Art Thrives on Life/Readings from the Artist's Way

Art thrives on life.  Life feeds it, enriches it, enlarges it. Cloistering ourselves away from life in the name of being artists causes us to run the risk of doing art that is arid, artless, and yes, heartless.  For most artists there is something risky about too much unstructured time, too much freedom, to make nothing but art.  We talk about self expression, we must develop a self to express.  A self is developed not alone, but in a community.  Day jobs not only pay the rent, but help develop stamina and structure.  Artists need both.  A novel can be a vast savannah in which I wonder alone- a musical may mean six years sailing across uncharted seas. Navigators need the stars to structure their voyage.  We artists, too, need other points of reference to stay the course. 
 The Artists Way/Every Day by Julia Cameron


An addendum.  As I was including this reading for you I thought of many things.  When I retired from teaching public school art education I thought I would love the absolute freedom of unstructured time after so many years of having to be on a minute by minute schedule without variation.  But, it has not been so.  I found I need structure and I was a highly social person.  Though I love time alone and free time, it is not as productive nor as effective with too much freedom...as Julia Cameron eludes to.  Teaching Art to special needs children and to young children taught me many things that came back to my art and life.  I learned a great deal from my profoundly handicapped students about how the brain functions and how at any level the brain still wants to have preferences.  The brain doesn't function as a whole as many of us think, it functions in parts, and on various levels of filtration.  Understanding that has helped me understand how I and others approach art.  I also learned no matter how high or low the level of function a person has they still function.  I know that is an odd statement, but it is this....they exists, they make choices, they feel, they express...It has helped me understand how to teach art to students with less than a 25 IQ or 3 month old mentality and it has helped me understand how to help my 99 year old Mother who suffered a devastating stroke in the center of her brain 9 years ago.  I have questioned this 9 year battle many times and what does my Mother gain and what does our family gain from it all.  But I now understand as I go to the nursing home, in the alzheimer/dementia unit in the maze of lost worlds and frustration....there is much for me to gain and to express in the form of art back to the world.  If I don't experience this, then I have no basis of understanding to create a work of art about humanity and inhumanity, of loss, of unselfish love, of anguish and compassion. I think of Picasso and his creation of Guernica, he had to understand the horrors of war and injustice.  I think of Hemmingway and how he thought he must live life in a big fashion, so he could write huge, and he did.

  I think of Georgia O'Keefe, who had a career as an elementary art teacher, until a friend sent her work to Alfred Steiglitz.  I think of Alexander Calder making his little circus people in Paris, for other artist, that gained him fame to go on to a larger stage. I think of Van Gogh and his mental anguish and his stays in mental institutions...his bout as a preacher in Souther France...hence the Potato Eaters. 

Art is life, and life is art.  We must be fully engaged in our lives.  Retreating from them may seem comfortable and necessary at times, but it is not a place to stay...only to visit and recharge.  

What I think is good to reflect on is taking stock of where we are and where we are going....looking at the hidden value in our past and present experiences.  One thing builds on another.  How could I ever conceive  the when I stood at the door of a class for profound children as a young teacher so terribly terrified I would be learning how to cope with My Mother as a stroke victim, in which I would have greater insight into how the brain functions.  And all this leads me to want to know more about the brain, time, String theory, quantum physics and more......and it will out in my art...because I have paid attention!