content in this
course that is going to help youto ditch some of those old
strategies and old ways ofthinking and actually step into
a new way to see your life, anew way to process difficulty
(10:15):
and good things that are goingon, so that you're seeing and
hearing life through the lensthat God intended, which is his
best for your life and his wordand all the other things that we
teach you inside of thefoundations course.
Listen, I want to encourage youto click that link join us for
the foundations course.
For those of you that have beenor maybe you've heard of the
(10:39):
experience course that we'vedone for years, this is sort of
our version 2.0.
Actually, this last fall I'vetaken the time to completely
redo the course brand new artprojects, brand new teaching
videos, brand new art promptsand journaling prompts, all the
stuff in order to give you thelatest, best teaching on all of
(11:02):
these subjects.
And listen, we've had hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of
artists go through theexperience course over the years
and say it was the mosttransformational thing that
they've ever done as an artist,and I'm believing that this
foundations course, this 2.0version, is going to be the same
and even better.
So, my friend, I can't think ofa better way for you to start
(11:26):
off 2025 than to lay a solidfoundation for all that God's
got for you in your life throughthe Foundations course.
Click the link.
I hope we'll see you inside andI hope we'll see you here every
week on the podcast as Icontinue to try to encourage you
and point you in the way thatthe Lord has for you as an
artist in his kingdom.
I love you, my friend.
Happy, happy, happy new yearand I hope we see you inside the
(11:47):
foundations course.
Bye, hey.
Thanks so much for spending afew minutes with me today on the
podcast.
Listen, I hope it's been a hugeencouragement to you on your
journey as an artist.
Hey, also, before you leave,make sure to hit the subscribe
button so you don't miss any ofthe other episodes of the
Thriving Christian Artistpodcast, and also be sure to
(12:08):
connect with me on Facebook,instagram or at my website,
which is matttommymentoringcom.
Until next time, remember, youwere created to thrive.
Bye-bye, thank you.
Welcome to the Thriving Christian Artist, the
podcast, where we hope youconnect with God to bust through
the roadblocks that have heldyou back for years, create the
work you love and really livethe life you know.
God created you to live as anartist in His kingdom.
I'm Matt Tama, your host.
Let's get started.
Well, hey, my friend, it's Matt.
(00:23):
Welcome to another edition ofthe Thriving Christian Artist
Podcast.
Super glad that you are here.
Hey, it's after Christmas.
I'm in the studio all this weekand I'm getting ready for a
great 2025.
And I was just working,actually, on a pretty big
painting.
I'm doing these if you've seenmy latest work.
I'm doing these if you've seenmy latest work.
I'm calling themnature-inspired reliquaries.
(00:46):
They're big boxes, I guess, orcradle panels with niches.
I'm making everything fromscratch and then I'm doing a
cold wax painting surface andthen filling the niches with all
sort of nature-inspired wovengoodies that are just special to
me and, I think, evoke serenityand peace and just being with
(01:08):
the Lord.
But anyway, I'm in the middle ofone of these big ones and I
don't know about you, but thereare some times that things in
the creative process go exactlylike you think they're going to
go and you're like, yes, I gotit.
And if you're like me, as soonas things start to go well, I'm
like, great, I can just crankthese things out.
Man, this'll be great, you know.
(01:29):
And so you kind of get apattern in your head of, well,
I'm going to do this and I'mgoing to do that, and we can,
you know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
And as soon as you do that, howmany of you know that the
bottom falls out and thateverything that you thought you
knew how to do doesn't work theway you thought it was going to
do, and the paint's differentand the wax is different and the
the texture is different, andit just doesn't work the way you
(01:51):
thought it was going to work.
Well, I had one of thoseexperiences.
Uh, this morning I'd beencranking along on this piece and
, um, you know, really feelingvery good about it, and all I
had to do, you know famous.
And all I had to do, you know,famous, last words, all I had to
do was put what I thought wasgoing to be the final glaze coat
on this piece.
(02:12):
And I'm doing it and it's like,oh great, you know, this is
looking really beautiful.
