We were in Rome a few weeks ago, staying on the Via Vaticano in the days leading up to the inaugural mass of Pope Leo XIV. The place was abuzz with devotees from around the world, with priests casually grabbing an espresso en route to St Peter’s Square and nuns in shades of lilac, white and navy checking out the medallions and Articoli Religiosi.

I’m not religious in any formal sense, but I’ve long been fascinated by the nature of belief and its expressions, regardless of the tradition. People of faith intrigue me: I envy the purpose and clarity they appear to have in their lives, and—following Bjung-chul Han—am convinced that we impoverish ourselves when we deny the value of rituals that inspire ‘beautiful behaviour among humans and a beautiful, gentle treatment of things’. I’m also superstitious, my rule of thumb being that I’d rather assume there’s something in it than not: why take unnecessary risks?!

One sultry evening we had found ourselves at Sant’Anselmo all’Aventino, by the Giardino degli Aranci with its sprawling views over the city, where a friend and Roman native had told me we might be able to hear the vespri sung by resident Benedictine monks. We arrived early and watched from a rearward pew as the brothers entered by a side door, performing deep, profound bows as they passed the glowing red of the tabernacle. At 7.15 precisely the plainchant began and for forty minutes I was carried away by the quiet insistence of words intoned in an unfamiliar tongue, the intense symbology of the architecture and a spiralling inner dialogue about what it might all mean. It was like bearing witness to another world within the world, a glimpse through the keyhole at a way of living and comprehending quite different from my own—an experience only intensified when the service abruptly ended and the church lights went out, signalling our duty to leave and return to the street and the Buco della Serratura. 

On my return from Italy, I immediately fell down a rabbit hole on monastic vocations. I’ve previously spent a little time thinking about pilgrimage—the act of consciously journeying out, to create time and distance from the everyday in search of connection to something (or someone) greater than ourselves—but these were always temporary excursions. Now I wanted to think about those who made long-term, perpetual commitments, to live, as it were, as if on continual pilgrimage. What does it mean when both the process and the objective of seeking become the confirmed centre of one’s existence?

Artists and monastics have certain things in common, it seems. Both are skilled at cultivating a rich internal life, enduring long periods in obscurity and seclusion and routinely required to suspend their disbelief—that heaven exists, for example, or that our creative practice has an impact on the world. I’m currently on residency at Hospitalfield on the Scottish east coast and it’s fair to say that my daily routine isn’t all that dissimilar to that of a cloistered monk or nun, all actions trained on deepening my relationship to my practice. I wake early, read a few pages of my book (something written by one of those beatified by my field) and after washing, dressing and a light breakfast enclose myself in my studio, a quiet space above the main facilities known colloquially as ‘the nook’ where I remain until lunch is served. After eating, I return to work, pausing only after several hours for a modest communal supper with my fellow adherents, after which I’ll work again until darkness falls and I return to my quarters and the first single bed I’ve slept in since childhood. 

This way of life pleases me, of course. I’m an introvert and a workaholic, prone to obsessions and social phobia, and it is peaceful and nourishing here, the wider world feeling reassuringly far away across the wheatfields, allowing me to inhabit a universe of my own making. Full-scale immersion of this kind is a rarity in my regular life, although I continually pine for it, and as I down tools for another evening and cross the grassy courtyard towards the main building, the blackbirds and song thrushes already offering up their nightly compline, I imagine myself as an artist-novitiate, hidden with my beloved practice as I prepare to take my permanent vows—although the analogy falls down when I realise that there wouldn’t be a way to live like this indefinitely without more money and fewer external responsibilities than I presently have. 

But it interests me nonetheless, the extent to which I—a hopeless agnostic in the domain of religion—might experience something approaching *devotion* when it comes to art (though not the art world). How even at home amidst many other pressing demands, I willingly choose servitude to the private rituals of making, far beyond anything that would be professionally beneficial or remunerable. Because I really believe in art and its sublime potential, however difficult this can sometimes be to discern. And I don’t want or need very much else from the world, neither marriage nor children nor the amassing of possessions. I am, and have been for many years now, completely—one could even say *sacrificially*—in love with art. 

Nuns describing their early vocation will speak about ‘thirsting’ for Jesus, of burning with a fire inside and a longing to be ‘alone with Christ alone’, even when such an impulse seems at odds with the world in which they were raised. I watched a documentary about the life of Derry-born Sr Clare Crockett—recently named a Servant of God as she begins her journey towards canonization—and was struck by the confidence with which she forfeited family, friends and a promising career as an actress because her ‘motivation was to be united with God forever’. She wept tears of pure joy when making her solemn profession aged only 26 —the act by which she formally and finally dedicated her life to God, cut shut just seven years later after an earthquake collapsed on her mission school in Ecuador. Her family had just been regular people, working-class Catholics at the sharp end of Troubles-era Northern Ireland who admitted they had ‘begged’ her not to do it, but her conviction was too strong. ‘My heart is Yours,’ she wrote, ‘Ask me for anything…Possess me, Jesus’.

I don’t mean to be flippant. I’d hate to offend anyone, drawing parallels between a religious and artistic life. And I am by no means a saint, artful or otherwise. But as someone who truly cannot hear the voice of the divine in any established liturgy, however hard I try (and truly I *have* tried), I need to know…if God is love then might God also be art? 

Because here in Arbroath, all I can feel is gratitude for the incredible gift that is a creative life and the firmest of sureties that, for me at least, this is the path I was always supposed to follow.

I will suffer for it. Go hungry for it. Forsake all others for it.

Ask me anything, art. I am yours.

— Hospitalfield, June 2025