Finding Water Week 3 section 2 & 3

Discouragement 2

It takes constant vigilance not to slip into negativity or simple apathy. To keep on keeping on takes energy and commitment, two variables we may need to borrow. 

Personal note: I know for myself the morning pages are great for this kind of keeping on…the negative comes out and some moments of “Oh poor me” then I keep writing and the ideas start to flow and new energy and insight coming and the optimism of possibilities take over and I’m ready for the day. But it is commitment on my part to do the Morning Pages.

For some artists, though discouragement is the private hell we do not talk about. JC shares that on days that she feels her belief system on faith is a bit wobbly she will piggybank on to friend. She calls it Faced with his faith, she able to find her own.  She doesn’t sabotage herself. She keeps on stubbornly working; so much of keeping on is just keeping on.

Personal note: I know with the artist friends I know by sharing what we are working on even if it was months ago I can pull from that experience and look at it is a way for me to keep on doing what I do, even though I’ve not talked to them but we’ve shared some of journey together and JC shares pull some of the faith to help you get though some discouraging times.

Divining Rod task if you have time-find a book or read something that has to do with an artist’s life.  You are on the lookout for experience, strength and hope. You want to hear from the horse’s mouth exactly how disappointments have been survived. It helps to know that the greats have had hard times too and that your own hard times merely make you part of the club. 

 joining Humanity 3

It is ego’s dicey proposition that as artists we should always be “special” and different.  The ego likes to be set apart. Then JC moves on to… If we have plain old ordinary fear then we are within reach of a solution. Fear has been with humankind for millennia and we do know what to do about it-pray about it, talk about it, feel the fear, and do it anyway. “Artistic” fear on the other hand sounds somehow nastier and move virulent, like it just might not yield to ordinary solutions-and yet it does, the moment we become humble enough to try ordinary solutions. 

Personal Note: this came to me from our pediatrician many years ago, he said, “when you share your problem it becomes half the problem.” And from what I’m gather in this week words are joining together and sharing our humanness we able to keep a door open to for solution to come in.

Changing our attitude and how we look at things such as she shares about writers block…oh no we have writer block-fear…she looks at it as “resistance” or “procrastination”  Something happens when look at it buy a different name. Making our self to special or our work too special is a way of setting ourselves up for setting apart in the human race.

Personal note: This last year I’ve looked at things differently…I sat around a table of woman talking about trying to find a job and they’ve been on unemployment for some time.  And how they go through all these interviews and then it dawned on me. I do that all the time…I send out proposal and don’t hear back I contact people seeking opportunities to show my work or I enter art fairs and show’s and hear rejections just like all the rest of the people out there…the key is the connection that I am working too and I experience some of the similar situation as everyone else.. And there are days I get tired of the same old deal too.

So JC’s says “our shared humanity is the solution.” Our “specialness” is the problem. Ok I’m going to question this here.  This could be my understand that all this time JC has been saying creative people are special people and that all people are creative in some way and then she’s saying that being special is the problem. Help me out here…tribe, I get it but something is not sitting right about this. No I get it its back to the EGO thing…took me a moment.

I love this sentence… Any time our work process becomes something we can share with our “normal” friends we are on the road to health.  This is a toughie in my homestead as the young adults see me home most of the time working on the computer, writing up some class or proposal ditty or up in the studio work on art so I have the freedom to be home and in between I’m doing laundry etc. and may take a break now and then. But they think it’s not a job. I don’t have to prove it to them but I do try to set them straight now and then. I have to share how my son thinks… which I can see the truth in it but still.  I’ve asked him to bring in the tubs for me with the supplies.  He said no! I said come on Jake give me a hand I’m tired.  He said no you don’t come in to my work and help me so why should I help you. I was hurt that he didn’t want to help, not the way I raised him. I know when he’s away from the home he doesn’t do that.  Another experience I run across is people don't know how to act around artist types.. because society in the past has made us/creative type seem specialier...which then sets us apart and cause problems with Ego. I over people please I know just becaue of this when I teach and I'm at a art fair extra...I told myself I want to always be approachable...but when theirs no play or artist dates and breaks then I do have a tendency to get stuffy.

All human beings are creative. The more we can accept and welcome that fact, the more normal our own creativity can become. If it is “normal” then it can be shared with everyone. The ego doesn’t like the proposition that artwork is like any other work.

Divining Rod Task work- Call a supportive friend and be the better side of communication and be the listener…listen to everything intently, develop and interest in people and that interest is what you are working on now. The bottom line is that we make art about the human condition and our lives must be rich with experience in order for our art to remain vital.