The Complete Artist's Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice (23 page)

Cerebration is the enemy of originality in art.

MARTIN RITT

The perfectionist fixes one line of a poem over and over—until no lines are right. The perfectionist redraws the chin line on a portrait until the paper tears. The perfectionist writes so many versions of scene one that she never gets to the rest of the play. The perfectionist writes, paints, creates with one eye on her audience. Instead of enjoying the process, the perfectionist is constantly grading the results.

The perfectionist has married the logic side of the brain. The critic reigns supreme in the perfectionist’s creative household. A brilliant descriptive prose passage is critiqued with a white-glove approach:
“Mmm.
What about this comma? Is this how you spell ... ?”

For the perfectionist, there are no first drafts, rough sketches, warm-up exercises. Every draft is meant to be final, perfect, set in stone.

Midway through a project, the perfectionist decides to read it all over, outline it, see where it’s going.

And where is it going? Nowhere, very fast.

The perfectionist is never satisfied. The perfectionist never says, “This is pretty good. I think I’ll just keep going.”

To the perfectionist, there is always room for improvement. The perfectionist calls this humility. In reality, it is egotism. It is pride that makes us want to write a perfect script, paint a perfect painting, perform a perfect audition monologue.

Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough—that we should try again.

No. We should not.

“A painting is never finished. It simply stops in interesting places,” said Paul Gardner. A book is never finished. But at a certain point you stop writing it and go on to the next thing. A film is never cut perfectly, but at a certain point you let go and call it done. That is a normal part of creativity—letting go. We always do the best that we can by the light we have to see by.

RISK

QUESTION: What would I do if I didn’t have to do it perfectly?

ANSWER: A great deal more than I am.

We’ve all heard that the unexamined life is not worth living, but consider too that the unlived life is not worth examining. The success of a creative recovery hinges on our ability to move out of the head and into action. This brings us squarely to risk. Most of us are practiced at talking ourselves out of risk. We are skilled speculators on the probable pain of self-exposure.

Living is a form of not being sure,
not knowing what next or how.
The moment you know how, you
begin to die a little. The artist
never entirely knows. We guess.
We may be wrong, but we take
leap after leap in the dark.

AGNES DE MILLE

“I’ll look like an idiot,” we say, conjuring images of our first acting class, our first hobbled short story, our terrible drawings. Part of the game here is lining up the masters and measuring our baby steps against their perfected craft. We don’t compare our student films to George Lucas’s student films. Instead, we compare them to
Star Wars.

We deny that in order to do something well we must first be willing to do it badly. Instead, we opt for setting our limits at the point where we feel assured of success. Living within these bounds, we may feel stifled, smothered, despairing, bored. But, yes, we do feel safe. And safety is a very expensive illusion.

In order to risk, we must jettison our accepted limits. We must break through “I can’t because ...” Because I am too old, too broke, too shy, too proud? Self-defended? Timorous?

Usually, when we say we can’t do something, what we mean is that we won’t do something unless we can guarantee that we’ll do it perfectly.

Working artists know the folly of this stance. There is a common joke among directors: “Oh, yeah. I always know exactly how I should direct the picture—after I’m done directing it.”

As blocked artists, we unrealistically expect and demand success from ourselves and recognition of that success from others. With that as an unspoken demand, a great many things remain outside our sphere of possibility. As actors, we tend to allow ourselves to be typecast rather than working to expand our range. As singers, we stay married to our safe material. As songwriters, we try to repeat a formula hit. In this way, artists who do not appear blocked to the outside eye experience themselves as blocked internally, unable to take the risk of moving into new and more satisfying artistic territory.

We cannot escape fear. We can
only transform it into a companion
that accompanies us on
all our exciting adventures....
Take a risk a day-one small or
bold stroke that will make you
feel great once you have done it.

SUSAN JEFFERS

Once we are willing to accept that anything worth doing might even be worth doing badly our options widen. “If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try ...”

1. Stand-up comedy.

2. Modern dancing.

3. Whitewater rafting.

4. Archery.

5. Learning German.

6. Figure drawing.

7. Figure skating.

8. Being a platinum blond.

9. Puppeteering.

10. Trapeze.

11. Water ballet.

12. Polo.

13. Wearing red lipstick.

14. Taking a couture class.

15. Writing short stories.

16. Reading my poetry in public.

17. A spontaneous tropical vacation.

18. Learning to shoot video.

19. Learning to ride a bike.

20. Taking a watercolor class.

In the movie Raging Bull, boxer Jake La Motta’s manager-brother explains to him why he should shed some weight and fight an unknown opponent. After an intricate spiel that leaves La Motta baffled, he concludes, “So do it. If you win, you win, and if you lose, you win.”

