In my last post I discussed how we artist “waste” time. In that post, I offered metaphors and symbols for a process that is more emotional than analytical, but there is room for analyzing the process and a place for explaining its mechanics.
On the whole, I do not believe that most of us are aware of how the creative process plays out. Some of us have been privileged enough to know those inspired moments, and they are so pristine and complete unto themselves that it almost feels violent to dissect such a sacred event. And yet, I think that it is because we do not understand the process that we are reluctant to submit to its needs. Maybe if we were better acquainted with the contradictions of creation we would be less inclined to discard the tools we need to achieve our desire.
I think that many of have this notion that great artists and writers simply sit down one day and begin to create. They may have had some training but once inspired they simply do so fully and completely with no flaws or defect. I will grant you that I have had those moments when it seems like my fingers race along the keyboard with no conscious thought or design, seeming to chase an idea of their own accord. There have been times when the paint seemed to dance upon the canvas to the proper place and adopt the proper shade with no assistance from me. Always these are my favorite pieces of work, pieces that I feel no arrogance or vulnerability in showing, because they seem to have to very little to do with me.
I wish that such times were always the case, but in truth they are rare. And yet, even in those times of almost spontaneous generation, I know the truth of the moment. The work before me, taking shape as if it had a life of its own, seeming to assert that my hands are but the hands of a barely needed midwife, is not something that was born on this day.
Throughout my life I have been an observer, picking apart every idea put before me. I can never remember a time when I could simply watch a movie or read a book. Constantly, I am grappling with the work demanding that it yield the idea that it cloaks, searching for its most elemental meaning. I blame this on my father who taught me that anyone who took the time to write a book, play, or movie, anyone who bothered to paint a picture or sculpt a form, had a fundamental belief that they believed so profoundly they were compelled to share it with the world.
I took him at his word, and I began to see the truth in what he had told me. To this day, I have yet to see any creative work that did not embody some ideology or dogma that had shaped the individual who created it. Some are easier to spot than others, but they are there.
Like grapes, I gather all of these bits of inspired thought and emotion. I pool them together in my mind, allowing them to sink deep within me, until I can distil the truth from what I have seen or heard. It may set untouched for years fermenting as a good wine, waiting until the proper day to be tasted. Some ideas may be taken out, reevaluated and judged as I mature only to be recasked and shelved yet again. At times I have been guilty of revealing an idea too soon when the flavor, while promising, has yet to gain the depth necessary for true greatness.
But then there are those ideas whose time has come, the image in my head is complete or the words have formed deep within my psyche and now it must be shared with my friends. If I have been sensitive to the nuances of its maturation I will produce a seductively simple yet bold creation whose complexities must be experienced to be known.
We work when we collect the bounty of the creation around us. We toil as crush the ideas beneath the weight of our scrutiny. We labor as allow them to foment within us, giving them room and space to find a new life under our care. With diligent patience we tend to the knowledge we have taken and wait for the pristine moment of clarity to bring it forth. These are the times when inspiration seems effortless. These are the moments when our art is at its finest, finding its form beneath our fingers, only after days, weeks, or even years of tireless exertion to insure that it is revealed in all the grandeur we can bestow upon it.
As artist we live lives of contradiction that perhaps on a good day can be seen as balance. We learn so that we may destroy and prefect, forget and rediscover. No step may be skipped or forgotten. Each one must be made with boldness and caution, or not taken at all. We create alone in the dark but creation without light or unshared is incomplete and not a creation at all. Perhaps the greatest contradiction is the illusion of spontaneity and the dedicated discipline that cannot supplant the instinctive response to inspiration.
Showing posts with label creation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label creation. Show all posts
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
The Lie About Artists Exposed
There is a terrible rumor flying around out there about us artists, and I think it is time that we confront it head on. I say this because too many of artists have believed it and have been using it in masochistic rituals against the very core of our beings. Over enough time believing this lie will, at the very least, leave us creatively crippled and at the worst will destroy our spirits, the part of us that makes us amazing and wonderful creations of a creative God.
The lie is simple. Artists are lazy. Now, I have to admit that there are few posers out there who have adopted the title as artist to justify their tendency to do as little as possible and live on other people’s couches and eat from their refrigerator. However, simply adopting the title does not mean one deserves the title. True artists are anything but lazy. The problem is much of our progress is difficult to measure in standard terms.
