Chapter Five: Finding Your Voice

Transcript

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Chapter 5.

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Finding Your Voice Heeding the Call, an end in itself. The concept of creativity, along with terms like the creative process and creative expression, have become cultural catchphrases of late, especially in life coaching and branding circles. Social media platforms espouse the virtues of contributing one's unique gift to the collective. Gone are the days of feeding the supply and demand of essential goods and services, earning a livelihood by putting one's nose to the grindstone. There is more emphasis than ever on cultivating creativity in academic and business arenas, if for no other outcome than increasing productivity. Similarly, the buzzword storytelling

Creativity For Sale

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is firmly entrenched on the pop culture radar, hijacked from the literary realm by advertisers, political advisors, and propagandists. One cannot scroll through an Insta feed or peruse YouTube without coming across countless videos on the chemical basis of persuasion inherent in storytelling. Nuances like appealing to pathos and ethos are distilled into well-founded propaganda techniques like the bandwagon or plain folks' approaches. The thing is, rather than breaking down the mechanics of engaging and thereby persuading audiences, readerships, or platforms in order to transform them spiritually, the desired outcome is political alliance, box office gold, or making the best seller list. In short, Story has become the strange bedfellow of commerce, feeding consumerism. One could argue this turn of events is a far cry from the original function of storytelling in society. There is another way. I've often said that I change minds by touching hearts. Given that we humans learn more in the narrative realm than the didactic, as touched on in the introduction to this book, that we transform through conflict resolution and are wired for metaphor. Story was once the inherent means by which we transform. Humans are suckers for catharsis. By moving us, story transforms us individually, shaping our respective worldviews over time. By extension, story evolves us collectively, comprising our history. In previous chapters, we've explored how appealing to logos or ethos alone, debating, can be a dead-end road. Those at the receiving end of a soapbox sermon only dig

Story That Opens Hearts

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their heels in more defiantly when faced with ideological or political persuasion. It is story that moves us by engaging our emotions, leading to paradigm shifts. Simply put, we are the products of the stories we've been exposed to in life, just as society is the sum of its collective history. Sure, history is written by the winners, but the narrative that prevails determines the course of policy and social evolution. Unfortunately, contemporary usurpers of storytelling are not out to open hearts or minds, but pocketbooks. At the risk of coming across as elitist, I confess that I distinguish between the two motivations, mastering the mechanics of story in order to contribute redemption to humanity, and doing so for the Almighty Dollar. In circles that champion creativity as an end in itself, there is a great deal of lip service paid to finding one's voice. The word authentic often precedes the term voice. The call to action entreats us to marry our authentic voice or alternatively gift with a sense of purpose. Only then can we contribute it to collective society in a fulfilling, meaningful way. By accepting the call, we are meant to discover the sense of purpose that leads to contentment. There are very good reasons these seemingly lofty aspirations are becoming more and more mainstream. For one, millennials and Gen Zers have no interest whatsoever in contributing to the rat race. Disillusionment with the institutions that have failed us for centuries

What Finding Your Voice Means

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has led to a categorical rejection of the status quo. Institutions like patriarchy, imperialism, and capitalist greed have led to today's most pressing societal ills exploitation, marginalization, and oppression, the ravaging of our planet's natural resources. Add to this well-warranted skepticism a climate in which more and more jobs are being automated, resulting in an ever more competitive job market. And the prospect of becoming a free agent or entrepreneur becomes yet more appealing. Nowadays, a 14-year-old kid can make a halfway decent film in his garage using Final Cut Pro, and he actually stands a chance of garnering distribution in the festival circuit. Similarly, self-publishing has toppled the monopoly The Big Five once held on the publishing industry. Everyone stands a chance in today's market. The playing field in publishing and distribution has effectively been leveled. The problem is, the markets are oversaturated with free agents who subscribe to the mantra, he who markets best wins. In a not so commendable way, this model spawns entire generations of young people waiting for a lightning strike in social media. Instamodels have taken the place of the starlets that once strategically dined at the Derby, hoping to be discovered. The more redeeming outcome of entrepreneurial spirit and a focus on self-branding may well be that creativity, storytelling, and purpose via contribution have become accepted values in mainstream vernacular, along with the idea of finding one's authentic voice. As recently as ten years ago, this was not the case. But what does finding one's voice really mean? Hint. It's more than just mastering craft. It's more than hitting a stylistic stride. Finding one's voice is code for connecting one's craft with a sense of purpose as a contribution to our evolution. Since oral tradition reigned around the campfire pre-language, storytelling and art have cultivated tribal bonding due to the neurotransmitters induced. More importantly, they have yielded catharsis, epiphany, and enlightenment for the patron. In short, these outcomes are transformative and redemptive for the individual, and vital for the collective adaptation of the tribe. Let's go to the authority. There is no greater agony than burying an untold story inside of you. Maya Angelou, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Maya Angelou is a true polymath. Her achievements in the publishing world and civil rights are matched only by her countless accolades, awards, and honorary degrees. Her most beloved work, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, chronicles a traumatic childhood. What makes her achievements all the more impressive is the fact that the trauma she endured rendered her mute. For five full years in childhood, she did not utter a word. Once she found her voice, however, she never stopped sharing it with the world. Her

Maya Angelou And The Mute Years

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example resonates for its universality. We all have a unique life experience and unique perspective. Whatever we glean from it is meant to impact the whole of the species. Existing thought forms are meant to be synthesized into new and novel ones that advance the cutting edge of human experience. Evolution has wired us with a drive, a desire, an urge, a longing to express ourselves and the experiences that have shaped us. Evolution has wired us to tell our unique stories to the world. On Underworlds and Chandeliers. Somehow I made it to the age of 36 before ever seeing Phantom of the Opera. After dethroning the house guest that overstayed its welcome known as Cats, Phantom became the longest-running musical of all time. Since, even phenomena like Les Miz and Hamilton have failed to steal the title. Still, I somehow managed to steer clear of it for decades. I knew the story centered around a hideously disfigured French guy and a cool mask. I even sung the musical's most memorable love song, All

Phantom As A Calling

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I Ask Of You, and a minimum of two weddings at the height of the cultural phenomenon. But only when the movie version premiered in 2004 did I experience the musical in its entirety, albeit on the silver screen. It rocked my world. The story was archetypally simple, to the point of bordering on campy melodrama, or perhaps more fittingly, on operatic poetry. Its themes spoke to me profoundly as an artist. The parable was clear as day. A muse, the angel of music no less, literally haunts the Paris Opera House and Christine. The story painfully illustrates her complicated relationship with this muse, representative of a calling, the abiding of it, its function as a surrogate for connection, and the conflict that arises when true intimacy comes along. The story, its climactic sequences in particular, beautifully illustrate the excruciating struggle Christine faces when she finds herself torn between a deep-seated primal first love born of survival, and the earthly connections she's made in life. Story of my life. Not a single academic interpretation I found supports the themes that jumped off screen to slap me in the face. I'm very much attuned to the role of the patron's projections in the contemplation of art and storytelling. Even so, more often than not, academic analyses miss the mark for me. The intellectual masturbation often represents the furthest thing from the artist's intentions, knowing what I know about the drive we storytellers all share. This case was no different. One analysis I came across did superficially compare the movie musical's story template to that of Hudie and the Beast, considering its themes of the deceptive nature of appearances, its gentle warning not to judge a book by its cover. Another article compared Phantom to the template behind the hunchback of Notre Dame, and its theme of the meek shall inherit slash overcome. It seems the burgeoning values of individualism, personal liberty, justice, and equanimity fueled stories seventy years apart, like both Victor Hugo's Hunchback and the original Phantom of the Opera novel by Gaston Le Roux. The quintessence of this familiar template would, of course, be Christ's parable of the rich man and the beggar, or Lazarus. The above were superficial comparisons in my estimation. Some analyses went a bit deeper, pointing out that the Phantom, Eric's abduction of Christine to the catacombs beneath the Paris Opera, mimics Plato's abduction of both Eurydice and Persephone to the underworld. The comparison with which I agree. And herein lies the thrust of my interpretation. Comparing the catacombs to Hades hit the nail on the head, though the outcome and message differ between the two myths. Both Eurydus in the Orpheus myth and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, were spirited off to the Greco-Roman Underworld by Hades or Pluto. More contemporary versions of this template appear in both Robin Williams' vehicle, What Dreams May Come, and the blockbuster Inception. Clearly, in light of the phenomenal success of Phantom both on and off Broadway, and the box office success of Inception, the template encapsulates something very universal and resonant about the human condition. We all spend time in Hades, however seasonally. Hang in there, I'll explain. I was not wrong to read what I did into the simple story of Phantom of the Opera. For one, Andrew Lloyd Weber supplemented the original literary content of the novel in crafting his stage version, as is par for the course. I'd sat in on twelve years of story development meetings at Disney feature animation, with the likes of Stephen Schwartz, Alan Mencken, and Howard Ashman. This experience, combined with an undying love for Jesus Christ's superstar Avita, and other works by Weber, meant that I had a clue about his mindset and artistic sensibilities. But beyond that, and more prescient to the conversation about Muse, Hades, or the Underworld, is the place from which all inspiration derives. In mythology, the underworld can be viewed as the fertile subconscious in which roots grow deeper during barren winters, where the seeds of life germinate in darkness, to sprout in the form of inspiration. The very term Hades, both the mythic figure and the realm he keeps, derives from the ancient Greek root Aedes, the unseen. The figure's other name, Pluto, conflated with Plutus or Pluton in some traditions, means the wealthy one, or quote, the giver of wealth, for somewhat obvious reasons. For one,

