Funny how you ask for transformation and then discover it. The semester is in full swing-- unlike many previous semesters, I have not found the first few weeks of classes greeted by a lull or an anticipation of when the hammer will fall. The hammer fell at 7:40 a.m. last Tuesday when I was ten minutes late for my first class and the pendulum has been swinging ever since. I have wondered multiple times already this week if I will ever catch my breath again.
Despite the constant adrenaline supply I have discovered pumping through my veins for the past seven days, I've begun to sense a few changes in my vision. I am in the process of picking out frames for my new glasses, I think. I wrote a bit about this on Lessons in Freefalling, but I think it applies in other ways here, too.
Community again. It seems as though in the last couple of years as I have plunged into all of these community-questions, I find that every so often my view of what that means gets turned easily and suddenly on its head.
I've been thinking this past week about the issue of community in my classes and what are more aptly becoming my "professional communities." And I've noticed a radical shift in my thinking from isolated contender to team player. I am seeing my classes less as personal breeding grounds for merit-based attention and more as communities of learners-- we are all here to learn. I think it is often our natural tendency (I know it is mine) to compete. I love the concept Don Miller writes about in Searching for God knows What in which an alien comes to visit earth and finds our systems of competition absolutely absurd. "The point is just to see who is better?" the alien asks, bewildered.
The Art community is so often a place of bitter hostility-- the hurting and broken mask their insecurities under pretension and standards of what makes art "fine" and we all fall in line so quickly, don't we? But what if, like Miller suggests, we buck this cycle of self-preservation and begin to root for each other? I mean, doesn't it make sense for everyone to work towards the goal of everyone being the best that we all can be together. Wouldn't I become a better artist and teacher if I was working just as hard at helping my neighbor become a better artist or teacher too? I don't see how we could ever loose if we all decide to walk in the same direction rather than fighting each other?
If we are called to subvert culture, wouldn't it make sense to turn around this system that keeps us in isolation so that we can all discover that we were not made to be alone?
20.1.08
I've been thinking most recently about the idea that when we think we are being strong or selective or careful about what we choose, we are actually being afraid. When we (and by we I mean me) say things like, "I just don't think that showing my art work is something I want to do, it is not something I make art for, it is not something that I really have any intention of doing," the dialogue is really about fear greater than my desire. And although sometimes this may be true that it is okay to lack this desire, I must face the demons and ask myself how much of my spirit on the matter is tainted by fear.
And I know at least a little corner (or maybe a larger chunk out of the center) of my excuses is this fear of entering into the intimacy that comes from the community involved in showing your art to other people. I've never really been a collaborative artist. For example: few people know that I am a musician. I don't write music and I'm not in a band-- I am a pianist. And in my case, piano isn't exactly a team sport. It can be, surely-- there are duets and people who add pianos and keyboards to guitars and drums, but it also is quite solitary. The bench only occasionally holds more than one. In the almost fifteen years I've spent at the whites and blacks, the recital allows your back to be to the audience most of the time. It soothes my introverted soul I think.
And when I walk into the studio, oftentimes it is face to the canvas-- I struggle alone. When it comes to my work, my natural posture a stance of defense. Somehow when I enter the studio and there are other artists there with different histories, artists who have gone to different elementary schools, I become afraid. I feel alone and I feel as though my little squrae around the easel is my own-- I hold this imaginary rule in my head that no one should be allowed to enter and I am to enter the square of no one. It is a deep intimacy that we risk as artists together.
I get jealous easily of people with edgy haircuts who wear mismatched clothes from the 1940's-- I like to call them pretentious, wearing their creativity on their sleeves to make up for the insecurities they feel about their actual artistic ability. But a voice deeper inside of me reminds me that this insecurity is actually probably my own. I am secretly jealous of their ability to flock together, to happily make art together, enjoying one another's talent. And I am haunted by the question: "Why can't I fit in there?" I like to say that these people judge me because my clothes all match and I don't make a visual spectical of myself of how surprisingly this never really satisfies.
