"There is only one cure for fear. That cure is love."
To keep my artist safe and strong and happy, to give her encouragement and space to create with wild abandon, I need to love her. But what does that mean?
For me, I think, it means letting go. Letting go of the things on which I expend so much internal energy that I have little left for my art: worry, regret, grief, perfectionism.... "The need to be a great artist makes it hard to be an artist," Cameron says. "The need to produce a great work of art makes it hard to produce any art at all."
Setting impossible goals sets me up for failure. Learning to take baby steps and rewarding myself for them, learning to "play" with my art again, having fun instead of having to produce a perfect finished product, lies at the heart of my creative recovery.
"Being an artist requires enthusiasm more then discipline. Enthusiasm is not an emotional state. It is a spiritual commitment, a loving surrender to our creative process, a loving recognition of all the creativity around us."
I love this idea. Again, it's about remembering that my artist is a child, about giving her permission to play instead of forcing her to produce something. Process as opposed to product. A lesson I need to keep coming back to: my art is process, and the process is supposed to be fun!
"A productive artist is quite often a happy person."
This comment gave me pause. I've sometimes felt that I can never really be a great artist because I haven't suffered enough! I had a happy childhood. It's unfortunate, but there you are...
But when I think about it, my most productive times in terms both of finished creative work and enjoyment of the creative process have been the times I've felt most safe, strong, happy and loved. The times I've been least productive are the times I've been in bad relationships and miserable jobs. Some writers and artists seem most productive when they are working out their angst creatively. Not me. Angst makes me whiny! Walking on eggshells depletes my creative energy. Worry about the future shuts me down. Yes, it's all about fear. (Reminder to self from the work in Week Six: "Art is born in expansion, in a belief in sufficient supply...")
I'm relating to Cameron's thoughts regarding "creative U-turns." I've been traveling along this road toward creative recovery enjoying the insights and inspiration, but reading through my morning pages I'm also aware of distractions and detours from my creative work. I've hung on to worries, regrets, grief, the need for perfection--things that keep me from loving my artist the way she wants to be loved and that keep my artist from expressing herself the way she wants to!
I've become something of a fan of horse racing the last few years, mostly because of an amazing horse named Zenyatta and her jockey, Mike Smith. I really loved Cameron's comparison of my talent to a young and skittish horse I am bringing along: "The horse is very talented but it is also young, nervous, and inexperienced. It will make mistakes, be frightened by obstacles it hasn't seen before. It may even bolt, try to throw you off, feign lameness. Your job, as the creative jockey, is to keep your horse moving forward and to coax it into finishing the course." I have even given my fearful artist a good, racehorse name this week: Genie!
I also liked Cameron's reminder that my artist--my Genie--is a child, prone to sulking, throwing tantrums, holding grudges and harboring irrational fears. I am Genie's parent, guardian, big sister, protector, companion; it falls to me to convince her that it's safe to come out and play.
MORNING PAGES, ARTIST DATES, EXERCISES AND TASKS
I missed another day of morning pages this week, but I did manage to go back and read through all the pages I've written since we began this journey ten weeks ago. It took a long time! The exercise was insightful. It's clear I pretty much know what I want, what I'm afraid of and at least a few small steps I can take to move forward. When things keep cropping up day after day, you know there's something to learn there.
My new artist totem sits on my desk near my computer: a plastic figurine of Wonder Woman (who is really Genie all dressed up for fun!).
I had two wonderful artist dates this week: 1) I had dinner and went to a writers' group with Nancy, one of our fellow TAWers! 2) I had a most unexpectedly lovely day, filled with synchronicity, when my brother came to pick me up while my car had some work done to it. Before he arrived, I walked to a nearby coffee shop and had impromptu conversations with six different people I had interesting things in common with. Then Bill took me on a long drive along Bellingham Bay over Chuckanut Drive, a favorite road our dad used to take us on, through the beautiful Skagit Valley where we saw rows of daffodils starting to bloom and a plethora of newborn calves and kids in the fields with their moms, to a beautiful little town I've always loved called La Conner, where we whiled away a couple of hours in a great independent bookstore sitting in front of the fire and looking at picture books and house books and talking to the owner, who said she must have me come do an event there. Then we had a delicious Thai lunch in Mount Vernon, another sweet little Skagit Valley town, where we're going back tonight for a Leo Kottke acoustic guitar concert. Why is my brother being so nice to me? Because he's a very good brother who knows that next week is the one year anniversary of my partner telling me we didn't have a future together, he's been through the same thing in the past, and he knows how I'm feeling. Oh, and the car? It was actually the ex-partner who tracked down the mechanic for me through his connections, and the cost of repairs was one-third what I'd been told they would be by another mechanic!
As a friend reminded me this week, "Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet...Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Enthusiasm, not discipline!
And how did your week go?
