Where Do Artists Go When They Hurt?

This is always a bit of a touchy subject.  Yet, it is one that touches all artists most intimately.  It is a matter of the heart, battered or broken.  Where do we go when we hurt?

Well, all kinds of places.  It depends on the artist.

For example, the greatest setback I've suffered in the last years was a coup a few months ago.

I was invited in to help a high school rebuild its broken theatre company.  After five successful shows mounted over fifteen months of hard work, and the first acting award the company has seen in years, another teacher and a group of parents decided they wanted to run things.

They charged me with precasting shows with my favorite students (thereby cheating all other students of a fair shot).  They refused to allow me to defend myself.  Then, when I called their bluff and agreed to work with the casting committee they insisted upon, they refused to answer.  In short, I was out and they took over.  That they did this two weeks before the fifth show opened only rubbed salt in the wound.

(I know that some will say it was only a high school theatre company.  Yet, those kids meant a lot to me.  They still do.)

Regardless, when hurt, where do artists go?

I went to Mu.

But that's me.  I truly think that each of us must choose our own way.  We must each choose that explanation of the unseen that makes the most sense to us.

The point, then, is not so much where you go, but that you go there.

You go there, and you stay there.  For as long as it takes to heal the battered or broken heart, no matter what anyone else has to say about the matter.

After that, you pick up your art, and get back to work.

Those Dry Spells

I was talking with a young photog the other day.

In fact, to my critical eye, he is one of the most talented photogs we have currently residing in Edmonds, regardless of his youth.

Which is ironic, for I first met him while working with a high school to rebuild their theatre company.  He found himself as a (set) dress designer.  Indeed, he quickly became our lead dress designer.

Many was the time, in the five shows I directed there, that I would ask what he planned for some aspect of the set dress.

He would throw out a remark or two which, while clearly making sense to him, I simply could not visualize.

Nevertheless, I had grown accustomed to the quality of his work.  So, I would swallow hard and wait to see what transpired.  Of course, it always met and quite often exceeded all our expectations.

Yet, as talented as he is as an artist, he ran into a dry spell this spring with his photography:  He didn't jury into a show that he had expected to.  He didn't make the cut at a local summer market.  There were other disappointments.

All artists know this awful time.  Resources get taken away.  People get ill.  Programs get canceled.  Funding dries up.  Coups happen.  Or, worse, the artist loses inspiration.  The Muse no longer speaks.

And then, worst of all, a constant drip, drip, drip of thoughts begin eroding self-confidence:  Maybe I should give this up.  Maybe I'm being ridiculous here.  Why did I ever think I could be an artist?

Yet, awful as these dry spells are, they always end.  So, knowing this, we just have to get through them.

The alternative is giving up our art.  And that, as every artist knows, is experiencing the death of a loved one.

Two Artists Under One Roof

Right around this date, twenty-two years ago, in a dark and mysterious bar in China,  I asked a woman if I could buy her a beer.

She completely dissed me, but that's another story.

Yet, I persevered long enough to gain a first date a few weeks later.  There we sat, in a seafood restaurant on Sungjian Nan Loo (ie Sungjian South Road) in Taipei, Taiwan, making awkward conversation.  

The most intriguing part was that we eventually settled on the topic of jewelry design.  (There are several sources at hand in that part of the world for breathtakingly beautiful jade of various colors, sumptuous amber, and intricately worked silver.)

Now, if someone had tapped me on the shoulder at the time to let me know that within ten years, we would own a small gallery just north of Seattle, I would have immediately asked what he was smoking.  I have to be honest here:  I wasn't talking jewelry design with her because I was interested in it.  I was saying whatever I needed to say to get to a second date.

And, I did.  Which led to a third, a fourth, followed by countless ups and down, emotional highs and lows, the Chinese wedding, the American one, a gallery and - somewhere along the way - two slowly growing artistic careers.

Which begs the question: I've known and loved this woman for over twenty years.  Just how much, if at all, has she affected my art?

Quite a lot, actually.  When we met, I had no idea whatsoever of becoming a writer, whether novelist or playwright.  In fact, I was so far from appreciating writing of quality that - typical of my upbringing - I read only spy, military, and crime thrillers.  One after another.  

To read a thoughtful novel, instead of an action one, was to my mind a sign of the effeminate.  Only a "limp-wristed guy" (as we put it back in the Midwest) would ever do it.

And that's just reading such a novel.  How about writing one?

Here's a bit from my first novel, Fighting for Eden...

It was a beautiful ride.  In fields along the way, with a hawk soaring high above for company, they could see the lazy ballet of line after line of sprinklers throwing out their offering to the parched earth, their great ten foot high wheels rusting quietly in the morning's heat.  Pausing to watch a rainbow doing its sparkling dance over a water line, a sight she never tired of no matter how often she saw it, she spotted a coyote in the distance skulking along the side of an irrigation ditch and, glancing quickly at Jake, thought a prayer of thanks that he wasn't carrying a rifle.  Whip danced a few steps herself, rousing Jessie from her reverie...

