When you hear the phrase “crayon art,” chances are that the image that pops into the gray matter is one of those squiggly compositions that your parents displayed on the refrigerator door when your age was solidly in the single digits. Galleries and museums probably don’t enter into the picture.

A fellow by the name of Christian Faur, who is well past his daycare years, has built a decent portion of his art career around crayons. His approach is to take hundreds of crayons and stack them up like the dots in old TV screens so they form a sort of mosaic. (If you don’t quite follow my description, or even if you do, click the link above and take a look.)

To me, Faur’s crayons illustrate a cornerstone of practical spirituality: the ability to elevate everyday things—objects, experiences, interactions—into something new and greater, by ignoring the limitations we think into place with our judgment-happy brains. It’s a sort of crayon apotheosis.

Substituting observation for judgment is a habit that requires practice, whether that practice is art, meditation, or scientific innovation.