The form is not the goal-Tai Chi and calligraphy

 

Magda, a Tai Chi friend and I were sitting outside in the late spring sun at a wonderful sheltered café yesterday after class.  We were talking about the discipline of learning Tai Chi.

I keep seeing parallels between tai chi and calligraphy. But I get stuck on the fact that Tai chi demands a traditional repetition of form, as does calligraphy, but with calligraphy I find this restrictive and with Tai Chi it is not.  I guess I feel that the goal of learning calligraphy is to not just parrot the letters but to eventually use them to express yourself. So creativity is a goal for learning the technique. With Tai Chi, creativity isn’t a goal, but still something similar is at play here .

Magda commented that the deeper you get into Tai Chi practice, the more you realize that learning to do the form (Tai Chi ‘form’ is the sequence of movements) is not the end goal.

She pointed out that through disciplined practice of Tai Chi, you move beyond the form. You no longer have to think consciously about the movements, the movements become a channel for the energy as it moves through you and around you.  But to experience this one first has to master (to some degree) the movements.

Our whole class is at the point where we can all do Tai Chi in a flowing decorative way that would impress anyone who knew nothing about it.  And every new student aspires to this goal of external appearance and achievement. But once there, you either quit because as a goal in itself it is dead ended. Or you hit a wall because you realize how little you really know.

If you stay with the practice regardless, and just keep going, eventually it all opens out again in a new way. Your teacher points out how the tineist adjustments to thought and movement can radically change your experience of your own body and thus the form.  It becomes an ongoing journey of learning and deepening.  The form is not the end goal, but the medium for discovering about energy as it flows up from the earth through your body, or from the stars down to your toes. It teaches you about how your joints function, and how to use them better, You learn how to distribute your weight, how to hold your head, how to maintain a relaxed tension deep in the muscles, so every gesture is loaded with grace and power.  Tai Chi touches on so many aspects of life: your health,  your emotional well being,  your balance,  how your body uses energy, your concentration, your mental picture of yourself, how you relate to the space around you, how you stand and walk, how you relate to others, your weak and strong points. It is endless.

I suppose calligraphy too could be approached as a spiritual practice of sorts.  Because in the end, all these disciplines- Tai Chi, calligraphy, dance music, writing, alternative therapies, etc,  are just keys to universal truths that seem to run throughout all of life. You just have to be alert to them, and practice seems to be one effective way of achieving that.

Artist’s statement-what I’d really like to say

Thank you for coming to our show today.

There are two art worlds; The first one  is the world full of hype, attitude, jockeying for position, celebrity artists, and jacked up prices.  There are  opportunists, including many artists,  who have made obscene amounts of money in this arena- Damien Hirst and his diamond skull are one example. But Hirst would not have been able to play his elaborate game, if there hadn’t been a context for it in the insanity of the contemporary art world.

The way I see art has little  to do with this aspect of art as commerce.   Like countless other artists working today, I work quietly outside of the spotlight to follow my inner vision where it will lead.

The majority of artists  work at poverty level, but they keep going. With little or no government or social support of any kind, in a world where art at best is seen as some sort of luxury irrelevant to real life, these people keep on a true course anyway.  What are they doing, why is the strength of their vision indispensable to human society if it is going to survive these times?

In short art is the last domain of the soul in our society. Artists work in order to bring human qualities into this cynical hyper-technical, soulless society- this wasteland we’ve created together.  Every day artists perfect technique, make things that take time, strive for excellence, create meaning, preserve stories, and nourish fantasy and imagination. Are these things not as important as the newest model of the iPod? If there weren’t music there would be no need for new technology to play it!

Life evolves through creative processes. Creativity is what brings change, growth and renewal to individuals and systems. If children learned to think creatively in schools do you think our systems would be as rusted up and rigidly stuck as they are now?

The creative process is finding its way into, among others, the health care systems. Why? Because creativity is in itself a healing process, it makes whole. It continually reconnects us with the best in ourselves that we may recognize and express it. Our economic system tells us we are inherently greedy and selfish. The arts remind us that we are compassionate, and altruistic at heart.  Music, art, theatre, poetry literature tell us that there is greatness  and beauty in humans, in each of us.

When you look around at our art today, you may wonder how you will know it is good. But you do know. Art isn’t good or bad, it is true (or not). Look at a picture and try to feel what was true for the artists, does it speak to some truth in your own soul?

