The Pragmatic Artist

ANNA LIDSTONE: The Pragmatic Artist celebrates what I call "creativity for grown ups"– the challenges of living as a creative person in the "real world," how to find "art/life balance," what it means to be a "pragmatic artist," and why - when there are dishes to be done and bills to be paid - it all still matters. var sc_project=7168476; var sc_invisible=1; var sc_security="eb56a5e3";

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Art and childcare

A very telling sign on an art gallery on B.C's Sunshine Coast "Summer gallery hours 10.30 - 6.30 except if we don't have child care." Never let it be said that lofty artistic aspirations can't co-exist with the hum drum of day-to-day logistics (in fact, that might be the only way art is ever created...)

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Desire and Creativity

Desire is both a big word and a small one.

When couples are struggling to find time, energy and headspace to make love, they are often given the advice not to wait to feel desire before initiating sex. Instead, they are advised to make love – to take action – and let the “mood” follow.

I’ve always felt that art, for the most part, works along the same lines. Turn up, and let the mood, the desire, find you. That might be all it takes.

But, if the problem persists, it might be worth asking more questions. Like, why is desire lacking?

To continue the metaphor, are you feeling tired, overwhelmed, distracted, under too much pressure or in pain? Are you finding it hard to turn off your brain after a week of too much “input”? Are you feeling unsafe, angry, or hurt?

Maybe you miss the old passion, but you know it’s just that the “new relationship energy” has morphed into something more sustainable, less consuming?

Or is a bigger solution required? Have you fallen out of love or lust? Are you worried that the level of commitment expected of you is more than you want to offer? Do you need to be alone for a while, or casually date with no pressure? Do you need to leave your partner and find a new one?

In other words, is this a problem that requires a large, dramatic solution? Or can it be solved with small changes –a small tweak here, some self-love there, a few gentle conversations? Does the solution lie in rekindling the old desire, or moving on to a new one?

Or, are you at a point where conversations about desire are completely beside the point and just getting in the way? Because, you know, sometimes you just have to finish the job you started so you can get a good night’s sleep…

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An article from Austin Kleon on writing and fatherhood. Main message: don't use your kids as an excuse not to turn up to "the thing." 

http://www.austinkleon.com/2013/02/09/on-writing-post-fatherhood/

Irony alert. I usually write about balancing parenting and writing myself. There is a small chance that I have to rely on articles written by someone else since I'm not currently writing about the topic. Why? Because I am too occupied with looking after a young baby and a preschooler. In fact, it's been 16 weeks since I last remember defiantly asserting that parenting and creative endeavours can co-exist. How old is my baby, you ask? Almost 16 weeks....

But, it's temporary!! Right? Right? ....:)

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Interesting article by Doug Sundheim called "To Increase Innovation, Take the Sting Out of Failure" on how to make risk-taking more meaningful, and palatable.

http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/01/to_increase_innovation_take_th.html?utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=Socialflow

When I talk about the importance of failing, my workshop participants or coaching clients almost invariably look at me like I'm crazy and ask "why on earth would I WANT to fail?!" This idea of deciding what a "smart failure" is is really compelling, I think...

What would a smart failure look like in your creative life?

(HBR Blog Network. Doug Sundheim. Jan 9, 2013.)

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What Makes You Itch?

If you sometimes feel that it's "all retch and no vomit" and would like 2013 to be the year you actually life the way you want to live, watch this beautiful (short) video about following your desire...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYp-0sWz-vY

(What if Money Was No Object - What would you Do? - Time to Unslave Humanity Part 1 of 25 from TragedyandHope's YouTube channel. Narrated by Alan Watts.)

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"Sometimes a good idea is a bad idea turned upside down."

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Yay for play! (And innovative marketing.)

Piano stairs. TheFunTheory.com - Rolighetsteorin.se 

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Watch this if you ever find yourself believing that your art depends on expensive equipment. 

Landfill Harmonic, a film about people transforming trash into music, love, courage and creativity. . posted on Facebook by Amir Sepasi. www.facebook.com/landfillharmonicmovie.com

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Creative wisdom from my 3 year old: "Sometimes when you want to draw, it's ok to just scribble. It means you're learning."

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How Creativity is Affected by Time

This lovely video (just a few minutes long) shows the importance of having time to come up with new ideas and create. I love it! 

(This is on YouTube, but I'm not sure what the original source is. I think it might be Cafe Communications: http://cafecommunications.eu/featured-stories/cafe-was-acknowledged-three-hipnozis-awards. If you know, please drop me a line so I can credit it properly.)

