Tuesdays are for thinking. Reflecting.
I pick things up, and I put things down. I considered it.
Also known as a debate. I debated myself.
I love the repetition of quiet. It’s consistent.
Sometimes I’m quiet. This is by choice. I’m choosing to turn the volume down on the noise. I need space to think. The interesting part is that the voices in my life become clearer.
I deleted the fb, instagram feels like a marketing tool, this is it, nothing more, yet. Honesty is the best policy. This is my voice at the moment. Silent, but the loudest in the room.
What I speak here becomes the purest form of one sided communication.
I can’t speak for anyone but myself, and the void returns the favour.
So where do I start ?
(First with recognizing that I have to be careful with what I say, because it means that it will be entirely beyond my control who reads it or try’s to understand it.)
So, let’s start with why I had the debate.
Be quiet Nathan, focus. What’s important?
Posture before position, attraction before presentation.
It all center’s around visibility. On the one hand, the wisdom of silence is grounded in the stoicism of our forefathers. Silence is golden, but these are the truths about truth.
Truth has an unbelievable way of rising to the surface. It doesn’t need to force, coerce, or manipulate. It simply is.
When a truth starts to become undeniably visible, it becomes impossible to ignore. You can’t unsee it anymore. It’s there.
It’s why I laughed at the news reel the other Monday.
Truth being truth, is still true on a Tuesday.
So, after the debate within my mind over the balance of sharing my thoughts, and acting with discernment, I arrive here. Who made me?
Why? Why live and relentlessly desire to do so freely and with expressive joy? Why doesn’t that feel natural when it should?
What does Christ have to do with it? This isn’t a sermon or a debate. I’m just in a constant state of walking myself out of a corner. My corner.
God is revealing Himself to me, I in turn am revealing myself to Him. It’s not revelation of something new that needs to be discovered. It’s the abandonment of the fear that contained it. It’s the abandoning that God wants to see. It’s in the letting go.
You can use the Universe as a more comfortable wording choice, but it’s the same thing.
Let the wrong voices be. Listen to the One who spoke first.
If my identity in Christ is first, then my alignment with that identity comes before the creating part.
The beauty of this is that it’s a process.
The most exquisite samurai swords are not pulled directly out of the ground, yet they are.
They are mined, broken, refined, purified, destroyed again, reduced, shaped. The material was always present. The refinement and alignment of that tool only exist in the hands of the artist aligning and sanctifying for a purpose. The identity of the sword remains regardless of the sheath. Sheaths protect the sword, not the other way round.
The hands that posses it with purpose must go through the same refinement process.
Neither becomes the other without it.
We are in a constant state of refinement for that purpose.
Who am I then?
This is perhaps the root question and deepest recognition that simultaneously happened the first time that I opened my mouth to the pain of need.
I think the first truth that I need to fully understand and know deeply is this,
Life is a gift, thought is a gift. The gifts were never mine to begin with.
It means that ultimately I don’t deserve anything.
This means the posture of relentless reverence must take over the posture of pride. One is humble, the other is defiant. The rebellion part is mine. So is the surrender.
I’ve walked my own path to get here.
I’m talking about all of the steps that happened after the gift of the first cry for it. All of the attention to those steps had already been planned before I learned to walk them. Even the wrong ones.
I want, but it’s not always what I need. Born to resist is the same as born to live.
Reflecting correctly and purposefully only works if you are looking at the right mirror.
For far too long in my life, I was looking at the wrong one.
Once the corrected reflection is found, purpose and the occupation is understood. Dedication to the refinement must follow.
There is a great quote at the beginning of the documentary, Jiro dreams of Sushi.
“Once you decide on your occupation…you must immerse yourself in your work. You must fall in love with your work. Never complain about your job. You must dedicate your life to mastering your skill. That is the secret of success…and is the key to be regarded honorably” -Jiro
This is coming from a master sushi chef who considers 15 yrs to be the adequate training time to understand rice preparation. I’m pretty sure that any samurai with a sword would understand the concept.
The refinement is the realignment. It brings the gifts back to the surface. It’s the delicate hands of the creator slowly molding us into the proper vessel to hold the thing. It might be rice, it might be a samurai sword.
Sharing the gifts and the corrected voice is the most natural byproduct of becoming whole. I am who Christ says I am. The truth in that voice and the obedience to those gifts is where purpose becomes clear.
