Should You Stay or Should You Go?

Humans are interesting creatures...this past week I had what started out as a depressing experience but ended up as an opportunity with vast potential. The entire process really made me think about how often we fight to protect the status quo in situations that fundamentally will never be what we want them to be. It's sort of the opposite of that old Groucho Marx joke "I don't want to be part of a club that would accept people like me as a member." Maybe we have some primitive need to be part of the club...even when it doesn't work for us. 

One of the ways I figured out the right solution was to face a few hard questions: 

1. Am I working as hard as I can on this situation? If the answer is no...then maybe I am not really committed to it. 

2. Does the situation (with the people involved) have the potential to become what I need?

3. What will be lost if I walk away? 

Honestly...the answers helped me understand that the time had come to move on. The amazing part was as soon as I faced that decision...and chose it...then all kinds of alternatives started coming to  mind. I realized I was so fixed on making a bad solution work, that I had closed myself off to all the other amazing possibilities. 

Let's face it anywhere you have humans, you'll have conflict. The issue at hand wasn't some massive thing in my life, but I have reached a point where I don't want to spend any more time making bad solutions work. I think the same is true with making art, relationships...you name it...winning the argument isn't the same as making the right choice.

Patience and Courage

Today is the first day of Photo LA and I have been fortunate to be curated into Sarah Lee Projects @ Photo LA 2015 with three other amazing photographers (more on them to come). The upside is that I've had the chance to work with terrific people and hopefully find the 4 day event rewarding, exciting and fun. The potential downside is it exposes me to everything I normally try to avoid in my everyday life: gobs of people and selling myself. It got me thinking about how often I find myself on scary paths.  

Truth is, all goals have difficult steps. Actors want to have an audience, so they have to hit the talk-show circuit ("what if I sound stupid"), writers want someone to buy their book so they do book-signings ("what if no one shows up")...we all have the same issue of doing the crap we're not wild about to continue doing the stuff we can't exist without.  

I've had students tell me that "I just want to make the work, that's what important, not if anyone sees it." My response is usually: "well, let's think about the difference between therapy and art. If the work is therapy...then I agree, that an audience is not important. But, if you're striving to make art, then art is a process of communication and part of your responsibility to the work is to find it a place in the world." Yes, it's excruciating to bare one's soul (or even to bear one's soul) to the world...but if you can somehow pretend that's not happening, or focus on your end goals, it can help you find the courage to move forward. 

I believe that once you've created a work, it has its own rights and it needs to find its place in the world. Sitting in your studio/closet/drawer isn't enough. What if no one wants it? Well...every creative has worried about that from year 1000BC...maybe not those early cave painting guys, let's face it, they had a captive market. Ok, let's say no one wants the work. It could mean multiple things.  Maybe they're idiots. Maybe it's crap. Maybe it's too personal. Maybe it's the wrong market. Maybe it's ahead of its time...who knows? Maybe it's really just a step in your process of becoming a better artist...and you'll realize that in a few years and that takes patience.  It's important to remember that making 2015 the year you get better will mean doing some of the crap that makes you crazy. 

Patience and Courage. 

xxx from the front!

p.s. if you go to Photo LA, come by and say hi...

As Time Goes Bye...

Today my neighbors are having a massive garage sale...they're leaving the house they've lived in for over 50 years and we're all heartbroken about it. On either side of me, I've had the same neighbors since I moved in twenty years ago. One set is ten years older than me and the other is twenty, so I've been able to have interesting and vibrant "previews" of what life has in store for me. But this change wasn't expected and it's been a wakeup call for us as we try to see what lessons we can learn, and the biggest ones seem to be about recognizing change and responding to it. 

You'd think that change would be easy to spot a mile away...but often it's a bit of a slow moving glacier. You don't miss the big changes: deaths, births, job loss, heartbreak - those hit you in the face and demand an answer. But it's the sneaky ones catching you by surprise that really seem to make the biggest impact on life longterm. I think that's what happened to my neighbors - over time, their life and business was changing, demanding they change the habits of a lifetime and I think they missed it - and they're not the only ones - it happens to us all. 

