“Art is an antidote to fear”
-- Aaron Freeman
I have often written about fear in my articles, and last week in writing about the short life of famed artist Nicholas de Stael, I wrote some on how being an artist is hard. So in a way this article is a non-continuous continuation of last week’s article.
I have also as an artist had a tough week in some ways, so I thought I would use my own fear of artistic failure to fuel the creativity of this article.
What is the biggest thing that all artists are afraid of? I will admit it if you won’t: Criticism, right?
The German Zen master Harding, who trained in Japan, wrote a book on Zen called “On Having No Head.” I recommend it. In it he states something that can make you a little neurotic if you think about it too much, like how do we keep breathing. He says that when you look around — say, at a party — you see everyone’s head, right? But where’s your head that’s doing the looking? It’s as if we are just space above our shoulders. Don’t think about this while driving heavy machinery!
What’s important here is that we think we’re these big tough bodies, but inside what are we when someone’s, say, mean to us? There isn’t really any defense, is there? At least not at first. And then we try, unsuccessfully I would suggest, to build up barriers. But how can you as mind/space build up any real barriers? Hence alcohol abuse and drug abuse and sexual abuse, and even cruelty are attempts to save us from mental and emotional pain.
If we really all contemplated this in school every day since we were little, we wouldn’t all try to hurt each other so much. That’s my view, at least. The great writer and thinker Aldous Huxley said on his deathbed to his friends as his last words that they were waiting for like a spiritual oracle, “I think we all could have been a little kinder to each other.” I quote that all the time!
We all not only suffer from each others’ cruelty, we inflict it ourselves at times. Maybe not often, but we all have, I think.
So it’s hard to be a human being, and it’s hard to be an artist, too. We show ourselves — if we are being true to our art — as if we are completely nude. It’s as if we have just dieted and exercised for months for a romantic vacation with our mate, and we walk out completely nude and say sheepishly, “Am I OK for you?” Who hasn’t been there? Only a few lucky ones, or maybe not so lucky. My brother Robert the classical violinist must feel that way before his recitals when he almost faints before the crowd!
So what do we do as artists? Maybe not be too different, or maybe we learn in kindergarten that the kids who color within the lines or who make people with only two eyes or brown or white skin but not purple skin seem to get all those coveted gold stars. We follow the status quo! No way to be a great artist though, I say!
You know those T-shirts that say “No Fear”? I think that all artists should wear those in their studios or bedrooms or wherever they do their art. And I mean their writing or dancing or playing their musical instruments — and look at themselves in the mirror so they can see the shirt and their head, if only for a moment. Some are thinking, no doubt, “He really is a nerd after all, isn’t he?” I answer truthfully: “Yes I am.” I never really made it to full-blown cool really. But still...maybe just try it!
I have done thousands of paintings, so many that I have to store them in my friend’s warehouse. Number sold? About five or 10 only. And he, and everyone, warned me that if I didn’t get them off the floor, that they would get moldy. We’ll, I am physically lazy, and for some years — no mold! And then now there is mold! I have probably wrecked 50 or so paintings. Most are photographed, though, at least.
Well my friend and his good friend, also my friend, suggested that I get rid of a lot more than the moldy ones. Two guys who are not visual artists ganging up on me with moldy paintings all around wasn’t that much fun, I can tell you that! They are great guys though, so I’m just telling this for a point. They were my earlier, usually pure abstracts and all in all aren’t probably as technically good as my work now, but still. ... I went home, and if I could be as wimpy as I truly wanted to be would have had a good cry! But then within days my newest work appeared in galleries, and I received rave reviews from even a realist artist trained in Europe, and others.
I hope it’s not arrogance to confess even embarrassing stories about oneself. But I’ve heard most of what you might be afraid of hearing, and I have survived, and so can you! Examples: “ Don’t lose that day job” or “Get a day job!” or “That’s still a sketch though, right?” or “Interesting ...” or “Have you ever thought of lessons?” or just hilarious laughter and “I don’t mean to be rude!” or “What the F is the matter with you?” For real! So I’ve been there, and it’s OK!
Should we not then listen to our critics, professional or otherwise? No, do listen and learn from them, even the painful ones (maybe my friends are right about some of my early paintings after all!), but then let them go — even the positive ones (harder for me to do, I confess).
Why? Because you can not please or be everyone! A famous Hasidic Rabbi told one of his disciples once, When you die, Benjamin, for example, God will not ask you why you were not more like Moses, but why you were more like Benjamin!
And the great Buddha said to his closest disciple: I tell you the truth, my disciple, if you talk too much they will blame you, and if you talk too little they will blame you, and if you say nothing at all, still they will blame you. Apply that to art, and it’s very profound and helpful!
Even Jesus didn’t have it easy with his neighbors. “Isn’t that the carpenter’s son?” and “Nothing good can come from Nazareth.”
Just three historical examples to help us just fight the good fight: Picasso’s “Le Guernica,” maybe the greatest work of the 20th century some would say, was not immediately appreciated. And Picasso worked hard on this one — all 11 feet high by 24 feet long of it. Some of his friends and critics didn’t like it at all, and its immediate shows were not that successful. But Picasso was right. He tried to be Picasso and not Vermeer or some other equally great artist.
Monet and the impressionists were ridiculed and laughed at — at their own first shows, in front of their girlfriends and wives, no less. We all love the term “impressionism” now, and Monet painted his great “Impression, Sunrise.” But we forget we get the term from the respected art critic Louis Leroy, who termed the whole movement “impressionism” as a criticism and compared their work to “sketches” and “wallpaper.”
And what’s the big deal about sketches anyway? Don’t we all love Da Vinci’s sketches as much as his paintings, and didn’t the great 20th century Italian philosopher of art Croce say that a sketch was as much a work of art as a great chapel painted ceiling? In fact, better if the sketch was good and the painted ceiling bad!
Let’s all,-ala Huxley, be a little kinder in our criticism than we often are, for, as the Buddha said, Knowing you too will die, how can you speak to others so?
I will leave you with my own suggestion/criticism/prejudice, and I mean this in the kindest possible way: Do your art as you would do it — not as a Picasso or Faulkner or Miles Davis or Rilke would — for only then will it be truly yours.
I leave you with a quote by the great and truly individual Francis Bacon (the artist, not the great early modern philosopher): (Real) painters do not paint things as they are... they paint them as they themselves feel (or, I would add, think) them to be.
Change that for your special art form
For you can only be Benjamin ... not Moses.
w
