I Show Up
Recently I was writing about “training myself to focus.” I know that means a lot of things – what are some of them? I wrote down twenty strategies I use.
First, I show up. This means when I think of my time, I put my working hours first. My perfect calendar has very little on it. This assumes that most of my time will be working. And it is true: I work hours every day. On a travel day, or a day filled with commitments, that might mean working a few hours at night. On a good day, I have a few hours under my belt before I get my morning coffee.
Second, I make a lot. I make a lot of bad stuff and I end up with some good stuff. I edit over years: the first edit is when the work is made. The next is when the image has dried from paint, glue, or ink, and I am harvesting it off my drying rack, which often is the floor. The third edit comes when I am using an image. The final one may come years later: I just cut up some drawings made in Los Angeles in 1976. I have drawers and piles and shelves full of stuff, and I am constantly moving, combining, altering and editing what I have made.
Third, I protect my time. Today someone knocked at the door when I had dozens of papers on the living room floor – I was making pages for my journal. I wasn’t expecting anyone; in fact, with everyone gone for the day I was happy to take over the house and stretch out physically to change the process of making collages. So I ignored the knock. And the phone when it rang. I was protecting my work time.
Fourth, I protect my mind. Certain people are a drag and bring my energy down: I eliminate or marginalize them. I am open to others interrupting me: D or M can wander into my studio and I am only put off if I am deep into something. But if T comes by I have to take a break to get rid of the feelings that linger. K is like that: I try not to have her be a guest in my home. Her negativity is toxic to working well.
Fifth, I am supported by people close to me. J and the kids are always championing me, my work, my process, and getting my work into the world. I try to do the same for them, J especially. We like to keep our house available for good people who like to work and we try not to waste too much time on needy folk.
Sixth, trying out new things helps keep the old ones lively. I started writing daily last September. It has been an unexpected source of comfort and wisdom. I have changed the focus of what I write about, followed my feelings towards what I do best, and kept myself doing it even when it seemed boring or pointless. My work will now include my writings. Some days I think the best things I do are writing, not my other art. It has helped me broaden my audience too, since I can email missives to people who wouldn’t be that interested in what I draw.
Seventh, I like working. As I watch friends plan their time I am struck by how little time they leave for working on the things they claim are important to them. Actions speak louder than words. I have developed habits like my father, in that I expect to work on whatever interests me most of every day. My social life shows this too: I suspect I go out less than my friends– whether to parties or shows or whatever – because I would rather be home working than almost anything.
Eighth, I treat new things I do as experiments. This can mean using a new material, a new technique, a new audience, or trying something as scary as showing my work in public. For the latter, I started showing in a warehouse I rented – now I know a lot more about showing art work. I keep refining the process; for instance, I offered to write an article about how to pack art work for shipping overseas. This was the result of my frustration at not knowing how to do it cheaply or well, and thus turning down offers to show abroad. The work is an experiment, but so is my involvement in the art world. Being president of the an art organization is an experiment. I have a ballparkers way of thinking about things: if we are close, we can approximate our way to the finish. Better to toss the socks close to the drawer than fret about getting them in every time.
Ninth, I like looking at other people’s work. And I like encouraging people to do their own work. I have a clear assumption that my work is my own so I don’t worry about it being stolen: no one can steal the process. I like looking at what other artists are doing and I like getting inspired by elements in their work. This can be a graphic designer in Germany I find on the internet or a healer who cuts sacred figures for the corn harvest in Oaxaca. I can be inspired by graffiti as easily as by a show at a museum. I train my eye by looking at everything: museums and markets, shows and shoe stores, websites and warehouses.
Tenth, I just show up and begin to work. I often have no idea what I will do before I begin. I make a lot of work without making plans. I respond. I put myself in a position to respond by having something to respond to. This is like the way I taught my kids: the house, our yards, my studio, and our community is full of interesting things. It’s a rich environment. So for them to learn was the same as for them to play, and there was lots of stuff to do it with. They mostly just got up and started responding to their world: in bad weather to books and toys, in good weather to mud and swings. As they moved through their day they just kept trying things out – whatever presented itself that seemed appealing, whether it was lunch or a visitor or a trip down a trail whacking each bush as they went. I do the same thing, sans the whacking. There is no fail this way – it is just work. Which is like play. Which is why I do it in the first place.