The Underworld As Inspiration

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mineral wealth like diamonds and gems are excavated from the earth. Secondly, the earth cultivates the seeds necessary for a bountiful harvest. When considered together, the very etymology of both archetypal terms suggests that the richness in life is in the unseen realm. In this way, the time we spend in the invisible realm, however melancholy, births transformation. Artists and storytellers are masters at harvesting the fruits of the unseen realm. It could be said that the stuff of life germinates in the matrix of shadow, coming to fruition via inspiration or epiphany. This is the very definition of the creative process, which renders the abduction template the perfect metaphor for calling or muse in Phantom of the Opera. Carl Jung spoke of the shadow archetypes and the shadow self. Jungian analysts have since carried his ideas further. Thomas More, in Care of the Soul, encourages us to embrace the shadow side of human nature. Countless other traditions, some over-romanticized, support this view. Rilke's letters to a young poet concurs that it's the shadow side of human nature we access for inspiration. Despite the latter reference perpetuating romantic notions about angst and suffering for one's art, neither the shadow self nor the shadow side of human nature need be viewed as negatives. Just as Hades was a fertile place rich with invisibles, so is our shadow. Emotionally and spiritually speaking, all growth and transformation is known to come from adversity. So in that way, even angst and turbulence have immense value. I resonate with the word passion as a convenient euphemism for the tempestuous conflict we often face within. But in this context, shadow simply refers to the invisible. In previous chapters, I've spoken about the invisible realm of ideas, beliefs, concepts, norms, mores, ethics, codes, and principles that evolve neck and neck with our biology. I've referenced many traditions that consider the evolution of the Noosphere, this postulated conceptual sphere, equally crucial to our survival as that of our biology. But the invisible realm of the unconscious represented by Hades, the one we tap into when idle, or when the lightning strike of inspiration opens the floodgates, may be a bit more right-brained than the conceptual realm of our philosophical ideas. Artists have long illuminated the underlying passion, love, connection, attachment, and desire that is synonymous with our humanity. Our dreams and even daydreams, our intuition, all dwell in this nonlinear space. We glimpse it when still, having surrendered to the moment, when theta waves flow. It's said that the present moment is where the eternal intersects with spacetime. Here, in the gaps between daily toil, lies the ineffable that often defies language or intellect. It is here that life's riches reside in my economy, in all that does not fit in a definitive box, in those inconvenient spaces between round holes and square pegs. It's we artists who illuminate and celebrate the nonsensical, the novel, and the absurd. The life residue that germinates in shadow can sometimes be the unsavory stuff of life. In that way, the redemption artists glean and illuminate can be thought of as a cleansing of sorts, making lemonade from lemons. Even so, the relationship with muse can be complicated. Cycles of germination and inspiration go largely unexamined by the artist, but the catharsis provided by creative expression rarely does. By extension, this catharsis is then offered to the patron and the collective. But this byproduct, the crucial role of art in storytelling in our dialectic, is often left for academics like Aristotle, Ayn Rand, Joseph Campbell, or David Bohm to examine. Transcendent of the nuts and bolts of craft, the muse or calling is that elusive voice contemporary pop culture seems obsessed with finding. The idea of finding one's voice, whatever the vehicle of expression, has become cultural vernacular. Sometimes we hungrily pursue this calling. Other times we simply tolerate it. Sometimes it nags. We can lose our voice and rediscover it, like Maya Angelou. It can compete with relationships, as beautifully portrayed in Phantom. I can cite many anecdotal examples from my own life. During my tenure at Disney Feature Animation, I shared an apartment with the daughter of a fellow production artist. He and I had worked on many of the same films, so I knew his ex-wife as well, the mother of my roommate. She claimed the man's art was like a lover with whom she could not compete, hence their divorce. Obeying the Muse or Feeding the Beast. On a separate occasion, I made the fatal error on a date of saying I'd sacrificed for my art. I've since learned to swap out the word sacrificed for invested. The wording did smack a martyrdom, admittedly. Still the reaction I received was overblown. I've heard that feeding the beast crap, my date bellowed, reducing me to Joan of Arc while exposing the chip on his shoulder that clearly came from a very bad experience. Or three. He went on to invalidate the pursuits of my entire adult life by framing the idea of feeding the beast as selfish. Up to then I'd been blissfully ignorant to this view of artists as Peter Pan, selfishly feeding some beast

Obeying The Muse Versus Relationships

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while living off government grants or otherwise leaching off society, playing around on the public dime. Despite my ignorance, my date made sure to bring me up to speed on this view of artists. We'd all dabbled in artist children using crayons. Artists simply chose to ride that wave as far as it would take them. At the time of my educational coffee date, it took place in my thirties, I think, I'd only been surrounded by artists living their best lives, contributing and feeling the satisfying completion of the creativity circuit. This man's harsh indictment of creatives compelled me to think about it. I suppose I had seen examples of the selfish artist's cliche. In the eighties, the sitcom Family Ties featured Alex Piqueton, an ultra-conservative teenager played by Michael J. Fox. Lest the term conservative teenager come across as a contradiction in terms, it should be noted that conservatism was Alex's chosen backlash, having been raised by left-wing hippies. In one episode, Alex debates with Nick, his sister Mallory's artist boyfriend. At first glance, Nick is seemingly a slacker. Why don't you do something with your life? Alex asks him. Something important. Like you, Nick returns. Yes, I'm going to med school. I'm gonna save lives. After a pensive beat, Nick drops a bomb of profundity. Yes, but what are you saving them for? At the risk of beating the dead horse of the obvious, the suggestion of the 80s sitcom is this What redeems life, makes it worth living, is the beauty, meaning, and truth artists illuminate, place on a pedestal or frame for the rest of us. Everything else is survival, drudgery. Art is the redeeming part of life, the why part of the existential equation. In retrospect, the other example of artist as slacker I'd regularly glimpsed was when Tom, my office mate at Disney, received a phone call from his father. Tom had a good ten years on me, making him well over forty at the time. Even so, when his father called, the man would inevitably ask when Tom was going to get a quote, real job. Never mind that Tom was married, raising three daughters, and making more money post-Lion King than his father ever had. My date's tirade and the mindset it revealed got me thinking. I began pondering this seeming chasm between opposing views of artists as selfless contributor or societal leech. I conceived a documentary that has yet to be made, titled The Pursuit of Art Selfish or Selfless. I began polling not only my students, who'd undertaken a serious course of study in order to honor their collective muse, but also professional artists residing at the brewery artist complex in downtown LA. Among other questions, I simply asked, Why have you chosen your craft? Why do you make art? One of my hunches turned out to be true. Many of the students I interviewed shared not only milestones I'd encountered in my own journey, but my entire profile. I was a shy kid with three older siblings and no tools to express myself. Further, having been raised in a dysfunctional household marred by alcoholism

Why Artists Create

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and codependency, it was simply not safe to express myself. And so it was I went inward. I found solace, inner peace, well-being, and tranquility by escaping into my sketchbook. I recall tuning out the noise quite literally by sketching quietly at family get-togethers while chaos reeled around me. The meditative theta waves of the act of creation were a soothing bomb. But then, by extension, when I shared the products of my solitary predilection, the reaction I received was proof I existed. My drawings touched, moved, or, at the very least, impressed others. The resultant connection was a surrogate that proves addictive for many artists. It was validation, proof of my existence. I'd later learned healthy ways of connecting with others without the surrogate, but I'd developed a relationship with my muse that I was not about to abandon. In my twenties, to illustrate the idea, I wrote at least one screenplay employing the vivid metaphor of a moth, unable to fly after being touched, dragging around a pair of burdensome wings for the duration of its life. The truth is, complicated or not, abiding the muse is a wonderful gift if honored. More on that later. The survey I conducted bore out my hunches. Participants professed varying degrees of shyness, introversion, or even social anxiety. It seems artists are as diverse on this front as the general population. There is no one mold. Still, most confirmed the role of craft as surrogate for connection. What surprised me, however, was the precise wording of my subject's characterization of the relationship. Simply put, I was blown away by just how many respondents said, My art is my way of loving. The consensus was confirming and redeeming. Just the cross we bear. A pivotal scene in Tennessee Williams' film adaptation of Suddenly Last Summer recounts a disturbing memory, that of Sebastian and Catherine witnessing the hatching of sea turtles on the island of Encanta. The defenseless turtles must make their way across the sand to the water to stand a chance at life before being devoured by carnivorous seabirds. Sebastian speculates that only a very small percentage make it. The metaphor is later mirrored in Sebastian's own death at the hands of cannibals. During his life, Tennessee Williams was lucid about his process, speaking openly about the purging of demons his writing provided. In the end, however, it may not have been enough. At 71, he died of a secondal overdose after a decades-long