Right now, as you read this, your life is changing. The relationships around you are different than they were even a month ago, your work/school/life environment is morphing and you may have missed it because you were coping and coming up with short term solutions. How do we prevent this? I don't have the full answer but I do know that it's really important to assess your life and choices on a regular basis. Ask yourself if your current solutions are working? An easy way to assess this is to see if you're having to face the same issue over and over again - or better yet, do your solutions really address the root of the problem or just the symptoms? Are you challenging yourself to change and grow on a regular basis? Are you doing things that scare you (no, not robbing banks...) on a daily basis, getting you out of your comfort zone?

At the core of it, I think that's why I've been so interested in creativity. It's not just about creating new art, but rather it's developing a way of approaching life that remains surprised and striving for new solutions. So...what is it for you? What could you do today that would shake things up? 

How To Be Creative Until You Die

Are there prime ages for creativity? I hope not...because I hate the thought of uncontrollable absolutes being out there (yes, I know the obvious one).  There are so many factors involved in creative output - a big one being the culture in which you live and ours tends to favor the young.  Being outside of the "chosen" set can be discouraging, but let's face it, it's better than the alternative.

My goal is to do more than just stay creative - I want to know how to actually reinvent my artwork continually throughout the rest of my life. The prevailing science seems to indicate that there are two main approaches to creativity - the "experimentalist" and the "conceptualist." So says a study called Age + Creativity by David W. Galeson. In the study, he looks at a wide range of creativity, from art to science, and concludes "my work suggests that it is the characteristics of the individual that determine the shape of the creative life cycle. This implies that our opportunities for creativity are not dictated by our professions, but are determined by our own choices and abilities."

Looking at these two very different approaches to creativity, which do you think you are? The experimentalist is constantly on the search, but never quite attaining that perfect work. The process becomes the important part. They usually have a lot of things going and find that the "goal" keeps moving forward - the more they know, they more that want to know and generally have a lifetime of exploring. This is in contrast with the conceptualist, for them it is the idea which becomes paramount. That flash of insight, which is often planned minutely, and then the process of production is almost an after thought. This type tends to have those big splashes...but after that...not so much. I'm not sure if we can choose which type we want to be - but hey, why not give it a shot? 

I think life-long creativity has certain elements:

• Risk...you must be willing to take a risk, to be uncomfortable, to risk looking foolish or awkward or even (especially) stupid! Turning off that "voice" in your head usually helps. 

• Change, which often rides with its friend Risk.  As we get older we get more established - we can end up using the same set of solutions. Some of that is self-preservation so we don't have to reinvent the wheel every day, but if we're not careful, our avoidance of change can stop our growth. On the other hand, it's not enough to gobble up the latest trends and move with them - find a balance that allows you to bring in the best of the new and blend it with the strengths you already have. 

• Obsession. It's been my experience that, once I get serious about a goal, then solutions start to present themselves. It's not that the solutions weren't always there, but in the act of identifying the goal...we start to understand what we're looking for.

• Persistance...just sticking with the process even after failing more than a few times. This goes with a willingness to work hard, to push yourself.

• Be An Outsider - beginner's mind if you will. Being a "newby" with just enough information to do something, but not so much that you start limiting yourself, is a great way to stay continuously creative.

Good luck...let me know how it goes...

Kamikaze Night

This weekend I'll be participating in July 2012 Kamikaze, a series of one-night shows by thirty-one artists at PØST space in downtown Los Angeles.  I'm completely looking forward to it and have been determined to leave myself open to whatever might happen when I actually see the work up on the walls. I'll admit, it's been a bit of a bumpy process (see last week's post) but I think I've rediscovered something that's been missing in my art-making experience for quite a while.

One of the reasons people tend to wax lyrically over their art school days...or grad school days, is having that experience of creation for its own sake, followed by the ability to discuss it in a public environment. Currently, when I have an exhibition scheduled, it's on an established body of work that we've already decided is worthy of viewing by the public. Since it's photography,  I would have already sent it off to the framers ages ago...waiting until the absolute deadline and having my framer (thanks Alex!) look at me with a slightly exasperated air. But the bottom line is, in many gallery settings, it can become about marketing and not about making art.