Eleventh, I am fearless about materials. I buy in bulk and I use a lot. I assume that materials are to be used, used up, used hard. I can draw with a .005 rapidograph or I can roll 50 feet of good Arches paper down the driveway and have at it with a huge brush of ink. I don’t worry about mess or about dirt. I try to make things strong so they can live in the world and not fall apart; whatever happens to them is part of their ongoing journey. Like my kids, they need to live in the world and I can’t protect them from everything. I want most of my work to get banged about from use, and I don’t like gilded cages, aka frames. If things break, that is interesting. If they crumble, the pieces will become something else. I fear fire and flood, but short of complete annihilation I am glad to see my things getting worn from their journey through life.
Twelfth, I make sure I have a space to work in. This has been the central focus of every house I have been in since I was 20. I would rather have my living room be my studio than not have a place to work. I am amazed at the people I know who say they can’t find any place to do art but they have two cars sitting in their garage. I am amazed at how they let their partners dictate that the paint on the cars is more important than their art. But I accept that if you don’t know deep in you that this is not negotiable then you may get pushed around. People find artists threatening, if they are really doing their own work. It takes a certitude, something you can’t fake, for people to accept that you are going to do what you want and use what you need for your art. Developing that sureness is the work of becoming an artist.
Thirteenth, I celebrate myself and the people I love. I am happy to help and champion you, and I will call on you to toast me when I am proud of myself. Modesty is stupid. I can be unsure, and I can want to keep people away from my work until it feels ready. But once I have challenged myself and met the challenge, I want to celebrate. I am happy to pat myself on the back. And happy to thank all those who helped me. I have high standards, so often when I hear praise I shrug because it doesn’t seem that big a deal. When I do something that is a big deal to me, I’m happy to roar. And to keep the feeling alive as long as I can: I know what comes after the high points.
Fourteenth, I know the life of a creative person is a wheel. Celebrations are the top, but the wheel keeps moving. It will inevitably carry you down; there is no avoiding it. What you can do is map it. Get interested in the hard times, in the pain. Learn the nuances, draw the details, chart the sections. Give names to the unknown. In this way you tame your demons, and they don’t cripple you. Eventually pain becomes one more state in which to draw energy, and good work can flow. This, in turn, makes the wheel rise again. Hold on, carry the good work with you, and keep going to the top. Celebrate. Then get back on and be prepared to meet the bottom again.
Fifteenth, I’ve developed good networks. Currently I am president of an organization of 400 people, mostly Americans, with some international members. Becoming president was not a popularity contest: I was the only person running for the office. What it is is a willingness to step forward and do the grunt work. Keeping organizations alive takes constant work, mostly of the boring kind. What it offers in return is the chance to know the other people who do this stuff: the former presidents, the people on your board, and people who run related groups. It is a skill set that is applicable to any organization. Having arts organizations exist means I have places that tell me about workshops, teaching opportunities, shows, and other ways artists connect. And my labor in one group makes me empathic toward the network of artists who organize and run all art based organizations. Like me, they keep groups going with their time and energy.
Sixteenth, I have patience. With myself and my work. I give myself an infinite learning curve. I figure if I don’t get it this time, whatever “it” is (Photoshop, intaglio printing, writing Arabic) I will inevitably do better when I pass through this field again. If I never pass through, I wasn’t interested, so why worry. Life is so full of things I want to do I can’t imagine working for long at something that isn’t meeting me partway.
I have another kind of patience, and that is with what I make. All that stuff I generate from making a lot? Some of it gets used right away. The 95% that was made on the way to making the good stuff? That gets thrown in piles, and I use these piles whenever I am working. I’ll take an odd drawing and add a letterpress image, or some calligraphy. I’ll re-paint it or put it in a dye bath. I keep re-cycling my own work until it either looks interesting or it is completely annoying, in which case I tear it up and use (or give away) the pieces. Every time I do a big project I have work I made yesterday and work that has been shuffling in and out of my piles for as long as 40 years.
