Bold colors, drips

Art and Soul

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This fall I decided to work through two new “how-to” books, one on creativity and one on kung fu. I thought this would get me going in two different directions since these two things are so clearly distinct. One is about art, one is about the body. I slowly realized, however, that I was essentially dealing with the same beast: energy, life flow, chi. This is one of those ideas that automatically makes whoever is talking about it sound hippie-dippy, like someone who has never picked up a science book and spends a lot of time waving around sticks, wearing overly-comfortable tie-dyed pajamas. I’m not saying I would never wave sticks around like that (and who doesn’t love comfortable pajamas?), but I do also have more than the average number of degrees in hard sciences (2). I’m pretty sure we have this mental image about energy flow because of the way the media characterizes it, maybe some remnant of a backlash against the 60’s spirit of free-love or something. I’m too young and un-media-savvy to know. But to the point.

Here’s what I’ve been working on. For creativity: The Artist’s Way. The subtitle reads “A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity,” to give you an idea. Once I started this, I found out that it’s actually quite popular among certain groups, and there are meet-ups for people scattered on coffee shop bulletin boards all across the country. And for kung fu: The Shaolin Workout. Subtitled: “28 Days to Transforming Your Body and Soul the Warrior’s Way.” I haven’t met anyone else who has seen this book, but I don’t travel much in martial arts circles.

I’m on week 5 of 12 in The Artist’s Way, and day 17 of 28 in The Shaolin Workout. I’ve been going about half speed in The Artist’s Way, often getting distracted for a few days and finding myself behind schedule. I’ve found that the “days” referred to in The Shaolin Workout are more metaphorical, along the lines of “four legs in the morning, two in the afternoon, three in the evening.” This book contains a lifetime of movements to be learned and perfected. Many of the later exercises are near impossible without years (I presume) of focus on flexibility (“standing tall, kick one leg up to graze your toe against your forehead with control while keeping both legs straight” kind of stuff).

Here’s the basic idea behind The Artist’s Way. Creativity is not something we can simply focus hard on to produce. Rather, it is a flow that travels through us from some external force, some god or higher power or what-have-you. We, as artists, have to learn to disconnect our internal censors from this flow and just let it rush through us. Without our censor blocking the flow of creativity, we will be able to fill pages or canvasses or rolls of film. The important thing is that it doesn’t matter if you “believe” in where this energy is coming from. You don’t have to believe in God, per se. But thinking about it in this way will allow you to create art in a non-destructive way, a way that doesn’t require drugs or alcohol or addictions to silence the censor for you.

I’m not sure that I’m necessarily very far along this path right now, but even the short moments of clarity I’ve had with it have been wonderful. It comes with a feeling of openness, expansiveness, connectedness. It allows me to do one of the most necessary and difficult things to do when practicing something new: to fail. To make terrible art and trite writing. I’m starting to understand how important this is, and how I’ll never get any better unless I actually do it and work on it and slowly get better.

It’s good that I’m learning to be OK with failure, because kung fu is HARD. This is not something my body is used to. My hips and hamstrings are tight with a lifetime of sitting in cars and chairs. I cannot graze my toe against my forehead with a straight leg in a controlled way, or in even a wildly uncontrolled way. That’s going to take a lot of practice and stretching. At the end of each workout there is a meditation to focus on for the rest of the day. Things started to come together when I got to the Chinese proverb, “Be not afraid of moving slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” So I’m chipping away at the tightness in my hips, just as I’m chipping away at the censor blocking my creativity.

But here’s the thing. Both of these are actually working on the same thing. Kung fu focuses on releasing chi and letting that energy rush through me. The Artist’s Way focuses on releasing creativity and letting that energy rush through me. The tightness in my hips is constricting my chi, making it harder to stand up straight and tall, making my body a less-than-ideal place for this energy to pass easily. The creative blocks I’ve built up through years of being a perfectionist are making it difficult for me to sit down and paint. After doing the kung fu stretches, my body feels loose and energized, and I feel a sense of exuberance and life. When I actually do sit down and draw, my mind feels free and energized. As my energy flow increases, my head buzzes with openness, expansiveness, connectedness. I feel that I am (or at least am nearer to being) a fully empowered and creative being.