I share because I must. The passion within me becomes rooted in expressions of the creator.
The development of my life is not my own. The stewardship of that life absolutely is.
It’s hard work. I’ve fallen down enough to know that I haven’t fully stood up yet.
It’s not just the learning, it’s the dedication and the willingness to correct course when you feel the drift pull you off it. Photography has endless opportunity to start and stop, drumming has endless opportunity to correct course along the way.
Same thing applies to my Christianity, it’s not religious. It’s a practice.
It’s slight improvements overtime while we delicate our understanding of what was given to us to reflect in the first place.
Sometimes it’s time to put down the lie and sing a different melody.
Somewhere along the way, voices spoke into my life. Some spoke truths, others did not. The reflection of those voices is my song to the world. Sometimes it’s on the wrong playlist and I need to correct it. I need to realign the melody. It needs a different rhythm. I want my reflection to adequately express the right song.
As I wrote this, a small bird stopped outside my window. It stayed for a while. It sang to the void. Composition had everything to do with it.
Something heard it.
Maybe today is just the recognition of that song. Small rhythmic gifts given for the indescribable compulsion to create.
This is a just blog post. It’s a process.
This is the mirror that I am holding up to my life and seeing the cracks that need melting.
When the inner waters are still, clarity reflects like a mirror.
-Nate
Monochrome Monday.
I saw a late night Tv host share the news today, not something specific, just a nervous summary of the last 3 weeks. It made me laugh. Choosing to be still and sit at my desk.
Sounds like a case of the Mondays.
Storm. 48” x 19.2'“ .
images for reference only.
I think, therefore I am, not.
Fine Art Friday. Week #1
Yet, understanding and knowing through learned consequence.
First things first. Thinking in reverse.
I’m really good at starting and stopping. It’s the race that I run in the middle that doesn’t really get as much attention. Perhaps following through needs to more fully integrate with running the race. The journey set before me is walked by the genes that made me. This week I spent some time recalling the blueprint. Then I noticed some patterns. I walked through them.
Fortunately, life moves differently. The education we receive isn’t always the one we wanted or asked for. Ironically it ends up being the very thing we need to get us here. It wasn’t an accident. Your life in mine isn’t an accident, neither was the means by which we understood that.
Lessons never stop learning.
I’m so grateful for my education. I’m also grateful for my disdain for it. I’m grateful for my rebellion against it. It teaches me about my part of the equation.
Life is constantly teaching. The greatest life lessons are learned in rebellion to it.
This thought coming from a guy who once drunkenly fell over his own drum kit and nearly put a cymbal stand through his eye. I didn’t learn that lesson until I looked in the mirror the next day.
That kind of rebellion. The “not of sound mind” kind.
God is good. He provided me a way out of the conflict with my own education.
It starts with following through. That’s why I wanted to make it clear where the blueprint was from. It was also in my possession to follow through with.
I wanted to start this series with a bit of a foundation. I wanted to make light of the concept. When I think about grace for my learning, I need to start with the perfect source of it. This becomes the test and the fail-safe simultaneously. It becomes the textbook to the instrument.
This is grace to understand it again.
This grace is rooted in my faith. The one truth that I fall back on, again and again, is God’s mercy for me. Even when all I focus on is the shadow. His love never fails. Jesus identity in God is mine to witness, mimic and fail miserably at. He will remain the same.
Yet, I don’t fully understand it.
Romans 12: 1-2
John 15: 2
Understanding the renewal of my mind, mirrors the understanding of a unified soul. It is the very nature of individuation to recognize the God that formed the conscious thought to begin with. He follows through with the gift of present consciousness and grace, regardless of how we feel about it. We get to sit with it. Your thought and rebellion against it is a personal choice. Even consciously rejecting grace is a personal decision.
I’m not in control of the gift, I am in control of how worthy I feel I am of receiving it.
I am the one that wants to rebel against it.
I think brokenly, therefore I’m not yet,
Whole.
Not fully. I haven’t understood the power behind the creation. My thinking got in the way. My thought process is the accumulation of learning the hard way, the imperfect way.
Fear, pride, ego, broken history, pain, loss, depression, misguided patterns, etc. These influence the real-time experiment. It muddies the music. The mind is not a clean instrument. When I rely on my own thinking to define who I am, I am not arriving at truth. I am arriving at the broken history of it. The picture is wrong. The reflection needs correcting.