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How Reality Talent Shows Hurt Artists

Every season, you tune in to watch another generation of Idol contestants. You relish the transformation of an awkward teenager to international star. You embrace the evolution of an obscure unknown to Grammy winner. You cry along with the singer who has emerged from the privacy of their bedroom to take the stage euphorically as a consummate professional. It’s the rapid rise to fame that the Idol franchise – and other shows like them – promise to those who are lucky enough to get on TV.

And maybe they give you hope. Maybe you imagine that you will be next. Maybe you see it as proof that the industry is thriving, that there’s an audience out there for you, too. Maybe you enjoy the secret knowledge that you are better than all of them.

But if you’re anything like many of the artists I have worked with, that might not be all you’re taking away from these shows.  

Many artists, I’ve discovered, actually don’t identify with the winner. They don’t secretly nurture the belief that they are the one who gets through the auditions, attracts the coveted praise of the judges week after week, wins the votes and goes on to a fabulous career.

They don't even identify with the loser. No – many artists identify with someone else entirely, someone who gets even more press and more attention than the star, the one person who is remembered for years after the winners have been forgotten...The talentless buffoon who graces the stage in early audition rounds. You know who I’m talking about – those contestants who seem to be completely unaware that they have no talent – not an ounce, not a murmur, not a far-distant hoot of talent – but sincerely seem to believe that they are the universe’s gift to the music industry and have the tenacity to tell everyone who will listen.   

I mean no disrespect to these contestants. Some are clearly doing it for the attention, hamming it up for the cameras. Others are simply victims of a production process that takes whatever natural lack of talent is apparent and magnifies it through interviewing and strategic editing. These buffoons are an important part of the entertainment value of the show, but they are characters, created for TV by TV and bear very little resemblance to real life. Clowns have been used in theatre for a very long time, and reality TV is much more theatre than reality.

But, somehow, artists watching the show forget that these are clowns. Fictional characters. Distortions.

Instead, artists identify with the clown. Rather than believing the inner voice that tells them that they have talent, they start to internalize the insidious voice represented by the clowns. Fear and insecurity bury their way into the chasm deep within each artist where such evil resides. There they fester – unacknowledged, unspoken – until someone, maybe a friend, a creativity coach or a mentor, helps the artist to hold them up to the light.

“What if…?” the artist whispers, trying to understand a paralyzing inability to commit to a new project, almost too afraid to speak their secret truth out loud in case it becomes true. “What if I’m like one of those people on Idol? What if I think I’m good, or even just ok, and everyone else knows I’m really, really bad? What if everyone else is laughing at me, and I’m the only one who thinks I’m any good?” There it is, the stark, naked truth.  “What if I’m the clown?”

The sad thing is, none of the artists who have confessed this fear to me are even remotely in that position. Many of them are extremely accomplished, having worked in their field for years. They have learned the hard way the importance of preparation, practice and feedback. There even seems to be some inverse logic at play – younger artists seem to identify more with the winners, seeing that it could easily be themselves; the more experienced, seasoned artists seem more likely to harbour this secret fear and identify with the clown. Perhaps because they have lived through humiliation a million times in their minds over the course of their career.

There’s only one real solution I’ve found. The fear has to be acknowledged, brought out into the sunlight, examined from different angles, and then thrown away as ridiculous, or at least unlikely. Even if there was a real world equivalent of the humiliation that is thrown at the clown characters on TV talent shows, unless you have a completely overblown, grandiose view of yourself, and you’re really, ridiculously bad (not just mediocre, but absolutely shockingly bad) you’re very unlikely to be the target of such ridicule.

And that little inner voice that tells you that you have talent? It’s almost always more reliable than the voice that is getting ready to laugh at you.  

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Facebook

Recently, I've found that some of my discussions about creativity and innovation are happening on Facebook rather than here, especially shorter posts that respond to recent articles or media coverage. If you want to follow me there as well as here, "like" my Facebook page at Anna Lidstone -The Pragmatic Artist. 

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Interesting article by Thorin Klosowski about how important it is to regularly do...nothing. And not just so that we can be more creative, but also because sometimes we just need to do...nothing. 

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Good work, great work and Michael Bungay Stanier

I've written before about the challenges of turning up to our creative work when we have so many competing priorities. For most of us, our creative work is just one of many things we are devoted to (since most of us are quite devoted to eating and paying our bills, to say nothing of raising children and getting Great Aunt Edna to the podiatrist). It's not just that we have to make creative work per se a priority if we are going to get anything done, but that we have to make choices about which creative projects we will invest in. 