I’m not a neuroscientist, but I’ve read some books. I also don’t know much about energy flow, chi, etc, aside from what I’ve picked up through kung fu and yoga. But I think this all has something to do with the right side of the brain. I’ve written about the right side of the brain before, and this talk by Jill Bolte Taylor gets at a lot of what I think I’m talking about. It does make sense that martial arts would put you in your right-hemisphere, though. The movement of the body and spatial awareness that creates is exactly the kind of thing that shifts your focus from the analytical to the holistic. If this irrational, emotive hemisphere is also where the creativity to practice visual arts comes from (as it seems to be), then the two are perfect complements. More chi, more energy, more creativity, more flow, whatever that means. More kung fu, and more art. A life of openness, expansiveness, connectedness. Sounds good to me.

And drinking coffee

NaNoWriMo, Day 26

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Day 26 of writing a novel, kind of.

I have good news and bad news.

Bad news first. I’m not going to make it to 50,000 words by the end of the month. I’ve made a number of excuses for this, including multiple trips to Oregon, friends visiting from back east, general lack of discipline, and uncertainty about the story. I’m sure I could come up with more if I thought I needed to justify it to myself. I’ve still been trying to write every day, but I’ll probably be closer to half my goal by the end of the month.

So, the good news. I’m really happy with the experience I’ve had, and despite not having met my target word count, I feel like the month has been a major success. I’ve learned a huge amount about writing, about myself, and about the place where those two things intersect. A few important realizations:

  • Writing new material for more than about two hours a day is excruciating. At a certain point, it just stops flowing. Editing and whatnot can still happen, but my creative well needs a day of recharge after about that point.
  • It’s a lot easier to write in the morning before other distractions have started filling my mind. Immediately after waking up is probably best.
  • The rest of my life doesn’t appreciate being pushed aside in order to be able to spend more hours writing. I still need to paint, play music, exercise, and visit with friends. This actually works really well in concert with item #1.
  • Reading is always important, and even more so when I’m trying to write a lot. It provides good perspective.
  • It’s OK (and usually better) to be a little bit crazy, both on the page and in life.
  • It’s really easy NOT to write. And really lame.
  • Fail constantly. Just do it. I need to come to terms with the fact that I’m probably going to make a lot of terrible art and writing and music if I ever want to get good enough to make something good. If I just sit around and wait until I have the perfect idea, my skills won’t be up to the challenge of translating that idea into something tangible.

I’m still committed to the novel even if it won’t be done by the end of November. It took me until mid-month to come up with a clear outline for the main plot, and I’ve been refining that as I add to it and flesh out the chapters. I have a lot more to write, but I’m going to try to write every day and chip away at it until it’s done. I’ll let you know when it’s there.

Oh, and more good news. My mustache has been going strong all month and is doing fantastic.

Self-Help and Mentoring

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About four years ago I was traveling through Italy, biking, farming, and just generally exploring life. I didn’t have a lot of direction other than south, but life felt good. As I started seeing more hamlets and monasteries on the tops of cliffs and mountains, I realized something: I needed a mentor. I felt that my life could go all sorts of wild places, and that it would be valuable to have a wise soul to guide me through the process.

This is actually Greece, but you get the idea. Same trip, at least. The Meteora.

I made a note of this in my journal and promptly forgot about it for several years. I never sought out any person or community that I thought would be able to guide me through my explorations, and nothing materialized on its own. I didn’t think about a mentor in a serious way until a few weeks ago. Instead of renewing my resolve to find a guide, however, I realized that I have already been seeking the advice and lessons from numerous mentors.