Catharsis Or Self Harm

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struggle with depression and alcoholism. In the eyes of many, his demons got the best of him in the end. Tennessee Williams is one on a long list of famous artists, writers, and musicians to die prematurely, and often tragically. From Socrates, Van Gogh, and Oscar Wilde, to Billy Holiday, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, Janice Joplin, Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, these tragic figures seem to have martyred themselves for a cause while paying the ultimate price themselves. The art they gifted the world provided catharsis and transformation for the masses. But in light of their own fate, their contributions can be seen as a sacrificial purging, an opening of the veins. Considering that substance abuse is most often an attempt to self-medicate undiagnosed mood disorders, the aforementioned germination cycle preceding inspiration likely took the form of depression. The very act of reliving traumatic or emotionally charged life experiences, no matter how valuable the catharsis or the redemption offered to the patron, amounts to the beating of a drum. The practice reinforces familiar neural circuits, narratives or mantras. Look at it how you will. Simply put, for all those who are released from trauma by writing or singing about it, there are just as many who seem to perpetuate stories or keep them alive by doing so. In that way, telling one's story, as Maya Angelou prescribed, is the equivalent of perseverating, defining oneself by the pain body. Actors know that inhabiting a dark role for any period of time is taxing. Many maintain a regime of therapy to manage the ongoing challenge. As a writer, I know full well the journey toward deepening one's voice by telling the good, the bad, and the ugly, without fear of hurting others. It's a challenge to tell the sometimes ugly truth about human nature and one's own life and the characters in it. What has allowed me to embrace the shadow of human nature, along with my own shadow, is the redemptive value of it. Though I rarely tie a pretty bow on my stories, they have melancholy, bittersweet, or even ambiguous endings much of the time. The redemption is there between the lines. I feel I have a healthy relationship with my craft, one that serves me rather than taxing me, one that serves others. But it's a choice to keep things in check, to self-audit. My contention is that by fully engaging in the creative process, one finds the needed redemption and the catharsis is freeing. Undiagnosed or unregulated mood disorders leading to substance abuse may be another matter entirely. Again, the profiles of temperament and disposition are as diverse among self-identified artists as in the general population. The seemingly high incidence of depressive disorders among truth tellers may be a false correlation. We are more likely to attribute certain romantic qualities to tragic figures, posthumously. For example, those notions of angst suffering for one's art, feeding the beast, and sacrificing one's own contentment, perpetuated by works like Letters to a Young Poet. When I was forced to read it in art school at the age of twenty, I did not want to hear that, quote, all true inspiration comes from solitude. Though I now know it to be true, I understand it does not mean becoming a monk high on a mountain in Tibet or a cave-dwelling misanthrop. It means carving out a life, even while maintaining relationships, in which the requisite space is honored. All humans require solitude to align spiritually and be their best selves. Only when this is recognized does one have more to offer a relationship or a family. At twenty, I did not want to hear I was doomed to a life tainted by cycles of depression and inspiration. Signing up for such a fate was nothing more than another way of suffering for one's art or perpetuating angst. I had the foresight to recognize that Emily Bronte rode Wuthering Heights without really having left home or amassing much life experience. She drew on the whole of human experience by going within, accessing the rich reservoir of the collective unconscious. In my twenties, rather than flogging myself and hustling a burdensome cross wherever I went,

Solitude Work And Selling Out

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I would repeat the mantra, a little angst goes a long way. I vividly recall the pivotal moment I returned from Paris after my first trip to Europe. I had leased an artist's loft downtown, hoping to emulate the lifestyle of so many of my former art center instructors by allowing myself the space to paint and weld and, well, create whatever I wanted when I wanted. In the late 80s, the downtown artists' communities where my instructors lived, the ghettos, were bustling with foot traffic, rife with soul food cafes and local color. By the time I finally landed aloft in the late 90s, the loft districts were a collective ghost town. I settled on a corporate building on Traction Avenue near Little Tokyo. But soon after moving in, before even unpacking, I found that the reality of the loft lifestyle fell short of the fantasy. Not only were the festive cafes a thing of the past, but I found myself having to navigate homeless colonies to get to my car. I would then have to start it and drive several miles to go grocery shopping, visit the gym, or see a human being in any context other than that of a dumpster fire. In Paris, I'd visited Rodin's Gardens, Monet's Gardens, and Victor Hugo's apartment. I glimpsed the luxurious lifestyles they led, the beauty with which they surrounded themselves. It struck me. I had plenty of angst to draw on in life without surrounding myself with barbed wire, graffiti, and knife fights. LA's loft district would simply never be Soho, no matter how relentlessly management companies exploited the romantic notions of artists. After my trip to Europe, I stepped off the plane and returned to my loft, but I unpacked neither my suitcases nor the as yet unopened boxes for my recent move. Instead, I began looking the very next day for a house to purchase. One whose windows looked out on greenery, yielding the sound of birds rather than wailing sirens or helicopters. It's said that one's avocation is always more satisfying than one's vocation. Whatever one is doing to pay the bills becomes less satisfying than any other pursuit, like collecting stamps or birdwatching. In my own life, I've never had any delusions about the role my illustration plays. My writing has taken the forefront as the mode of expression in which I've truly found my voice. My illustration has been a craft that's allowed me to make a living doing something other than flipping burgers or working at the DMV. When asked about the strangest job I've ever had, I cite one of many side jobs my brother and I took on. My father was a lightweight concrete salesman who sometimes did contract work to help feed his family of six. On the job in question, my brother and I, teenagers at the time, were tasked with breaking up a concrete balcony with sledgehammers while standing on it. We were then to heft the chunks into a dumpster yards below. By day's end, neither of us sported fingertips. We agreed it would have been the perfect moment to rob a bank. During art school and after landing a lucrative job in animation, I was judged by select friends who identified as artists, but had not yet perfected their craft. Among the judgments was the trite sentiment I had, quote, sold out. It was expressed, of course, in so many words. One of the friends in question passive aggressively reminded me on a regular basis that art is solely to be given. Following her line of logic, Van Gogh had it right. Starving was the only respectable thing to do, followed by posthumous recognition. She has since grown up and changed her tune. At forty, she began taking her singing songwriting on the road and playing small cafes. In my case, I harbor no regrets for having landed in the animation industry. I counted a gift to have been surrounded by brilliant artists and storytellers on a daily basis, while continuing to learn and grow in my craft. And the paycheck allowed me to live a full life that would come to inform the worldview and value system that constitutes voice. The journey took place over decades, that of discovering how all the exposure, the technique of craft, and the rich life experience would come to inform my authentic voice. Cruising the River Sticks. If abiding muse is so complicated, why do we do it? Why does Christine indulge the temptation represented by the angel of music? Some would say, myself included, that the deep-seated drive to create is synonymous with being human. Many artists claim they languish without an outlet for creative expression. Behind most art therapy programs is an understanding that if one is not creating, one is likely destroying. Without an outlet for expression, the creative drive subverts into self-destruction or is turned outward as aggression. But for artists who have embraced their muse and nurtured craft, the rewards run deeper than the therapeutic function of taking the edge off of life or simply curbing aggression.

