So You Wanted an Update
See what happens? I had no idea it had been so long.
Well, Artist's Way is going smashingly. The last four weeks have been pretty intense, what with improvisational theatre, spontaneous interpretive dance, and blind drawing and painting. I haven't always felt like going, but the rewards are muy worth it, even as the emotional risks become ever greater. This week I painted for the first time, I believe, since junior high art class. What's up with THAT?
Lots of revelations and developments. The first is that I've realized how unique gl.'s pedagogy probably is, in terms of facilitating an Artist's Way group. A lot more DOing, apparently, than is usual. A lot less 12-stepping about How Authority Figures Crushed My Creativity At An Early Age, etc.
Not that talking it out isn't important (in fact, two meetings ago I would rather have forgone the artsy crap for a big ol' rap session and group hug), but the artsy crap just works a lot better in the end.
gl. describes herself as an "artistic opportunist," which means that she's willing to venture into any nest of spiders with any medium that ends up in her willowy fist.
This conscious lack of specialization is great for us, not only because it allows us to try things we've never done (or haven't dared do for a long, long time), but because it drives home what Brian Eno isolated as THE irreducible attribute of a great artist, namely "confidence."
Instead of wandering into galleries toe-tappingly bitching that we "could have done that," she just marches us right in there with flags unfurled and hearts ablaze with glory. And THAT, my friends, is some mighty teachin.'
Which is not to say that we participants four have not proved an intrepid and wowsomely intuitive band. Which brings me to my second revelation, which is the remarkable consistency that is developing in my work across media and categories alike.
After spending so many years in academia learning to analyze and criticize art into charred, twitching ruins (something that Mama Cameron brings up in the latest chapter, amen), it is difficult to wake to the possibility of actually making things, with my hands and heart, rather than by using received theories and methodologies to wrench things into shapes well-suited to the strictures of the field, but not occuring in the unconscious, or the fulsome fount of creative Nature.
Theory is keen, don't get me wrong, especially (and I'm much more adamant about this distinction now) when it serves to articulate political and social forces for which the dominant ideology offers no language. In other words, it's for the subaltern, for resistance and for justice, not for wanking.
And this immersion in the sloppiness and strategic failures of the creative process really has shone light on a new way of experiencing and evaluating artwork, both my own and that of others: "bad" art is often a preliminary stage, larval--even embryonic--for the good stuff. We can help to guide it along, give it sunlight and water and sing to it, or we can crush it, piss on it, darken hopes and souls.
Which is not to say that certain things do not offend mine eyes and ears, but that I can better see the intention and the potential in it. With this much more receptive and compassionate sensibility, the world is simply fuller, lusher, more a-tremble with possibility.
It's a cosmic paradigm that often hangs on the wispiest of details. It renders spite and jealousy and closed-mindedness not exactly impossible (okay, far from it), but certainly far less defensible.
What it comes down to, I can say in my newfound naivety, is something on which I've harped before, and recently, which is good faith vs. bad. Art, like political and social relations, can be soured and sloughed with toxins by a desire to destroy or stifle rather than a desire to create and reveal.
In seeking to make connections, complete circuits, pollinate, turn the wheel, and crack the dam, we are doing the work of the creative force of the universe (whatsoever you may call it, and whatever form, number and genitalia it might have). And in doing that work, our lives cannot help but to open up along with our work, our art and our daily practice.
There. I've become a freaking acolyte.
Speaking of which, guess what? We've been going to church.
Before you choke on your granola, let me assure you that I haven't suddenly gone Baptist on yo' asses. It's the Unitarians, for Christ's sake. In fact, they mention Jesus less often than they bring up the Dalai Lama, MLK and Hafiz.
The first sermon we attended was on the cultural construction of beauty and the spiritual aspects of body image. Their youth service was lead by a pack of multiracial kids with "Religious Left" T-shirts. And aside from an unfortunate outburst of crass Fox News and Red State jokes in the midst of an announcement for the Social Justice Auction last Sunday, not a moment has made me uncomfortable nor rubbed my values the wrong way. Heck, even my years of playing Pagan set off the occasional alarm. I never did like dancing naked around a fire much. Not my thang.
