Tag: artists

Truth and Beauty

Art history students no doubt pursue the path they do so they can live and work among beautiful works of art. And also because they can consort intellectually with the artists in different historical eras and their discipline altering visions and techniques.

It can also be safely assumed that chefs love and respect food and no doubt love eating it, too. But I imagine they are discerning as their skill intensifies. They learn to prefer eating well-prepared good food over junk.

And there is an alarmingly high quantity of junk food available out there. A lot of junk generally.

There is a Biblical verse that says that we must learn to separate the wheat from the chaff in our lives. I think that is just an old-fashioned way of prioritizing and setting goals. Pursuing quality and goals that will lead you to a satisfying place instead of a spiritually barren and empty field.

“He is ready to separate the chaff from the wheat with his winnowing fork. Then he will clean up the threshing area, gathering the wheat into his barn but burning the chaff with never-ending fire.”

Matthew 3:12

And even as you deliberately set out on this path, it can take awhile to get there. Distractions abound.

I have been wondering lately what emphatically drew me to books and the words they are made of so early and passionately in my young life.

A love of books was shaped to a degree by my mother. Books were her other obsession along with prescription pills. But I caught the reading bug and have never recovered. Mom says I was an accomplished reader by the time I started Grade One.

Love of, and a requirement, to use and develop my imagination were part of that pull. By seeing authors use words to devise and describe scenarios, it seems like a superpower to me. Authors allowed us to visit worlds, and meet people I would never likely meet in everyday life.

Not anywhere near as many, at any rate. And never in much depth. Facts in scholarly books help us understand things. And a skilled and gifted novelist can articulate aspects of life and living that are not always quantifiable. Like love and truth and beauty.

Those magical moments in life are often fleeting and ephemeral. The dew that collects on a sunflower overnight won’t last long. A white beach brightly illuminated by the moon and stars will simply be another tourist trap come morning. The emotions that stir in your belly while looking at a beautifully executed painting or even a photograph pass by when you move along

It is the pull toward seeking and the seeing that sets the artist apart. They can often show us another way to look at things, think about things, and express things. With their works, they can elevate or move us into a deeper understanding of something on a personal level.

People in everyday life rarely let their guard down and reveal their weakness and deficiencies as tidily as an author can. In the beleaguered hero, we find an underdog to champion. In the vile and conniving character, we can pray either for his salvation or demise. In the vulnerable child left to her own devices, we pray for her survival and succor.

It can take an alarmingly long time to discover our fellows substantial liabilities in real life. It can take an even longer time to discover and deal with our own weaknesses and deficiencies. Working to tame and overcome them is an ongoing work in progress.

As I busy myself these days creating a home environment I deem beautiful and elegant and workable, I am dabbling in artistic choice-making.

Because as Matthew said in The Bible, it is the choices we make between the wheat and the chaff that inform our living environment and shape our character. By doing this consistently, we eventually see the results manifest in our every day lives.

So I set my sights anew on bringing truth and beauty into my life every day. It is a practice of ongoing renewal and commitment. I well know when I’m failing or falling short of these ideals. I also see when I succeed and I have learned to appreciate those moments, too.

I have discovered it is important to me as a daily mantra to keep striving toward my dreams and ideals. That vision is what guides and greases the trajectory of the journey. By my age, most of my peers and I have learned and accept our limitations.

We have, or should have, a clear understanding of what we can practically do and cannot do. We have tossed our big and unwieldy and unrealistic dreams for smaller, satisfying, manageable ones.

This is not the same as giving up. It is growing up. Seeking truth and beauty are my goals. I am fully cognizant that the little choices I make every day are one day woven into a much more complex and tightly woven tapestry that is my life.

Avoid the acrylic and opt for the real sheepswool yarn, say I.

I fully believe it will pay off eventually.

Only As Old

These are not my words.

This is a cribbed Facebook post. Posted by Eden Lynn, a San Diego graphic designer. Who knows where she found it.

It’s a good one, I think, and a great reminder for those who might believe they can’t get there from here:

“At age 23, Tina Fey was working at a YMCA.

At age 23, Oprah was fired from her first reporting job.

At age 24, Stephen King was working as a janitor and living in a trailer.