Purpose Service And Doubt

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Answering the call means honoring the invisible realm that not only lends richness to life, but redeems it. It is precisely because we resist the darkness in ourselves that we miss the depths of the loveliness, beauty, brilliance, and joy that lie at our core. Thomas More, Dark Knights of the Soul, More, 2004. It is only through mystery and madness that the soul is revealed. Thomas More, Care of the Soul, More 1994. As the poets and painters of centuries have tried to tell us, art is not about the expression of talent or the making of pretty things. It is about the preservation and containment of soul. It is about arresting life and making it available for contemplation. Art captures the eternal in the everyday, and it is the eternal that feeds the soul, the whole world in a grain of sand. Thomas More, Care of the Soul, More, 1994. Abiding the Muse represented by the angel of music is the equivalent of accepting a call to action, a crucial step in the hero's journey popularized by Joseph Campbell and mentioned in previous chapters. Paul Coelho refers to calling as one's personal legend in his bestseller, The Alchemist. The simple parable is so universal the manuscript has been translated into more languages than the Bible. When one's calling is honored, assigned sacred importance, one embarks on what has become known as the chemin artistique, the lifelong artist's journey. Despite the aforementioned burdens, when the calling is valued and craft cultivated, the pursuit begins to mirror the emotional and spiritual life journey, applying the discipline needed to hone any craft, from sculpting to studying opera or ballet, to becoming a concert violinist or an Olympic gymnast, can be thought of as getting good at life. Anyone with a passion should count themselves lucky for the opportunity to learn profound life lessons, with craft as their vehicle. It should be reiterated that artists have no monopoly on the creative process. All acts of innovation or novelty follow this same tenets. All represent valuable contributions to our march toward human potential, from sending rockets into space to advancements in medicine. Creativity is inherent in seemingly mundane acts performed under the guise of problem solving or sheer survival. It's simply easier to identify creativity in action when the product of it is not utilitarian in nature. We are more apt to call a sculptor or a painter a creative genius than a medical researcher or a rocket scientist, despite the fact that all employ the same creative process. Creativity surrounds us all day, every day. It's alive in us from the moment our cells begin self-creating, using DNA as a mere blueprint. Simply put, creativity is life. The two are inextricable. The birth of a child or the creation of a universe arguably follow the same model as a literary masterpiece or the Mona Lisa, and the drive to marry craft with purpose is equally universal among humans, whether building bridges or sculpting David from a block of marble. The instinct to align with purposeful contribution is powerful. Study after study shows that contentment is largely contingent on being of service. Whether shifting global paradigms or feeding and sheltering those in one's immediate grassroots circle, happiness seems to hinge on contributing. A poignant seam in the film Marvin's Room profoundly illustrates the above. Meryl Streep's character Lee has spent her years devoted to career. Meanwhile, her sister Bessie, played by Diane Keaton, has stayed behind in their hometown to care for an ailing father and eccentric aunt. At the climax of the film, the two sisters face off. Bessie reflects on her years of service, saying she's been lucky to have had such love in her life. When ostensibly selfish Lee concedes, saying, Yes, they love you very much, Lee clarifies, No, I'm lucky to have been able to love them. The thematic content of Marvin's room suggests that the word love is a verb as well as a noun. When we actively choose love, the benefits are far greater than those of receiving love. For the empiricists among us, there are very mechanistic ways in which caring for another, being of service, or actively loving another benefits health. Further, sociological studies have shown that bonding and affinity, even loyalty, are cemented when we invest in something, or in the extreme, suffer for a cause. The latter phenomenon is at the root of both the initiation ceremony and the Stockholm Syndrome. In his TEDx Talk, How to Know Your Life Purpose in Five Minutes, Lipsieg 2013, Adam Lipsieg asks these five questions. What do you do? Who do you do it for? What do they want or need? How do they change as a result? When I came across the TEDx talk online, I was able to answer the questions Lipsieg posed without hesitation. What do you do? I tell stories with word and image. Who do you do it for? Those who are receptive, slash called to receive the message. What do they want or need? Inspiration, redemption, hope. How do they change as a result? They experience transformation in the form of catharsis, epiphany, or enlightenment. I was able to answer these questions easily only because I've actively prioritized aligning with a sense of purpose, then stepping into and owning it. The process leading up to this identification has been a lifelong one. I'm over half a century. More to the point, my proverbial brush with death just over two years ago put me in touch with mortality and legacy, lighting a fire to rival the burning of Rome. I imagine Leipzig's questionnaire is harder to complete, for those who identify as still finding their voice, are those who must ask the question in the first place. How does one find one's voice? We are all somewhere on the path toward marrying craft with authentic voice, then aligning that voice with a sense of purpose. We all struggle with, quote, tuning out the noise, all those voices we must silence that can deter us from pursuing our passion. Countless voices of doubt have a paralyzing effect, silencing the angel of music altogether. Paul Coelho would say the forces of doubt or fear we must tune out are precisely what keep us from pursuing our personal legend. In the Heroes Journey popularized by Joseph Campbell and employed by filmmakers from George Lucas to the Wachowski brothers, two milestones are distinct, that of denying the call and then ultimately embracing it. Among the discouraging voices for artists, the following seem to rank highest social expectations, parental expectations, gender-based limitations, judgment of others, fear of not living up to one's own standards or the vision one holds, fear of falling short of other standards, a professional or academic bar, fear of acceptance or rejection, critical or personal. This book will make no attempt to prescribe a panacea for the myriad of societal challenges facing artists, but it may be worth addressing a few of the above hindrances. Rebel without a cause or agent for change. When it comes to reconciling any conflict between one's desires and societal or parental expectations, I hesitate to make too many recommendations. What I will say is this largely what it is to be an artist is to have a surplus of creativity. This can be accompanied by a desire to express, a strong inner vision that becomes a driving force and a potent imagination. These attributes come hand in hand with a tendency to think outside the box, that is, to question social conditioning, institutions, norms, and mores. For subversive artists, this lucidity can manifest in a critical nature, despite its function as an agent

Perfectionism And Risk Taking

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for change. Reconciling keen x-ray vision for many artists means establishing a policy early on that yields contentment and curbs judgment. I'll use myself as an example. Though my writing features complex psychological portraits of faulted characters, I've trained myself to take friends and family at face value without analyzing them. Though my work is fraught with human complexity, putting unexamined and sometimes unsavory base drives on display, I've gotten good at taking life with a grain of salt. I save my analysis for my writing. That way it's even more cathartic than it might otherwise be. It's clear to me that both mid and post pandemic, those who are new to being quote, woke are not particularly practiced at it. Under the guise of speaking truth, spouting pessimism, cynicism, and outright conspiracy theory has become socially acceptable discourse. Like all newly discovered religions, getting Can be intoxicating and momentarily blinding. Despite artists' early nudge to temper critical tendencies for harmony's sake, a defining quality among artists remains subversiveness or even activism. All global paradigm shifts in history, those leading to lasting institutionalized social reform and policy, have started with one visionary who bucked the system. This charismatic individual provokes inspiring rogue movements that challenge the status quo, eventually reaching critical mass. Subversive artists and activists since the dawn of time have had to answer the hard question Am I a force for change or a rebel without a cause? The societal and parental expectations that can deter one from abiding a calling have mostly to do with lifestyle. Many can't help internalizing fantasies to do with white picket fences and 1.5 children. We've all heard conventional wisdoms about practicality, those that caution us to have something to quote fall back on. Complicating matters, the enduring trope of starving artist is alive and well. I have no panacea for reconciling conflicting expectations for one's life, but I do know both can be accomplished, a healthy rejection of ill-founded norms, and an appreciation for conventions and traditions that hold value. I feel blessed to have made it past these humps, proved the doubters wrong, and garnered nothing but respect from my parents for taking risks and pursuing my dreams. This unfortunately is not the norm. Our own worst critics Artists are often accused of being perfectionists. To this indictment I have been known to respond, in fact we are just doing our jobs. Are brain surgeons or rocket scientists accused of being perfectionists? No, because if they are lax or negligent, someone dies. The view of artists as perfectionist is rooted in misapprehension. Dabbling in art, everyone knows, is an extension of the inessential arts and crafts we all indulged in in grade school. Drawing with crayons and singing Frera Jaca in rounds, accompanied by the xylophone. Because we all had a childhood connection to the arts, many believe they still have a stake in it as adults. This feeds the persistent trope of artists as impractical career fuck-off. It also results in the misguided view of artists who take their craft as seriously as any other job as perfectionists. Perfectionism is based in fear. It's also death to the creative process. In my 20 years of teaching, as well as the research I've conducted for documentaries, I've become something of an expert on varying relationships with the creative process. Creatives tend to fall into one of two categories. There are those who research, prepare, and lay groundwork without ever really getting off their butts and producing anything. In contrast, there are those who dive into projects prematurely to nip hesitation in the bud, lest they become paralyzed by it. In the former scenario, it's fear of falling short of expectations that prevents creatives from putting pen to paper or brush to canvas. This fear of failure suspends them in perpetual preparation mode. Research seems commendable, lest one build the Taj Mahal on a styrofoam foundation. But too much of it can kill inspiration and prove a convenient way to defer the reception of the work, its rejection or acceptance. Conversely, embarking on a dream project without the proper foundation is equally fear-based. Diving in blindly is based in an irrational fear that the initial inspiration will burn out or otherwise fail to transcend. It is well known that small business failure within the first year is categorically the product of insufficient research. Artists executing projects, even those fueled by the lightning strike of inspiration, are not exempt. I would urge all artists, in whatever stage they find themselves on the chemin artistique, to take stock of their relationship with risk-taking and perfectionism. As in all aspects of life, balance is the key. It's you against your potential. I'm often asked by aspiring animation artists how to deal with the sometimes paralyzing intimidation that comes with a highly competitive arena. I first respond that I feel fortunate. Comparing myself to others is not in my nature. I weigh myself only against my own potential. As a short, freckly kid with a gap in his teeth, if I had developed the habit of comparing myself to others, I would not have made it to puberty. I would have long since thrown myself off a cliff. I count this self-possessive tendency a blessing. But like many things, it was a survival mechanism that did not prove sustainable. All through Art Center's rigorous and demanding program, I managed to avoid succumbing

