sday, April 7, 2010
When I first moved into my present co-op, I joined the Landscape
Committee. We are fortunate enough to have splendid gardens, lovingly
maintained by volunteers. Notices for work parties are posted to invite
participation for annual clean-ups, plantings and special projects. One
day I was weeding the rock garden when another member approached me, and
proceeded to give a detailed account of the reasons why she couldn't
help out as much that year. It sounded like she was just too preoccupied
with other things going on in her life, which was perfectly
understandable. Things come up. Schedules conflict. People are too hung
over to venture out into the bludgeoning daylight of a Sunday morning.
Perhaps it had nothing to do with gardening at all; my neighbour simply
needed to discuss her problems at the time, and it distracted her from
an activity she normally enjoyed. However, I couldn't help but notice
that in the half hour spent describing all the obstacles to her love of
gardening, she could have just reached down and yanked out one of the
choke vines tickling the necks of our daylilies.
This made me wonder how discourse affects our work as artists, in every stage of the creative process: before work has started, while in progress, and after completion. Many artists discover that when they prematurely expose an idea for scrutiny, often their enthusiasm for it wanes. They lose the incentive to continue or sometimes, even to begin. It's as if the act of speaking about one's ideas has already finished the work. Negative, indifferent or judgemental reactions will also factor in discouragement. But I am aware that even when embraced by obvious support, revealing an idea still causes some us anxiety, resistance and inhibition. It may have to do with a fear that what we say about our work and what we finally produce won't match or worse, didn't help it. There is discrepancy or confusion between the end result and our intentions. Peoples' expectations may be disappointed or they start behaving towards us in peculiar ways. We ourselves might not be able to live up to our own ambition. If care is not taken, this vulnerability may invite an opportunity for verbal energy to subtly, replace creative energy and its expression-- especially if guilt for not attending to our craft, sneaks in there too. We fail to recognize that barring physical disability, time spent explaining why we can't paint, write, or compose etc., could have been used towards an actual effort. It gets very complicated.
It is an honour to meet artists who use dialogue to facilitate and generate their ideas, inspiration and motivation, but don't get overwhelmed, divided, or confused by it. They absolutely exist in this world. Words, conversation, verbal expenditure-- these are extensions of, or in service to their artist and not an impediment. They thrive on debate, impassioned exchange and guilessly chat about what they plan to do next-- and then really do it-- without a bead of angst. For those of us easily compromised by our own disclosures, the best solution is to shut up and paint, until it is unavoidable for us to speak. We will need to say something about our work at some point in our lives. Whether it's a project description for a grant application or an artist talk to introduce ourselves, we will be asked to provide information, clarification and insight into and about our work. Until then, we can take heart that even artists who are comfortable with articulation and do not dread or succumb to the " talk jinx" will choose brevity when prompted to elaborate on an entire body of work. They genuinely want to refrain from controlling the viewer's response with too much input. Besides, those who need to wait until work is truly done before talk-sharing with others, may find by then, that they don't have to say much about it at all. The work speaks for itself.
This made me wonder how discourse affects our work as artists, in every stage of the creative process: before work has started, while in progress, and after completion. Many artists discover that when they prematurely expose an idea for scrutiny, often their enthusiasm for it wanes. They lose the incentive to continue or sometimes, even to begin. It's as if the act of speaking about one's ideas has already finished the work. Negative, indifferent or judgemental reactions will also factor in discouragement. But I am aware that even when embraced by obvious support, revealing an idea still causes some us anxiety, resistance and inhibition. It may have to do with a fear that what we say about our work and what we finally produce won't match or worse, didn't help it. There is discrepancy or confusion between the end result and our intentions. Peoples' expectations may be disappointed or they start behaving towards us in peculiar ways. We ourselves might not be able to live up to our own ambition. If care is not taken, this vulnerability may invite an opportunity for verbal energy to subtly, replace creative energy and its expression-- especially if guilt for not attending to our craft, sneaks in there too. We fail to recognize that barring physical disability, time spent explaining why we can't paint, write, or compose etc., could have been used towards an actual effort. It gets very complicated.
It is an honour to meet artists who use dialogue to facilitate and generate their ideas, inspiration and motivation, but don't get overwhelmed, divided, or confused by it. They absolutely exist in this world. Words, conversation, verbal expenditure-- these are extensions of, or in service to their artist and not an impediment. They thrive on debate, impassioned exchange and guilessly chat about what they plan to do next-- and then really do it-- without a bead of angst. For those of us easily compromised by our own disclosures, the best solution is to shut up and paint, until it is unavoidable for us to speak. We will need to say something about our work at some point in our lives. Whether it's a project description for a grant application or an artist talk to introduce ourselves, we will be asked to provide information, clarification and insight into and about our work. Until then, we can take heart that even artists who are comfortable with articulation and do not dread or succumb to the " talk jinx" will choose brevity when prompted to elaborate on an entire body of work. They genuinely want to refrain from controlling the viewer's response with too much input. Besides, those who need to wait until work is truly done before talk-sharing with others, may find by then, that they don't have to say much about it at all. The work speaks for itself.
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