The Complete Artist's Way: Creativity as a Spiritual Practice (25 page)

It is not my argument that the world of academia be turned into an exalted artists’ studio. It is, however, my point that artists attempting to exist, grow, even flourish, within that milieu recognize that the entire thrust of intellectualism runs counter to the creative impulse. For an artist, to become overly cerebral is to become crippled. This is not to say that artists lack rigor; rather, that artistic rigor is grounded differently than intellectual life usually admits.

Artists and intellectuals are not the same animal. As a younger artist this was very confusing to me. I myself have considerable critical gifts, and have in fact won national awards for practicing them. It was to my own rue that I discovered that these same skills were misapplied when focused on embryonic artistic endeavors—mine or others. Younger artists are seedlings. Their early work resembles thicket and underbrush, even weeds. The halls of academia, with their preference for lofty intellectual theorems, do little to support the life of the forest floor. As a teacher, it has been my sad experience that many talented creatives were daunted early and unfairly by their inability to conform to a norm that was not their own. It would be my hope that the academics who read this book and apply it would do so with an altered appreciation for the authenticity of growth for the sake of growth. In other words, as taller trees, let us not allow our darker critical powers unfettered play upon the seedling artists in our midst.

Trust that still, small voice that says, “This might work and I’ll try it.”

DIANE MARIECHILD

Without specific tools and sufficient ego strengths, many gifted artists languish for years in the wake of such blows. Shamed at their supposed lack of talent, shamed by their “grandiose” dreams, the young artists may channel their gifts into commercial endeavors and then forget their dreams of doing more groundbreaking (and risky) work. They may work as editors instead of writers, film editors instead of film directors, commercial artists instead of fine artists, and get stuck within shouting distance of their dreams. Often audacity, not authentic talent, confers fame on an artist. The lack of audacity—pinched out by critical abuse or malnourished through neglect—may cripple many artists far superior to those we publicly acclaim. In order to recover our sense of hope and the courage to create, we must acknowledge and mourn the scars that are blocking us. This process may seem both painstaking and petty, but it is a necessary rite of passage. Just as a teenager must gain autonomy from an overbearing parent, so too an artist must gain autonomy from malignant artistic mentors.

When Ted finished writing his first novel, he bravely sent it off to a literary agent. He also sent a check for one hundred dollars to pay the agent for taking the time and trouble to read it. What came back was a single page of unusable, irresponsible, and vague reaction: “This novel is half good and half bad. That’s the worst kind. I can’t tell you how to fix it. I suggest pitching it out.”

When I met Ted, he had been blocked for seven years. Like many beginners, he hadn’t even known to get another opinion. It was with great difficulty that he handed his novel over to me. As Ted’s friend, I was heartbroken for him that this novel had been manhandled. As a professional, I was impressed—so impressed I found myself with my first student to unblock.

“Please try to write again. You can do it. I know you can do it,” I started in. Ted was willing to risk unblocking. It is now twelve years since Ted began his work with the morning pages. He has written three novels and two movies. He has an impressive literary agent and a growing reputation.

Man can learn nothing except by going from the known to the unknown.

CLAUDE BERNARD

In order to get to where he is now, Ted had to refeel and mourn the wounding he had endured as a young writer. He had to make his peace with the lost years this wounding had cost him. A page at a time, a day at a time, he had to slowly build strength.

Like the career of any athlete, an artist’s life will have its injuries. These go with the game. The trick is to survive them, to learn how to let yourself heal. Just as a player who ignores a sore muscle may tear it further, an artist who buries his pain over losses will ultimately cripple himself into silence. Give yourself the dignity of admitting your artistic wounds. That is the first step in healing them.

No inventory of our artistic injuries would be complete without acknowledging those wounds that are self-inflicted. Many times, as artists, we are offered a chance that we balk at, sabotaged by our fear, our low self-worth, or simply our other agendas.

Grace is offered an art scholarship in another city but doesn’t want to leave Jerry, her boyfriend. She turns the scholarship down.

Jack is offered a dream job in his field in a faraway city. It’s a great job but he turns it down because of all the friends and family he has where he is.

Angela gets terrible reviews in a terrible play and is then offered another lead in a challenging play. She turns it down.

These lost chances often haunt us bitterly in later years. We will work more extensively later with our artistic U-turns, but for now, just counting them as losses begins the process of healing them.

GAIN DISGUISED AS LOSS

Art is the act of structuring time. “Look at it this way,” a piece of art says. “Here’s how I see it.” As my waggish friend the novelist Eve Babitz remarks, “It’s all in the frame.” This is particularly true when what we are dealing with is an artistic loss. Every loss must always be viewed as a potential gain; it’s all in the framing.

Every end is a beginning. We know that. But we tend to forget it as we move through grief. Struck by a loss, we focus, understandably, on what we leave behind, the lost dream of the work’s successful fruition and its buoyant reception. We need to focus on what lies ahead. This can be tricky. We may not know what lies ahead. And, if the present hurts this badly, we tend to view the future as impending pain.

I cannot expect even my own art to provide all of the answers
—
only to hope it keeps asking the right questions.

GRACE HARTIGAN

“Gain disguised as loss” is a potent artist’s tool. To acquire it, simply, brutally, ask: “How can this loss serve me? Where does it point my work?” The answers will surprise and liberate you. The trick is to metabolize pain as energy. The key to doing that is to know, to trust, and to act as if a silver lining exists if you are only willing to look at the work differently or to walk through a different door, one that you may have balked at.