Reclaim your right to determine what is beautiful or meaningful to you, don’t go by some external authority’s word.

You can look at all this work for free. But you can do something fine for yourself and for art if you buy something as well. If you see a piece that makes you light up inside, then buy it. James Krenov, a master cabinetmaker said that buying fine art or craft, you get a piece of an honest artist/craftsman’s life. A slice of their unique story, a gift that has been given to them and now lives on in your life.

By buying an art work that has meaning for you, you are adding to the meaning of life, you are suporting art as a repository of soul and human culture, and you are making it possible for the artist to surive materially so she can keep on working.

Is this art I bought good?

I was invited to donate some artwork to a charity art auction. I gave two rather large pastels, and to my surprise and disappointment, they were returned to me unsold.  The work wasn’t  my very best, but  it wasn’t  bad either. It was certainly many times better than the visual vomit I’d recently seen on some gallery walls.

What was happening here?  The best-seller from the auction was a woman who is always in the local papers with her art.  Other pieces that sold were by ‘names’ known in the art world locally.

Therefore, people only bought art  because they had seen the artist in the media, therefore that was Real Artist, and the work must be ‘good’, or at least a good investment. 

How did we all get to this point? When did art become an exclusive domain where only the initiated few are in the know and everyone else has to trust an expert’s judgement to tell them whether the art they were looking at was ‘good’ or not?

 There is a long answer and a short one. The long one can be read in Suzi Gablik’s,’ Has Modernism failed?’  Here is the short one:

Artists work in the realm of  intangible realities, and these are relegated to the margins in our society (ie, you can’t make money with them very easily, and they have no recognizable function).  Because children get no structural education in creative process, most grow up ignorant of art processes;  then the arts are delegated exclusively to the artists.   

Artists work from an inner vision, rather than an external criteria. Therefore in most cases the authority for judging the work is artist herself, or fellow artists, or art critics.  To people not versed in symbolic language and gesture, much art is incomprehensible using logical faculties. But art speaks to the right brain sensibilities which in most people are underdeveloped.  It takes time and a certain sensitivity to get inside an artwork to the point where it will speak to you.  Very few people have developed this quality of attention. So we get a siutation where the average person is left on the outside of the arts. 

Various sensation seeking  artists have abused this situation in the past, by creating purposely horrible, vulgar,  or vacuous art- sometimes as a statement, but also as a way to shock and gain media attention.  All of this behaviour is supported by our commercial, greedy, sensation-oriented society. If that weren’t in place certain artist personalities couldn’t play into it.

But most artists are dedicated individuals who work quietly in their studios creating beautiful meaningful objects. They don’t make waves, so are invisible.  These artists in the past usually had a few regular buyers, enough to meet their survival needs anyway.

But these days, art is so completely accepted as a product, that unless the artist is adept in business, there is no way to earn even a minimum income from one’s work.

Going back to the auction, the art that sold was by recognized artists because people have abdicated their right to judge whether they find a piece of art good or not.

This implies that other professional artists, as good as or better than the more media -visible ones,  need to work at making a name in order to sell their work. ‘Making a name’  is a dialogue between wallet and wallet. Art is a dialogue between souls.

From Lewis Hyde’s  book, ‘The gift, Imagination and the erotic life of property’:

A work of art is a gift, not a commodity…Every modern artist who has chosen to labor with a gift must sooner or later wonder how he or she is to survive in a society dominated by market exchange .

 

Why I do my Tai Chi

I am currently writing an article for a professional journal on dementia care. It is about the creative process in relation to this area. And I am having a hard time. So much of what I want to say, even though it is about intangibles, has been proven out by my day to day experience as an artist. Yet will require practical reasoned out arguments to explain this to  a scientifically educated public.

What they need to do to understand what I’m saying is not read an article, but pick up paints and tackle a canvas, or move to music, or sculpt a piece of stone.

Artists learn to value process over product, that is where the learning and alchemy take place. What touched me so profoundly in the ‘Cellist of Sarajevo’ was the huge power of an intended gesture. The cellist himself probably didn’t even know exactly why he put his life in danger every day for 3 weeks to play in a war zone- to memorialize people he didn’t even know. The ‘why’s’ are not important. What was important was the potency of such a commitment, and the way it touched and transformed countless others.  Music was a perfect answer to, ‘How can we overcome hate , fear, and death?’