We are seen sitting staring at dust motes in the sun, following the patterns in the carpet, or getting lost in a movie. To the outside observer all of these things can be considered lazy, pointless even. What you can’t see, is the sifting process going on in our brains. If you don’t believe me ask an artist to tell you what they see in the film you watch together. Most people will tell you about the plot and the scenery or that really great actions sequence, we will tell you about the symbols and color pops, the way shots were framed, the use of music to set the tone, or the theological implications if such a thing were true.
A true artist never gets a moment alone, our heads and hearts are filled with images and ideas that like hungry children are begging for our attention. I cannot remember a time when I did not have the next painting forming and shaping itself in my mind, a character in a book not yet written pleading to have their nose described and defined by my words, or some great void of inspiration begging to filled. They are always there, when I am driving, brushing my teeth, and trying to sleep.
And like children, I tell them they can wait. I tell them I will see to their needs in a little while, and like children, they know when they are being placated so I can have moment’s peace. So many of us develop methods of coping. For me it is pacing, I pace with determination and purpose. So much so that if you were to study the padding beneath the living room carpet you would find distinct levels of compression indicating my paths.
Adding to the chaos is the number of voices, if you are or love a creative person you know that we have a million and one great ideas. We have to figure out which ones should be ignored and which ones should be embraced and nurtured. I have rejected a reoccurring idea to dye myself purple, writing random bits of poetry on the walls of my home, and welding a sea horse like apparatus to the hood of my car. I would like to say I rejected these ideas because I realized their impracticality, but the truth is I have yet to find the right shade of purple, my landlord wouldn’t appreciate the graffiti, and I don’t know how to weld.
So I have to figure out what I can do with the tools at hand, and getting to that idea requires tremendous concentration and focus – hence the pacing. Sometimes, I have to take more drastic measures to scatter the ideas enough to pick a single one from the foray. This means Air Supply has to be blasted from the stereo and I must sing loudly and off key until the proper level of tranquility has been reached. And the really sad thing is, I don’t even like Air Supply.
Then and only then, can I begin to work. Now, I call this work, others would probably call it a series of false starts. As with this blog post which was started and deleted four times to date. To the average on looker it could appear as a wasted effort and an abuse of time, but I know that all of this starting, stopping, creating and destroying is a part of the process. It’s the winnowing of the words and images that I am trying to capture. It is working out the impurities and refining the molten ideas of my heart. There are no short cuts. It is a simple surrender to something that others may not understand or value.
I think this is why so many artists must work in seclusion. We need the freedom to file our nails, and stare at our faces in the mirror before putting pen in hand, brush to canvas, or finger tip to key. The weight of scrutiny is just too much to shoulder when you are already laden with so many sensations both tangible and esoteric. We don’t need to worry about appearing strange or odd to a perplexed audience. I also think this is why there are so few famous women artists, but that is a post for another time.
Creation is labor intensive. It always has been. Even God declared the need for a rest after his endeavors. Not that he needed one, but he knew that we would need a space in time to silence all the demands of the creative process. He understood that taking a moment to consider dust motes would allow us to rest in the greatness of a God who created even these insignificant bits of wonder.
The lie is simple. Artists are lazy. Now, I have to admit that there are few posers out there who have adopted the title as artist to justify their tendency to do as little as possible and live on other people’s couches and eat from their refrigerator. However, simply adopting the title does not mean one deserves the title. True artists are anything but lazy. The problem is much of our progress is difficult to measure in standard terms.
We are seen sitting staring at dust motes in the sun, following the patterns in the carpet, or getting lost in a movie. To the outside observer all of these things can be considered lazy, pointless even. What you can’t see, is the sifting process going on in our brains. If you don’t believe me ask an artist to tell you what they see in the film you watch together. Most people will tell you about the plot and the scenery or that really great actions sequence, we will tell you about the symbols and color pops, the way shots were framed, the use of music to set the tone, or the theological implications if such a thing were true.
A true artist never gets a moment alone, our heads and hearts are filled with images and ideas that like hungry children are begging for our attention. I cannot remember a time when I did not have the next painting forming and shaping itself in my mind, a character in a book not yet written pleading to have their nose described and defined by my words, or some great void of inspiration begging to filled. They are always there, when I am driving, brushing my teeth, and trying to sleep.