And anyway, it's not like I was brought up with any religion to flinch at. I came at this all by myself, after having tried pretty much everything else. The Unitarians may not be the most charismatic bunch (in either sense; at times I could use a pinch more righteous fire, or at least a shouted "Amen" or "Tell it Sister"), but at least they don't freak me out. And there aren't all those expectations that make everyone feel guilty and ashamed and make hypocrisy all but inevitable.
Finally, it'll be good to have a bunch of people for our daughter to hang out with that aren't all potheads and miscreants. At least not full-time. Am I getting old?
So, Ms. Cameron rather insists that the Artist's Way is an explicitly spiritual path. Unless we accept that our creativity flows from a creatOR, from something other than our own cramped egos, it cannot take root and it cannot bloom.
I just didn't think it would make me think about all that stuff enough to do something about it. One of my fellow participants is, as we speak, undergoing ordination into Buddhism. SEE?
And yes, all this Artist's Waying is completely in line and directly downstream from my fast-approaching parenthood. Ten weeks to go, and though I've a lot to think about, and it sure is scary, I'm not really all that worried. Because this is what I want, and because there's so much to be learned from it, so many gifts to be given away and received. I feel like Richard Dreyfuss being let on board the mothership: from now on, everything will be different, and wondrous. I'm ready to have my mind blown.
It always kind of rankles me to write about parenthood here on LJ, and I can't tell you why. Partly it's because I don't feel exactly qualified yet. And partly it's because I know I won't be able to shut up once she's born, so why scare you all away beforehand?
But mostly I think it's that this is, frankly, the most private and miraculous array of thoughts and emotions I've ever received, and damned if I can't put it into words. It's no big whoop to have a baby; we ALL took that bus here, right?
But if I were to try to explain it all to you, you know what I would ask you to imagine?
Silence. The purest, richest silence rolling out from the heart of the universe, from the center of the tiniest flower.
It makes me feel like my heart has skipped a million beats.
I don't want to miss anything.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.
Well, Artist's Way is going smashingly. The last four weeks have been pretty intense, what with improvisational theatre, spontaneous interpretive dance, and blind drawing and painting. I haven't always felt like going, but the rewards are muy worth it, even as the emotional risks become ever greater. This week I painted for the first time, I believe, since junior high art class. What's up with THAT?
Lots of revelations and developments. The first is that I've realized how unique gl.'s pedagogy probably is, in terms of facilitating an Artist's Way group. A lot more DOing, apparently, than is usual. A lot less 12-stepping about How Authority Figures Crushed My Creativity At An Early Age, etc.
Not that talking it out isn't important (in fact, two meetings ago I would rather have forgone the artsy crap for a big ol' rap session and group hug), but the artsy crap just works a lot better in the end.
gl. describes herself as an "artistic opportunist," which means that she's willing to venture into any nest of spiders with any medium that ends up in her willowy fist.
This conscious lack of specialization is great for us, not only because it allows us to try things we've never done (or haven't dared do for a long, long time), but because it drives home what Brian Eno isolated as THE irreducible attribute of a great artist, namely "confidence."
Instead of wandering into galleries toe-tappingly bitching that we "could have done that," she just marches us right in there with flags unfurled and hearts ablaze with glory. And THAT, my friends, is some mighty teachin.'
Which is not to say that we participants four have not proved an intrepid and wowsomely intuitive band. Which brings me to my second revelation, which is the remarkable consistency that is developing in my work across media and categories alike.
After spending so many years in academia learning to analyze and criticize art into charred, twitching ruins (something that Mama Cameron brings up in the latest chapter, amen), it is difficult to wake to the possibility of actually making things, with my hands and heart, rather than by using received theories and methodologies to wrench things into shapes well-suited to the strictures of the field, but not occuring in the unconscious, or the fulsome fount of creative Nature.
Theory is keen, don't get me wrong, especially (and I'm much more adamant about this distinction now) when it serves to articulate political and social forces for which the dominant ideology offers no language. In other words, it's for the subaltern, for resistance and for justice, not for wanking.