There is a YouTube clip which shows Antwerp train station, busy and noisy. All at once, a song from a musical plays over the loud speakers. About a minute after that,  one of the travellers breaks out in a dance, He is joined by a little girl;  the dance, beautifully choreographed and obviously  professional, takes on more and more people, until there are probably more dancers than public.  It is a heart stopping moment of beauty and seeming spontaneity.

One of the more dull comments under the clip asked,’Well, what was the purpose of this’?  

We need to leave behind our literal mindedness and make room for poetry and enchantment in every day life.

What is the ‘purpose’ of doing my Tai Chi in the mornings when I don’t feel much like it?  Do I do it for the positive effect it is supposed to have on my health? Or as a meditation? Or as a routine?

 I do my Tai Chi because I do my Tai Chi.  And once in a while, I do my Tai Chi as a prayer to life, or a memorial to  a dead friend. And I do the movements to reconnect me to the place that has nothing to do with writing articles, ageing, career, household tasks. It is the part that is one with the new cherry blossoms, the waves in the sea,  the hiss of stars on a summer night. The big sun and big moon and all the seasons.

And I remember.

Wasteland

Continued from previous post,  The Cellist of Sarajevo.

What is a wasteland?  A place where people live inauthentic lives.

How do you heal a wasteland?

Live an authentic life. (Joseph Campbell)

When you do your art, you need to do it for one reason, and one reason only. Because it is important for you to do it.  And when you look back on your life, you will remember how you were true to your vision and you will be content.

People may not understand your gesture or your painting, but those ready for it will be moved. They will be led back to the best in themselves and their belief in the ‘capacity for good’ in the world and in themselves will be affirmed. 

Art is the language humans use to create meaning.

What could be more important now?  In her poem Wage Peace, Judyth Hill answered the terror of 9/11 by urging us to pick up our tools. She was asking us to create authentic work and authentic lives.

Your art isn’t about how many hits your site gets, or about an award, Twitter or Facebook popularity contests. It isn’t about being the next hype on Etsy. Your art could be about  about healing yourself and your world.  Each of us has the choice to live in the Wasteland or change it.

The Cellist of Sarajevo

During the siege of Sarajevo, a concert musician was witness to a shelling just outside his building. 22 people standing in line at a bakery were killed.

He responded to this event by taking his cello out to the scene of the massacre and playing Albinoni’s Adagio for Strings for 22 days: one day for each victim of the shelling. He was aware that he was in direct line of more shelling and easy prey for snipers.

Steven Galloway wrote, ‘The Cellist of Sarajevo’,  based on this story.

Somehow this writer has captured the essence of why humans make art and how it affects us at our deepest core. 
Arrow,  young woman turned sniper in an effort to protect the city from the army that holds Sarajevo in siege, is appointed to protect the cellist during this strange ritual. 

‘The cellist confuses her. She doesn’t know what he hopes to achieve with his playing. He can’t believe he will stop the war. He can’t believe he will save lives’.

She wonders if he is insane but doesn’t think so. She has heard him play and the music moved her profoundly.

‘She tells herself she will not allow this man to die. He will finish what he is doing. It isn’t important whether she understands what he’s doing or why he’s doing it. She does understand it’s important, and that is enough.’

Later Kenan,  a middle aged man, on a dangerous and harrowing journey through the bombed out city to collect water for his family, hears faint music. He follows it for a few blocks and comes to the spot where the cellist is playing. Several people have gathered around and are listening quietly.  He had heard of this from someone and at the time had thought it a bit silly, a bit maudlin:

‘What could the man possibly hope to accomplish by playing music in the street. It wouldn’t bring anyone back from the dead, it wouldn’t  feed anyone, wouldn’t replace one brick. It was a foolish gesture, he thought, a pointless exercise in futility’.

None of this matters to Kenan anymore, he stares at the cellist, and feels himself relax and the music seeps into him’.

 While he listens, he sees in his inner eye the buildings slowly losing the scars of bullets, they are covered with smooth plaster and paint, windows reassemble, around him people stand up straight once again, and their faces gain colour.

Kenan watches as his city heals itself around him. The cellist continues to play…..