And like children, I tell them they can wait. I tell them I will see to their needs in a little while, and like children, they know when they are being placated so I can have moment’s peace. So many of us develop methods of coping. For me it is pacing, I pace with determination and purpose. So much so that if you were to study the padding beneath the living room carpet you would find distinct levels of compression indicating my paths.
Adding to the chaos is the number of voices, if you are or love a creative person you know that we have a million and one great ideas. We have to figure out which ones should be ignored and which ones should be embraced and nurtured. I have rejected a reoccurring idea to dye myself purple, writing random bits of poetry on the walls of my home, and welding a sea horse like apparatus to the hood of my car. I would like to say I rejected these ideas because I realized their impracticality, but the truth is I have yet to find the right shade of purple, my landlord wouldn’t appreciate the graffiti, and I don’t know how to weld.
So I have to figure out what I can do with the tools at hand, and getting to that idea requires tremendous concentration and focus – hence the pacing. Sometimes, I have to take more drastic measures to scatter the ideas enough to pick a single one from the foray. This means Air Supply has to be blasted from the stereo and I must sing loudly and off key until the proper level of tranquility has been reached. And the really sad thing is, I don’t even like Air Supply.
Then and only then, can I begin to work. Now, I call this work, others would probably call it a series of false starts. As with this blog post which was started and deleted four times to date. To the average on looker it could appear as a wasted effort and an abuse of time, but I know that all of this starting, stopping, creating and destroying is a part of the process. It’s the winnowing of the words and images that I am trying to capture. It is working out the impurities and refining the molten ideas of my heart. There are no short cuts. It is a simple surrender to something that others may not understand or value.
I think this is why so many artists must work in seclusion. We need the freedom to file our nails, and stare at our faces in the mirror before putting pen in hand, brush to canvas, or finger tip to key. The weight of scrutiny is just too much to shoulder when you are already laden with so many sensations both tangible and esoteric. We don’t need to worry about appearing strange or odd to a perplexed audience. I also think this is why there are so few famous women artists, but that is a post for another time.
Creation is labor intensive. It always has been. Even God declared the need for a rest after his endeavors. Not that he needed one, but he knew that we would need a space in time to silence all the demands of the creative process. He understood that taking a moment to consider dust motes would allow us to rest in the greatness of a God who created even these insignificant bits of wonder.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Remembering How it Felt
A long time ago, in a land far far away, someone important to me made an insightful observation. He said that I never really thought about something until I wrote it down and I never really felt anything until I painted it out. I took it as a compliment, and I think that he meant it as such, but over the past few days I have been thinking about this part of me that needs to create. The part of me that finds its voice in the written word and painted image.
In truth it is a part of me that has only been expressed in random bits and pieces. Yes, I write this blog and I journal like it is my last life line to sanity, but it has been years since I have given myself the freedom to paint. There was a time in my life when I could pick up a brush and lose days in front of a canvas. I would stand before the clean white surface and answer its challenge with alternating fury and compassion. I would command the colors to bend and blend to my will. I would fight back the elements of chaos that tried to steal the clarity of the image and I would bring a whole new reality in existence with my finger tips.
I would later awaken, soiled brush in hand, to stare at the marvel I had birthed and wonder how I could have ever created such a thing. Sometimes in blissful amazement, at others in grim acceptance, and still at other times with horror.
But there came a season in my life when my painting became the object of scorn. The time I spent lost in this fabulous and terrifying place was resented by another person very important to me, so I stopped. I packed away all my brushes and tried to ignore the paintings that begged to painted. I visited occasionally, but that is all I allowed myself. A visit, a few hours, a carefully doled out period of time when I thought it was safe, when I knew I was in no danger of losing myself to the process. Eventually, I stopped even this. It was far too painful and never satisfying, merely a bleak reminder of what I had left behind.
As life continued, I had to worry about providing for my children. Survival depended on constant vigilance and every drop of energy had to be poured into making a living, going to school, or some pretense of housekeeping. Painting just demanded too much. So my brushes sat in the cabinet, safely out of sight, but never out of mind.