Technique Is Not Your Message

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to the paralyzing effects of a competitive mindset. With three older siblings, I developed a strong intrinsic sense of self that did not rely on outside validation. When I saw impressive work from my peers, I chose not to indulge feelings of envy, inferiority, or intimidation. Instead, I chose to be inspired by the work. Invariably I thought to myself, I could do that. I haven't done it yet, but I could. Perhaps I will make it a goal to flex that muscle or get good at filling the blank. I was well into my eleven year stint at Disney when I felt secure enough to actually look around, to come out of the denial that had served me so long. I quickly concluded I needed to play catch up. Technically, I'd never slacked off. During my Lion King training, I maintained the same work ethic I had in art school by burning the candle at both ends out of habit. The work that resulted was proficient to be sure. What I needed to catch up on was style. I needed to infuse my work with expression, life, interpretation, and that quote, appeal that is so crucial in animation. As luck would have it, in the spirit of this chapter, the stylistic exploration I was inspired to embark upon is precisely what distilled into a strong voice with flair and distinction. Truth be told, I wouldn't trade my blinders for the world. My policy got me through the trials of youth and a very demanding art school regimen. It lanted me the job at Disney, sustaining me through training and well into production. I have no regrets. I was nineteen when I started Art Center. But if I'd been a bit older and wiser, I might have benefited from more mimicry, giving myself permission to emulate, copy, or otherwise be influenced by sources outside myself. In art school, I'd insisted on being a self-made artist. Other illustrators went through their Egon Schile phase, followed by their Klimpt phase, then Linedecker and even Norman Rockwell. Most art students were forced to execute master copies in art school, but these motivated individuals took the time to consciously emulate their heroes as a step toward finding styles that stuck, ultimately comprising their own unique voices. Here's another mindset that can prove helpful in keeping paralyzing intimidation at bay. Consider this there will always be another singer with a better instrument, technically speaking. A wider range, better pitch control, or a more universally appealing tone quality. An athlete is bound to run into competitors who are bigger, stronger, faster. If not, it is only a matter of time before aging eventually robs the athlete of their lucky streak and personal best. So what's the way out of feeling inferior? A recognition that technique and instrument only go so far. It's the uniqueness of one's particular skill set, one's innate gifts, that sets him or her apart. A singer comes to recognize, despite technical limitations, that no one else on Earth has their particular tone quality or texture. It's like a thumbprint. More importantly, and this is the real escape hatch. No one else has the same message. Conveniently, this brings us back to the topic of this chapter, voice. Technique is only meant to inform what one has to say, to provide a toolbox. Honing one's worldviews and values and emotional imprint is what will empower craft by infusing it with voice. No one else at this moment in time, at this juncture in human dialectic, synthesizes thought forms like you. No one else's cutting edge thought forms have the same unique imprint. And perhaps most importantly of all, it is this understanding that leads to conviction. The very passion to impart a message saves one from being paralyzed by any form of potential discouragement. Sheer excitement to express what one has to say in the world is what fuels conviction, leaving doubt and insecurity in the dust. The gender wars and art. Who's got it worse? Women are socialized more so than men, to be of service, to give selflessly at their own expense. It could be argued that men are socialized to provide, and that the drive simply looks different on men due to their social privilege. What's undeniable is that women since the dawn of time have neglected their own self-care, their emotional and spiritual well-being, for the sheer distraction of having to balance a baby on one hip while doing the ironing. This is all changing, of course. Gender roles, relationship models, and family structure are ever evolving. But along with the progress come growing pains. Women know full well what it is to be judged for maintaining the roles of wife and mother while pursuing career goals. Post-World War II, women have become fixtures in the workplace, setting them up for some hard decisions. Those who find a balance between family and career against all odds are called superwomen. Beyond the battle over workplace equality and equal pay, the disturbing fact is that women have been written out of even the art history books. It's nothing less than patriarchal white male privilege that accounts for this fact. The documentary Who Does She Think She Is? highlights the challenge female artists face. Not only do they endure judgment for attempting to balance their own pursuits along with the relationship and family, but the object of their pursuit is seen by society as superfluous, self-indulgent, or inessential. Don't be fooled. Men face their own version of these same phenomena. The arts, in Western culture in general, and perhaps most acutely in the United States, are seen not only as impractical, but sissy. Men are socialized to be breadwinners and made to feel they are less than quote manly if their bread is won by non-utilitarian means. Consider this. It's far more socially acceptable for a girl to be labeled a tomboy than for a boy to be labeled a sissy. Girls can wear dresses or pants, but not so for boys. Of course, things are changing. But there is an argument to be made that gender roles are much stricter for men and the expression of anything non binary more damning. All one needs to do is watch the Oscars or any red carpet event to see the rules in action. The variety of styles available to women, as compared to the tuxedo or nothing attire available to men. There is no value to perpetuating the gender wars by speculating who has it worse. Suffice it to say that while rigid genderoles can serve a purpose, they are largely damaging and limiting. And suffice it to say that the expectations inherent in them are as inhibitory to the pursuit of art as all the other forces on our list.

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Who is this angel of music anyway? Muse Verb to reflect, ponder, meditate, or to be absorbed in thought. 2.

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To ponder, dream, wander, loiter, waste time. Noun One of the nine muses of classical mythology, daughters of Zeus and Nemazine, protectors of the arts, quote, to think to from late 14th century root meaning inspiring goddess of a particular poet, a person or personified force, who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. In contemporary pop culture, the muse is often reduced to the cliche trope

Muse Manifestation And Letting Go

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of artist model as muse. The usually paternal artist is alternately inspired or enamored with his preferred model, who becomes the object of his desire, Klimpt to Adele Blochbauer, Andrew Wyeth to Helga, Fitzgerald to Zelda, Frida Kahlo to Diego Rivera, or Picasso to, well, take your pick. If there is any truth to the cliche, it's symbolic. For our purposes, we've decided the first step in finding one's voice is accepting the muse's call and embracing the mission. As in the classic hero's journey, in the seven widely accepted models of the creative process, this would be the equivalent of identifying the problem to be solved. In previous chapters, I've pointed out how the mechanics of manifestation, spoken of in law of attraction circles, is synonymous with the creative process. To realize, make real, any vision is to manifest something material from imagination. This is why so many life coaches recommend vision boards in order to manifest one's desires. Ayn Rand would characterize both the creative process as Wallace defines it and the laws of manifestation that have become mainstream vernacular as follows Creating a Percept from a concept. To manifest, one must eliminate resistance, counterproductive or even self-sabotaging thought forms like doubt or fear. We've briefly addressed them above. In the creation of art, we're told that concerning oneself with antiproduct is death. It's the same in manifestation. Fixation on outcome is death. In this spirit, once one has identified a mission, one must actively pursue it while quote letting go of specific outcomes. Desires only manifest when there is healthy detachment, as spoken of in Eastern tradition. I know from experience, when training my rescue dog, if I fixate on outcome rather than sheer enjoyment, results are elusive. In other words, once a training session is no longer fun, it's effectively over. In theory, working through resistance and aligning with your calling is the equivalent of giving yourself permission to find your voice. If you've picked up this book, chances are you are an aspiring artist, writer, storyteller, or creative. With that premise, I'd like to go back to Maya Angelou for further permission, or encouragement as the case may be.

unknown 59:33

Dr.