There is no must in art because art is free.

WASSILY KANDINSKY

Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss it you will land among the stars.

LES BROWN

It is always that way with taking risks.

To put it differently, very often a risk is worth taking simply for the sake of taking it. There is something enlivening about expanding our self-definition, and a risk does exactly that. Selecting a challenge and meeting it creates a sense of self-empowerment that becomes the ground for further successful challenges. Viewed this way, running a marathon increases your chances of writing a full-length play. Writing a full-length play gives you a leg up on a marathon.

Complete the following sentence. “If I didn’t have to do it perfectly, I would try ...”

JEALOUSY

Jealousy, I’ve often heard, is a normal human emotion. When I hear that, I think, “Maybe your jealousy—not mine.”

My jealously roars in the head, tightens the chest, massages my stomach lining with a cold fist as it searches out the best grip. I have long regarded jealousy as my greatest weakness. Only recently have I seen it for the tough-love friend that it is.

Jealousy is a map. Each of our jealousy maps differs. Each of us will probably be surprised by some of the things we discover on our own. I, for example, have never been eaten alive with resentment over the success of women novelists. But I took an unhealthy interest in the fortunes and misfortunes of women playwrights. I was their harshest critic, until I wrote my first play.

With that action, my jealousy vanished, replaced by a feeling of camaraderie. My jealousy had actually been a mask for my fear of doing something I really wanted to do but was not yet brave enough to take action toward.

Jealousy is always a mask for fear: fear that we aren’t able to get what we want; frustration that somebody else seems to be getting what is rightfully ours even if we are too frightened to reach for it. At its root, jealousy is a stingy emotion. It doesn’t allow for the abundance and multiplicity of the universe. Jealousy tells us there is room for only one—one poet, one painter, one whatever you dream of being.

With courage you will dare to take risks, have the strength to be compassionate and the wisdom to be humble. Courage is the foundation of integrity.

KESHAVAN NAIR

The truth, revealed by action in the direction of our dreams, is that there is room for all of us. But jealousy produces tunnel vision. It narrows our ability to see things in perspective. It strips us of our ability to see other options. The biggest lie that jealousy tells us is that we have no choice but to be jealous. Perversely, jealousy strips us of our will to act when action holds the key to our freedom.

THE JEALOUSY MAP, AN EXERCISE

Your jealousy map will have three columns. In the first column, name those whom you are jealous of. Next to each name write why. Be as specific and accurate as you can. In the third column, list one action you can take to move toward creative risk and out of jealousy.

When jealousy bites, like a snakebite it requires an immediate antidote. On paper, make your jealousy map.

Even the biggest changes begin with small ones. Green is the color of jealousy, but it is also the color of hope. When you learn to harness its fierce energy on your own behalf, jealousy is part of the fuel toward a greener and more verdant future.

ARCHEOLOGY, AN EXERCISE

The phrases that follow are more of your sleuth work. Very often, we have buried parts of ourselves that can be uncovered by some digging. Not only will your answers tell you what you missed in the past; they will tell you what you can be doing, now, to comfort and encourage your artist child. It is not too late, no matter what your ego tells you.

I don’t have a lot of respect for talent. Talent is genetic. It’s what you do with it that counts.

MARTIN RITT

Complete these phrases.

1. As a kid, I missed the chance to ____________________.

2. As a kid, I lacked ________________________________.

3. As a kid, I could have used ________________________.

4. As a kid, I dreamed of being ________________________.

5. As a kid, I wanted a ______________________________.

6. In my house, we never had enough __________________.

7. As a kid, I needed more __________________________.

8. I am sorry that I will never again see _______________ .

9. For years, I have missed and wondered about ________.

10. I beat myself up about the loss of __________________ .

It is important to acknowledge our positive inventory as well as our shortfalls. Take positive stock of what good you have to build on in the present.

Finish these phrases.

1. I have a loyal friend in __________________ .

2. One thing I like about my town is ______________ .

3. I think I have nice _________________________ .

4. Writing my morning pages has shown me I can ___ .

5. I am taking a greater interest in ________________ .

6. I believe I am getting better at __________________ .

7. My artist has started to pay more attention to _________ .