The Biggest Problem Artists Face

The biggest problem for the artist is showing up at his/her studio. Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) said, "Chance favors only the prepared mind." William Blake (1757–1827) said, "Without unceasing practice nothing can be done. Practice is art. If you leave off you are lost." Each of these giants was talking about a path to success. Though Blake seem to be alluding to "practice as the end" as Suzuki Roshi (and many others) spoke of it.

It is quite a feat to knock your head against the wall of your studio day after day, wondering what will emerge (besides a flat head). But the focus has to be on the knocking, not on what emerges.

Artists use lots of excuses to stay away from their studio. Sometimes I remind myself that Sartre, the existential philosopher, wrote his best stuff after working 70+ hours a week as a journalist. There are stories and stories about artists with little time who had a steady art practice.

The secret is to go tomorrow to the studio, and not to worry about the results. Chance says that good things will come from time to time. Faith can help one believe that, if you must have good things. But imagine if you just made less bad things. Or maybe dispense entirely of good and bad and just think about Blake's "practice is art." Isn't that enough? Harry Callahan, the legendary photographer, had a dry spell for ten years late in life. Every morning he'd go out and take pictures. Then he'd come back and develop his film, eat lunch, and then print. Nothing worked. But after ten years of this, good stuff started to happen.

In the end we'll all have plenty of time to sleep. Until then, wake up and see what comes out as you beat your head against the wall.

It's hard. (more on creativity)

We are dogsitting now. 

We just walked the little Maya 

so I needed to take a little break. 

I really was the one with 

the leash.

Creativity

Someone asked to talk to me about creativity. It is a word that isn't used much around art schools. Probably in the same way fish don't discuss water. We all pretty much recognize it when we see it. "Now that's creative," we say.

Terms like "thinking outside of the box" and "paradigm shift" indicate creativity. We break from convention and find unique ways to do things.

Often, it seems like the creative solution is the most obvious one. Sometimes the creative solution is right in front of us, waiting for us to notice her. Buddha was asked how did he know what he had "discovered." He simply touched his hand to the ground, saying that the earth had told him. He listened to what was in front of him. Creative? I think so.

I'm not really interested in someone looking at my art and commenting, "that's so creative!" In the same way, when I made photographic prints, someone commented, "what beautiful prints." What I want people to see is my heart/mind sharing/magnifying/organizing some part of the world. It is necessary to sometimes do this in a creative way, though we try to do this without pre-meditation. It should at least seem as if this was the most natural way to perform. As with ee cummings, we feel that he's writing heartfelt thoughts in the most direct way he can. We like him because he is so direct. Maybe creativity is sometimes not being (or at least appearing) creative.

Or maybe you'll disagree.

Egg Donors

I read this interesting article in the NYTimes today about women getting up to $50,000 for good eggs, while men are getting $100 for good sperm (is this a little bit of a disparity?).

If I wanted some great kids on a limited budget, I'd opt for the sperm. Of course, the combination ($50,100) would be really amazing (a.k.a. Superwoman?).

I've often asked people what would they like, a kid with fantastic genes or a kid with run-of-the-mill (my words) genes like their own. They answer, almost in unison, that they want to stick with run-of-the-mill genes "because it would be their's." What is wrong with them? Don't they want to provide every opportunity for "their" kid. Or are there egos so large that they (secretly) think they have the best genes in the world?

Mulling it over, I'm certainly glad that Linda and I used our own ingredients. But that is hindsight, seeing that the kids turned out so well. I suppose that if they didn't, I might regret our choice to "use our own." But Linda wouldn't.

Mother's Day

When I hear "mother" complaints,
or "you're lucky you
have a mother
you can stand" comments,
I wish for just another
moment with my mother,
who left me
more than
ten years ago,
after promising to
live forever.

When she was with us,
we would often take
her for granted,
engrossed in our
own thoughts and lives,
until now,
when we remember
how our mom
was always here
(or there) for us,
on the other end
of the phone line,
waiting
for our call.

She couldn't hear
so well, so we'd say
a few things until
she could latch onto
a certain word
or phrase that
she'd understand.
Then she'd
issue a soliloquy
with
passion and vigor,
and,
when through, would ask,
calmly,
if we wanted to talk to
dad.