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Maya Angelou on finding your voice. We have seriously crippled ourselves and our children by telling people, don't try all these different things. You'll become a jack of all trades and a master of none. That's ridiculous. You can become the master of everything, the best you can be. First, study yourself. See who you really want to be, and as soon as you see it, say it. Put it out into the universe. I want to be a dancer. I want to be a mathematician. I want to be an inventor. I want to be a doctor, I want to be a writer. You must say it, and then go about the business of becoming it. Study it and bring all your energies to it. Sooner or later, someone will say, Are you the kid over there? I think I heard you speak one time. Well, you know, I have an opening in my school for someone just like you or at my plant or at my job, you see. Many performers can pinpoint the precise moment they knew they were destined to pursue a career in theater, film, dance, music, or stand-up comedy. Attending a concert or Broadway play in childhood lit some kind of spark. The clouds parted and they were forever changed. Some recall the rush of performing in a school play, the feeling of validation the audience's reaction brought. Just as many, however, fall into a given craft unexamined. They claim it chooses them, and the solace it provides remains a mystery. These same artists may even choose to study the craft in question or make a career of it. But they remain out of touch with its emotional or spiritual role in their life. The idea of attaching any sense of purpose to it, either personal or collective, is as foreign to their conscious motivation as frost from fire. I joke that I chose to study illustration due to the pressure that sets in senior year of high school when fretting over impending adulthood. What was I going to do for the rest of my life? Drawing and painting seemed a hell of a lot more appealing than flipping burgers or breaking up balconies with sledgehammers. Regardless of how lucid one may be about what attracted them to a given craft or how its role in their life might evolve over time, one thing is certain. At some point they become aware of the power of the arts to transform, and life calls them to connect craft with purpose. In animation circles, when I speak about voice, I make sure to issue the following caveat. Plenty of trained artists filling much needed niches on production may be perfectly content being cogs in a well-oiled machine. They may even feel good about the content they are helping put out into the universe. Their drive to serve or contribute may be fulfilled by providing food and shelter for family. In fact, satisfaction in life may be about everything but a calling to tell one's own stories or express anything uniquely personal. In this way, craft is simply craft, and the conversation about calling or muse may be irrelevant. When it comes to being a cog in a collaborative machine, consider this. A great colorist brings a great deal of expertise to the table, a keen understanding of color theory and Chevrolet's laws of simultaneous contrast, observational skills and years of plain air portrait and still life painting. A colorist may have a keen intuitive sense of the emotional impact of color combinations and palettes, combined with an intellectual understanding of the physiological effects of color, the cultural relativity and archetypal associations of given colors. Further, this kind of expertise is much needed in the collaborative process that is filmmaking, as are many other skill sets. I will emphasize once more that the drive to create is universal, inextricable from the human condition. But collaborating, rather than being a free agent, may be the preferred route for many. Remaining a technician by keeping craft independent of any driving sense of purpose may be perfectly satisfying. For actors, short of delivering monologues in the shower, the need for a vehicle like a theater or film production is a given. To aspiring artists for whom the future remains uncertain, I say this. I have 20 years of former students with whom I keep in touch, many of whom have landed at major studios like Disney, Dreamworks, PDI Pixar, Warner Brothers, and Sony Animation. Often graduating students wish to work on production long enough to learn the pipeline and then tell their own stories. It is for these creative individuals that I offer content to do with voice, finding, cultivating, and maintaining it. For those who harbor no desire to develop their own intellectual properties down the line, who are content to remain an important cog in the collaborative machine, the conversation about voice is still relevant for sheer empowerment of the work. Those superstar visual development artists they themselves admire, those with a unique flair that sets them apart and creates high demand, have likely gone through the familiar journey of arriving at a mature artistic voice. Beyond a deep understanding of storytelling and the creative process, a well-honed voice fuels their vision. It is the electricity that makes the toaster run. If we think of voice as transcendent of style, or as the driving force that fuels all styles in one's repertoire, it can represent the sum of many factors, innate aesthetic sense, assets, and limitations of tool, craft, technique, medium, format or genre, skill sets, education, influences, historical or cultural influences, exposure to artists, traditions, conventions, worldview, past emotional imprints, hardwired beliefs and values, epigenetics, lifestyle, habits. All of these factors are interrelated, of course. For example, a singer-songwriter's influences in a given mode of expression will inform the product. If raised in isolation in the Appalachians, with no exposure to anything but bluegrass, the chord progression that results when he or she picks up a guitar will likely reflect that influence. In the same way, exposure to ideas, even diversity, Will inevitably inform an artist's worldview. There is a reciprocity between ideas or beliefs, which can be thought of as familiar neural circuits or thoughts one keeps thinking, and the aesthetic properties of the styles an artist gravitate toward and ultimately adopts. Newly incorporated ideas, once mapped on the worldview, will inspire an individual to investigate new aesthetic territory. Many artists are drawn to an art form in an unexamined way as discussed. But once the artist's journey is adopted, training or education often comes into the equation. Other than the rare garage band that hits the ground running with limited technique, most seek a disciplined course of study in their chosen craft. An artist will learn hard skills like composition, observation, light logic, perspective, and color theory. A draftsman will do drawing exercises, and a painter will attend figure drawing, still life, or plain air workshops. A singer will practice vocal exercises or scales, and a pianist or violinist will study music theory and learn chord progressions. Many traditions prescribe a strict, regimented program to provide structure. A disciplined approach to practice is attractive to many. Atelier programs teach old master's techniques in oil painting, the same way vocal music programs impart conventions like the Alexander technique. Ballet academies teach age-old traditions with strict guidelines. Short of committing to a structured regimented program, many artists seek ongoing mentorship, effectively getting under the wing of a seasoned veteran. Vocal coaches, gymnastics coaches, and piano teachers cultivate craft over the course of decades in many cases. What often happens in a regimented setting is one of two things. An artist becomes temporarily stifled by the rules, the rights and wrongs and do's and don'ts, or conversely, buys them hook, line, and sinker. In the latter case, artists attracted to black and white divergent thinking become zealous about a given method as if it were the word of God. In the former scenario, one finds oneself stifled by the regiments, out of touch with what drove them to their craft in the first place. I've often been asked by greener artists whether I agree modern art schools stifle creativity. My answer is simple. I think education stifles creativity by nature. Though schools like the Wallace Foundation acknowledge ever broadening methods by which individuals learn, emotional learners, kinesthetic learners, etc., the basic tenets remain the same. For that reason, the onus is always on the artist to look out for him or herself. That is, to be judicious about their education, synthesizing what resonates, to maintain perspective on the rules and remember they're nothing more than tools to execute inspired concepts, not to crush inspiration altogether. And above all, keeping the faith that the dust will settle eventually, and all those stifling rules will become second nature. As an instructor, I'm always inspired by the conviction of artists who refuse to sell out for an assignment, who manage to find the love in every challenge and sink their teeth in. It takes a level of maturity to infuse the solution to every imposed challenge with authenticity. As an instructor, of course I ask students in my classes to have faith that there is a method to my madness, while reminding them education is an agreement and everything is what you make it. I hope, of course, they will make every effort to follow the curriculum as prescribed as a step in their learning process that will synthesize with all else to which art school exposes them. But in my old age, though I never thought I'd hear myself say it, I admire those who would rather get an F for an assignment than, quote, sell out. I myself am horrible about keeping up a sketchbook. Inevitably, each one I start in good faith eventually becomes riddled with shopping lists, diary entries, or quickly scrawled directions. I also do what all artists are told not to do: tear out pages that did not rise to my level of expectation and toss them in the nearest trash bin. For this reason, I am awed by students who are religious about using their sketchbooks to remain fluid. While internalizing the more left brain quote rules and conventions, they remember to keep an open line to their intuition by inventing solely from imagination. Along with their observational studies, they sketch free-form nonlinear content that circumvents the intellect altogether. In keeping with the premise of this chapter, they are tapping into the unseen realm, the shadowy underworld from which inspiration derives, the home of the absurd, nonlinear, and inconvenient. This interior realm houses the dreamlike archetypes that speak to the soul. The second scenario referred to above is the one in which artists, quote, drink the Kool-Aid of their dogmatic program. In draftsmanship, figure drawing is the litmus test by which academic drawing ability is gauged. This fact has likely evolved for a variety of reasons, but chief among them may be the human's body ideal fusion of form and function, symmetry and variance. And yet, some instructors become drill sergeants on a loop. It's all gesture, they cry. Every stroke must support the model's gesture, must be infused with emotion, must express the sorrow and defeat or the triumph and bliss. Gesture, gesture, gesture. Other instructors are equally adamant. What good is a gesture without underlying structure and anatomy? In their estimation, a quote good figure drawing is all about structure. This is only a slight exaggeration. On a good day, both kinds of instructors would surely agree that the two work together, but they end up drilling one mantra or the other into their captive students like an anthem. The truth is, the tendency says more about their makeup than anything to do with good or bad drawing. In twenty years of teaching, with my own journey factored into the equation, as well as having been surrounded by fellow artists my entire professional life, I have observed that many artists gravitate toward order while lamenting a lack of expression in the form of chaos. Others possess incredible powers of expression, but harbor a desire for more discipline. In theory, we are all meeting in the middle somewhere. This is no metaphor, the dilemma refers solely to technique. The fusion of craft with purpose seems to be another conversation entirely. Those who obsess about technique and begin to identify 100% with their skill set are likely to remain stilted with very little to say. Occasionally, a broken heart or loss will jumpstart the emotional and spiritual journey, and the structured black and white divergent thinking that served them so long loses its currency. It's then that a breakthrough can be witnessed, an explosion of empowerment in the work. But for the most part, there seems to be few mistakes on this front. If one is meant to marry craft with purpose, it's only a matter of time. There is absolutely nothing wrong with subscribing to a dogmatic technical approach for a period of time and mastering it. But I would urge all artists not to mistake it for gospel truth and move on to another ideology for a while. Eventually, a judicious mind will synthesize all the exposure and perhaps even birth a new cutting-edge approach. Most of us are familiar with the broad arc of Van Gogh's work over the course of his life, from the surprisingly academic The Potato Eaters, through the Arles and Saint-Remy periods, reflecting the more stylized, interpretive works we have come to associate with him. Most of us can cite Picasso's similar academic roots, as well as his quote blue period, and the more cubist works that changed the course of art history. The two artists' parallel arcs from objective literal works to more subjective interpretive works of abstraction could be seen through the lens of recapitulation theory. That is, the course of art history's dialectic is reflected in the personal evolution of both Van Gogh's and Picasso's work in microcosmic form. The trajectory of art history shifted with the advent of photography. At some point, it no longer made sense to simply document reality. That job was taken. This development opened the floodgates to modernist interpretation. Similarly, both Picasso and Van Gogh likely reached a point at which it was no longer satisfying to simply reiterate what they saw, but to elevate or otherwise interpret content subjectively. In Van Gogh's case, critical reception played an equal part in nudging him along. Critics dismissed his more representational early works as obsolete, irrelevant to the times. Philosophically, a case could be made that any notion of objective reality is fantasy.