The truth is that I want to be in these circles, something in my deepest-made parts knows I was made for community. And I think that even though I do gravitate towards an introverted self, I long for the ability to share secrets, to be free from jealousy and comparison so that I can stop fearing that judgment from other people.
I went to a concert last night featuring Laura Goldhamer, this wonderful artist who vibrantly and whimsically writes songs accompanied by stop-frame animation and puppet shows and I found myself sitting there wondering how someone is so free to just let the creativity spill all over the place and wondering where I could get this. I couldn't help but wonder how I lost this-- when I decided to hide behind the canvas and then hide it away in a closet. And there were all of these people there who were absolutely in love with her-- all these friends. And I felt really lonely, like I was standing on the outside, peering in the window with someone next to me, holding my hand, whispering in my ear, "you will never be in that circle-- you may only stand out here, alone." And somehow that doesn't seem right as I write it here, now, 13 hours later.
I often meet those people who's creativity has not been crushed and hidden away-- they are full of ideas and ideals. And I shake my head-- they do not know what the real art world is like. And I wonder if it will crush them too or if they have found a secret that I have not yet found to circumvent this terrible fate.
I used to feel this way about just about everything-- that I do not belong anywhere, that every circle is made for my exclusion and I feel as though this shell has begun to disintegrate, but it still feels firm in this area of my creativity. And maybe it is just one more layer that must be dealt with in due time.
As I write this, I wonder why I am actually confessing this here, but I suppose I have heard that freedom comes from confession and so here I am, in the booth, the faceless monitor the screen and you, the readers, my priests.
And this thing I have started perhaps is my way of walking out into the light, daring to show my stuff to all of you, and maybe with this little step I will find the courage to keep walking-- to take another step and enter those other circles. Perhaps that will be my prayer-- my walking chant for the next little while-- that this wall too would come down, that I would find community with this gift I have been given, that I will take the lid off the box and be brave enough to allow others to see what I've been hiding.
Last semester I came to the realization that if there is an artist's work that I like, I can just enjoy it-- I'm allowed to. And I decided also that I am going to make a concerted effort to start stealing. If I see something that I like, I am going to take it-- if there is something I wish I could do in my artwork, I am going to work hard until I can do and then follow that rabbit wherever it leads.
So this is my prayer-- I often ask the Father to change me, to move me, to warm my heart again to be remolded and here I need a little remolding-- Abba work on me here. Show me the steps towards the art communities that I need. Take my fear and turn it around into love. Make me brave enough to love, because this is what art and creating are about-- love: for your great pleasure, you said. So Abba, I ask in this semester, in this next leg of the journey that you would be moving me closer, take me into those communities that I need. How deeply I need you and your spirit that you have put in those places.
And I know at least a little corner (or maybe a larger chunk out of the center) of my excuses is this fear of entering into the intimacy that comes from the community involved in showing your art to other people. I've never really been a collaborative artist. For example: few people know that I am a musician. I don't write music and I'm not in a band-- I am a pianist. And in my case, piano isn't exactly a team sport. It can be, surely-- there are duets and people who add pianos and keyboards to guitars and drums, but it also is quite solitary. The bench only occasionally holds more than one. In the almost fifteen years I've spent at the whites and blacks, the recital allows your back to be to the audience most of the time. It soothes my introverted soul I think.
And when I walk into the studio, oftentimes it is face to the canvas-- I struggle alone. When it comes to my work, my natural posture a stance of defense. Somehow when I enter the studio and there are other artists there with different histories, artists who have gone to different elementary schools, I become afraid. I feel alone and I feel as though my little squrae around the easel is my own-- I hold this imaginary rule in my head that no one should be allowed to enter and I am to enter the square of no one. It is a deep intimacy that we risk as artists together.
I get jealous easily of people with edgy haircuts who wear mismatched clothes from the 1940's-- I like to call them pretentious, wearing their creativity on their sleeves to make up for the insecurities they feel about their actual artistic ability. But a voice deeper inside of me reminds me that this insecurity is actually probably my own. I am secretly jealous of their ability to flock together, to happily make art together, enjoying one another's talent. And I am haunted by the question: "Why can't I fit in there?" I like to say that these people judge me because my clothes all match and I don't make a visual spectical of myself of how surprisingly this never really satisfies.