Seventeenth, I know how to teach myself stuff. When I wanted to learn pulp painting, I took a recipe, tried it, and kept refining it until it worked. Recently I wanted to paint with oils. I looked online and found a way to use the pigments I already had with linseed oil, mixing them myself. I did some tests, decided to move over to acrylic as a medium, and started mixing and painting. I taught myself paper-cutting by ordering six different black papers from an art store and testing each one with scissors. I kept testing the scissors until I had the three that work best. It is just trial and error, and the errors help refine the search.
This is also true of showing work: daunted by the gallery system, I found a place, exhibited my work, and got enough shows from that to keep me going for years. I am learning what I like and don’t like about the gallery world, and refining my work so I can show in the venues that attract me. I have a goal: to have work showing on three continents at the same time. That feeds back to the article I mentioned above in #8 that I am going to do on how to package and ship work over seas. I will teach myself about this by a combination of research and testing. But first comes the goal setting, which is another skill.
Eighteenth, I set goals. I set small ones and big ones, and I keep reviewing them. This is a habit I learned many years ago. This may sound like a contradiction to #10, “I just show up and begin to work.” The reason it isn’t is because after I have set the goal I create a place where the materials (and maybe some work on the project) are waiting for their next round.
Setting goals is something I observe many people have trouble with. They don’t know how to wade through the confusion of voices in their mind and settle on a goal long enough to move it forward. What I use to quiet the distraction of doubt is: it doesn’t matter. First of all, nothing is wasted. Whatever I learned trying something is useful information, either about the material or the process. Second, the act of deciding on something and then heading toward it, whatever it is, is the habit I want to deepen. I make my best guess at what I want to do and start going. I will refine my search based on what feedback I get. The work shows me how to do it. Standing at the door just teaches me to stand at the door; entering in teaches everything else.
Nineteenth, I listen to my body. Sometimes I want to sit, sometimes I want to stand, sometimes I want to move around. Sometimes I want to be dry, sometimes wet. Sometimes I want to have a big project pulling me along for years, sometimes I want a smaller one that will go out the door next week. I have work for all of these.
When I want to sit, I draw at a desk or in my lap. Or I cut and sort while I watch vintage movies, or TED talks. When I want to move around I draw with large gestures on my deck or in the driveway. If there is no wind, I can lay papers out and paint and draw on them like I am dancing.
Papermaking and dying cloth makes me wet; drawing with pens is dry. Painting or gluing is in between. I have adapted my work so there is something I can do for every mood, all temperatures, and for changes in the day as I fatigue.
Twentieth, I adapt to time, space, and weather. In one scenario, I am outside, the weather is nice, and I have cleared the hours it takes to get into a body of work. In another scene, the weather is cold and I am working inside. I roll back a nice rug and paint atop a crummier one. Or I sit by a window in the sun and cut, draw, collage, or glue. If we have Santa Ana winds from the desert, I can paint and it will dry instantly, which means I can put several layers of color on my papers or canvas in one day. But I also know the winds will blow them around as they dry outside, so I factor this in, because weighting them down means lots of bending.
Travel has created special challenges for work: how to make things that are portable; how to create in the unpredictable snatches of time. I carry paper, pens and scissors with me and make things as I go. I’ve cut silhouettes in the back seat of a car, torn magazines waiting for a bus, folded origami at airports, done drawings in a library, collaged while surrounded by a local chorus practicing. Writers carry notebooks to catch observations and thoughts as they go by; I carry drawing and cutting papers for the same reason.
Recently I cut a sweet little series of six silhouettes while I was sitting on a window ledge in downtown Chicago waiting for a friend to park her car. As people walked by I sketched them and cut their silhouettes. Later these were glued onto cards I carry whenever I travel. These cards, index card size but made of my own paper, are perfect for every pocket, purse, and backpack. They have become my Commonplace Book, which is the perfect record keeping form for someone interested in as many things as I am.