Chocolate for the Soul

At work during yesterday’s Personal Creativity Workshop

We had 17 enthusiastic women who came with open hearts and minds, you couldn’t have wished for a better group.

The main concepts were Exploration, Creating and Reflection. Most exciting for me was to see people take risks and really move.

The simplest exercise surprised me the most. We took one material to explore, in this case, crêpe paper. The assignment was not to ‘make’ a product, but to see what the material could do. First it was torn, folded, twisted into threads, knotted, cupped, stretched. From there we worked with connection methods like sewing, glueing, tying, taping etc. And finally the brief was to combine two elements into one object, say a twisted rope with a bunched up wad.

Each table then got to choose the best objects and combine them into an exhibition for the rest of us. They were to find a uniting theme in the objects, name the exhibition and make an invitation for everyone. 

 

This group’s exhibit was mounted on the wall and called, ‘Freedom’.

Like me, many of the participants were moved by the cooperation and exchange of ideas and inspiration such a simple concept could lead to.

We happily went to enjoy the delicious lunch cooked and catered by the organisers Aafke and Martine.

Afterwards, we made leporello( accordion) books and simple pamphlet bound books. Here are some of the results.

I had a wonderful day watching people get inspired by the materials and each other.

In designing this day, I drew a lot of inspiration from Keri Smith’s approach to playing with materials without having expectations or valuing the outcome. For many, the underpinnings of this approach; valuing mistakes and surprises, starting with what you have, paying attention to details in the environment, using the imagination and documenting your findings, were very different to the usual art class approach, ie, learn how to do something then make an aesthetically pleasing ’good’ product with that technique.

Thanks to everyone, Baukje for your beautiful studio to work in, and the organisers and participants for making it a rewarding and fun day!

What are you?

Recently I read an article about a young mother raising two children while working on her dissertation. As an aside she said, ‘Yes I still work 2 days a week  so I have something to say when people ask me what I do’.

That got me thinking about how deeply identified this society is with roles and status. The next day, someone asked me quite innocently at an artist’s gathering, ‘What are you?’  Meaning: artist, poet, musician, etc.  In the context of the above, I resented having to put myself in a box in order to be able to have a discussion with someone. Anyway, I don’t know ‘what’ I am yet, I’m only 59 and haven’t decided what I’m going to be when I grow up.

I told him that I didn’t want to answer the question and asked him instead,’What are you really excited about at this point in your life?’ And lo and behold we had a perfectly pleasant and inspiring discussion about the ‘new art’, basically all the things I”m also interested in, edgy art being made in homes on the streets and in the margins.

And all this without ever once mentioning ‘what we do’.

My heart often falls when people ask me to respond to ‘What do you do’?’. It limits the discussion right away.  And it makes me wonder why we feel so insecure  when we don’t have a conventionally accepted answer to that question. Have we accepted so completely that our sole value is in what we do? Is that our only basis for establishing a context to talk with new people?

I think I’d rather be asked what excites me, what inspires me, what issue am I wrestling with at the moment, what progress have I made in realizing some of my goals, what  are some of the nicest moments I’ve had with friends lately, in what areas of my life  do I feel connected and passionate, etc.

Eric Maisel’s ‘The van Gogh Blues’ 1

Maisel’s book is based on the premise that people who have chosen a creative life- artist, innovators in science and other fields,  are creating the path as they go. Since they rarely accept authority’s explanations,  they have to find their own ways to create  meaning. Failure to do this can lead to depression.

The most helpful thing I found about this book was the acknowledgement of how hard it can be to be a creative person.  Not only are we faced with our inner demons, the ones who tell us we are worthless, our work is irrelevant, our lives are meaningless, but also the hard facts of existence: that society doesn’t particularly value art or artists. And that to lead a meaningful creative life full of heart, engagement and meaning, you often have to work at something less meaningful to pay the bills.