The journey toward wholeness requires confronting what is broken in myself. I didn’t start with potential and a perfect instrument, My identity isn’t what I think, It’s what I’m being called back to. The refining is what brings out the finished product. It’s a process.
This isn’t a riddle. It’s just the conscious understanding that I fall short of perfection. Its why I take the next picture, It’s why I hit the drum again.
Repeat. Again. That’s the cool thing about failing again and again. you get better at it.
The growth is in the correction to the mistake that taught the lesson.
Sometimes that’s in front of people. Sometimes that’s a choice.
Like you, I’m human. We all know what it’s like to stand on a stage for the first time. We will all know the last. That’s the vulnerability part.
That’s where growth, surrender, and a willingness to accept our own humanity begins. It’s where life starts.
I am indeed here, and conscious of it. That means it was for a purpose to do something. That means I should be doing those things with purpose. That means...
Nathan Christopher Sawatzky was made to create, and then fail. Not work so that he can succeed at not being who he is. One is purpose, the other is position. One is calling, the other is a placeholder.
My posture needs to be to create.
This last week I spent so much time considering what it meant to go to work. Because last week I decided not to.
I felt like I needed to push myself into the deep end of the pool. I needed to follow through with actually being the artist. I say this all the time, I shoot when I feel, but don’t always share. I keep it to myself out of fear. It’s paralysis by analysis. “Its not ready, the store isn’t up, its not organized” etc. It’s the lie I tell myself. The gift I had been given had been hiding from the bridge to the provision. I just needed to start crossing it.
I made a choice this week to be a full-time artist, not just the critic of my process and product. I’m selling the work of my hands and mind to feed the human life that was created to share it. Once again, I don’t know why it took me so long to arrive at that conclusion. It’s probably because it’s personal to me. The images are my photographs, I worked for them. I sought them out. This work is not the result of a wedding I shot, or a family portrait session. The things that I’m selling are the things that I actually spent time creating with joy. They’re the result of me choosing to point my camera in a certain direction because I saw something. There was beauty to be witnessed. Something captivated me. Time needed to be stopped and looked at. For some reason, I wanted somebody else to see it too.
Joy begets joy.
The value of a creation is directly relational to the pride by which it was created. That’s why people give value to something, it’s because they are proud of it.
I am proud of myself. I’m proud of my work.
That means I’d better show results of my labour by the end of the week. Truth is, I’ve been holding back a lot.
I’ve been so busy manifesting the fear that was restraining the very blessing I had been given. I shouldn’t do that.
If Christ is first, then create second. Even if that means falling down and failing to fully explain why.
Art often does that.
This is the art of it on a Friday. It’s “fine”.
-Nate
*reference Images not sized to perfect proportions. Visual reference only. The actual print size is exactly 48'“x 23'“ inches.
$2100 for 48’ on the long edge. Pricing varies by the size of print. Prints up to 96’
These prints are produced on premium aluminum composite panels with a semi-gloss l finish that delivers incredible color depth, sharpness, and longevity. The metal surface gives the image a luminous, almost backlit quality that no canvas or paper print can match. Scratch resistant, moisture proof, and built to last decades without fading, this is archival grade wall art engineered to the same standard as the photography itself. At 48 inches, the structural rigidity of the aluminum means it hangs flush and flat, no warping, ever. This is not a poster. This is a lifetime piece. Shipping is world wide.
-Nate.
Custom sizing:
*Disclaimer -store in the building phase. If you have any questions or for custom sizing, don’t hesitate to fill out the form and we will begin working together to find a solution that’s best for you. I will get back to you promptly. Please include the image size requested.
Switching gears, and picking up sticks,
I turn to a different instrument each week to spend time away from the camera and the computer. My other outlet. The drums have always been the other instrument where I process, express, and learn. There is no composition to frame but the song that I feel. There is no light to wait for, but the inspiration driven by it. Just time, rhythm, and the decision to play something that hasn't been played before. It’s the song of my soul. The solo of the week is exactly that. One take. One song. Whatever needed to come out, came out. It is the drumming version of pointing the camera at my rhythmic shadow and pressing the shutter. I felt compelled.
Here is a solos posted this week to Bandcamp. Complex compositions that require both feel and the artist or they don’t exist at all.
Sounds human enough for any given Friday.
As, always, thank you for turning your time and precious senses toward me. That is validation enough for any artist.
-Nate.