This experience has been refreshing in so many ways because it's the antithesis of that. The exhibition is one night...so it's up and then down in the same afternoon/evening. And while I'm having  a bit of the "everyone will think this is stupid" butterflies...the truth is the only folks willing to come down to East LA on a Saturday evening are friends and family...so I doubt anyone will slice and dice me. 

What I've realized is that this has been an enormously rewarding experience because it has given me a chance to put my focus back into the art (plus it helps that I really work well with a deadline). These days being able to have the experience of trying something new and getting to explore it in a public setting just doesn't happen that much. We're all so concerned about marketing, social media, branding...you name it...the art-making tends to get a bit lost in the mix at times. 

Yup - I had a ton of ideas for the show, everything from turning it into a big darkroom and having people process their images to just hanging my ideas on the wall...who knows, I could still do that...but, the main benefit was being thrown back into an environment that allowed me to move forward as I focused my energies on just making something. How to apply this to everyday life? I think there's many ways this can be replicated - a big one that I'd like to explore is the idea of a co-operative that was dedicated to the creative jump - where a group of individuals found ways to push each other to go beyond what they might have done on their own...we'll see...

In terms of Saturday's show...I'm still working on it, so please show up and see what happened.

Saturday, July 21st, 7:00pm - 9:00pm

PØST, 1904 East Seventh Place, Los Angeles (quick note, it's a smaller street off of 7th Street, east of Alameda)

Kamikaze Show Blog listing of artists and projects. 

Misery, Beauty and the Creative Process

There's no denying it, I'm miserable...unhappy...grumpy...sneezy...oh, wait - no I haven't become the seven dwarves. Instead I'm doing something totally miserable, spending the morning trying to make sense of a new set of images (none of which are in this post). It's hard to decide if it's worse to not have any images you like, or to have fallen in love with several unrelated images - which then could become just another dead end.

Our mythology about the creative process includes all of the above experiences, but when you're going through them, understanding that doesn't really make it easier. I've got two images I really like...both completely unrelated to each other and I'm trying to figure out what they mean, what they can lead to, and where to go next. Making sense of our images becomes part of the process of figuring out the kinds of stories we want to tell. 

Part of the pressure is that I've got a show in a week - a small experimental space - and I've committed to really using the experience for the process of art - rather than just another marketing stint. I started with a strong idea - actually a word - resonance - one of those delightfully elastic words that roams around from science to spirituality. My connection to it was in reference to Beauty. Yup, I'm still trying to use beauty in my work.  I'd been reading a book my mother gave me, Creative Authenticity, 16 Principles to Clarify and Deepen Your Artistic Vision, and the first chapter is about searching for beauty.

"Art and beauty are about that inner resonance. It isn't the subject matter that holds us. Some inexplicable reaction stops us, and we find ourselves connected with something other than our self."

Beauty is like that great quote on pornography - we can't define it, but we know it when we see it. I want my work to have that quality, to become a space in which to rest, something quite removed from the rest of the world. On my living room wall I've got a painting by my mother which has that quality. The scene is simple, just a pathway in a rather wild, natural space. The brushstrokes are lose and a bit wild themselves, abstracted enough that I find myself just staring down that path and transfixed in a meditative state.

So, that's what I'm looking to create...meditative, transcendent, transportive moments. That's a lot of weight for one image to carry, but having the word to grasp onto is a great place to start.  The problem is that now, looking at these two images, I can't really figure out what is making them so good. Ironic? Yup!

Is it the subject matter?  Method of printing?  Perhaps it's the kiss of death to look so hard for meaning, for connection? One of the first mistakes I can say I'm making is trying too hard to have a result - the true irony here is that I found the images I love through experimentation and then the second I have success in that method, I switch to its polar opposite by trying to control everything...ssshhhish! 

I don't know...but I'd like just ONE more image that does it for me...NOW....

Perhaps it's unwise to bully my muse?

Ah, well...