Things that Matter

Contentment

I've been thinking a lot about contentment lately--what it is, the benefits it incurs, potential problems or drawbacks, and how one might obtain or secure it. I think what got me started was something I read about creativity and contentment. I can't remember the exact quote, but the gist was that a lack of resources might actually challenge and allow one to become more creative. Apparently when we're limited to solving a problem or creating a solution with what we have, we may be more likely to come up with something new or innovative than we otherwise would have. The trick is to embrace our limitations as an opportunity for new ways of thinking, rather than to spurn our lack of resources. There's something there approximating a certain kind of contentment, but I'm struggling to describe it.

I saw what I think may be a good example of this last weekend when we visited the Nelson-Atkins Art Museum in Kansas City. (Even if you're not the "artsy type, the Nelson Atkins has something of interest for almost anyone.)

One of the featured exhibits was by Brad Kahlhamer, a native American artist who created 122 handmade, katsina-like dolls and birds riding on a stationary powwow float to form a bridge between traditional American Indian culture and the New York contemporary art world. 

I'm not sure what I think about Kahlhamer's work, but I was impressed by the way he used what he had in his studio, e.g., bits of wood, rope, wire and paint to create an amazing number of dolls and birds. Kahlhamer was born in Tucson of American Indian parentage, adopted into a family of German-American heritage and raised in Wisconsin. He says, "The dolls [assembled in this exhibit] are about my own community or tribe. . . . They represent a coming together of disparate parts to make a unified whole."

Similarly, over the ages American women have used quilts to express themselves even when it would have appeared that survival was of greater concern. While today's quilters flock to specialty shops to buy fabric easily costing $9.00 or more per yard, in the not too distant past, women created quilts from scraps remaining from sewing for their family or from less worn portions of old clothing. Even though quilts were primarily made as practical bed coverings, I cannot help but be struck by the care taken to create beauty in a utilitarian item. Patricia Cooper and Norma Bradley Allen describe this phenomena in their book chronicling the lives of quilters in New Mexico and Texas.

The Quilters: Women and Domestic Art features quilts and their history through the eyes of the women who created or inherited them. I was particularly struck by this comment from a woman named Mary.

"You can't always change things. Sometimes you don't have no control over the ways things go. Hail ruins the crops, or fire burns you out. And then you're just given so much to work with in a life and you have to do the best you can with what you got. That's what piecing is. The materials is passed on to you or is all you can afford to buy . . . that's just what's given to you. Your fate. But the way you put them together is your business. You can put them in any order you like."

 

Today well-educated and highly trained therapists call this kind of thinking cognitive behavioral psychology. They study and train for years to help people understand what Mary knew and described so succinctly. We all have problems--some of us more than others--but it's how we think about those problems that matters the most. Somehow, in the midst of very limited resources and difficult realities, people like Mary choose to create beauty.

Frankly, I can imagine few things more difficult than living in a dugout in the middle of Kansas, Oklahoma or Texas with the nearest friend or family scores of miles away. I don't know how they did it. In fact, it makes me a little ashamed of some of the things I whine about today.

But some people appear to do their best work when things are at their worst. In talking about her parents who moved from Springfield, Missouri to west Texas, one woman said, "Mama's best quilts were her dugout quilts because that was when she really needed something pretty. . . . If she had not quilted and planned quilts through those bad times, maybe she would have been planning how to get out of that country."

I want to give these words some more thought. I'm wondering what kinds of creative projects might keep people managing, coping, accepting in difficult circumstances -- disappointments in marriage, challenging children, stressful employment, physical limitations. What is it about creativity that helps us be content when things are unlikely to change--at least in the foreseeable future? Or is it contentment with what we have, an acceptance of our limitations and scarce resources that helps us be content? I'm not sure, but I'm planning to give it more thought this week.

Piecing my thoughts,

Dr. Jennifer Baker