the creative
I got an email this morning from a woman who says she wants to build a creative life; to build creativity into her life. Can I help her?
I like the question. It seems so basic. Something that should be simple. Like, I want to learn to feed myself.
Should be simple. But it never is.
I like the question. It seems so basic. Something that should be simple. Like, I want to learn to feed myself.
Should be simple. But it never is.
Why?
I spend the rest of the morning asking around.
I start with my girlfriend, who was a traveling musician when we met but soon gave it up to build her other career as an acupuncturist. "One has to make money," she explains now. "When I was really prioritizing my creativity, I wasn't making money and I didn't care about that. But now I have responsibilities, a family, dogs to walk. So it's time and money."
Time and money.
But my artist friends who have trust funds don't always fare much differently than my work-a-day friends. "Having money doesn't help," one writer tells me. "Because then you don't have that fire under your ass. When I first got access to my money, I figured I'd just take a year off to relax. But it's been a lot longer than a year. I can't get motivated. And, you know, on some level, why should I?"
I know creative women who have married bread-winning men in part because they believed they'd be able to focus on their art with that "security." But the drama of dependence can take a toll. And the undertow of tradition can easily suck us in. Maybe we have kids. And pretty soon our creative energy is focused on Play Dough crafts we don't really get lost in.
Why is it so difficult to build a creative life? To build creativity into our lives?
One of my writing students says it's hard because "I wonder, am I ever going to get paid for this? Is anyone out there? Will people get what I say?"
So it's money. But it's also the fear of not being heard, of being misunderstood. "Getting paid" is about more than making money--it's about knowing that what we do is valued by the community. That there is some place for us in this world.
I spend the rest of the morning asking around.
I start with my girlfriend, who was a traveling musician when we met but soon gave it up to build her other career as an acupuncturist. "One has to make money," she explains now. "When I was really prioritizing my creativity, I wasn't making money and I didn't care about that. But now I have responsibilities, a family, dogs to walk. So it's time and money."
Time and money.
But my artist friends who have trust funds don't always fare much differently than my work-a-day friends. "Having money doesn't help," one writer tells me. "Because then you don't have that fire under your ass. When I first got access to my money, I figured I'd just take a year off to relax. But it's been a lot longer than a year. I can't get motivated. And, you know, on some level, why should I?"
I know creative women who have married bread-winning men in part because they believed they'd be able to focus on their art with that "security." But the drama of dependence can take a toll. And the undertow of tradition can easily suck us in. Maybe we have kids. And pretty soon our creative energy is focused on Play Dough crafts we don't really get lost in.
Why is it so difficult to build a creative life? To build creativity into our lives?
One of my writing students says it's hard because "I wonder, am I ever going to get paid for this? Is anyone out there? Will people get what I say?"
So it's money. But it's also the fear of not being heard, of being misunderstood. "Getting paid" is about more than making money--it's about knowing that what we do is valued by the community. That there is some place for us in this world.
The worst thing for an artist is to be ignored, the performing writer Erika Lopez once told me. But is being ignored worse than not creating anything for people to ignore?
Maybe.
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
"The creative life is difficult to build because at almost every turn we are challenged by the patriarchy," my writer friend Moe Bowstern tells me. "We have in our society places for business people, for numbers people, for healers, for teachers, administrators, tradespeople. But the creative person must frequently invent a place for herself. In my experience this has meant doing my own creative work at a financial loss and finding other ways to make money. For others around me I see that they turn to teaching or working with children, as this is a place where our society feels good about funding creation."
All these difficulties ring true. Time seems such a finite and fluttering thing these days. I have kids to feed, tuitions to pay. Sometimes I get paid for creative work. Ah, this is really the ticket, I think. But then comes the devil: The temptation to write for the market.
Then again, writing things that people will read isn't always about selling out--it's about the part of creativity that seeks community. Writing not just because "I am an ARTISTE" but because I choose to be in conversation with other people seeking to build creative lives, other people seeking to be honest with themselves. To write for people, then, not for markets.
Moe says: "People around the artist may not understand that art that is unmade, or art that is distorted to fit into a box that can be sold or traded, that this art sows the seeds of madness and poor mental health. This may take the form of depression, denial, alcoholism, mania, obsessive behavior or any number of things that we can now take a pill to mediate. Our society, sadly, would rather drug us than allow us to make our art. I believe that artists and creative persons can save the world from the deathmongers, if we can just keep making our art and using it to awaken people and join them together. Encouraging people therefore to follow a creative path is highly subversive behavior. So, yeah. We have to swim upstream." That's what Moe says.
What do you think?
Fear of failure.
Fear of success.
"The creative life is difficult to build because at almost every turn we are challenged by the patriarchy," my writer friend Moe Bowstern tells me. "We have in our society places for business people, for numbers people, for healers, for teachers, administrators, tradespeople. But the creative person must frequently invent a place for herself. In my experience this has meant doing my own creative work at a financial loss and finding other ways to make money. For others around me I see that they turn to teaching or working with children, as this is a place where our society feels good about funding creation."
All these difficulties ring true. Time seems such a finite and fluttering thing these days. I have kids to feed, tuitions to pay. Sometimes I get paid for creative work. Ah, this is really the ticket, I think. But then comes the devil: The temptation to write for the market.
