Ethan + Amanda | "Musings on Creativity" by Amanda Pyle

“It’s hard to write about something that you’re in the middle of. Just like we can’t really understand history until it’s long past, or see all sides of a story till years later, so I can’t yet fully put into words the history of my own creativity or my recent foray into making a business of it. Like all children, I was creative from my earliest years, and, like most children, I had a great deal of that creativity and freedom of exploration and expression slowly “grown-uped” out of me after only a few years. Just as the Little Prince “abandoned, at age six, a magnificent career as an artist,” because the grown-ups “never understand anything by themselves,” so I grew tired of people not understanding my art or taking it seriously and gave it up almost entirely. Though I can hardly blame the grown-ups; for they were only doing as they had been told, just as I did what I was told when I put away make believe games, puppet shows, dress up, and the prolific writing of ill-constructed but wildly imaginative stories. Then came a long period of attempts to stilt (or tame, or hide—whatever you choose to call it) my imagination. 

I believe that dating, marriage, and a simultaneous revitalization of my faith inspired my return to creativity. The story of my relationship with Ethan is long and lovely and probably deserving of a whole essay in itself, but some highlights will suffice for now. We met in college; I was a freshman, he was a junior. I was young, scared, far from home, and simply trying to stay afloat in the sea of intellectual, spiritual, and emotional turmoil that met me my first year of college. He was, as I thought, old and perfect. That was, word-for-word (in my head of course), my first impression of him. He had great style, seemed to have read every book there was to read, got all As, and knew how to bring Tolkien into nearly every conversation. (I see now that Tolkien, perhaps more than any other single person, had a great deal to do with the flowering and continuation of our relationship.) Somehow, Ethan knew within three months of meeting me that he wanted to marry me. I, on the other had, would need a good deal more convincing. 

And he was so patient. After a whole year of writing letters, and after taking a life-changing trip to China together, we began dating. Though he knew we could not marry until after I finished college, still he waited the ensuing three and a half years. During that time, we saw God knit our hears together more closely than I would have believed possible, building for us a firm foundation of trust, communication, respect, and love that has served us well into our second year of marriage. To this day, one of our favorite things to do together is talk. First through letter-writing, then through phone calls and FaceTime, and now through daily interactions, we love conversation. It never gets old, and we somehow never run out of things to talk about. Here’s where art comes back into the picture. 

Because we are both artists, we often talk about art and related topics. He is a musician, writer, painter, and knitter, with an all-around knack for making beautiful things, and I am a musician, writer, painter, embroiderer, and knitter. Naturally, we have a lot to talk about. In recent years, our conversations have centered around the relationship between faith and art. We are asking ourselves questions about what it means to be a Christian artist, how faith and art are related, and the place of art in the church. As you can guess, we are nowhere near answering these daunting questions, but discussing them and hearing what others have to say about them has greatly shaped my understanding of my own creativity and its place in the world and the church. 

I believe I was raised to think of the imagination as a nice ornament for childhood to be done away with somewhere around age twelve and replaced with more “rational” ways of thinking about the world. I don’t know if any of these thoughts were clearly articulated to me, and I bear no hard feelings toward those who perhaps inadvertently taught them to me. But the fact remains that I was raised to be skeptical of my imagination, of fairy tales, and of fiction in general. These stories, if not exactly lies, were something dangerously close to it and should not be taken seriously at the risk of imbibing all kinds of strange and wordy ideas. Visual art, too, is dangerous for similar reasons. 

As Ethan and I talked, listened, and read, these ideas seemed to slowly unravel and ring false. Gradually, we have come to understand creativity and imagination as good gifts from God for people of all ages to use, enjoy, and employ, gifts that make life beautiful, that give shape and meaning to the truth, and that are essentially expressions of the image of God within us. Within this new way of thinking, I could finally understand why I have always been able to thrive through creativity, why I am drawn toward art, and how I could seek to make a business out of my art. Previously, I had no compelling reason to spend so much time and energy on creative work and several reasons not to. Art was, in my mind, probably a waste of time and a distraction from more important and “practical” work. Now, however, I felt that I could justly and rightly embrace a creative calling for my life and take steps toward starting my business.

And so, last summer, after much trepidation and encouragement from Ethan, after working through much crippling fear of rejection, I stepped out and began the adventure of Tree&Leaf. I still remember the elation I felt when I received my first Etsy order. It is thrilling to know that my art is going to people’s homes to be enjoyed and treasured for years to come. Today, Tree&Leaf is not much more than it was eight months ago when it started. Working full time as a kindergarten teacher severely limits the time I have to devote to it. Nevertheless, the first step was the hardest, and I am so glad that I chose, in spite of my fear, to do something that I have been dreaming about for years.”