At age 27, Vincent Van Gogh failed as a missionary and decided to go to art school.

At age 28, J.K. Rowling was a single parent living on welfare who was clinically depressed and at times has contemplated suicide.

At age 28, Wayne Coyne (from The Flaming Lips) was a fry cook.

At age 30, Harrison Ford was a carpenter.

At age 30, Martha Stewart was a stockbroker.

At age 37, Ang Lee was a stay-at-home-dad working odd jobs.

Julia Child released her first cookbook at age 39, and got her own cooking show at age 51.

Vera Wang failed to make the Olympic figure skating team, didn’t get the Editor-in-Chief position at Vogue, and designed her first dress at age 40.

Stan Lee didn’t release his first big comic book until he was 40.

Alan Rickman gave up his graphic design career to pursue acting at age 42.

Samuel L. Jackson didn’t get his first major movie role until he was 40.

Morgan Freeman landed his first MAJOR movie role at age 52.

Kathryn Bigelow only reached international success when she made The Hurt Locker at age 57.

Louise Bourgeois didn’t become a famous artist until she was 78.

Grandma Moses didn’t begin her painting career until age 76.

Whatever your dream is, it is not too late to achieve it. You aren’t a failure because you haven’t found fame and fortune by the age of 21.

Hell, it’s okay if you don’t even know what your dream is yet. Even if you’re flipping burgers, waiting tables or answering phones today, you never know where you’ll end up tomorrow.

Never tell yourself you’re too old to make it.

Never tell yourself you missed your chance.

Never tell yourself that you aren’t good enough.

You can do it. Whatever it is that sets your soul on fire.”

The Road Less Travelled

Right this minute, there is an eighty-something-year-old couple making love in their shared bed. Or maybe on their kitchen floor. They are both worried about how they are going to get up. But at this very minute, neither one of them cares.

There is an artist out there – maybe many. S/he is looking intently at the canvas in front of him/her deciding which direction to go in next. This shade of blue-green for those trees in the background. Or a shade or two lighter. A cup of coffee s/he made hours ago is sitting on the table in the art studio. Ice cold.

A writer is looking through a thesaurus yet again for the mot juste to capture and describe that scene of agony, bliss, confusion, or wonder. The writer is looking at that blank page in front of him/her straining to put down on paper what their heart sees and most deeply wants to express. It is a marathon, not a sprint.

These are the lucky ones. There are likely countless thousands more just like them and we have and never will have any idea of who they are. Because frankly, they don’t care much about us. Nothing personal, of course, and if we met them in person, they might be lovely, relatable folk. The point is they are so engrossed in their own version of creation that the entreaties of the world don’t much matter to them.

There are literally millions of people out there in the world vying for your attention. Their motives vary. Some are trying to build their empire by luring you into their vision of what is and should be. Some are just trying to make a living. Others are “trying on” a sales job to see if it is what moves them. Some will stay the course. Others will make a switch while they still can. Maybe they are doing what Mom or Dad did. This job – whatever it is – is the only career possibility they ever thought about.

My father was a lawyer. My mother was a journalist and writer. Their jobs defined my life and my career. But my heart was in neither profession. I was drawn to an entirely different kind of career which – in the end – I did not pursue. Something along the lines of international diplomacy. At the point where I needed to make decisions to move forward on that path, I refused the jump.

My parents neither knew nor showed much interest in my career path. My father derided my university pursuits. He told a boyfriend: “What is Margot doing in university? She is only going to get married and have children.” I was on the Dean’s List and pursuing a double honors major at the time.

I now wish, of course, that I had been strong enough to assign my father’s opinion to the dustbin where it belonged. It is only the strong and emotionally secure who can stand up to the dictates of their caregivers. No matter how weak and emotionally insecure those caregivers were.

The consequence of raising strong, independent human beings is that they may begin to defy you and your expectations as their own lives take shape. Not necessarily in a belligerent, oppositional way but in their own way. As it should be.

Change is scary. Abandoning well-worn paths and habits to tread “the road less traveled” isn’t easy and can be fraught with pitfalls. There are pitfalls you may not necessarily be able to see simply because of your unfamiliarity with the newness of the path you are walking.