‘Arrow let the slow pulse of the vibrating strings flood into her. She felt the lament raise a lump in her throat, fought back tears.  [all the violence and hatred she had witnessed and taken part in] could not have happened. But she knew these notes. They told her that everything had happened exactly as she knew it had… No grief or rage or noble act could undo it. But it could all have been stopped. It was possible. The men on the hills didn’t have to be murderers. The men in the city didn’t have to lower themselves to fight their attackers. She didn’t have to be filled with hatred. The music demanded that she remember this, that she know to a certainty that the world still held the capacity for goodness. The notes were proof of that’.

 

 

 

Arts alternatives further explored

I am not arguing against selling one’s art to make a living at all. This is a valid return on the energy and makes perfect sense on some levels.

I am challenging the undervalued and exploited position of the arts in the present society.  I am challenging the prevailing thought that the arts are entertainment for a few by a few and are no more significant than that. I am challenging the marginalisation of everything the arts stand for which is culture and our essential humanness.

The arts are not seen as essential, therefore artists are put in aposition where we need to argue and convince, compete with other artists and profile ourselves to get the attention of people to buy what is seen as a fringe or luxury product anyway.

 

I know I am not going to change this by myself, but I do know that my voice is one voice in a ground swell of other creatives who are seeking to create positive changes  in the way the arts are seen in a society based on commercial  rather than social/spiritual values.   

Making beautiful products available for people to buy is just one way to bring the energies artists work with into the world.  Creative expression is a powerful healing force for the person practicing it and for the people touched by the end result of the creative expression.  I want to see more room for this, more acknowledgement of it in the mainstream. This means a fundamental change, a society moving toward more spiritual values rather than just material ones. There needs to be a balance, there needs to be an emphasis on right brained functioning as well as left brained. 

This would mean that beauty would become as important as function when designing a building. It would mean that values would change to be able to once more be able to pay artisans to decorate architecture with stained glass, wood carvings, frescos, murals, tapestries and other embellishments which lift the heart and spirit. 

Public spaces would become more friendly to people, cars would be limited to certain areas, children would be able to play outside in safe green spaces.   Neighborhoods would plan festivals and celebrations, people would eat together regularly and share each others cultures through story telling exchanges, theater and dance.  Workplaces would be designed for the health and well-being of those who work there, and there would be less separation between creativity and work.  Hospital environments would be warm, homey gentle places, full of silence, or music, living green spaces, rooms for contemplation and recovery. Rather than the hypertechnical super efficient noisy madhouses they often are, (incidentally with forests of GSM masts on the rooves, sending radiation throughout an environment that is meant to be for healing.. )!

There would be respect for values besides commercial ones. Objects would be valued primarily for their aesthetic and enchantment quality and their ability to contain stories and cultures, not for whether they could be bought and sold.  People would be treasured for their eccentric differences rather than forced to conform, and would have more freedom to create their own means of livelihood rather than fitting a certain job description. 

Thousands of grass roots creative initiatives would thrive and contribute to the diversity of life.  

All of these trends are already present in the society to some degree, they are fragile though and  need to be recognized, nurtured and strengthened.

Art and artists: integrated and valued

This post is a continuation of, “Shaun McNiff and ‘Trusting the Process”.

Shaun says,’Creation is a circulation of energy’. 

So selling our work is just a miniscule fraction of doing that.  He continues’:

It [creation] is always putting things into new relationships within a continuously interactive process. We [could] promote creativity in work environments by introducing varied sources of energy and letting them find their way to solving a problem.

He imagines a workplace infused with the arts:

For years I’ve imagined what a large company would be like if it provided studios for art, dance, voice, music, and creative writing on the premesis. Why not give workers a chance to exercise the creative spirit in the place where many of their tensions and conflicts are located? Imagine the implications of transforming stress at the job instead of taking it home or discharging it somewhere else….. Creative expression will infuse the workplace with imagination, new perceptions, and different ways of interacting.

In my own vision for what art could be when moved out tf the periphery into the center of life, the first change would be for everyone to embrace their creative side and use it for personal expression in all areas of life. This is already happening, there is a democratisation of art underway.

Obviously there is a difference between this kind of practice and the life of someone who has committed deeply to art as their life’s calling. But we need to challenge the prevailing opinion that those anointed few are the only ones with the  ‘licence to create’.

We need to expand our ideas of what constitutes a creative act. McNiff goes into this issue in detail, but I am giong to move on with my own thread now.

