Red is White: Faithful & Stylish

It seems that RiW is blowing up right now! I love seeing the flurry of designs that have been coming in lately. New designs keep popping up every day. But what I love even more is the quality of the work, the thoughtfulness, and the intrigue sparked by it all. And it also looks like the RiW community- those commenting on and rating the designs- is growing as well. All of which I love.

I myself was hit with a bit of inspiration just recently, though not of the t-shirt designing variety. As Lisa- one of RiW’s cofounders- put it so well in a recent post, I could not design my way out of a box. The world is a much better place so long as I am not attempting to design anything.

But back to my moment of inspiration, which was, of all things, inspired by a fight with my wife. She loves me, of course. And I love her to death. But, you know, stuff happens. The thing is (crazily enough) I have this bad little habit about responding very poorly to criticism. Anybody else here a fan of criticism? I mean receiving it, not giving it. Anybody?

Most people enjoy being criticized about as much as they’d enjoy a fart in the face. All right, all right, that was gross. Sorry. Allow me another attempt. People might enjoy criticism about as much as they enjoy, oh, I don’t know… a fart at the dinner table whose rancid smell completely overtakes the once beautiful smell of a deliciously cooked meal, thus ruining the whole thing? (Hmmm, that may have been gross too. Sorry. Any other suggestions here are most welcome.)

My point is this: when I finally came to my senses, during the aforementioned fight, a verse popped into my head.

Proverbs 27: 6- Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of the enemy are deceitful.

My wife, God bless her, knows me so well that she happens to be in the perfect position to call me on my crap, whenever my crap needs to be called out. By this, I am referring to the “wounds of a friend.” As I already mentioned, I tend to react pretty poorly to the “wounds” she inflicts (also known as- suggestions to make me a better human to live with). But the truth is that she is the perfect person to criticize me, in the ever so gentle way that she does. Her criticisms, in short, are constructive.

I used to not show my writing to anybody, for fear of… criticism. I know how it feels to work on something, to create it, to put all of this time and effort into something, only for somebody to turn right around and tear the whole thing down in a matter of seconds. (For a more complete description of how this makes me feel, please refer to four paragraphs prior.) I’d imagine that the same “fear” might run through the heads of the designers who contribute to this website.

But my hope is this.

One of the main reasons I joined the RiW team was because of a deep desire I have to see Christian creativity flourish. The God I believe in is THE most creative being in the universe. You want inspiration? Should not the sunsets, the flowers, the ocean, the mountains, and every good and beautifully created thing suffice? I believe that RiW is fantastic place for creative people of faith to get together to share ideas, insights, comments, and YES, criticisms. But the responsibility here falls on two sides. Designers- thrive on the encouragements, respect the constructive criticisms. T-Shirt-Design-Raters- make your criticisms constructive, please.

After all, the only thing worse than a bad smelling fart at the dinner table is being the one who dealt it.