WHAT ARTISTS TELL THEMSELVES
JUNE 18, 2011. There is an element of story in what any artist creates, but there is also a story artists tell themselves about their their work, their effort, their lives—and in this latter venue, the tale is often self-defeating or self-limiting.
In other words, in work the possibilities are unlimited, but that lesson doesn’t cross over. Which is a rather extraordinary thing when you think about it.
On the one hand, the artist is taking a rocket ship to another galaxy, but then he’s also out on a lake rowing in a leaky boat with an oar that’s splintering and falling apart.
Art should be about lifting all boats.
Art and life weren’t meant to be separated. Art should infiltrate the spirit of the artist’s life and transform it.
It’s not my intention to be pollyannish about this. Believe me, I understand all too well the day-to-day exigencies. Nevertheless, somewhere along the line, the artist has to take a clue from his own work and imagination.
The myth of the suffering artist started out as a story. And the artist has to see it on that level. What he invents in his work has all the characteristics of transferability. The artist’s work will naturally spread to his life if he lets it.
This is how you come to magic.
Basically, the artist is undefeatable. He already has the consciousness of immortality in his grasp.
It may take some time to temper that blade, but it happens.
However, the process isn’t merely passive. It has to do with the him continuing his work over time.
It has to do with his ability to reject belief in a limiting and self-defeating myth.
Once you drink from the cup of your imagination, the usual excuses ring hollow. That’s the price you pay for being an artist.
The cost may seem steep, but it’s actually the doorway to another kind of perception. You may not have realized it, but there it is.
The story the world is now telling itself has everything to do with the drama of being a victim, in all ways, on all fronts. It is intensifying. You can be part of it, a player on that stage, or you can walk away and carry on with your self-created destiny as an artist. It’s a naked choice, and no amount of dressing it up will change that.
I fully understand, when I write about imagination, creating, and magic, that I’m speaking to people who are out there in no group—they’re lights of their own in the world. They conform to no demographic or ideology. They aren’t groupable in any category. They are individuals. That suits me. That’s what I’m aiming for.
You can’t spoon-feed what I’m writing about. You can’t put a rope around the artist’s neck and lead him to water. You can’t even get him in the vicinity of the pond. It either clicks or it doesn’t.
Everyone, and especially the artist, has the impenetrable freedom to live a life according to his own dictates. If that means magic, so be it. If that means a sense of misery or boredom, so be it. Those are the rules.
Over the course of the last 40 years, I’ve had many artists explain to me how their lives can’t be any different than they are. I sympathize to a degree, because I like artists. But I never buy it. And never will.
I draw a line in the sand. That’s my rule.
An artist, who is well aware of the power of imagination, can walk away from it and pretend that, “in real life,” it is suddenly of no value…he can do that, but at some level he knows it’s a bizarre move.
JON RAPPOPORT