Abundance

This word is thrown around a lot in America. We have it, yes, despite the economic woes currently creeping in. But I want to talk about cultivating abundance in terms of artistic process. Some may call it inspiration, others the "groove," still others call it mania. In my little circle of writer/painter/musician friends it seems there is always someone who has it and someone who is desperate to get it back. A poet friend of mine is overwhelmed with ideas at the moment. She can't go to bed at night because she is beseiged by lines pouring out. She has four books going at the same time. She's writing a screenplay. She goes to work figeting, desperate to get back to the notebook. Her fingers can't scribble fast enough. "This is the most productive time of my life," she gushes to me on the phone.

The thing about this person is that I don't think her abundance is by accident. That muse didn't just bite her on the butt because she finally wore tight pants. I have a theory and you may not like it. My poet friend, after moving every 6 months or so, has finally landed in one place for over a year. She has a steady job, all her books are in one place (yes, you other artists, we need all of them!), and she's surrounded by her friends.

We like to think that inspiration/abundance/wild creativity is something that just happens to us. Or, more interestingly, that it is brought on by other excesses--drinking hard, sleeping little, changing locations, jobs, etc. But lately I've been thinking just the opposite. What if a level of stability brings us abundance? I'm not talking about something that stifles. I'm talking about a bit of an artistic routine. Some of the most productive and creative people I know go to bed early. They eat nutritiously and rarely drink. Revolutionary?

We are all fed this idea of the successful artist as incredibly self-destructive. A musician friend of mine actually told me that a teacher once told him, "Wanna be great? Go to New York and get mugged." Why is this myth still proliferating? There are plenty of examples of phenomenal artists who abused themselves and were still filled with artistic abundance, yes. I know this. But let's think about it, seriously. The mind works best when it is fed, rested, and exercised. I've written my share of 2AM poems or vodka-induced reveries, but the true juice came after I had hiked 5 miles, eaten a huge bowl of whole-wheat pasta with spinach, and took my notebook with me.

Come on, you rebels. Create a little artistic abundance. I'll join you. Look for me with the green tea sitting by the brightest window.

Shifting and Sifting

Today on my daily hike I thought about the idea of what it is to shift as an artist. The weather here is extremely brisk (15 degrees) and the wind was fiercely moving across last night’s snow making ripples and dunes and erasing my footsteps almost as soon as I made them. I’ve begun the arduous (and sometimes joyful) task of looking through all the work I’ve done at the residencies I’ve attended this year and I’ve come to a conclusion: sometimes we write the same poem twenty different ways. It feels different when we are producing it, but when in the editing phase we discover, to our creative horror, that the piece has similar language, rhythm, and/or tone.

If we, as artists, are doing our work every day, plugging away at an idea or theme, what prevents this from happening? In other words, how can we shift into new territory without losing our voices? Picasso, of course, did intentional shifts. To me he had both skill and immense faith. And, I’m sure to some degree, he was not as afraid of failure as the rest of us. I don’t mean complete failure either (like no one will ever publish your work or buy your paintings again), I’m talking about leaving that space where we are praised and embraced as artists. A musician friend recently told me that loads of his community come to his gigs when he plays with his old band but hardly anyone shows up for the single and duo performances he does recently—and this is the creative work that thrills him, that he wants to share. His own shift as an artist has taken place, but upon leaving the familiar, he finds no one wants to join him there. And therein lies the fear we all have as artists. The truth is we can be the artist who just churns out the same stuff that we always have, floating along in our happy bubble of comfort (a visual artist friend talks about this often with me because she has a colleague that makes three times the money she does because he keeps cranking out the same landscape paintings that sell well) or we can stretch ourselves creatively. Because if we don’t, if we don’t run to the edge of the cliff and look off with the intention of falling into the swollen river below, what are we doing? Or, rather, what are we missing?

Creative shifts can be terrifying, as I’m discovering with my own work at the moment. But I keep thinking that a few months of floundering around in the rapids is worth the chance to see a new shore. Scientists spend years, sometimes their entire careers, in a place of failure. They are on one path and must radically shift their experiments, thoughts, etc. to get to a new place and a possible answer. If we approach our creative lives in the same way we might stop fearing what will be left behind and instead be awed by what at last has a chance to breathe and grow strong.