The Cowboy on the Clay: Reigniting the Love of Art
My sullen mood proved no match for my occupational therapist back in 1968. I was so demoralized about being a quadriplegic for the rest of my life, a darkness hung over me.
My OT would have none of it. She set a small table underneath the Stryker frame while I lay face down. Cushioned straps supported my chin and forehead, and it felt as though I was hovering just above the tabletop. Before I could think much of it, my OT placed a slab of damp, soft clay beneath me and aimed a wooden dowel towards my mouth. She told me to grip it between my teeth and practice writing or drawing on the clay tablet.
What a waste of time, I thought.
That’s when she said something that sparked my interest. “Joni, I’ve heard you like horses, so draw one.”
I thought she was asking too much, but there wasn’t much else to do. So, I clenched down on the wooden stick in my mouth and dug into the moist clay. Imagine our shock when a few minutes later, my first attempt at drawing with my mouth actually resembled something! There, in clear sight, a cowboy hung tight to a bucking bronco, the horse kicking up its heels as if to dump its rider in the mud of the clay slab.
I realized that my brain wasn’t paralyzed like my hands. My talent for drawing didn’t reside in my useless hands. It was all in my head and heart. I still could create; I had something to give!
Those minutes I spent etching the surface of a humble lump of clay reignited my love affair with drawing and painting. I couldn’t wait to show my friends and family my drawings. Over the next few months, my OT encouraged me to keep at it. And when Christmas approached, she suggested I “clench” a paintbrush to dab red and green poster paint on a few white plaster candy dishes. “They’d make great gifts to encourage others,” she said. It took a lot of practice to hold the brush in my teeth just right, but I felt so much joy to have something to give.
In Peter’s first epistle, he wrote “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.”
From my humble—yet very hopeful beginning of the cowboy on the ride of his life—through each of the more than 150 art pieces I’ve completed in the intervening years, I have had one desire. I want to do whatever it takes to be a faithful steward of the gifts God has given me. And I’m going to use those gifts to encourage others, reminding them, If I can create this humble drawing, what might you do with your gifts?!
Yes, faithfulness has required a lot of hard work—and not just in my artwork. But knowing God has given me a purpose and pathway to serve others keeps me pressing on. What’s more? Peter says you’ve received your own gifts to accomplish that same purpose. Your exercise of them right now might seem as pointless as etching scratchy lines in clay, but let my cowboy remind you to persevere and be faithful.
– Joni Eareckson Tada
From the Heart of the Founder
Joni Eareckson Tada reflects on how a diving accident, once seen as the ruin of her life, became the catalyst for God’s transformative purpose.