And this immersion in the sloppiness and strategic failures of the creative process really has shone light on a new way of experiencing and evaluating artwork, both my own and that of others: "bad" art is often a preliminary stage, larval--even embryonic--for the good stuff. We can help to guide it along, give it sunlight and water and sing to it, or we can crush it, piss on it, darken hopes and souls.
Which is not to say that certain things do not offend mine eyes and ears, but that I can better see the intention and the potential in it. With this much more receptive and compassionate sensibility, the world is simply fuller, lusher, more a-tremble with possibility.
It's a cosmic paradigm that often hangs on the wispiest of details. It renders spite and jealousy and closed-mindedness not exactly impossible (okay, far from it), but certainly far less defensible.
What it comes down to, I can say in my newfound naivety, is something on which I've harped before, and recently, which is good faith vs. bad. Art, like political and social relations, can be soured and sloughed with toxins by a desire to destroy or stifle rather than a desire to create and reveal.
In seeking to make connections, complete circuits, pollinate, turn the wheel, and crack the dam, we are doing the work of the creative force of the universe (whatsoever you may call it, and whatever form, number and genitalia it might have). And in doing that work, our lives cannot help but to open up along with our work, our art and our daily practice.
There. I've become a freaking acolyte.
Speaking of which, guess what? We've been going to church.
Before you choke on your granola, let me assure you that I haven't suddenly gone Baptist on yo' asses. It's the Unitarians, for Christ's sake. In fact, they mention Jesus less often than they bring up the Dalai Lama, MLK and Hafiz.
The first sermon we attended was on the cultural construction of beauty and the spiritual aspects of body image. Their youth service was lead by a pack of multiracial kids with "Religious Left" T-shirts. And aside from an unfortunate outburst of crass Fox News and Red State jokes in the midst of an announcement for the Social Justice Auction last Sunday, not a moment has made me uncomfortable nor rubbed my values the wrong way. Heck, even my years of playing Pagan set off the occasional alarm. I never did like dancing naked around a fire much. Not my thang.
And anyway, it's not like I was brought up with any religion to flinch at. I came at this all by myself, after having tried pretty much everything else. The Unitarians may not be the most charismatic bunch (in either sense; at times I could use a pinch more righteous fire, or at least a shouted "Amen" or "Tell it Sister"), but at least they don't freak me out. And there aren't all those expectations that make everyone feel guilty and ashamed and make hypocrisy all but inevitable.
Finally, it'll be good to have a bunch of people for our daughter to hang out with that aren't all potheads and miscreants. At least not full-time. Am I getting old?
So, Ms. Cameron rather insists that the Artist's Way is an explicitly spiritual path. Unless we accept that our creativity flows from a creatOR, from something other than our own cramped egos, it cannot take root and it cannot bloom.
I just didn't think it would make me think about all that stuff enough to do something about it. One of my fellow participants is, as we speak, undergoing ordination into Buddhism. SEE?
And yes, all this Artist's Waying is completely in line and directly downstream from my fast-approaching parenthood. Ten weeks to go, and though I've a lot to think about, and it sure is scary, I'm not really all that worried. Because this is what I want, and because there's so much to be learned from it, so many gifts to be given away and received. I feel like Richard Dreyfuss being let on board the mothership: from now on, everything will be different, and wondrous. I'm ready to have my mind blown.
It always kind of rankles me to write about parenthood here on LJ, and I can't tell you why. Partly it's because I don't feel exactly qualified yet. And partly it's because I know I won't be able to shut up once she's born, so why scare you all away beforehand?
But mostly I think it's that this is, frankly, the most private and miraculous array of thoughts and emotions I've ever received, and damned if I can't put it into words. It's no big whoop to have a baby; we ALL took that bus here, right?
But if I were to try to explain it all to you, you know what I would ask you to imagine?
Silence. The purest, richest silence rolling out from the heart of the universe, from the center of the tiniest flower.
It makes me feel like my heart has skipped a million beats.
I don't want to miss anything.
Shhhhhhhhhhhhh.