I was going to do this, like,you know, payne's gray, sort of
indigo blue, you know, over thiscream color, really translucent
, beautiful.
And then I thought back, I'llcome back with a gradient of,
you know, some darker brown andmake a beautiful, you know, kind
(02:33):
of drama, but I won't do thattoday, I'll wait till tomorrow
to do that because it needs todry.
Well, of course, me thinkinglet's just get done with this,
let's just get on with it, wrapit up, I started to put the
second glaze coat over the firstglaze coat, and the first glaze
coat wasn't dry.
And so what did it do?
Made a big old mess.
And what did I start to do?
(02:55):
I started to push and I startedto try to fix it and I started
making a bigger mess and finallyI was just like I'm like why
did I do this?
Why did I do this?
I do this so many times, Idon't.
I mean, you probably do as well.
We, we all, you know kind of gofor things that we, we know
need to rest, uh, in the studio.
And so I was just like, well,doggone it, what am I going to
(03:17):
do?
And I had to try to fix it, youknow to, to do something.
And I ended up doing this wholedifferent color scheme of you
know, with this blue.
I started going with this cream, sort of an opaque titanium
white, with some caramel sort ofpigment over that to really
hide all this other layer that Ijust did and blotting it and
(03:40):
solventing it, doing all thiskind of stuff, and all of a
sudden I was like, oh, likesomething totally different than
what I thought was going to be.
This piece started to emerge Nowfor me in my journey.
I wish I could just say youknow, I do everything perfectly
all the time, but there are manytimes in my journey where
(04:02):
things happen like that, wheresomething happens that I didn't
expect and it turns in acompletely different direction.
Listen, I don't know about you,but for many years in my life
when that sort of thing happened, that would set me off on
depression, anxiety, it wouldmake me want to give up, it
(04:24):
would make me stop the piece andjust not go in the studio for a
few days.
I would start having theserecurring thoughts like why are
you even doing this?
Nobody wants to buy your work.
Like what makes you think youcan even sell this?
You can't even mix color, likeyou know.
Just all these, theseoverwhelming thoughts of you're
no good, you're stupid, why areyou doing this?
(04:45):
You messed it up again, allthis sort of thing, and it just
debilitated me for years.
I don't know if that's yourstory as well, but I find that
for many, many, many artists,the very natural thing of things
taking a turn in the studio andnot going the way that we
thought, unless it just turnsout to be this wonderful, happy
(05:05):
accident that we all want tohappen immediately.
If it goes the way you don'twant it to go, all of a sudden
it can really turn into adirection that is pretty
devastating emotionally for youand can even paralyze you
creatively for a few hours a daya month.
Whatever it is for you.
Thankfully, I've learned in mylife some strategies to be able
(05:30):
to take situations like that andhear them and process them
through the voice of the Lord,not through the voice of the
enemy.
I've learned that being able totake my art as it comes and my
life as it comes is does notmean that I'm a failure, that
you know I didn't plan well,that things didn't go right
(05:52):
because I'm not a good person orI'm not a good artist.
Things just go, don't go wellsometimes because they don't go
well.
Sometimes your art process takesa turn because sometimes things
just you know, you, you put astroke there that you didn't
mean to.
You use a piece of materialthat was rotten, you, you do a
color that you thought was goingto work, you were convinced,
and then it just doesn't.
(06:14):
But those things don't have todestroy you, and yet for many
artists they do.
And so I'm thankful in my ownlife and you know, thankfully
that as I've mentored othersover the years, I've been able
to teach artists strategies tobe able to take situations in
their life that typically woulddestroy them, paralyze them, set
(06:37):
them back, set them off intodepression, anxiety, fear,
whatever it is, and processthose through a different lens,
to see that situationdifferently, to be able to
welcome those things as asurprise, as an adventure,
rather than some sort ofaccusation against you that
(07:01):
you're not a good person or nota good artist.
Listen, there are so many thingslike that, not just our art
process, but the way we dealwith others, the way we see
ourselves, the way we see God,the way we deal with issues in
our life and situations thatjust don't go the way they.