So, next to ordinary citizens reclaiming their right to create (through the help of artists) , I see professional artists being supported and integrated into mainstream society in entirely new ways. I see a paradigm where artists are as valued in their communities as computer repair people are today. They would still create some of their work in the needed solitude of their studios, but there would be much more outward movement, and it would be easy and supported by the society.  The artist would be invited as a treasured professional resource to share the workings of the creative process in businesses, community centers, schools, hospitals etc. They would be paid well and provided with social support like any employee, such as medical and unemployment insurance.

I see artists helping non-artists to discover their own latent creativity so that this can be engaged for the individual’s own healing, balance and creation of a meaningful and connected life.  Workplaces, buildings, neighborhoods, city environments would be enriched by people coming  together to create , beautify, and reconcile. I want to add, and ‘pray’ but I mean this in a universal way, where people acknowledge that there is a deeper mystery to life than what we see and they form a relationship to it to honor its movement in their lives.

 All this is already happening in small grass roots movements. New gestures such as Look up, or High five, or free hugs (look these up on YouTube). We just need to be conscious of it  and contribute to it in our own small way.

 

 

Shaun McNiff and ‘Trust the Process’

This post refers to the previous one, ‘I Protest’.

One of the most insightful and succinctly written books on the creative process I’ve read to date is, ‘Trust the Process’, by Shaun Mc Niff.  He’s provided me with some clear insights on creating as well as some welcome support for my unpopular view that selling my work is NOT my SOLE PURPOSE or my SOUL purpose on earth.

 For instance, at one point he compares the discipline of contemplation and meditation with art making:

Can you imagine people feeling that their prayers, spiritual exercises, and meditation must be exhibited in a gallery or commercially published? This simple distinction between spiritual exercise and commercial production describes the most fundamental values of my approach to art.

and:

As I get older, public or external recognition for my p intings feels increasingly secondary. The primary emphasis is creative exercise and the  intrinsic enjoyment of the act.

In his book there isn’t one word referring to selling as in any way related to the creative process. And there is  lots of support for stepping outside the current paradigm of what art is and what artists do. He challenges many longheld views, such as that art needs to be made by an individual isolated from the rest of the society. Here he speaks about infusing more creativity into the everyday work environment:

The work environment offers yet another paradox of creative expression. We are overwhlemed with demands and things that have to be done, and we react by longing for more free time to create. We assume that we will be more creative when we are dislodged from the daily regimens that ask so much from us. I find that creativity is generally viewed through the lens of romantic isolation from the world rather from the more realistic perspective of romantic immersion. We still see creativity as something that exists exclusively with ourselves rather than within the activity of our environments.

So what is the new paradigm then? Well, surprise, it is what all of us who are seriously questioning these issues and trying out other paths are making together.  I’ll put forth some visions for how it could be  in the next post.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I protest!

I recently read a list of things you can do to make it easier to sell your art online.  Of course it started with BE VISIBLE, hang out on Twitter, FaceBook, network, start an Etsy shop, etc etc.

I wondered why my heart didn’t start beating faster with anticipation of doing all these things and why my imagination wasn’t engaged.

And I realized that it is simply same old same old, but this time online.

In our present society, if you want to sell, you have to work at it constantly.  Whether you are carting your work around to galleries and getting newspapers to cover your opening, or whether you are trying to get noticed on the latest online craft depot you need to attract people to your work and convince them to buy it.

One online artist friend mentioned her aversion to ‘raising my profile online’ and her resignation to having to do it. 

I feel the same way and regularly beat myself up for not being more consistently entreprenurial. But instead of feeling like I am a failed salesperson or that my art isn’t up to snuff,  I wonder if some of us shouldn’t listen more closely to those feelings of resistance. They may have something important to tell us.

People blithely say artists are habitually  not good at selling.  I see it another way. Art and artists  exist in another context  than the marketplace.  Art is more, goes way beyond being a product in the consumer chain.

Some people, mostly a younger group, are perfectly suited to making work with the object of selling it online. I think that is just wonderful. It is valid, and interesting and sometimes inspiring.

These musings, however,  are for the rest of us, the ones who are asking some difficult questions about what art really means in their lives and the life of the community. 

 I want to argue from outside the paradigm that we all seem to be caught in, that if you make things, this automatically means that you need to put them to work to earn an income for you.

I PROTEST!

More in the next post.