I think of this when I think of my own journey to address intergenerational trauma. In my parents’ eyes, life was as it was and there was little that could be changed or affected by our own actions. Neither of my parents was raised in a rose garden.

I watched them dutifully do what parents of their age and stage were supposed to do. They both really messed up – both their own lives and that of their children. “Couldn’t be helped.” “That’s life.” “It is what it is.”

So I choose to celebrate and focus on the elderly couple making mad passionate love when everyone thinks they are past it. I celebrate the failed accountant and struggling visual artist whose parents believed there was “no future” in pursuing a creative passion.

Obviously, I am biased in my tendency to celebrate writers. Those who try to plumb the depths of life’s mysteries and humanity and their own role and take on all of it. By so doing, they add to a perpetual and necessary conversation. That writing has been so denigrated and diminished as an art form is a symptom of the world’s current spiritual sickness.

I recommend we hold on to and encourage writers. When and if the actual day of judgment comes, they may be the only ones who can make sense of how and why we got there. For starters, it is unlikely they unquestioningly accept the dire predictions of religious leaders that eternal doom awaits all but good Christians.

Writers may be the only ones who can show humanity a better option and offer a way out of the grim finality for “non-Christian believers” when the rapture occurs.

What writers know is that our lives are built on and built out of stories. Choose or create one that works for you. Be skeptical that others have your best interests at heart when they are trying to change their beliefs into yours. Screw your brains out on the kitchen floor if it brings you joy. At the end, no one else’s opinion matters but yours.

Jeff Brown, Redux

When you’re good, you’re good. I have followed Jeff Brown with equal measures of respect and resonance for some time now. His writing is consistently strong and insightful. His new book, Humanifestations (link below this post), is another marker on his journey to make sense of the human condition.

Brown’s most recent post (below) resonated strongly.

He points out a human tendency to credit exceptional creative output or the deeper insights of talented individuals as “Gifts of the Divine.” He disputes this and calls out the human tendency to hide our light under bushels. I both agree and disagree with him.

Brown argues that if humanity believes the wondrous works exhibited by individuals are based only on external factors, it discourages us from accessing and owning what is inherently great and gifted in ourselves. Without owning it, Brown suggests, humanity will continue to marinate in mediocrity.

Jeff Brown argues – the former lawyer dies hard – that his writing insights and clarity have come from the hard emotional work necessary to overcome a difficult childhood.

Again I agree and disagree with him. I had a hard childhood. I have done a ton of personal “work.” At the same time, I also feel I was given a “gift” for writing. And, yes, sometimes it feels like a Divine “gift.” Sometimes I have written things that I have to read over and over again to fully get what I have written. I cannot fully credit or connect what I have written with “me.”

Dale Estey, a dear author friend, and I have a throughline in our friendship. We often talk about our mutual belief in what we call “invisible hands” that overtakes our writing. We agree we do not always consciously “think up” what we write. How words get put together often feels unbidden. Painters, dancers, and even athletes all speak of this phenomenon, too. Think Flashdance.

Jeff Brown is right. Humans tend to downplay genius when they find intimations of it in themselves. Or credit a “higher power.” Well, I also believe there could be “something else” at work in the creative process.

For the love of god, do not ask me what that something is or ask me to explain it. For the most part, our society is just plain incompetent at handling “the gifted.” A perfect storm of luck and opportunity, and will is needed. It takes a certain social alchemy for a child’s gifts to be recognized early, encouraged, and supported to develop their talent over the long haul.

And it can be a very long haul, fraught with emotional and other landmines. [Read the late Swiss psychologist Alice Miller’s The Drama of the Gifted Child for an analysis of this dilemma.]

I am happy to feature Jeff Brown on my blog again as he triggered one of the biggest issues I have faced in writing. My work or god’s work? Who’s to say? And to what end? Who knows?

All I know is that it is a good thing when coherent messages that promote the value of each human life get pushed out there – over and over again. Because we are human and need to be frequently reminded of that.

Whether humanitarian messages come from “the Divine” or are a distillation of our own hard-won insights that come from processing “hard things” is more or less immaterial to me. Any writing that promotes a greater appreciation for the sanctity of humanity and individuals gets my support – whether it comes from Divine inspiration or inspiration from deep within ourselves.