Voice Grows Through Mileage

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Our brains reify and interpret the sensory stimuli our sense organs take in. A very narrow margin defines the chemical balance that accounts for consensus. With that in mind, there is philosophically no way of knowing whether what one experiences as the color green, for example, bears any resemblance to another person's experience of green. Institutionalized agreed-upon interpretations of the exterior world, reality's representation in art, is largely a matter of consensus. Case in point, the old master's technique of glazing and scumbling to model three-dimensional form resulted in what we call, quote, shading of skin tones in portraiture. When ostensibly naturalistic paintings employing such caroscuro techniques were introduced to the Eastern world, this shading of tone was read as the skin being depicted as soiled. This is for one simple reason. Eastern art to that point was graphic, flat. There was simply no existing convention for rendering modeled form. What the eye sees is trumped by adopted norms for reifying that data. Earlier in this chapter, we alluded to sanctioned methods of reductionist stylization being culturally distinct, proprietary. That is, certain forms of iconography were adopted by entire cultures in the ancient world. This speaks volumes, philosophically speaking, about the fallibility of objective reality. As touched on earlier, we cannot know whether ancient Egyptians actually perceived the world as flat and lacking in perspective, accounting for their representations. Similarly, the names of many colors existed for ages before the word for blue began appearing in language. This indicates it was either so pervasive in skies and the ocean that it was taken for granted and did not warrant a label, or that the rods and cones of the eye had not yet evolved to perceive it. Fascinating to think about. In modern times, we have named every perceptible variation of blue on the color wheel, every combination of hue, value, and saturation. Primary blue, cyan, cobalt, cerulean, azure, ultramarine, indigo, and so on. This is akin to Inuit cultures in northern regions, acknowledging a multitude of words for snow. It's ever present and prominent in daily life. In most parts of the globe, there is simply less significance to the rarely seen phenomenon. It's simple. What we put our attention on grows in significance. In any case, the quote reality that serves as an umbrella for figurative and representational works follows the same model as that of reality in general. Consensus. Most of us, whether academics or laymen, can identify the precise artistic choices that represent departures from simple observation. There is a running joke among artists that the mainstream, for a long run anyway, equated photorealism with quote good. It's photorealistic, therefore it must be good, the pedestrian sentiment goes. The more interpretive an artist's style, the greater a risk that artist runs of losing folks. The divisiveness borders on comical, the passion with which folks love or hate Picasso's signature style. An unfortunate milestone in the chemin artistique is the moment at which an artist nearly inevitably plateaus. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Lack of inspiration, passion shifting to an alternate mode of expression, existential crisis, or worst of all, a public that demands a familiar commodity. A gallery owner might expect from an artist the rote formula that's guaranteed to move pieces in a gallery setting, the teary-eyed street urchin, or the shiny apple cart plopped into the idyllic tableau. The AR, Artist and Repertoire Department of a Recording Label, might begin to bank on certain defining characteristics in each album following an artist's debut album if it spawned a chart topper. Sarah McLaughlin once pointed out that it takes a lifetime to write your first album, and with a gun to your head, six months to a year to write your second. Many actors, like Renee Zellwicker, have taken time off between projects, sometimes years at a time, with great risk involved. They do so in order to live life, the very life that informs the work. Morsels of it can grow scarce when dashing from one project to the next. When will the dust settle? In my teaching, I often suggest that we never fully quote arrive in art or in life. On the spiritual journey, the notion of attainable enlightenment, nirvana, or even self-actualization, often crumbles with the realization that challenges will continue to present themselves until we are six feet under. The good news is, they are catalysts for growth and expansion. Similarly, we continue to gain the life experience that informs the evolution of artistic voice, and the intellectually curious strive to continue learning throughout life. But surely there's a moment when things suddenly click and we have command over voice, a sense of empowerment. What about simple confidence? Is it too much to ask? How and when will the stifling rules of craft become second nature? And when does this craft marry with what one has to say in the world? When it finally happens, will the clouds part to choirs of singing angels? The answer, however discouraging may well be, voice clicks in its own good time. The chemen artistique is a journey in which mileage is everything. That and continued exposure. Writers like Neil Gaiman and O'Tour Stanley Kubrick have both said that technique is theoretical until you sit down and put pen to paper. That's when real growth happens. The moment theory is put into practice. How does this artistic journey play out? The road toward finding one's voice. Though we hopefully continue to grow and learn throughout life, there usually comes a time when one's schooling is officially over. From then on, practicing one's craft and continuing to up one's game either happens on the job or through self-assigned opportunities. A great vocalist continues regular vocal exercise. A committed artist continues attending workshops in order to draw regularly from the model or paint on plain air. Many need structured opportunities to create, hence night classes or writers' groups where deadlines light the fire of motivation and critical peer feedback is readily available. What is the value of these self-assigned opportunities to continue honing voice? With each new challenge, things snowball. Rigid do's and don'ts and rights and wrongs become little more than distant noise. When stakes are lower than that of an assignment or a task on the job, greater risks are taken. Inevitably, we begin to repeat tricks that work, either consciously or subconsciously. A songwriter will revisit a successful chord structure and a painter will employ compositions that have worked in the past. Simply put, experience snowballs, building momentum. More substantial than repeating craft-related conventions is the phenomenon of recurring thematic content. In both storytelling and art, recurring themes surface organically within a body of work or a period of one's life, reflecting worldview. By consistently practicing our craft, we are creating space for these themes to emerge. They gain momentum for having been given the breath of life, released from shadow into the light. In this way, the cathartic act of telling stories or creating images illuminates one's own sometimes unexamined passions and desires. By honing craft and exploring style, the content one is most passionate about becomes clearer and clearer. On risk taking. During my eleven years at Disney feature animation, I sometimes had an office and other times a cubicle. I once shared a cubicle wall with a fellow background painter who somehow, despite his neurotic approach to the creative process, went on to art direct many top-grossing films. We would often chat idly from our respective cubicles or lapse into absurd banter involving character voices and questionable humor. More than once, this led to a nearby office door being closed in a less than gentle manner. When my cubicle neighbor grew silent, I knew he was deeply embroiled in a painting. The badgering technique we used to execute production backgrounds had been a staple since day one in traditional animation. It involved blending acrylics or gouache using a large soft brush with a broad surface area. During the above-mentioned moments of silence, periods of intense concentration, the artist in question could be heard not just lightly feathering the paint with his badger brush, but making direct contact between the brush's metal shaft and the illustration board. Repeatedly. From my cubicle, it sounded as if he was beating the innocent illustration board to death with his brush. After this ritual, a moment inevitably came during the execution of each painting when I would hear a badger brush being flung at the wall. He would emerge from his cubicle flushed, his thick red hair much larger in volume than normal for having torn at it. To complete the look, his eyes were often ablaze. Though this process was a mystery to me, it somehow worked. He would return to his cubicle and continue to beat the painting into submission as though wrangling wild horses. In the end, the result was always stunning. But at what price to his health, I had to wonder. My own process was much less angst ridden. I reserved my neuroses for human subjects. Even so, I will never forget the time I began smushing oil paint around out of frustration while attempting to salvage a small landscape gone amiss. My vision for it had thus far proven evasive, as if the canvas were defying me at every step. Only once I completely gave up on the image, obliterating what I had laid down and mourning my initial vision, did the painting come around. The swirling, intermingling hues vibrated due to simultaneous contrast, a risk I would not otherwise have taken. It ended up being one of my favorite pieces ever. I remember well the summer my voice as a writer kicked into high gear. I had been inspired by a collection of short stories I discovered, penned by a writer I greatly admired. It didn't hurt that the stories resonated so deeply I felt I had written them myself, or that they had been plucked straight from my psyche. Reading the collection led to the thought, not only could I write equally powerful work, but I have my own stories in a similar vein. I created a prompt based on what I most appreciated about the body of work that had inspired me. Each piece I wrote would feature an incongruous element, juxtaposing the mundane with the profound. Truth be told, much of my work to date had featured variations on the very same conceit. But formulating the penchant into a concrete prompt was an important milestone. Over the course of that summer, I completed a dozen stories with varying themes, all under the conceptual umbrella I'd identified. They flowed out of me effortlessly. I was on fire. My creative process became so fluid and accessible as to have very few roadblocks, and the thought I was onto something only further fueled the inexplicable high. The body of work became a collection I titled Far from the Thick of Things. Several stories from it have been accepted into anthologies and won various awards. My creative high had not been delusional. Cherry Tree Syndrome. The correlation between truth telling and voice. Many bloggers, talk radio hosts, or podcasters ask what my ideal writing conditions are. Do I prefer silence or white noise? Music or the hum of coffee shop patrons? Do I work best at night or in the morning? Conditions and circumstances are secondary to me. Being connected to inspiration is the key to creative flow. I was on a roll the summer I created the above prompt, that much is certain. But the momentum I kept up allowed me to hone more than just a workflow, schedule, or approach. It finessed my relationship with the creative process, making it easily effective. Accessible. Most valuable

Truth Telling Without Fixation

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of all, I discovered my truth-telling powers. This is no small thing. On a stylistic level, any inauthentic tricks I'd adopted fell by the wayside, devices or motifs I'd tried on for size that proved ill-fitting. More to the point, I gave myself permission to tell the good, the bad, and the ugly in my writing. Writers often worry about hurting others, especially in creative nonfiction. Even in pure fiction, characters that masquerade as thinly disguised versions of real life characters run the risk of hurting the feelings of others. As early as third grade, I was made aware of this gamble when reading the children's classic Harriet the Spy. It's been said that in order to tell one's authentic truth, he must write as if no one will be reading the work. In Hallmark terms, the trite sentiment sounds like this dance as if no one is watching. Fixation on outcome is death to the creative process and manifestation. Inevitably, an imagined reader may as well don a scythe and a hooded black cape. Facing one's shadow, as Thomas More recommends, can be daunting. It takes courage to square up with one's beliefs and opinions about the world, loved ones, or even the harsh truth of human nature. During a Faulkner phase, I explored hideous characters in my work that embodied the least savory base drives I saw in humanity. I chose to write them boldly, with no ostensible redemption whatsoever. Same for the thematic content. I would issue no apologies. Still, by virtue of our own human wiring for storytelling as catharsis, the redemption built itself into the writing. I grew to love these faulted characters. Not only that, but I redeemed them through the writing, and my views of the world along with them. My own compassion for the human condition was reawakened. This is the world cleansing I've referred to that catharsis can offer. The trick in indulging our shadow seems to be keeping things in perspective. By telling stories from our past, we may well be beating old tired drums, turning our emotional mantras into defining narratives. This can be true of our personal emotional imprint or the collective human past known as history. Consider this. In French, the word for story, as in histoire d'enfon or children's story, is the same histoire. Our lives are the stories we tell ourselves, and human history is the narrative we weave around scant facts. So how do we know when we are released from the past via the catharsis of creativity? When are we simply perseverating, reinforcing counterproductive neural circuits? Actress Kate Blanchett has issued the following wisdom. I have a very healthy relationship to my work, and I find that if a scene is working, no matter how intense it is, you have the catharsis on screen and you can let it go. I think it's if at the end of the day you feel like you haven't cracked it, that's when you go home and it's more difficult to switch off. Firing on all cylinders. When we fully engage in the creative process, acting on inspiration, catharsis is inevitable. Let me give you a vivid example. In my live action filmmaking, one of my favorite phases is that of casting. During an open call posted in Backstage West, one is limited to whomever walks in the door. But spending the money on a seasoned casting agent yields a whole new crop of professional talent. When homing in on the perfect cast for a given film, my producer and I review audition videos, consult our notes, and endlessly rearrange headshots on the floor. We shuffle them to gauge the chemistry of each potential combination of screen presences. Ideally, chemistry is assessed in a screen test,

