Author Description

Mud, art, and spirit, the interrelationship of physical reality, creativity, and spirituality, can, and must, be integrated. In these pages, the authors bring their unique perspective as both working artists and philosophers to argue a fresh way to think about and relate to the divine. The idea of God as a creative artist, especially as a clay potter, serves to focus many traditional as well as more insightful conceptions of divinity in relation to the world. Here, the relationship is presented as one of symbiotic interrelationality rather than hierarchical and unilateral control. With a skillful interweaving of three concepts, mud, art, and spirit, the authors propose a grounded spirituality and embodied creativity centered in the theological and biblical idea of incarnation. Their goal is to bring these concepts into every day life: to bring spiritual reality (spirit) into practical experience (mud) mediated by creative activity (art).