Helpful on a practical level, Maisel helps creative people confront the hard parts, but also suggests ways to counteract our meaning crises. Here is an example of a meaning crisis: An artist spends 7 years on a screenplay he is passionately commmited to, and it is rejected everywhere he submits it. He sees lesser work produced for great amounts of money.  His crisis is, ‘Can my life be meaningful if I spend it producing work that no one wants?’

Maisel helps artists create a sense of worthiness inside themselves that is independent of outside recognition,though he doesn’t shy away from the grittiness of this dilemma.  By following his advice and doing the tasks set forth in the book, an artist can keep creating no matter what. And that is the most important thing.

Continued in Eric Maisel’s,  ’The van Gogh Blues’ 2.

Ending exhibition ritual

Encounter, Oil pastel on charcoal paper

There should be some kind of ritual to accompany the act of breaking down a show and bringing most of your old friends back home again.

I sold enough to cover costs, just. But still I brought home most of the work I had first departed with two months ago. 170 people visited the gallery, several left nice comments behind in the guest book.

The gallery owner said she’d rarely had a show where people spent so much time enthusing and so little buying. Well, there was a really nice energy around the whole show, and while I would have loved to have sold more, I’m pleased with the overall reception of the work.

There are several pieces I didn’t photograph which I am happy I didn’t have to let go of without a record.

Soon I’m going to have a ‘Featured Artwork’ page on my blog or site where one piece will be showcased every month or so.

Meanwhile, I will hang up some of my returned 17 framed artworks and put the rest gently into storage.  I’ll consciously appreciate how happy they look in their mattes and frames and let them rest with us here for awhile before exposing them to the public again.

That is as much of a ritual I can come up with at the moment.

Kyteman, on stage with a bag of potatoes

I read an interview (in Dutch) about a young  Dutch musician called Colin Benders, alias Kyteman.
He’s causing a sensation with a Hip Hop band he’s put together, it has violins, rappers and brass players all on the same stage.  The music is a moot point for me,  though I love the hit, Sorry.

No, its about something he said when the interviewer asked where he got the idea for the band. His first album was made alone in his room with his trumpet, his laptop, and a couple of flat mates who were rappers. Kyteman:

I could go up on stage with a couple of rappers and my laptop and every once in awhile press PLAY, but then I’d feel like a farmer with a bag of potatoes. He planted the seed potatoes, worked on his land, harvested the crop and there he stands, ‘Yep guys, I made these’.

I didn’t want to make music this way. I wanted the same musical kick performing that I  got from making the record. And then I thought, well all the sounds I’d made on the computer, I could have done by an orchestra.

This is EXACTLY how I feel about exhibiting my work.  Somehow putting it all under glass and hanging it up in a gallery seems so unrelated to the kick of creating it in the first place.  Making the work was filled with adventure, risk, movement and discovery. And there it is hanging there, so static, somehow. Though admitedly from time to time people come there and relate to it.

What is the alternative? I heard of a neat project initiated by michael nobbs for his birthday. He asked his Twitter followers to draw him a cup of tea. He made a great slide show of all the drawings, this has nothing directly to do with buying or selling, but it is so dynamic. And so is much of what is happening on the internet related to showing and distributing art.

Exciting.

 

 

 

 

Frida Kahlo portrait chair

Woodwork and photo Rende Zoutewelle, painting,  by me

Making this chair was our first official commission and we got burned on it.

A smooth talking entrepreneur had been to Mexico where he saw so-called, ‘Portrait Chairs’.  They were big in the American Southwest at the time and he thought he would begin a trend here in Holland. Via a mutual acquaintance, he found his way to us and we made two chairs for him- a Frida Kahlo one and one portraying Pancho Villa.  Eventually we were paid for Pancho, who was also featured in the European version of ‘Elle’ ,(with no mention of the makers, by the way), but the guy skipped town and left us sitting with Frida.

We have entered her in different exhibitions and had her in our show window for years.  Cars used to screech to a halt and back up for another look as they passed by, because she was so life like. A friend in the US was serious about buying her, but the shipping proved to be impossible.  I thought she would sell for sure when the movie about Frida Kahlo’s life came out, but the timing ust didn’t seem to be right.

