The summary puts me in mind of Tolkien's essay How Like a Leaf (and the companion short story "Leaf by Niggle"), wherein he explored the act of "subcreation" (i.e. creating fiction, whether literary, imaginary, visual, etc.) as part of what "in god's image" means: acting in a smaller capacity as a creator was for Tolkien inseparable from his spiritual beliefs as a christian trying to live in the image of god.
Caveats: I am not christian, nor am I asserting that "in god's image" is universal among deistic religions, or that it does not have other interpretations, yadda yadda yadda...