Today, I am wrestling with if it is time to open that door, like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia will I find a way home? Will I want to find a way home? How many years will pass here and there? Will you know me when I return?
Another friend of mine once asked me how I could write about art and its place in Christian theology if I wasn’t doing art. It’s a valid question. At the time, I had resigned myself to the idea that maybe I just had enough of the artistic bent to give me insight into the situation but was really meant to pursue it beyond that. I still have no desire to be an artistic success. The politics of the art world leave me apathetic, not even caring if I am commercial success, but I am learning to admit that I love the process of creating. I love the feel of the brushes in my hand and how they drag across the canvas. I am finding that my love this act is far less intellectual than I had allowed myself to believe.
It is visceral and elemental. A feeling that springs from somewhere so deep in my gut that I can not determine its source. More than a compulsion, and greater than an appetite, it is truly something that defines me as a person. It defines how I perceive this world and my place in it. It is the medium through which I define my reality and experience this life more fully.
And yet, it is the part of me that I fear the most. It is the part of me that I have yet to fully tame, and paces back and forth in my heart and mind like the lion behind steel bars. I worry when I think of releasing it, and I fear what it shall mean for me and my family. Not because I think there is anything “bad” in it, but rather it is probably the most powerful piece of who I am, lending it strength and infusing every other part of me it touches.
But it is the part of me that knows my Creator the best. It is that little bit of who I am knows the majesty and beauty of a God who decided to create a world of wonders with his voice. It when I am lost in this world of being so completely that it leaks out onto a page or canvas that I understand why he needed to speak the words that gave us life. And I am realizing that hiding from this part of me is just another way of hiding from him.
There is a piece of all of us that reflects our creator beautifully and perfectly. Where we know something about him so intimately that no one else may ever share in that revelation. It is the strongest and purest part of who we are, and it is powerful. Often intimidating the bravest of us, but what greater honor can we give him than offering it up to him?
In truth it is a part of me that has only been expressed in random bits and pieces. Yes, I write this blog and I journal like it is my last life line to sanity, but it has been years since I have given myself the freedom to paint. There was a time in my life when I could pick up a brush and lose days in front of a canvas. I would stand before the clean white surface and answer its challenge with alternating fury and compassion. I would command the colors to bend and blend to my will. I would fight back the elements of chaos that tried to steal the clarity of the image and I would bring a whole new reality in existence with my finger tips.
I would later awaken, soiled brush in hand, to stare at the marvel I had birthed and wonder how I could have ever created such a thing. Sometimes in blissful amazement, at others in grim acceptance, and still at other times with horror.
But there came a season in my life when my painting became the object of scorn. The time I spent lost in this fabulous and terrifying place was resented by another person very important to me, so I stopped. I packed away all my brushes and tried to ignore the paintings that begged to painted. I visited occasionally, but that is all I allowed myself. A visit, a few hours, a carefully doled out period of time when I thought it was safe, when I knew I was in no danger of losing myself to the process. Eventually, I stopped even this. It was far too painful and never satisfying, merely a bleak reminder of what I had left behind.
As life continued, I had to worry about providing for my children. Survival depended on constant vigilance and every drop of energy had to be poured into making a living, going to school, or some pretense of housekeeping. Painting just demanded too much. So my brushes sat in the cabinet, safely out of sight, but never out of mind.
Today, I am wrestling with if it is time to open that door, like the wardrobe that leads to Narnia will I find a way home? Will I want to find a way home? How many years will pass here and there? Will you know me when I return?
Another friend of mine once asked me how I could write about art and its place in Christian theology if I wasn’t doing art. It’s a valid question. At the time, I had resigned myself to the idea that maybe I just had enough of the artistic bent to give me insight into the situation but was really meant to pursue it beyond that. I still have no desire to be an artistic success. The politics of the art world leave me apathetic, not even caring if I am commercial success, but I am learning to admit that I love the process of creating. I love the feel of the brushes in my hand and how they drag across the canvas. I am finding that my love this act is far less intellectual than I had allowed myself to believe.
It is visceral and elemental. A feeling that springs from somewhere so deep in my gut that I can not determine its source. More than a compulsion, and greater than an appetite, it is truly something that defines me as a person. It defines how I perceive this world and my place in it. It is the medium through which I define my reality and experience this life more fully.