“In order to catch the ball, you have to want to catch the ball,” the film director John Cassavetes once told a young director. Hearing this, I took it to mean, “Stop complaining about the lousy curves you get thrown and stretch, reach for what you
really
want.” I have tried to follow this advice.

For years, I played studio roulette. Repeatedly, original scripts were bought and not made. Repeatedly, fine work languished on studio shelves, the victim of revolving studio doors. Go pictures became dead overnight, except in my filmmaker’s heart—which was breaking.

“That’s just the way it is,” I was told repeatedly. “If you want to see your films made, you must first sell yourself as a writer and then
if
one of yours scripts is made and
if
that film is a hit and
if
the climate warms up a little,
then
you
might
get a shot at directing....”

I listened to this conventional wisdom for a long time, racking up loss after loss, writing script after script. Finally, after one loss too many, I began to look for the other door, the one I had refused to walk through. I decided to catch the ball: I became an independent filmmaker.

I left Hollywood. I went to Chicago, bought a used camera and, using my
Miami Vice
writing money, shot my own feature, a romantic, forties-style comedy. It was in the can for $31,000 and it looked good. Then, incredibly, my sound tapes were stolen. I finished the film anyway, dubbing it in its entirety. (Yes, crazy, but so was Cassavetes, my role model.) The result won foreign distribution and fine reviews abroad. And I learned a lot.

Art is a technique of communication. The image is the most complete technique of all communication.

CLAES OLDENBURG

Because I asked “How?” instead of “Why me?” I now have a modest first feature to my credit. It might have happened if I had not taken matters into my own hands, but it might not have, either. Since 1974, I have worked vigorously and exhaustively as a film writer. I have written—and sold—features, short films, documentaries, docudramas, teleplays, movies of the week, and that bastardized movie, the miniseries. I have directed one feature and a half dozen short films. Less visibly, I have labored as a script doctor, credited and not, for hire and for love.

To boot, I have written a hundred-plus film essays, film interviews, think pieces, trend pieces, aesthetics pieces, more—all as I toiled as a writer for such diverse publications
as Rolling Stone,
the
New York Times,
the
Village Voice, New York, New West,
the
Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune,
and, most conspicuously,
American Film,
where I served as a contributing editor for many years. In short, you might say I have done my dharma to my favored art form.

Why all of this diverse, hydra-headed productivity? Because I love movies, love making them, and did not want my losses to take me down. I learned, when hit by loss, to ask the right question: “What next?” instead of “Why me?”

Whenever I am willing to ask “What is necessary next?” I have moved ahead. Whenever I have taken no for a final answer I have stalled and gotten stuck. I have learned that the key to career resiliency is self-empowerment and choice.

If you look at long and successful creative careers, you will see this principle in action. The distinguished videographer Shirley Clarke began her creative career as a dancer. She first became a filmmaker so that there would be some properly made dance films. Distinguishing herself next as a first-rate feature director, winning renown in Europe if not directing jobs in American studios, Clarke became the first American director to shoot a feature in Harlem, the first American director to explore the range of hand-held camera, the American director that John Cassavetes, Martin Scorsese, and Paul Shrader all credit as seminal in their own artistic formation. Alas, she was a woman and she lived in difficult times. When her filmmaking revenues dried up, she became one of the first video artists, working with Sam Shepard, Joseph Papp, Ornette Coleman. Clarke clearly took to heart the idea that it was harder to hit a moving target. Whenever one avenue for her creativity was blocked, she found another.

The world of reality has its limits; the world of imagination is boundless.

JEAN-JACQUES
ROUSSEAU

Film annals abound with such stories. Elia Kazan, out of favor as a director, wrote novels. The director John Cassavetes, also a fine actor, used his acting to fund his directing efforts, which were too eclectic for studio backing. “If they won’t make it as a feature,
I’ll
make it,” Cassavetes said, and he did. Rather than allow himself to be blocked, he looked for the other door.

We would not enjoy the wonderful series
Fairytale Theater
if actress-producer Shelley Duvall had stayed home complaining during acting droughts instead of turning her creativity elsewhere.
Non illegitimi te carborundum,
the graffiti in prisoner-of-war camps is said to have run. The rough translation, very important for artists, is “Don’t let the bastards get you down.”

Artists who take this to heart survive and often prevail. The key here is action. Pain that is not used profitably quickly solidifies into a leaden heart, which makes
any
action difficult.

When faced with a loss, immediately take one small action to support your artist. Even if all you are doing is buying a bunch of tulips and a sketch pad, your action says, “I acknowledge you and your pain. I promise you a future worth having.” Like a small child, our artist needs mommying. “Ouch. That hurt. Here’s a little treat, a lullaby, a promise ...”

I have a director friend who tells me that on his worst nights, when he is about to open a new film and he awaits career catastrophe, sure that he will never work again, in the dark, alone, he cajoles himself to sleep: “If I can’t shoot 35 mm, I could still shoot 16 mm. If I can’t shoot 16 mm, then I can shoot video. If I can’t shoot video, I can shoot super 8.”

AGE AND TIME: PRODUCT AND PROCESS

QUESTION: Do you know how old I’ll be by the time I learn to play the piano?

ANSWER: The same age you will be if you don’t.

“I’m too old for that” ranks with “I don’t have money for it” as a Great Block Lie we use to prevent further exploration. “I’m too old” is something we tell ourselves to save ourselves from the emotional cost of the ego deflation involved in being a beginner.