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Father Dave welcomes Clare McCallan, founder and creative director of St. Joseph\u2019s Home for Artisans, TV and podcast host, and spoken word poet, to the show to discuss her new book, \u201cCourage to Create: Unleashing Your Artistic Gifts for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.\u201d

In her book, Clare and her artist friends ask the question, \u201cHow do you own your identity as an artist for Christ?\u201d Through a series of stories and lessons, they share their wisdom for overcoming obstacles in the creative life to help artists fulfill their callings and serve the Lord.\xa0\xa0

Clare begins her discussion with Father Dave by highlighting the final three words in the title of her book: \u201cTruth, Beauty and Goodness.\u201d Clare defines each term by posing a reflection question. \u201cTruth \u2013 is something in accordance with reality? Beauty -- does it point to the divine and eternal? And goodness - "does something accomplish its purpose?\u201d\xa0 She goes on to say, \u201cArt as just mere self expression is really the lowest kind, but art that meets those metrics of truth, beauty and goodness, are really the only thing worth accepting in and outside of religious spaces.\u201d\xa0

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Father Dave invites Clare to share a little bit of her own journey as an artist and asks what ultimately led her to writing this book.\xa0 She explains that she went to school at Franciscan University and ended up in Calcutta with the Missionaries of Charity.\xa0 While in India, she became very sick.\xa0 While she was bedridden, she discovered spoken word poetry and decided that when she returned to the United States, she would move to New York City and give it a shot. \u201cAnd so I moved to New York,\u201d she says, \u201cI got on the scene, and you\u2019ll find in the book a lot of my stories of starting out as a fledgling artist with no guidance, no roadmap, which is really what this book is intended to be - the roadmap that I needed at 22.\u201d

Father Dave says, \u201cMaybe some of our listeners are thinking, \u2018Sounds like a book for artists - I know some artistic people, but that\u2019s not me.\u201d Clare responds, \u201cYou're a craftsman made in the image of the creator, and so if you are created in the image of God, you have those creative qualities and talents, and so it's up to you to find it. You don\u2019t need to be fantastic at painting or writing. It's much larger than that.\u201d

Father Dave points out that often in society, artists are not looked upon the same way as a doctor or lawyer, and we often get messages that suggest having a backup career or only pursuing art as a hobby.\xa0 \u201cHow do you address those that have felt discouraged from using their gifts?\u201d Father Dave asks.\xa0

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Clare responds, \u201cI think that that's going to be a paradigm shift that we're going to see, especially as Catholics start to mourn a culture that maybe used to serve us in our beliefs, but doesn't anymore. And we can see that we really need to be making active changes in the culture. And those shifts in culture that we want to see are going to come from arts, and so it's very important that we're basically missionaries to truth, beauty and goodness.\u201d

Father Dave asks if every Catholic who is an artist needs to produce exclusively Catholic or \u2018Gospel-ly\u2019 looking or sounding art. \u201cNo,\u201d Clare says, \u201cI would actually say that in the current climate, it's probably more powerful and effective to create allegories and to dabble in storytelling.\xa0 What I tell everybody is if you are regularly receiving the sacraments, it will be infused in your work.\u201d