I feel that she will eventually find the right home, but meanwhile we like having her around.

Incidentally, despite the fact that  we were never paid for this chair, we were paid for Pancho Villa, and it was this commission that launched Rende’s wordworking business and our eventual financial independence.

Randy Pausch

I was following some links in a roundabout way and ended up at The Power of Mortality, Patrick Mathieu’s site. And it is there this morning that I heard that Randy Pausch had died. 

I’d been checking once in awhile to see how he was doing and was a little worried because on the information site about his ongoing life and health, there had been a month’s silence. The next to last  message said that he was a lot sicker than he’d been to date, and the next sentence was that he was in hospice care. The next day’s entry was that he’d died.

I’m grateful that he didn’t have a long drawn out end game. And I am very sad he is gone so soon. He was a wonderful presence in so many ways. I learned a lot from what he had to say and how he lived his life. My heart goes out to his family and friends.

One for Beauty

Carrying on from the last post:  a fellow artist was telling me how she had been feeling badly and she put on some music and it lifted her spirits right up. And she realized more strongly than ever how important beauty is in our lives as a counterweight to all the conflict and ugliness we are exposed to daily. People need beautiful things around them.   This is as good a reason as any to keep making art.

It vindicated me, because I tend to work more decoratively and am aesthetically oriented than many of my more edgy colleagues. And I realized that is just fine. There is a place for all of it.

Ted Orland and David Bayles in ‘Art & Fear’, said, ‘ It has been a tough century for modesty, craftsmanship and tenderness’. I’d add ‘beauty’ to this list.

More on marketing

I don’t mean to dismiss ‘marketing’ out of hand.  But I feel that some of the underlying assumptions that come along with it need to be examined.

In fact, I took an excellent marketing workshop not long ago.  Stephanie Ward  was a wonderful presenter who radiated joy and integrity. I learned a lot about ‘attracting more clients’, ‘education based selling’, and ‘creating a magnetic marketing statement’, plus other useful tools. But still, it felt like another planet. Even though I went home and implemented some of the strategies, I eventually bogged down.  Because there it was again, despite the workshop’s emphasis on opportunities and self-empowerment, the unavoidable assumption that one has to do everything humanly possible to stand out and attract clients in order to survive. And this is based on the fear that there is not enough to go around. Not enough work, attention or money for everyone. Our whole Western society is based on this. (See ‘The Soul of Money’ for a more in depth treatment of this subject).

So how do we sidestep this paradigm and survive financially as well?  Well, I can already think of one example of how it could be done differently. See next post.  

The Soul of Money 2, Sufficiency

In Lynne Twist’s book, ‘The Soul of Money’, she poses the question, ‘What if what we have is already enough?’. 
She calls this ’sufficiency’:

‘Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectation. Sufficiency doesn’t mean we shouldn’t strive or aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resources.’

‘Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around us and within ourselves, we will find what we need. There is always enough’.

What would it mean to my own life to let go of the ingrained idea of scarcity most of us have, and to accept fully that I already have what I need. Wouldn’t that be a form of resignation, sort of like saying, ‘This is as good as it gets’? 

The irony, according to Twist, is that as soon as one recognizes and appreciates the ‘this is as good as it gets’ in any situation, it gets better.  

It is subtle shift from, working to ‘get somewhere that will be better than where I am now’, to discovering the treasures   I already have and applying them to my highest commitments.  Then my goals shift from ‘making a success’ of my authentic business and ‘increasing my income’, to ‘creating wealth’ but in a context of sufficiency.
Twist writes:

‘Wealth shows up in the action of sharing and giving, allocating and distributing, nourishing and watering the projects, people, and purpose that we believe in and care about with the resources that flow to us and through us’.

Then you stop living in fear of losing your money;  instead, money becomes an expression of gratitude and purpose.