Writing With Thorns

Well, well. So I kept my promise (for the most part) and came back for another treatise on the wonderful world of art.  Brownie points for me. Today’s topic: Artists and the consumption of art. Inspiration: a conversation with my father, painter Tom Jensen. I love my father, I honestly do (and nothing good ever follows those words, no matter who is saying them), but we have very different approaches to art. This past summer we got into a debate over whether or not artists should bother exposing themselves to their forebearers’ and contemporaries’ work. My father would have it that no, one should not bother. In his opinion it not only wastes time but is, in fact, counterproductive in that it invokes a feeling of inadequacy and redundancy. He tells me that he often comes out of museum or gallery saying to himself ‘I’m no where near as good as Sargent or Klimt. So why does the world really need another one of my paintings?’ All right, I confess, I go to the theatre or just sit in workshop to critique the work of a certain friend of mine (who shall, at this time remain anonymous as he is very shy) and say to myself ‘Well that just blew me out of the water. Besides, only an argued 1% of America actually attends the theatre, so why bother?’ And then I shake that sort of defeatists attitude and go home and write. Along with a string of other arguments which did not hold much water with me and therefore I cannot remember, his side of the argument came to an end. I love you, Dad. Every offense meant.

And now my side. Yes, seeing a fellow artist’s work that is far superior to your own does hurt. It can be disheartening. We have all experienced it, as well as experience abject failure on a daily basis (not by any outside source but our own harsh criticisms, don’t you dare lie to me and say you’re haven’t). This is, in fact, incredibly important in our area of work because it urges us to improve. It also helps to remember that each of us has a unique style which suits the taste of difference audiences. Even if you don’t know what your style is, yet, it’s still your own.

Apart from competitive reasons to consume the art in your field, it can also be quite therapeutic. Without constant stimulation our work becomes stagnant. We simply produce the same thing over and over with a little variation. To speak to a problem we all face, we all get stuck. Muse is finicky at best, down right stubborn at worst. Mine has learned to answer to ‘You Bastard.’ Perhaps the composition isn’t right here; there needs to be a point of light there; the staging isn’t engaging enough; these notes are discordant but can’t be any other way; the description is cumbersome in this paragraph; the stitches are too bulky and give the whole thing a rather lumpy quality. Well then, go out and explore. Your answers are somewhere, and they will come unexpectedly. One of my favourite lines in Stranger The Fiction is from Emma Thompson’s character, when asked how she came across the solution to the key problem in her novel, says “like anything worth writing it came inexplicably and without method.” For no better reason can I stress the importance of consuming art. For that matter, don’t limit yourself just to your own area. All art evokes emotion; that’s what it does. That’s what makes it art (granted my philosophy of art class would debate this point for hours while congratulating themselves on being insufferable know-it-alls). Every piece of art has a story to tell. It is up to the individual to interpret that story through the filter of his or her emotional state, background and own demented mind (once more, a debatable point). I had no idea how to start a play I was working on until I was reading a short novel, an bit of fluff reading between Faulkner and Hemingway (sorry, I don’t even own a Tolstoy), when the answer just hit me in the single sentence I had just read. It wasn’t a replica of the situation or the dialogue–it barely resembled it in fact–but it was there. The fact that I have thrown the play out entirely is irrelevant.

The only reason these two things occur is by the simple fact that in consuming art, we learn. With an analytical mind one can discover new techniques and make them his or her own, not simply emulate an example. That is how our work escapes stagnation, that is how we find fresh ways out of the pratfalls we stumble into.

So once more I have taken up an entire page to say one little thing: we as artists must expose ourselves to as much art as we can to become better artists.