Eric Maisel’s ‘The van Gogh Blues’ 2

Continued from Eric Maisel’s The van Gogh Blues 1

If I were asked to single out the one most important piece of advice in this book, it would be that creatives need to take action in service of their creative work.

Anxiety and indecision keep us procrastinating when we could act. Maisel says that if on a day we take one tiny step toward a creative project, then we can count that day as successful.

He emphasizes how we have to do this even when we don’t feel like it!! ( A big one for me). In my own experience, just showing up at the page, or the harpsichord, or the computer even when I feel dull and empty of inspiration, almost always helps.  Maisel says that taking an action, no matter how small, is the one most proactive healing thing we can do for ourselves. And that it will protect us from falling into a downward spiral that can end in depression and creative paralysis.

He also suggests that we know very well when we are procrastinating/just keeping busy, and when we are doing something in service of our art. For example, clearing out old files can be a way to waste time, or it can be the preparation for a new creative cycle. Only you know which one you are engaged in.

Paraphrasing from the book:

You have to risk unleashing your passion even with the possibility you will be disappointed. Creative people can’t resign themselves to postmodern meaninglessness. They always come back to the belief that a meaningful life can be led and they are obliged to at least try.

You decide every day to matter. You decide every day to live authentically, reckon with the facts of existence, and doing so your  truth becomes more eloquent.

Creating, as a life’s commitment, is hard; it is your heroic work. 

When we are not true to ourselves we suffer.
When we are true to ourselves we suffer.

I do my creative work anyway.

Re-enchanted art

Further musings about why art as product, represented and marketed within the gallery art world is not my begin and end all.  Sure, it is a part of what I do, but not a particularly meaningful one.  It is a bit of an identity problem, though. I make art and enjoy selling it too, but my context is different.

Especially in the  company of other artists who are singularly focused on the business of their art, it is hard to communicate what I stand for. And why I don’t make an all out effort to trawl the gallery venues and events and make a name for myself so my work will sell better.

I’ve run across some quotes from Thomas Moore’s,  ’The Re enchantment of Everyday Life’,   that reflect the aspect of art that really gets my bells ringing and my lights blinking.  It has to do with replenishing our spiritually parched souls, building community, re-enchanting everyday life. And yes, it can go hand in hand with selling one’s work as a product….or can it? Where is there any evidence that NOT selling one’s art  might be a reasonable stance?

Here are a few relevant quotes from a fable I loved by Keith Miller, ‘The Book of Flying’.

‘What do you do with the paintings you complete’?

‘I give them away or keep them if I’m fond of them. Sold art corrupts.
You are a poet, could you sell a poem?’

‘Never’, said  Pico, ‘It would be like selling a child’.

‘Precisely’.

Later  in the book:

Often he wished for the loneliness of the forest, the loneliness that allowed him to place valuable words on paper. He had sold his poems for comfort and he was afraid to enter again the trials of solitude. So he wrote poems that lacked heart, written from outside his skin, written in snatches between ale swilling and lovemaking, and he did not allow them to steep, to cure, but read them at once to his friends for the applause they engendered.

Pronkkoamer show and other updates

I usually only write when I have something specific to say, but it has been so long, I thought I’d check in. There are a few of you who visit regularly. Thank you so much.

At the moment I have 19 pieces being shown in a good local gallery. I am showing with my sister-in-law, Wilhelmina and a glass artist, Jakobine von Dömming. Wilhelmina has made some remarkable paper objects for the exhibition- half two dimensional, half sculptural.

work by Wilhelmina van Beek Zoutewelle

This one is called ‘Closed Book’ (SOLD).  She has painstakingly torn old books (in this case a Bible) and meticulously bundled them into little packets.  The work is wonderful. It occupies a small side room of the gallery; the work has such a strong ritual presence that when you walk in it feels like a temple.

My work is the same series that I’ve been posting from time to time here and is in the Gallery section at the top of the menu to the right. It looks good framed, and the whole expo feels fresh and harmonious.

This is my favorite corner view where some red glass plays off a red painting of mine. It is called, ‘Martin Tissing’s shoes’  after a favorite Dutch artist of mine. Someone at the show was asking me about the title, and I said it was because Tissing wears red shoes. And someone listening in said, ‘Yes, I know’.  We said, ‘How do you know’, she said, ‘I buy them for him, I’m his wife’.  That was cool

Otherwise, I am still working on my series of 3 articles on Creativity and Dementia Care for the Journal of Dementia Care, UK. 
I’ve received my first rejection of my book on the same subject, but am regrouping to send it out again.
I’m working with Anjo, my favorite web designer, to get my webshop up. A LOT of work, but it is fun. And I am developing my craft kits and working on the Dutch and English versions of the instructions.

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 .

 

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.

Serious procrastination

There are 20 other things I should be doing this morning, but I realized that for my well-being, I needed to get out my materials before doing anything else.

I recently bought some sumptuous colours to add to my collection of Caran d’ache neocolour, water soluble  paint sticks. The above collage, a bit smaller than an A4, was done by first cutting up a ‘nearly made it’ previous oil pastel of mine. Then I added colour using watercolour sticks around the shapes, then went in with water on a fairly stiff brush to blend some of the colours. I’d started out with a piece of  bright orange  Cansons Ingres pastel paper 160 g. and I love how the orange shines through in places. 

I just needed to feel colours sing this morning before obediently planting myself in front of the computer to make myself write a brilliant article on creativity and dementia care, or finally wrap up the folder design for my summer calligraphy courses or get some more of my book printed out for my reader friend, or write some more on my book, or do the administration, or work on the volunteer design job for the local municipal commission, or renovate the house or get my webshop up and running or update my website or or or……….

Yesterday I counselled a dear friend who is going through a rough patch with her health to stop worrying about what society and so-called ‘friends’ thought, to not let her self be pressured to conform to outer demands, to be happy and do what she does best, which is be an artist and make beautiful true things.  

Sometimes I need to take that advice myself.