Clearly not a passage you'll find in your average thriller.

Whence the change?  As I recall, Manya's greatest influence on me as a writer came down to one question that she asked me long, long ago.  We were discussing the merits of my typical reading fare, and she asked...

"You've read so many of these thrillers.  How many of them do you remember?"

Almost none, I had to confess.  They all just tended to blur, one into another.  I thought that was the point, actually.  Read to escape for a little while.

But, now, suddenly, this whole new world opened up.  Why settle for the routine, the common, when I could reach beyond them for those who had gone one better?  After all, if you've only so much time before the big curtain descends, why not spend it on the best?

And the rest, as they say, is history.

PS.  (Fighting for Eden is available on Kindle, also in softcover from Lulu.)

If Only...

Patriarchy Boys

(The site's traffic stats show my Jig Saw Girl becoming one of the most popular pieces.  And, as if the literary gods decided I needed a followup this morning...)

Interesting how early life patterns set in - modes of thought, habits of thought, really.

A few years ago, on a whim, I bought a $17 football at Fred Meyer.  Yes, I know that I'm a novelist and playwright who owns an art gallery.  Nevertheless, I love playing football.  (Watching it, however, bores me to tears.)

I love the smell of the leather rubbing off on your hands.  I love the painful slap as the ball comes in for a hard landing.  I love the way the body feels after being stretched in all those directions after playing for a while.  I love the poetry of a graceful pass, spiraling slowly through the air, almost as if it is hanging there, like a thought too beautiful to contemplate all at once.

I also love running passing plays with Manya first thing in the morning.

Yes, I know.  It sounds odd.  However, that is what we do.  We run 5 yard, 8 yard, 10 yard, 15 yard, even 20 yard passing plays in the street out in front of our home.  Typically, Manya starts as quarterback (she has excellent placement up to 15 yards), I as running back.  After a set of four passing plays, we switch.

And the plays themselves?  Oh, 10 (or however many yards) and Outs, Breaks (left and right), Hooks, Crosses, Slides, Sweeps and whatever else we dream up.

Our neighbors, tis true, thought us a bit eccentric.  At least, at first.  Then, they began to notice how fit and trim we were growing, which inspired them to start exercising more themselves.  These days, they think we're cool, particularly in the heat of July and August when Manya is playing in her sassy short shorts and sports bra.  (Passing cars tend to slow around that time of year.  Can't imagine why.)  By that time, my winter pudginess has usually burnt off, so I play shirtless, enjoying those rare kisses of a cooling breeze on an otherwise blistering day.

All in all, such play paints the day in a whole new, happier light.

But not for everyone.

For I've long noticed that footballs tend to arouse strong emotions in others, either of squirmy discomfort or of withering contempt.  The problem?  For some reason, girls aren't supposed to play with footballs.

I know because people keep telling us that.  Yes, they will stop their cars and actually make some comment to that effect.  Typically, it's nothing more than a thumbs up or the exclamation, "You guys are great!"  But, that's just it.  People feel like they have to comment.   As if we are staging a protest or something.

Sometimes, I'm sorry to say, the comment is more of a sneer.  This morning, a Seattle Utilities worker slowly drove his massive truck all the way down the block, making us wait for him.  When he drew up near us, he actually stopped and jeered, "Pretty good pass for a girl."

From whence is such antipathy derived?

Well, also this morning, two recently arrived neighborhoods boys completed what must be their third inspection of this unsettling practice of a woman handling a football.  And from the sour expressions on their faces, it is quite clear they are not very happy about it.

They must be all of seven or eight years old, on their way to the bus stop for school.  As they draw near, I am amused to see them deliberately choose not to see Manya throw or catch.  It's as if seeing a woman handle a football with such casual command is best not acknowledged.

Then, as they continue ambling down the street and near to me, the older one especially, looks at me with a very suspicious glance as if I am betraying some fundamental order of the universe.  This morning, when I said, "Good morning!" he grunted in response.

Such ossified thinking in one so young.  I can only sigh.

But then Manya has just lofted her latest beautiful, spiraling pass, and I am running to catch it with a loopy grin on my face.

Jig Saw Girl

I'm not sure why but, for some reason this year, during Father's Day, I found myself following the advertising.  Almost as if it were a cultural statement about how we, as a people, think of our dads.

So, for example, page idly through the weekly flyers from SEARS, Target, Kmart and other large chains and you find pictures of smiling dads standing with their happy kids next to barbecues, sporting goods and tools.

I found myself thinking, "What if I don't want a barbecue?"

Okay, so perhaps my hope that advertisements featuring dads smiling next to sketching pencils, french copper sauciers, and knitting yarn is a little naive.  Nevertheless, on this day that celebrates manhood like no other, apparently, as a man I should prefer barbecues.  Why?