“Self-help” has a terrible ring to it. It is full of negative connotation, an admission that one isn’t able or competent enough to deal with the difficulties of life. It doesn’t even make sense – it isn’t self-help if someone else is telling you how to do it. And a lot of it is probably garbage, especially considering the number of shelves dedicated to it at the bookstore. Luckily for me, none of the sources I was using called themselves “self-help”, so I snuck in without realizing where I had gone.

Over the last year or so, I’ve been drawing from a number of sources, gradually improving my life and state of mind. I feel that I’m now reaching a new stage of contentment and freedom in my self, and I am excited to see where things lead from here. The other day I was describing to a friend that the daily vocal training I’m doing was creating all sorts of new openness and range in my voice. I realized that this was in fact true of my whole life.

So what have I been doing? I’m tackling some of the skills I’ve wanted to have for a long time, but never really practiced, and I’m being open to good advice where I find it. Some of the people I’ve drawn the most from are:

Jason Crandell for yoga. I do yoga almost everyday on my own, listening to his podcast. Little things like folding your palms in front of your chest and lifting the skin over your sternum make a huge difference in the practice. When I got these they were free, but it looks like you might have to pay for them now.

Ken Perlman for guitar. I came upon his Fingerstyle Guitar book by chance, and have followed it with his advanced book. I’m playing guitar in ways I couldn’t have imagined a few years ago. Also, what a mustache.

Betty Edwards for drawing and perception. I’ve written about Drawing On the Right Side of the Brain before (here and here), and it has allowed huge leaps in my perception and ability to recreate that on a page.

Steve Pavlina for consciousness and inspiration. This guy might be a wacko, or he might be full of wisdom (or probably somewhere in between), but either way his ideas have inspired me. His blog posts often sound hokey, but they have definitely got me thinking and actively pursuing life.

Timothy Ferriss for fitness, confidence, and life/time management. This is the 4-Hour Workweek and 4-Hour Body guy. Not everything in those books makes sense for every person, but some of his suggestions are spot on, and his workouts are surprisingly effective.

Brett Manning for singing. I just started his speech-level singing course about 5 weeks ago. He’s super cheesy in an L.A./Hollywood way, but like I said, all sorts of new openness and range. Very expensive, unless you can borrow it from a friend.

This week I also started working through Julia Cameron‘s The Artist’s Way. It’s a spiritual approach to nurturing creativity. I’m excited about it – even reading the introduction made me want to sit down and paint all day.

The fear with seeking advice and guidance from strangers is that their thinking will take over your life and you’ll end up joining a cult or something. This is more true of the life-coach type sources than the skill-specific ones. I think the key here is to take it all with a grain of salt and to draw from multiple sources simultaneously. Doing so makes it a lot easier to distinguish the good ideas from the fluff without necessarily buying into an entire lifestyle. The fact that they are mostly free (or available at a library) helps. I definitely don’t have plans to pay for this kind of advice any time soon. Again, specific skills are a bit different.

While I would still be open to having some kind of personal mentor, I feel that I’ve found a workable alternative through these various sources, and I’m sure there are plenty more I haven’t found yet (and I welcome suggestions – especially on writing, painting, and song-writing). I’m continuing to cobble together a kind of personal philosophy, and I expect to be doing so my whole life. It’s exciting and fulfilling. Still, I’d rather not call it “self-help.”

Copying the Masters

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From my understanding, training for art by masterwork copy has come in and out of favor at various points in recent history. Masterwork copy is just as it sounds: creating a copy of a great piece by a master artist. Some teachers believe that this stifles creativity, perhaps suppressing a young artist’s own voice. Others think it’s a great way to learn technique and get deeply involved with a piece of art. I’ve worked through a couple of these, and I have to say I agree with the latter.

I did my first real masterwork copy last spring in an oil painting class. I chose an early Kandinsky, mostly because I like his work and I particularly liked the look of the specific piece. It was a 1919 work titled Moscow I, an abstract landscape of Moscow. It seemed perhaps a bit ambitious, but that is usually an enticement rather than impediment for me.

