As a recipient of a 2023 CREATE! Micro-Grant, Doug Mains, an English major with a focus in Creative Writing and a minor in Linguistics, spent this past semester creating a body of prose exploring the intersection between Christian Nationalism, gun violence, fundamentalism, and displays of traditional masculinity.

This year, 13 CREATE! Micro-Grants were awarded with each winning proposal receiving $500 to fund the proposed projects.

Offered by MSU’s College of Arts & Letters and facilitated by the Dean’s Arts Advisory Council with support from the MSU Federal Credit Union and departments across the university, the CREATE! Micro-Grant program encourages Michigan State University students to critically engage, through art, with the past, present, or future while offering them the opportunity to explore current events and issues through mediums such as art, dance, film, poetry, and song.

“As a quiet child with instincts counter to the expectations of my fundamentalist Christian family, I learned to channel my inner world through the written word. I recall breathing a sigh of relief at the realization that I could tuck pieces of myself away in artistic ambiguity.”

For Mains, this meant writing a collection of poetry and non-fiction, titled Ready, Aim, Whisper, where he examines his relationship to the expectations of growing up in a family with fundamentalist Christian values. Mains said his project explores the relationship between American Christianity, gun violence, and nationalism and ultimately asks how a faith founded in a belief of unconditional love can be used to justify hate and bigotry.

“As a quiet child with instincts counter to the expectations of my fundamentalist Christian family, I learned to channel my inner world through the written word,” Mains said. “I recall breathing a sigh of relief at the realization that I could tuck pieces of myself away in artistic ambiguity.”

Inspirations and the Importance of a Creative Outlet

Writing has always been a source of escapism for Mains. He finds that creative exploration and the act of writing is a safe space that he frequently relies on to understand the world around him.

“My art is, first and foremost, for myself,” he said. “I need creativity like I need air; I think best upon the page. When I write, I’m not aspiring to change hearts or minds, and I prefer questionability and curiosity to answers. The greatest value in my work is not the end product but the personal process.”

When making a body of creative work, Mains emphasizes the importance of surrounding yourself with a community of like-minded creatives who challenge you as much as they encourage you. Thinking critically about how to improve his work is one of Mains’ favorite parts of the creative process because honest critiques encourage personal reflection and skill development while bringing the writer back to earth, re-centering them to the views of their audience and the opinions of others.

“Art urges us to look inward and to examine ourselves all while it curates environments for meaningful conversations to be had.”

Much of his inspiration is from creatives like British writer and humorist Ricky Gervais and British Insta-poet Brian Bilston, both of whom embrace candid straightforwardness in their work, pointing out how human and nuanced it is to hold diverse opinions. Mains values art’s ability to implore viewers to examine themselves and curate an environment where meaningful conversations can take place, away from the cancel culture found outside creative communities.

“Social currency has perpetuated empty talk and endless noise,” Mains said. “A harsh political climate has fueled mindless anger. Cancel culture has instilled fear and insecurity surrounding diversified opinions.

“While society struggles to navigate the online world (a dangerously dehumanizing world), we have lost sight of the beauty found in human-to-human, face-to-face interaction. Art challenges these barriers by exploring human nature, the human soul, and the universal needs and desires of the individual. Art urges us to look inward and to examine ourselves all while it curates environments for meaningful conversations to be had.”

Mains plans to graduate in Fall 2024 and hopes his work encourages young people to think of themselves as creative beings in order to take a more humanistic approach to their communities and enrich their relationships with other people and themselves.

“I believe every person is deeply creative,” Mains said. “It’s a mindset. It’s a discipline. It’s a practice. It’s a passion. It’s survival. It’s a destiny open to all and eager to be embraced by any. I’ve fully chosen creativity as a core tenant of my identity and continue to choose it every sacred moment in which I make the time and space to create.”