SEARS says so?  Maybe...

I cannot believe that large corporations with marketing budgets for polling would be pushing products that their customers do not want to buy.  What, then, does this say about us as a people?

I am reminded of something I saw last fall.  I was directing a play at a local high school, and it was set construction day.  No one had ever used a jig saw, so (typical of me) I asked boys and girls alike whether they wanted to learn.  All the boys volunteered.  None of the girls did, save one.

This girl was quite possibly the gentlest soul of the company.  Moreover, high school students tend to talk about each other.  A lot.  And while I never heard anyone describe her using the word "fragile,"  I remember  a few conversations that seemed headed that way.  Clearly not the type you would expect to pick up a noisy, scary jig saw.

As for me, this was my third show working with her, director to actor, and I had long grown used to her inner toughness.  It was always there when she needed it most.  So, I wasn't surprised in the slightest when she volunteered to learn to operate a jig saw.

Of course, she handled it quite well.  Better than quite a few of the boys, as I recall.  And where was I?  Right next to her, holding the wood down so it didn't jump as she cut it, my fingers following along with the cut, about 2 to 3 inches from the noisily rasping blade.

(Honestly, is there a better way to show how much you trust someone to do well than that?)

At any rate, there we were, cutting out the arch to an entrance when I saw it happen.  All the senior boys, then the junior boys, one by one, put down whatever they were working on and, instead, began gathering around, watching this girl handle the jig saw.

Did they say anything?  No.  Were they proud of her?  I don't think so.  If anything, they looked like they were expecting her to chop off my hand.

Now, these are some of the hardest working dramatists I've ever known.  We achieved some extraordinary theatre working together.  Yet, from their expressions, I couldn't help but wonder if these boys hadn't been trained to find a girl successfully operating a jig saw an unwelcome thing in our world.

After all, haven't we all created such gilded cages for our loved ones, at some point or other, just to make us feel better?  When will we stop?

PS.  What happened to the jig saw girl?  She finished her job of cutting out the arch and, with a nervous smile of pride in her achievement, went on her way.

Father Tribute

Here's my Father's Day tribute to one of the hardest working dads I saw this week.

(Not least because I fear I drew him so poorly the first go around.)

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Last Iris

Today sees the final rise, peak and (toward evening) the fall of this season's last iris.

It's been a glorious run these last weeks.  Some years we get the occasional violet flowering.  This year, they were all a lovely, buttery yellow.  I am sorry to see this last one go.

Yet, the Buddhist within has long learned to respect this.  Everything worth living for is transient: happiness, beauty, meaning.  Even irises.

So, do we make the mistake of trying to hold on too tightly to this last iris?  Of course not.  That would be silly.  Indeed, we cannot hold back the forces of life.  Instead, the inner Taoist works with them.

Lately, we've been talking at home quite a lot about living creatively.  (Which, of course, is working its way into my new novel.)  That once we realize how transient life is, the importance of each moment takes on new meaning.

Will the moments of my life take on a dreary sameness, or will I consciously apply them toward the distinctive, the fresh, the brief?

Trying to answer this profound question has had a prosaic effect on our garden, for example.  What do we plant and why?  Should our garden take on a pretty (at first) then (later) stale sameness all year round?  Some nearby neighbors have made that choice.  Whenever I look at their garden, no matter the month, it looks the same.

On the other hand, what if we consciously planted flowers, say, to bloom in different corners of the yard at different times?  Having committed ourselves artistically in this fashion, we then get to enjoy the blooms of that choice.

Today we take those quiet moments to say goodbye to the last of the irises, knowing that yesterday saw the first day lily bloom and the latest rose blooms.  And that tomorrow will bring its fresh joys, too.

Bring on the Juvies

This morning brought our first sight of a "juvie" as we call 'em.  The spring's new-born, fluffy wings and all, brought out of the nest and forth into our world.

For good or ill.

In this case, it was a father sparrow (all dads, take note) feeding his three babies from one of the backyard feeders.  He would flutter down to the feeder, grab a grain or two, flutter back up to the three balls of fluff waiting, impatiently, for him to drop the grain in one of their mouths.  Then, he'd flutter back down to the feeder, repeating the process for the second.  Then, the third.  On and on it went.

There is something really quite reassuring about this.  In the midst of this spring's struggles - and I've heard of many, this year in particular - nevertheless, life does go on.

Not callously.  Of course not.  It's just that the world keeps on rotating, life continues unfolding.  The Grand Mosaic - as one of my characters calls it - forms and reforms each day, endlessly.

And that helps.  When it comes to life's disappointments, I believe that it is precisely in the watching of the world's continuing rhythms that we are able to, initially, accept and, finally, release our pain.

So, bring on the juvies, I say.  Their excitement for life reminds us all that our lives, too, are beginning anew.