And yet, it is the part of me that I fear the most. It is the part of me that I have yet to fully tame, and paces back and forth in my heart and mind like the lion behind steel bars. I worry when I think of releasing it, and I fear what it shall mean for me and my family. Not because I think there is anything “bad” in it, but rather it is probably the most powerful piece of who I am, lending it strength and infusing every other part of me it touches.
But it is the part of me that knows my Creator the best. It is that little bit of who I am knows the majesty and beauty of a God who decided to create a world of wonders with his voice. It when I am lost in this world of being so completely that it leaks out onto a page or canvas that I understand why he needed to speak the words that gave us life. And I am realizing that hiding from this part of me is just another way of hiding from him.
There is a piece of all of us that reflects our creator beautifully and perfectly. Where we know something about him so intimately that no one else may ever share in that revelation. It is the strongest and purest part of who we are, and it is powerful. Often intimidating the bravest of us, but what greater honor can we give him than offering it up to him?
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Dreaded Questions and Keys to our Future
My cousin-in-law came over the other night and asked me the dreaded question. The one that I absolutely hate to hear, “So, Em, when are you ever going to finish that painting?” I shrugged and said something noncommittal, but inside I was asking myself the same question. When am I going to finish that painting?
I have two styles of painting. One is the rushed exhilarating type that comes over me with the force of an Oklahoma thunderstorm. These paintings seem to demand that I capture them quickly and with force. My brush strokes are strong and sure. I don’t even have to know where they are going. My job is to simply follow the nebulous of an idea until it reveals its totality on the canvas. These are the ones that I step away from wondering that I had that inside of me.
The second is far more demanding of me. It is one that emerges from my psyche fully formed, requiring that I render it in strict accordance to the image presented. It does not change, from start to finish, it is constant, reshaping and forming me into the proper tool for its creation. It calls upon all my skill and mastery of technique to capture it. There is often a lot of scraping of paint, removing those parts that offend the image, reshaping my mistakes and starting over again.
I hate these paintings. They are like spoiled children whining to have things their way, and nothing less will suffice. The worst part is I know that the idea, that spark of inspiration that called them into being deserves the very best I can give it, but they are nothing more than a mirror, exposing my flaws, my weaknesses both as an artist and a person. They reveal too much. The painting and I know it.
Often these are the paintings that adorn my walls in various stages of completion. I stare at them, sometimes for years, probing them, hoping to find a fatal flaw that will keep me from having to complete it. Knowing I lack the talent and the skill to do justice the image that was presented in my mind.
The painting in question is one that I have worked on for at least three years. I say worked on, but any of the visitors to my home could challenge that. I have alternately stared at it and ignored it the past three years, wondering if and dreading when I would pull out my paints and begin again. There is a story in the painting, one that I later found myself telling in a novel but that is a different tale entirely, and it is one that is finished.
I think when I began the painting, I was still asking the question of how the story would play out. In many ways the painting is the question, and now I know the answer. And it wasn’t nearly as important as I once thought. Over the past few months I have struggled with if I should even try to finish it, or if I should just paint over it, fill the canvas with a new image, a happier image, or one that is more beautiful. In some ways it seems almost like a betrayal to revisit it now that I am living in this new life.
But every time I go near the painting, I see the time and the care I put into it. The details that were painstakingly wrought, details another will probably never see, and I think it is some of my finest work. It deserves to be finished. It deserves to be completed, and then perhaps sold to hang on another’s wall. Maybe they are asking the question, maybe they are holding out the keys to someone they love, hoping that they will reach out and take them from their hand. Maybe their answer will be different and it will be a happy ending for those people in the painting.
Or perhaps, I need to find away to give life to the truth. He never reached out to take the keys. He never deigned to lower his eyes to see they had been extended to him. And it was a good thing. Yes, the refusal hurt in that time and place, but once I learned to free myself, to look about me there was someone who didn’t need my keys. He didn’t need my answers, he just needed me.
Maybe this is the day when the painting will stop dictating its form, and will conform to my desire, when I stop being the tool for its expression and it becomes the means of mine. It’s a scary step to say that I am the one who gets to make the choice that I will determine its final form. No longer will I be able to shrug off a compliment or a critique, I will have to accept responsibility for what is before me with full knowledge that I was the one who made the decision. I will have to make myself vulnerable to every eye perceptive enough to see the truth, and this is something I have avoided for a very long time.