At first, painting the copy went about how I had expected it to. Matching colors, trying to match the stroke. As I became more familiar with the piece, I began noticing details in the paint that I hadn’t seen before. Much of the work would be impossible to reproduce on a single pass; it required successive layers of washes and covers. I hadn’t experienced this deconstruction of a piece of art before, it was almost like getting to watch over the artist’s shoulder as he worked through the piece. Eventually I decided it was more fun to paint in the style I thought Kandinsky might have been using than to try to make a photographic reproduction. I kept the brush strokes and didn’t worry too much if they weren’t in exactly the right place.

My version of Kandinsky’s ‘Moscow I’

Kandinsky’s Original ‘Moscow I’

Last week I worked on another copy, this time of a drawing by Courbet. His work is in charcoal and I used pencil, so I wasn’t expecting to be able to get quite the same texture. This exercise was mostly about light and dark, finding shapes and shadows. I actually started blocking out with the drawing upside-down in order to focus on the pattern of value rather than any discernible features. Once I had gotten the basic shapes defined, I flipped the work right-side-up again and began hashing out the details. As with the Kandinsky, my perception and understanding of the work continued to grow as I worked through it. I began to notice features that appeared to be just hinted at at first, and to a certain extent I began to gain understanding of the stroke and touch Courbet used in the work. Using a different medium than the original may have limited this somewhat, but the general idea was still there.

My version of Courbet’s ‘Self Portrait’

Courbet’s Original ‘Self Portrait’

After completing each of these masterwork copies, I felt I had gained new understanding of the components of the pieces, and more importantly, a sense of how these individual components work together to give a powerful sense of wholeness and beauty. If any of my own creativity was sacrificed while working through these pieces, I’m confident that it is made up for by the advancement of my technique and my improved understanding of the process of creating a serious work. I doubt I will do these masterwork copies often, but I definitely recommend them as an exercise for getting fully immersed in a great piece of art.

Bold colors, drips

Good Work Takes Time

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More and more, our society indulges in instant gratification and constant interconnectedness. In some ways, this is quite good. It allows exchange of ideas without barriers, flexible scheduling, and incredible access to information, among other things. One thing I keep coming back to in my journey for creative fulfillment, however, is this: good work takes time.

I used to have a pretty decent understanding of this idea. When I was most serious about cello in high school, I knew that I wasn’t going to make progress without daily effort. That doesn’t mean I actually put in the effort consistently, which is part of the reason my cello playing fizzled out a bit in my early 20s. In art classes, I was happy to go slowly, to be careful with my eye, to revisit incongruities. Even if progress on a specific piece went quickly, I knew that improvement over the long run required patience and persistence.

In the last several years, this idea of dedicating time and effort to something meaningful has become more foreign to me. In the world of consulting, there is generally not time to take things slow, to evaluate and reconsider. Time is money, and more specifically, billable time is money. In large part, the work I’ve done in the past few years has not required any major cognitive leaps or breakthroughs. It seems that in the era of email on your smartphone, people are looking for a quick response rather than a thoughtful one. Of course, the ideal is to deliver both, but for involved and creative problems, it’s just not possible.

Getting back into art and music has reminded me of this consciousness and slowness necessary to dig into something big. The work demands a clean and solid foundation, a place to allow ideas to expand and follow tangents and be nurtured. Had I stuck with some of my recent work longer, or developed more of a passion for it, I could imagine getting to a similar place of focus with that. The break-neck pace and incremental demands, however, made this quite difficult.

For now I am reveling in the slow progress that comes with creative practice. I’ve been doing daily vocal training, drawing exercises, and stream of consciousness writing. None of these skills can improve instantaneously, and none of them will be spurred forward by being able to look something up on a smartphone. But I can already feel myself making progress, chipping away at some big things that I want to have meaning in my life. My brain is adjusting to a slower pace and rewiring itself to tackle different kinds of problems than it has in the past few years. It’s a transition that will take time, but it feels good. Patience, young grasshopper.