If only I could find her number
now.

Sucker and Dokusan: the tablecloth is still there!

I am a spot. No, I'm really just a t-ir-ed part
of a never ending (confused) tablecloth.

In the last week, as so many of you pointed out, I've been suckered twice... first for wanting a free ipad and second for wanting to see who is looking at my profile. I need to put up a sign above my computer, "There is no such thing as a free lunch!"

Dokusan, which I've written about before, is an "interview" with a zen teacher. I hadn't done it for awhile because I was still trying to answer his question to me about what I thought about the precepts (the subject of many of these posts). But it had been almost a month since my last "interview," so I started to feel "overdue."

I wanted to talk to him about my ideas in yesterday's blog... that I was starting to accept my "MO" about what I do. Maybe my "MO" is folly, but it is what I am right now.

In any case, when I went to sit this am at 7:30 (today was a half-day sesshin) he read a quote from Suzuki Roshi about how we shouldn't try to be perfect, and I thought of a painter in St. Louis (deceased) who would make a white bread bologna and cheese sandwich, and then go into his studio in the morning and not come out until dinner time. Wow... that's perfect. I wanted to be like that!

Then the Zen turned Burmese monk gave a talk and mentioned renunciation, and I started thinking that I was focusing on me me me and needed to renunciate that a little.

So by the time I finally got to dokusan I had these thoughts added to thoughts added to thoughts. My teacher suggested thinking less of me and more of it ("big mind," though he didn't use that term). Later, I imagined a spot on a table cloth. You clean the spot, and it is gone. What is gone? The tablecloth is still there.

If this doesn't make sense and makes your head whirl, you aren't alone.

Dog Gifts Turned Around

Today I started to figure out my routine. I've never quite understood it, though I think I've been suspicious about my "MO" (modus operandi) for a long time.

When I was around 14, I was walking to school with my neighbor, and I told him that I thought I wasted a lot of time. In his infinite wisdom (he's gone on to become a star in his field) he said, "no, in some way you are using what you do." (Don't expect an accurate quote after 50 years... I'm far from being Ananda.)

I've wanted to be like those who focus on a job like a pitbull, and don't let go until it is done. My wife is like that. She's making a kimono for an event tomorrow and has been working on it all week, and she couldn't care less about anything else. Anything, that is, but her plants getting water... but they are her babies... so I watered them.

So what is this "MO" that apparently is going to follow me to my deathbed?

I get up in the morning, either by virtue of a clock radio that is frying my brain according to an energy consultant that inspected our house recently, or because I've had enough sleep for one night. Then I get ready to go out into the world and either take a walk and stop at a little mexican hideout to have a couple of tacos, or eat breakfast at home. After that is over, I would go to work if I hadn't of retired... but now face a quandary of what to do. I find something that is useful (so far)... probably not earth shaking... but needed within our lives at least.

In the back of my mind I think... I should be painting on a canvas (or some other kind of exalted activity). But no, I might decide to cancel a few credit cards, or replace a door threshold, or do something on one of websites I work on, or or or...

What came to me today was that all these activities are kind of like what the homeless people do who stand by the highway with a "feed me" sign. Like me, they are waiting for something good to come their way. I try to have an adventure each day (it hasn't failed yet). Then I usually sit at the zen temple at 5:40... and let the day pass through me once more... eat dinner, and then try to make something of it all. I remind myself frequently of Wordsworth's words, "Poetry is the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings: it takes its origin from emotion recollected in tranquility."

Today I drove to the other side of town to buy some silicone. My GPS kept insisting that I take the wrong highway, but I disobeyed and all went well. I listened to a moving dharma talk on my iphone as I drove, and then went to two different stores where incredibly nice merchants gave me lots of kind vibes and good information.

In the process of all this mundane activity, I kept waiting for something to hit me... something that I could make a drawing about and a poem about, or maybe write about. Throughout the day I received emails, with a number from our neighborhood elist complaining about dogs leaving gifts in other people's yards. Which all started me imagining all the non-humanoid emails to the non-humanoid elists complaining about us (humanoids) polluting their oceans and their lands and their skies. And we complain about dog gifts?