You know we thought they wouldgo, and I want to invite you
(07:22):
just for a second.
Can you think of situations inyour life like that, where
somebody said an offhand commentor something didn't go the way
you thought it was going to go,or you didn't get in the show,
or you've not sold a piece for awhile, and those things have
become a place of torture and aplace of just frustration in
(07:46):
your life, to the point where itmakes you just want to give up.
Listen, if that's you.
That's exactly why I createdour foundations course.
Our foundations course that'scoming out in January is
actually designed to help youuncover these sort of roadblocks
(08:06):
internally that cause you and Ito process life in a way that's
unhealthy, to disconnect fromthose things and to learn to
connect our heart and our mindto the Lord so that when it
rains on the just and the unjust, as Jesus said, when we have
trouble in this world just likeJesus said, when art projects
(08:28):
don't go the way we thought,when we don't get in shows, when
we don't get the affirmationthat we thought we were going to
get, when our friend doesn'tcall, when our spouse doesn't
recognize and celebrate our gift, whatever it may be, those
things don't destroy you.
Listen, jesus came that youmight have life and have it to
the full.
(08:48):
But that doesn't just happen onautopilot.
It happens when you and I learnto cooperate with God's
strategies for transformation.
Not just hoping that it willget better and not just trying
to pray it away, but actuallylearning strategies to cooperate
with the Lord to see actualtransformation happen in your
(09:09):
life.
So, my friend, I want toencourage you.
There's a link in the podcastepisode today all about the
foundations course.
Um registration opens for thaton January 2nd.
Uh, for all those who arepre-registered.
You can pre-register right now.
Uh, just to let us know that.
Hey, I want to be on that list.
I want to make sure I get um.
(09:30):
You know the firstnotifications for that and the
course actually starts onJanuary the 14th.
It's a nine week experience.
Uh, there are going to bemultiple opportunities for live
Q and a with me.
You're going to be a Facebookgroup with the ability to open
posts and connect with withother artists from all over the
world that are on this journey.
There are art projects everyweek, not only to to get your
(09:54):
creative juices going, but alsoto help you process the
information that I'm teaching somuch valuable content in this
course that is going to help youto ditch some of those old
strategies and old ways ofthinking and actually step into
a new way to see your life, anew way to process difficulty
(10:15):
and good things that are goingon, so that you're seeing and
hearing life through the lensthat God intended, which is his
best for your life and his wordand all the other things that we
teach you inside of thefoundations course.
Listen, I want to encourage youto click that link join us for
the foundations course.
For those of you that have beenor maybe you've heard of the
(10:39):
experience course that we'vedone for years, this is sort of
our version 2.0.
Actually, this last fall I'vetaken the time to completely
redo the course brand new artprojects, brand new teaching
videos, brand new art promptsand journaling prompts, all the
stuff in order to give you thelatest, best teaching on all of
(11:02):
these subjects.
And listen, we've had hundredsand hundreds and hundreds of
artists go through theexperience course over the years
and say it was the mosttransformational thing that
they've ever done as an artist,and I'm believing that this
foundations course, this 2.0version, is going to be the same
and even better.
So, my friend, I can't think ofa better way for you to start
(11:26):
off 2025 than to lay a solidfoundation for all that God's
got for you in your life throughthe Foundations course.
Click the link.
I hope we'll see you inside andI hope we'll see you here every
week on the podcast as Icontinue to try to encourage you
and point you in the way thatthe Lord has for you as an
artist in his kingdom.
I love you, my friend.
Happy, happy, happy new yearand I hope we see you inside the
(11:47):
foundations course.
Bye, hey.
Thanks so much for spending afew minutes with me today on the
podcast.
Listen, I hope it's been a hugeencouragement to you on your
journey as an artist.
Hey, also, before you leave,make sure to hit the subscribe
button so you don't miss any ofthe other episodes of the
Thriving Christian Artistpodcast, and also be sure to
(12:08):
connect with me on Facebook,instagram or at my website,
which is matttommymentoringcom.
Until next time, remember, youwere created to thrive.
Bye-bye, thank you.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.