Ever since our thanksgiving trip to Yellow Springs, Ohio, I have been itching to write this post.
I was introduced to Naysan’s work before I was introduced to Naysan’s person. For an entire month, I basked in the pleasure of using his beautifully hand-crafted earthenware in Soroosh’s home. In the mornings, I drank hot coffee out of his cozy mugs and in the evenings I ate various delicacies from his alluring dinner plates. Though Naysan’s creations were not the only crockery available, they were the only ones I chose. Why? Because as I later explained to the Artist himself, something about his work made my gastronomy experience, magical. I’m serious. It was as if I could taste the love, the passion and the hard-work.
It was during this time that I was also reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic book. So, I was firing (excuse the pun) with ideas on arts, crafts, and overall creative-living in general.
When I finally visited Miami Valley Pottery and came face-to-face with both Naysan and a room full of his work, I was in awe. I still am. Here was a man who had dared to enjoy. To have followed his calling (in a materialistic world where most art and artists are not approved), trusted it, and lovingly and diligently brought it forth both for himself and the world around him to enjoy. And in doing, he became successful. Successful in the sense of living an amplified life, an expanded life, a happier life and a hell of a lot more interesting life than most. As a thriving young artist, Naysan and his everyday creative life inspired me to be more.
Here are a few pictures of his works, including a snap of his bathroom >.<
To be creative means to be in love with life. You can be creative only if you love life enough that you want to enhance its beauty, you want to bring a little more music to it, a little more poetry to it, a little more dance to it. ~Osho
Arts, crafts and sciences uplift the world of being, and are conducive to its exaltation. Knowledge is as wings to man’s life, and a ladder for his ascent. Its acquisition is incumbent upon everyone. ~Bahá’u’lláh
So this, I believe, is the central question upon which all creative living hinges: Do you have the courage to bring forth the treasures that are hidden within you? ~Elizabeth Gilbert
In this wonderful new age, art is worship. The more thou strivest to perfect it, the closer wilt thou come to God. What bestowal greater than this, that one’s art should be even as the act of worshipping the Lord? That is to say, when thy fingers grasp the paint brush, it is as if thou wert at prayer in the Temple.~’Abdu’l-Bahá
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