Life, Death and the Creative Process

When I was a kid, I wanted to be an artist.  In fact, looking back, I think that is all I ever really dreamed of becoming.  Life, bills, self-doubt, practical thinking, a lack of inspiration, desire for money, and anxiety all clouded this vision.  Mostly, I was afraid and felt unworthy or not good enough.  I don’t think I really understood what being an artist meant.  I have been fortunate to weave a lot of creativity into the vocation that I chose, but I have never felt good enough to pursue any real artistic expression.  I lacked vision, and almost every attempt I made was burdened by my critical mind.  I didn’t have anything to say.  I was focused on trying to create a piece of art, a final product, something tangible to hang on the wall or try to sell.  I was wrapped up in the result, almost oblivious to the process itself.  I’d pick up my pencil and sketchbook and become immediately frustrated.  It wasn’t good.  I wanted to copy what I was seeing, and I wasn’t happy with what I saw on the paper.  I got out of practice and the sketching became a chore and did everything but feed my soul.  Every single time it felt forced, and I rarely enjoyed it.  This childhood dream would remain that, just a dream, I might as well have wanted to be an astronaut.  I have always been jealous of the artist and musician who just can’t let something go, deeply inspired, and with a message and story to tell.  I felt that there was something inside of me that needed to get out but couldn’t connect with art in that way.  I tried to learn guitar so many times, only to quit out of complete frustration.  I stuffed that feeling down and put my energy into work.  And that fire died.  Or at least I thought it did.  Little did I know that, to quote Jack Nicholson from the movie ‘A few Good Men’, “deep down in places you don’t talk about at parties”, those embers still burned.  Waiting for the right fuel, the right opportunity to be fanned into an uncontrollable blaze.

Possessed.

After the death of my dad, per his request, I put alcohol down, for good.  Words cannot express all the levels of self-exploration and total reevaluation of my life that followed his passing.  I looked upon myself and the world with new eyes.  I don’t know exactly where this seed started.  I’ve tried to go back over the last 7 months and track its inception.  I see a few examples of ideas in some of my art pieces over the last decade or so, but I was unknowingly exploring something.  At a Van Gogh exhibit last December, I was really moved by the sheer volume of sketches he created.  I began to form this idea that the art pieces themselves, the things that we hang on our wall or in a museum, were like the equivalent of a souvenir.  The cliché tee shirt from a vacation, or photographs we post on social media.  They are memories, expressions, and tangible objects that represent a small part of something much bigger.  The fading light from a burned-out star.  The ‘Art’ is not that piece or picture or thing, the true art is the passion, frustration, exploration, and searching that took place while creating.  We get the flat two-dimensional view of something inexplicable.  The creative process is the art, and the painting is a token, a mere reflection of what took place.  This idea took root in my mind, and I have been possessed ever since.  It started out like this.  What if I made things just to make things?  What if it didn’t matter what the result is and I just focus on the process, and really enjoy the act of making something?  Simple enough… so I started making more things.

As I dove deeper into this idea, a new thought started to form.  What if I made things with the intent of destroying them?  What would the process look like and feel like if from the beginning, I knew the plan was to burn it?  Ok, so follow me down the rabbit hole a little bit… From there I then thought, what if I took what was left after the fire, and made something new?  What would happen if I created something, destroyed it, then took the ashes and redeemed it?  So, I started planning a piece.  I turned and carved a vessel in my shop with the intent of burning it and making a piece from the ashes.  I was working on this first one as a gift for my mom’s birthday, (sorry mom, that one hasn’t completely figured itself out yet).  I was part way there, but I was still missing a complete connection with what I was doing.  I had ideas, thoughts, sketches, but I couldn’t see the whole picture.  On this journey I started to see the parallels with life.  What if I viewed my life as a creative process, and not the means to an end?  Then the real bomb hit… What if I destroyed my life and made something new?  What if I let it all fall to pieces, then pick up those pieces and create something beautiful, something meaningful?  A mosaic built from shards of shame.  What would it look like to let me life be the art?  What if I faced all my fears of judgement and what people thought of me?  In August I stared death straight in its eyes, and I discovered beauty, not darkness, hope, not fear, and peace, not turmoil.  What if I looked at life with the same intensity?  What is possible if I remove the need to see the final product, and I focus only on the process of creation, knowing full well it all is ending someday?  Create, destroy, create.