Take it away, Jeff Brown … Let me know what you think, dear readers. It is a legitimate point of contention for debate and wider discussion. Jeff Brown argues his point brilliantly. Like the genius he is.

“I went through a particularly potent writing phase some years ago. I was writing one clarified quote after another, and immediately sharing them in social media. What I found interesting was that many people would come onto my walls, and remark that I was “channeling.” At first, I imagined this a good thing. As though I had somehow formed a bond with the Divine, and the Divine was using me to bring their m, I arrived at a different perspective. I had worked long and hard, and overcome much, and whatever insights I had arrived at did not come from the beyond. They came from within me, from the heart of my lived experience, from the depths of my story. And then I looked closer at many of the ways that we associate moments of achievement with something beyond ourselves: “Her performance was out of this world”, “He rose above his circumstances and channeled greatness,” “Her genius is heaven sent,” “He has found his DIVINE purpose.” It is as though we are only allowed to own our mediocre achievements. Anything clarified or brilliant or awesome had to come from somewhere beyond our humanness. Little wonder our views of enlightenment and awakening are frequently associated with transcendence. We haven’t been taught that we are the marvel, and that our lived and learned experience is the source of our most profound creations. If we don’t come to get this, if we continue to bury our magnificence below a bushel of judgment, we will continue to look for our greatness outside of ourselves and our species will never actualize its possibilities. Because we really are marvel-us 🙂. Each of us, a living marvel...”

Suffering from Right-Way-ism

You know the types I mean. The ones who always know the “right way” to do things. The ones who believe there is only one “right way” to do things.

They not only know how to do things the “right way” but they insist that you do things the “right way” (code for “their” way), too.

Those types made me miserable for a large part of my life. Now they just make me crazy. I tend to walk in the opposite direction to escape their certitude – emphasis on “their.”

I love problem-solving. I expect that comes from my long line of ancestors that includes machinists and engineers and shoemakers for whom exactitude was imperative to their work.

Of course, I firmly believe that in order to break the rules, one must first learn what they are. I think about many creative professions – painters, musicians, and writers, for example. They all must know the basics of their craft before they become impresarios. Those basics are usually hard-won by mindless hours of practice and perfecting techniques.

In the writing game, or more specifically, the journalistic writing game, this is known as “paying your dues.” Flights of fancy and artful turns-of-phrase usually only emerge after hours spent hunched over countless blank pages that must be turned into something digestible for an audience.

Musicians are much the same. Not one of those fancy guitar pickers can launch into mind-blowing solos until they have learned musical scales.

Creatives transform into artists if, and when, they have mastered the basic techniques of their craft. Becoming an artist is not a given. Unless you cleave to the theory that artistry is god-given.

The truth is that fear confounds the heart and soul of many creatives who might have or could become great artists. To become great means to take risks. Many people, including creatives, are not risk-takers.

I think back to the craftspeople of my Canadian home province. In New Brunswick, there are numerous brilliant craftspeople. What sets the artists in their field apart from the journeymen of the trade is risk-taking.

Many solid potters produce and make a decent living by producing vast numbers of essentially the same patterns with the same glazes that the same people come back and buy year after year.

One can certainly respect their output and work ethic but it would be a stretch to call them artists in their field. The Canadian arts community recognizes outstanding craftsmanship with the annual Saidye Bronfman Awards. The artist who produce stupefying pieces of breathtaking beauty are honored with a title and a cash award.

Most of these artists no longer do their art “the right way.” Far from it. They have transcended and pushed the boundaries of their craft into formerly unknown creations. They gently thumb their noses at the rules they were taught as apprentices and, while still honoring the basics of their craft, push on to create something that had formerly not been conceived of.

We tend to forget (or more likely never knew unless we were art students) how ground-breaking and genre-defying the artworks of Picasso, Jackson Pollock or Paul Klee or even Andy Warhol were before they brought their creative visions into being.

So take pity on those who are bound by the conventions of doing everything the “right way.” By doing so, you will likely walk a straight and narrow path for the rest of your life. And that is all you will do.

To make waves, change hearts and minds, influence social movements, and address injustice, art must sometimes be done “the wrong way.” That means by saying or showing or even singing about wrongs that need righting, humanity moves forward. Counter-intuitive as that may sound.