Then again, writing things that people will read isn't always about selling out--it's about the part of creativity that seeks community. Writing not just because "I am an ARTISTE" but because I choose to be in conversation with other people seeking to build creative lives, other people seeking to be honest with themselves. To write for people, then, not for markets.
Moe says: "People around the artist may not understand that art that is unmade, or art that is distorted to fit into a box that can be sold or traded, that this art sows the seeds of madness and poor mental health. This may take the form of depression, denial, alcoholism, mania, obsessive behavior or any number of things that we can now take a pill to mediate. Our society, sadly, would rather drug us than allow us to make our art. I believe that artists and creative persons can save the world from the deathmongers, if we can just keep making our art and using it to awaken people and join them together. Encouraging people therefore to follow a creative path is highly subversive behavior. So, yeah. We have to swim upstream." That's what Moe says.
What do you think?
posted by Contact at 3:40 PM
10 Comments:
Now that is a great post. You hit spot on with so many things: write for the people statement; will I ever get paid for this?, etc.
Totally relate to this post.
I end up fearing it because it is so much easier to succeed in a more traditional setting -- you don't end up out on the cliff.
I have been meaning to write a book for a few years now...then the low-paying research job, the baby, the next baby, the house project that just NEEDS to be done, gets in the way. Really, what gets in the way is my own self esteem -- success is so much more attainable if all I have to do is tile a bathroom....
See, I don't think it's a money thing at all--it's an abundance thing, which is a sense of what makes us feel happiness, security, and meaning. So often we think in terms of money, but we never ask ourselves what we think specifically that money will provide for us.
Regardless of funds, I would say to build a creative life you must create, surround yourself with people who support you and who you enjoy, create some more, say yes to the things you yearn for, and then go back to creating. If the money follows, and it will and then won't and then will again, it won't matter because you are living the life you like anyway.
I needed to read this, though as many of us, I still wander, searching for my answer. I am constantly trying to build a creative life, in fits and starts mostly, fruition a far off fantasy. This morning, for example, I got up and rushed to the computer, trying for some time before the fruits of my loin (women can say this too right?) ponced. In my surfing, aka prewriting, I read the post. Read it again, teared up, and decided to post. Two girls have emerged while I type. I am thinking of writing and coffee. They want to know what's for breakfast, can I take them to the library, are cartoons on, did I know this, and that, how long am I going to be on the computer, and so on. Suddenly, my creative options seem muffled again. Sure, raising strong women is a creative endeavor - and I am committed and proud. But, I need to write, I have things to say, and I need my writing to become the money maker too - in order to survive and take care of these burgeoning creative women who watch me, question me, and pull me away from the keys...
That was beautiful anonymous...you should have used your real name. :)
Mandy
We swim upstream not just as a life directive, we swim upstream in little moments, when we're writing and the girls want to know when you'll be done. Never you think, I'll always have something to say, a need to be heard. Right now you think, I'll always take time to nurture you child, so you grow strong and well.
Well said (or, err..written). :)
I feel the need to create on nearly a daily basis, but with work/family/life it just gets harder and harder to spend the day writing poems or making up songs.
Real life gets in the way of creativity. Maybe we need to carve out more time to focus on ourselves as artists. Much easier said than done.
I think this is a great post - and we need to keep encouraging each other "fight! fight! fight!" or "resist!" "swim upstream!" YES!
and its not all or nothing. Its not easy. Its little things here and there adding up. Its my novel that is laying on the floor under my feet, the dog tramples on it, tries to burry a bone in it -- I let my rough draft lay there without respect ever since I finished it on august 1 (WHY?) (because its like that. because actual writing the novel is not fun at all)
but I'm getting re-inspired to pick up the mess this september - as I forced myself not to write on it in august as that was "deal with physical reality month" (where I did deal with some reality but also found out I don't like reality very much, but neither did I really enjoy the writing either)
but you remind me what I'm doing and kinda make me feel excited about it.
Its my daughter, waiting at the bus stop 7 am this morning, to go jump through financial aid and registering for college last minute hoops AGAIN - before she goes to work - so she can attend community college in the evenings and on weekends.
Its my young roomate trying to figure out her own way to jump through those hoops with her mother not involved in her life for a while, its difficult to get some parents to even call for the forms you need.
its difficult to be poor. Everything is difficult! Fight Fight Fight
Swim upstream! little by little. Its not all black or white. there is balance and there are seasons, but you never give up!
xoxo
china
Creativity is an inside job first.
I think the reality is that everything that manifests in the outside world, even "a creative life," is an out-picturing of the inner life. And the bottom line is that many folks don't want to do the inner work that is required for a harmonious out-picturing of "a creative life."
I'm not saying that I don't see the external challenges. It's just that when you focus on the external challenges they just seem bigger. But when you start moving the small blockages within, the difference in one, two, five, ten years can be monumental.
That's my two cents, anyway. It's something I notice in my students often. And certainly has always been true for me.
Happy long weekend!
The swimming upstream is one thing, but the mental illness comment is sadly off target. Certainly creativity can help heal fractured minds and tortured souls, but lack of creativity is not the cause of the mental illness, c'mon, there are far more factors involved here.
The creative life is a challenge, but worthy of working through uninspired days and endless distractions or obligations. If we look at art and creativity as belonging to us, belonging to everyone, accepting that the act itself is the most important part, working through the blocks, setbacks and discouragements and reveling in the art we love, a creative life will follow. Claim it and give it time to grow without expectations.
Post a Comment
<< Home