Art Matters
Activate body to calm activated mind-with pen, needle, brush...
Dear Starlight,
My barefeet are crossed before me on the couch. To my left, a toasty orange fire burns in the woodstove. There is a plate of half-eaten blueberry pancakes, wet with maple syrup, on the small table by my side. To my right, I watch a diverse community of feathered friends dip and dive, taking turns at the bird feeder, standing like a beacon near the brook that runs by my cottage, nestled in the Vermont mountains. I can see the moon starting to disappear into the day, and in front of me, I watch the morning sky transform from black to gray to pink, in contrast to the white snow and the ebony tree-scribbled scene. There is gentle classical music in the background and the sound of my laughter as I watch a whirly squirrel swing back and forth, holding on for his life to a thin branch he just jumped onto.
It’s heaven until suddenly my body breaks into a sweat and I feel sick from the pancakes–I don’t know why, but this happens when I eat pancakes, and I forget about it and then want to try again after a long while. The trick is not to beat myself up for trying again.
The trick is to see, smell, feel, be in-joy here now and not rehearse something that frightens me.
Lately, I’ve been noticing my tendency to ruminate. A thought will blow into my mind, and if it’s sticky, if there is any perceived danger–it doesn’t matter what level of threat, I will go into a devilish rehearsal of practicing scenarios, and imagined conversations will be on repeat. I will literally have the same conversation on a loop for two hours as I drive between the Hudson Valley and Southern Vermont. I can feel the thoughts in my chest or stomach as a tightness.
There is the adage that when you become aware of something, you are beginning or have the capacity to change it. To some degree, I believe in this. This pattern is indeed constant and has always been my adult norm as far as I can remember, and so was invisible except when it was five-alarm firing, which happened this fall.
Ok—I digress. It appears to be food poisoning, not standard pancake wooziness, but now my mind isn’t sure what to focus its panic on.
Worry is not what I had planned to write about. I wanted to write about art.
Are the two topics connected, or could they be?
One of the pain points when I used to make studio art regularly were these thoughts: “The world doesn’t need more stuff,” and “Don’t waste resources.” Those are beliefs I hold, but I’m not sure they should be applied to artmaking—true art making. (I distinguish art making from commercial products. I also distinguish sacred craft from commercial products.) These are pretty perfectionistic thoughts to hold while practicing. For example, just this past week, I spent over $100 out of pocket on materials and over 11 hours in labor to make two ceramic bowls that both emerged from the kiln cracked. You can see how those guiding beliefs really let me have it when this happens–even though making and breaking vessels is a necessary aspect of the practice.
This morning, I was looking at the artworks of Madge Gill. I noted the other week that I have always been most drawn to “outsider art,” and while I don’t know precisely why, I think it’s because I sense its power as prima materia. It has tangible divinity. There is a pureness of purpose even if the artist themselves cannot name it–they trust in it, and many of the artists are compulsively driven to create it or are called following a muse. These artists don’t listen to a self-conscious directive; they hear an inner voice with a conviction that surmounts any worldly belief.
Ok–it was officially food poisoning. Was it the blueberries or the maple syrup? How will I know? Should I throw everything away, potentially wasting ingredients or try them each individually again?
Ok, the world does not need more stuff–and I don’t know that we can say it needs the art of Madge or others–but Madge needed her art. Her art held her hand daily as she lived with a broken heart and mind after losing two babies. I need Madge’s art because it fills me with both wonder and recognition of something in myself that is wordless. Which I also see in the paintings of Joan Mitchell, Agnes Martin, and Hilda Klimt, etc. etc. in the soft sculptures of Marie Rose Lortet and Louise Borgeous, in all the hand-stitched quilts of all women over time, in the ancient Greek vessels, and handwoven baskets of the Bushwackers (not Shakers–but them too)…
So, perhaps we don’t need more stuff, but we do need more handmade creations made with heart and soul because those creations are totems, are promises, are love–our love reflecting back at us.
And, I know that when I spent 11 hours with my hands in clay, I was not rehearsing fearful scenarios. I was applying my problem-solving faculty directly to the clay coils, soft and malleable between my fingers. I felt good–being with the clay in a creative process. I didn’t feel bad until after, when my mind told me my product was a failure–that I was a failure.
Anxiety is my imagination cast forward, practicing imagined futures falling apart. But art is my imagination invested in matters of the heart and hand with my mind as a skilled collaborator. I think this is why I need my art practice—to connect me to nowness not NO ness. In that sense, it isn’t a waste at all.
Ugggh, my tummy! The blueberries or the syrup? Or was it just the pancakes?
I look to my right and watch the birds respectfully taking turns enjoying themselves at the bird feeder–just being birds.
I think I can fill those cracks in the bowls and gild them gold.
“The measure of your life is the amount of beauty and happiness of which you are aware,”—Agnes Martin
I was just reading about Madge this past week!