We all create our lives from our choices. We all sculpt and hollow out our bit of reality with every decision we make. We can claim to be victims of circumstance, and sometimes we truly are, but what we do with those circumstances is what determines how our world looks. And sometimes we have to stop hiding from ourselves long enough to create the change we so desperately need to move forward. I don’t look forward to changing the painting, covering over my mistakes is going to be hard to hide, but if I am ever going to completely step out of the shadow of that story it is time to make a new decision.
I have two styles of painting. One is the rushed exhilarating type that comes over me with the force of an Oklahoma thunderstorm. These paintings seem to demand that I capture them quickly and with force. My brush strokes are strong and sure. I don’t even have to know where they are going. My job is to simply follow the nebulous of an idea until it reveals its totality on the canvas. These are the ones that I step away from wondering that I had that inside of me.
The second is far more demanding of me. It is one that emerges from my psyche fully formed, requiring that I render it in strict accordance to the image presented. It does not change, from start to finish, it is constant, reshaping and forming me into the proper tool for its creation. It calls upon all my skill and mastery of technique to capture it. There is often a lot of scraping of paint, removing those parts that offend the image, reshaping my mistakes and starting over again.
I hate these paintings. They are like spoiled children whining to have things their way, and nothing less will suffice. The worst part is I know that the idea, that spark of inspiration that called them into being deserves the very best I can give it, but they are nothing more than a mirror, exposing my flaws, my weaknesses both as an artist and a person. They reveal too much. The painting and I know it.
Often these are the paintings that adorn my walls in various stages of completion. I stare at them, sometimes for years, probing them, hoping to find a fatal flaw that will keep me from having to complete it. Knowing I lack the talent and the skill to do justice the image that was presented in my mind.
The painting in question is one that I have worked on for at least three years. I say worked on, but any of the visitors to my home could challenge that. I have alternately stared at it and ignored it the past three years, wondering if and dreading when I would pull out my paints and begin again. There is a story in the painting, one that I later found myself telling in a novel but that is a different tale entirely, and it is one that is finished.
I think when I began the painting, I was still asking the question of how the story would play out. In many ways the painting is the question, and now I know the answer. And it wasn’t nearly as important as I once thought. Over the past few months I have struggled with if I should even try to finish it, or if I should just paint over it, fill the canvas with a new image, a happier image, or one that is more beautiful. In some ways it seems almost like a betrayal to revisit it now that I am living in this new life.
But every time I go near the painting, I see the time and the care I put into it. The details that were painstakingly wrought, details another will probably never see, and I think it is some of my finest work. It deserves to be finished. It deserves to be completed, and then perhaps sold to hang on another’s wall. Maybe they are asking the question, maybe they are holding out the keys to someone they love, hoping that they will reach out and take them from their hand. Maybe their answer will be different and it will be a happy ending for those people in the painting.
Or perhaps, I need to find away to give life to the truth. He never reached out to take the keys. He never deigned to lower his eyes to see they had been extended to him. And it was a good thing. Yes, the refusal hurt in that time and place, but once I learned to free myself, to look about me there was someone who didn’t need my keys. He didn’t need my answers, he just needed me.
Maybe this is the day when the painting will stop dictating its form, and will conform to my desire, when I stop being the tool for its expression and it becomes the means of mine. It’s a scary step to say that I am the one who gets to make the choice that I will determine its final form. No longer will I be able to shrug off a compliment or a critique, I will have to accept responsibility for what is before me with full knowledge that I was the one who made the decision. I will have to make myself vulnerable to every eye perceptive enough to see the truth, and this is something I have avoided for a very long time.
We all create our lives from our choices. We all sculpt and hollow out our bit of reality with every decision we make. We can claim to be victims of circumstance, and sometimes we truly are, but what we do with those circumstances is what determines how our world looks. And sometimes we have to stop hiding from ourselves long enough to create the change we so desperately need to move forward. I don’t look forward to changing the painting, covering over my mistakes is going to be hard to hide, but if I am ever going to completely step out of the shadow of that story it is time to make a new decision.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)