The truth is that I want to be in these circles, something in my deepest-made parts knows I was made for community. And I think that even though I do gravitate towards an introverted self, I long for the ability to share secrets, to be free from jealousy and comparison so that I can stop fearing that judgment from other people.
I went to a concert last night featuring Laura Goldhamer, this wonderful artist who vibrantly and whimsically writes songs accompanied by stop-frame animation and puppet shows and I found myself sitting there wondering how someone is so free to just let the creativity spill all over the place and wondering where I could get this. I couldn't help but wonder how I lost this-- when I decided to hide behind the canvas and then hide it away in a closet. And there were all of these people there who were absolutely in love with her-- all these friends. And I felt really lonely, like I was standing on the outside, peering in the window with someone next to me, holding my hand, whispering in my ear, "you will never be in that circle-- you may only stand out here, alone." And somehow that doesn't seem right as I write it here, now, 13 hours later.
I often meet those people who's creativity has not been crushed and hidden away-- they are full of ideas and ideals. And I shake my head-- they do not know what the real art world is like. And I wonder if it will crush them too or if they have found a secret that I have not yet found to circumvent this terrible fate.
I used to feel this way about just about everything-- that I do not belong anywhere, that every circle is made for my exclusion and I feel as though this shell has begun to disintegrate, but it still feels firm in this area of my creativity. And maybe it is just one more layer that must be dealt with in due time.
As I write this, I wonder why I am actually confessing this here, but I suppose I have heard that freedom comes from confession and so here I am, in the booth, the faceless monitor the screen and you, the readers, my priests.
And this thing I have started perhaps is my way of walking out into the light, daring to show my stuff to all of you, and maybe with this little step I will find the courage to keep walking-- to take another step and enter those other circles. Perhaps that will be my prayer-- my walking chant for the next little while-- that this wall too would come down, that I would find community with this gift I have been given, that I will take the lid off the box and be brave enough to allow others to see what I've been hiding.
Last semester I came to the realization that if there is an artist's work that I like, I can just enjoy it-- I'm allowed to. And I decided also that I am going to make a concerted effort to start stealing. If I see something that I like, I am going to take it-- if there is something I wish I could do in my artwork, I am going to work hard until I can do and then follow that rabbit wherever it leads.
So this is my prayer-- I often ask the Father to change me, to move me, to warm my heart again to be remolded and here I need a little remolding-- Abba work on me here. Show me the steps towards the art communities that I need. Take my fear and turn it around into love. Make me brave enough to love, because this is what art and creating are about-- love: for your great pleasure, you said. So Abba, I ask in this semester, in this next leg of the journey that you would be moving me closer, take me into those communities that I need. How deeply I need you and your spirit that you have put in those places.
15.1.08
The Artist Journey
The time has come for me to venture out into the art world. After much encouragement from family and friends to get some art out of the closet, I suppose you may mark this as a beginning of sorts of a journey to face my fears and realize that I can indeed make something of myself.
I hope to use this space as a chronology of the steps I take towards sharing my art with the world, so that maybe later, some young artist like me might not feel so alone and so that while it is all unfurling, you all can watch and cheer me on. I don't think I can do it alone.
I hope to use this space to compile links and resources on art, art-making, and art-loving. I may use this space to vent frustrations and to record musings about what art is in our world and in our culture. I will most likely post some images of my own work in the near future.
So please, enjoy, and enter the journey with me. Lord knows I need you.
I hope to use this space as a chronology of the steps I take towards sharing my art with the world, so that maybe later, some young artist like me might not feel so alone and so that while it is all unfurling, you all can watch and cheer me on. I don't think I can do it alone.
I hope to use this space to compile links and resources on art, art-making, and art-loving. I may use this space to vent frustrations and to record musings about what art is in our world and in our culture. I will most likely post some images of my own work in the near future.
So please, enjoy, and enter the journey with me. Lord knows I need you.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