Will I work on that novel, or the other one? What about the musical I've always wanted to write? And there's that scrapbook project sitting in the drawer - I could work on that. And I saw a class on woodwork that seems like it could be fun. Or maybe I should focus on turning my kids' books into a digital application? It's easy to drown in the flood of options and end up doing none of them. 

But a few months ago I came across a very simple way of helping to decide which path(s) to follow. I came across Michael Bungay Stanier  - a renowned coach, speaker, creativity consultant and founder of Box of Crayons. 

Michael's coaching is based on the idea that there is GOOD WORK and there is GREAT WORK. For him, these words don't mean some kind of external measure of the work's value or quality, but capture more of the sense of the experience of doing them.

Good work is getting things done, doing what has to happen. It's not unpleasant and may even be satisfying. It has merit and may be very high quality. It probably pays some bills, or serves other useful purposes. There is nothing wrong with it, but it doesn't rock the world. We all need good work. 

Great work, on the other hand, is the stuff that really makes a difference. It's exciting but, most important, it excites YOU. It's the stuff that makes you feel energized, and challenged. It changes things up, shifts paradigms and rocks the world. It feels like you're fulfilling your life's purpose, doing something that only you can do. This is you passion...your legacy...your raison d'etre...You get the idea. 

(He also talks about bad work - the stuff that drains us of our energy and meaning, and invites toxicity. We should avoid that kind at all costs, Michael suggests, and disentangle ourselves from at the first opportunity.)

The goal, obviously, is to increase the amount of great work we do  - while accepting that good work will probably always be part of the equation. Great work may be harder or more risky (or it might not be) but it might also be much more satisfying. Besides, what is good work for me, might be someone else's great. 

It's simple, but I find it helpful. When ideas for projects poke their heads up, demanding attention, I can ask them, are you great work for me, or just good work? Are you the candle in the bathroom, or the flame that will set my soul on fire? 

Of course, sometimes, I might be quite content with the candle in the bathroom, but at least I have made that choice. 

To find out more about Michael's work, visit Box of Crayons at   (http://www.boxofcrayons.biz/about-box-of-crayons/). 

(In the interests of full disclosure, I will confess that I have been planning to write this post for several months, and have finally been spurred on to do so by a competition that Box of Crayons is holding as part of their birthday celebrations. Hopefully, this post will win me a prize pack! The sentiments are genuine, though, even if my timing  suffers from the stench of a cheap, sleazy ulterior motive.)

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Creativity at any cost?

Somewhere along the line, some people seem to have got the impression that creativity and innovation are reasonable approaches to every situation, and involve arbitrarily throwing out all the rules that have come before it, relentlessly implementing new ideas just because they are new, ignoring history and generally doing everything possible to go against the status quo, social norms and established practices. Some even seem to think that being rude and generally objectionable is a subversive act that signposts their creative genius. Ever met anyone like that? 

Yet I find consistently that mature, professional and successful artists/innovators (and I mean in attitude, not in age, income or external measures) know that a new idea is not necessarily a good idea, and that creativity involves knowing when to play it straight.  

They know that a conservative marketing approach might be the best endorsement for a game-changing idea; that a cutting-edge idea doesn't mean disrespecting the client who is paying for it; that too much glitz in a proposal or pitch can undermine the power of the idea; that old-fashioned hard work and humility are necessary scaffolds for revolution. 

Most importantly, not only are they all too aware that there is a time to toe the line and a time to throw caution to the wind - they also know when those times are.  

In other words, they know that an attitude of "creativity at any cost" comes at a very, very high cost.  

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I first met Tim Hurson at the Next Idea Creativity Conference in New York, and have since taken his training on facilitating productive thinking. A very inspiring guy. This is a conversation with him that appeared on "Creativity Post" recently in which he talks about creativity as a learned skill. 

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The right to play...

Context is everything. I'm a big believer in the importance of play - for both kids and adults. So today, when I heard someone say, very assertively, "You don't have the right to stop me playing!!!" part of me wanted to cheer, print it on a placard and parade through the streets, repeating it to anyone who cared to listen. Unfortunately, the someone was my three-year-old. And she was talking to me. And it was bedtime. So, lo and behold, my belief in bedtime won out over my belief in play.  Funny, that :)