Casting And Creative Healing

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but this is a luxury budget frequently does not allow. Casting decisions always come down to whatever combination of presenks best in tandem. Other factors like availability play into the final decisions, of course. But largely each screen presence must read properly in relation to the others. As Solace, I often discourage actors from speculating about lost roles or taking rejection personally by assuring them I could cast a film twelve times over. The ultimate cast is about the ensemble, not any one individual. When the creative process is organic, intuition abounds. In casting, as much or more than any other phase in production, punches enter the equation in a big way. On every film I've ever cast, the winning audition betrays an identification with the writing, with the character, as written. Moving forward, I tend to have few notes for actors, even in rehearsal. That is to say, I have few notes beyond logistical ones to do with blocking, business, or hitting marks, things that will make the shoot go more smoothly. Time is money after all. But when it comes to interpretation, I tend to trust in the writing and create a safe space in which actors can honor it. I let them work their magic hands off. The shoot itself is always a bonding experience. This bonding is only cemented by hours upon hours of spending time with my actors' faces, albeit on celluloid, in a darkened editing bay. Beyond the enormous respect I have for their talent, one I don't possess, I can't act my way out of a paper bag. My affinity for my cast only grows. I've often said I grow to love my actors like children. Simply put, I tend to develop ongoing friendships and maintain contact with actors long after the shoot. In every last case, I learn after the fact that not only did each one I cast identify with their character, but in essence they were the character, in ways I could not have known. My aging matriarch and outpost turned out to have lived the precise details of her onscreen counterparts, caring for a bedridden husband by changing his bedpan and turning him to prevent bed sores. The phenomenon is that specific. The drifter in the same film was played by an actor who admitted that he, too, had maintained an addiction to adventure and travel as a way of avoiding intimacy, settling down. These same actors professed to have worked through demons by performing in the respective films in which I cast them. They recognized their past patterns and sometimes broke debilitating cycles. By fully engaging in the creative process, they purged demons or otherwise emerged transformed. Most psychotherapists seek and maintain therapy themselves to manage the residual or internalized emotional stress of their profession. Actors are no different. Many know that after inhabiting a dark role for a prolonged period of time, it can prove difficult to shed a character's dark worldview or to process toxic feelings that arise. Here is where therapy can prove not only helpful, but essential. It's been said that every novel is a snapshot of its author's psyche at the time it was written. There is no way around it. The themes consciously imparted are editorial choices on the part of the writer, and every word therein is colored by the lens of an author's worldview. How could it be otherwise? No matter how masterful any one of us considers himself at identifying the universal, in the end, we have only our own life experience to draw on. In my youth, I wrote tragic endings that were at best cautionary tales. In retrospect, I can see what accounted for this fact. My innately dark aesthetic sensibility intersected with exposure to romantic or gothic content, birthing my penchant. I wrote tragic endings because I could afford it. I could manufacture angst because I had optimism to spare. Later in life, when loss and disappointment eroded such confidence, my need for catharsis led to the last thing I expected to emerge in my writing happy endings. A few of the endings, in fact, were ridiculously deliriously happy. Later, whether an ending is happy, melancholy, open-ended, or otherwise ambiguous, there is still redemption to be had between the lines. Art will always reflect life, and an artist's work will always reflect his emotional and spiritual imprint. On farm animals and connecting with the work. We spoke earlier about the voices of doubt or discouragement one must silence when accepting a calling. Many artists continue to battle insecurities, even while living the artist's journey in the context of a viable, productive career. With decades of live performance under her belt, Barbara Streisand admitted to debilitating stage fright. Many actors are known to transmute nervous energy into motivation, thriving on the knowledge they might fall flat on their faces during a performance. In the case of a young student in my visual development class, the noise to be canceled was a full chorus, voicing the elitest mindset Art Center is known for proffering. The student,

A Student Finds The Edge

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Stephanie, had internalized the view that by declaring the entertainment track her major, driven by a childhood love of stories, she was slumming it. She found herself phoning it in, unable to bring her gifts to the table. She simply was not in the habit. Wholly unexamined, she regularly watered down or dumbed down content for entertainment projects, while her editorial work and fine art was edgy and potent. In manifestation terms, her dilemma was the very definition of resistant thought patterns, the internalization of negative messaging. The story I'd assigned that term for students to visually develop was E. B. White's Charlotte's Web. After several lectures and one-on-one counseling sessions with my young student about connecting with the material by identifying thematic content, she still felt disconnected from it. Her character designs, environments, and story beats, by her own admission, lacked inspiration and therefore resonance and appeal to others. One day, she came in with hordes of work that had poured out of her during the week. The entire class saw that a breakthrough had been made, a big one. When it was her turn to present, Stephanie told a powerful story. She recounted her struggle to connect with the material, beginning with early attempts to interpret it with an eye toward White's intentions as she perceived them. She'd done the prescribed breakdowns. She understood the main theme and the sub themes the story was meant to impart. She'd taken copious notes on how to convert all that analysis into our direction. She appreciated what the story said universally about the human condition, not just the nature of love and friendship, but the metaphysical disposition of consciousness in the universe. The thing is, her processing had all been intellectual. There was no visceral connection to the text. Her midweek breakthrough was this. She'd not allowed herself to go there because it was too threatening to see the ugliness in some of the characters, the dark edges that vignetted the entire narrative. The moment she allowed herself to correlate each despicable character in the story with a counterpart in her own life, her nuclear family no less. The work was empowered. That is a grave understatement. The work exploded when she gave herself permission to tell the good, the bad, and the ugly. A preoccupation with appearances also played a part, highlighting the pervasive ignorance of the provincial farming milieu hit too close to home. She'd spent years trying to shed the label of hick her upbringing seemed to elicit. The week her work exploded, she'd gotten over the shame hump and designed each character as white trash, her words, to rival the cast of honey boo-boo. Suddenly, the same potent edge that informed her editorial work and fine art was there on the crit rail. The impasse taught her, through experience, that her entertainment work could be just as powerful conceptually as her fine art. And in order to transcend and speak to the patron, it simply had to be. She'd faced her own resistance and conquered it. Narrative voice versus artistic voice. The following may seem obvious, but it's worth mentioning. For the writers among us, one's big picture artistic voice should not be confused with the term narrative voice. The latter is a literary term specific to a given short story, essay, novelette, novella, or novel. One's artistic voice transcends a given work, informing an entire body of work or period phase. To further distinguish narrative voice, within a work of prose, it encompasses the narrative tense and point of view chosen to best tell a story. Among the many choices of point of view would be familiar suspects like first person limited, third person subjective or objective,

Artistic Voice Versus Narrative Voice

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omniscient, alternating or unreliable. Narrative tense correlates with grammatical tense, simple past, past imperfect, present tense, etc. Again, it is chosen according to what best tells a story, the objectivity or even mythic importance lent to a story by past tense, or the more contemporary immediacy of present tense. A work of prose, independent of narrative mode and narrative tense, also inherently exhibits mood and tone. The mood tends to be scene specific. A birthday party scene may be joyous and festive, whereas a funeral scene may be melancholy and sublime. Overarching tone is the umbrella under which all scenes live and breathe. A novel's tone may be visceral, cerebral, satirical, absurd, light and comedic, sophisticated, poignant, or even political. You get the idea. None of these terms correlate with an artistic or storyteller's artistic voice, that thumbprint that informs his or her work over time, the conglomeration of worldviews, values, emotional imprints, and even cultural historical baggage that defines it. That flair is so distinct it cannot be bottled, sold, or even taught. The marriage of craft and purpose, a match made in heaven. To recap, the technique an artist acquires can inform the styles of which he or she is capable. Together, they come to comprise a repertoire, or what I facetiously refer to as a bag of tricks. On the journey to finding one's authentic voice, he or she may explore many styles. As alluded to earlier, some artists emulate styles from art history in their learning curve, exploring various ways of abstracting or portraying light, for example. An illustrator may move from their Kokoshka phase, for example, through their own personal almatadema phase to Hockney and eventually their own unique fusion of sensibilities. These influences merge with their own innate sense of aesthetics. Versatile, adaptable artists may be capable of quite a wide stylistic range. Versatility is desirable in many circles, but just as many artists settle into a more specific range that can become a brand or commodity. For the versatile among us, the wide range of styles taken together still do not comprise voice. They comprise at best the aforementioned bag of tricks. Here's the real clincher. Voice is nurtured by life alone, by the emotional and spiritual journey. Voice is the marriage of technique driven style with what one has to say in the world. In other words, the marriage of craft with purpose. A great irony about the artist's journey, or chemin artistique, is this. Often finding one's voice means throwing away all one has learned and reconnecting with core essence, returning to what once drove an artist before limiting ideas were planted, and trusting one's inborn sense of aesthetics. The coalescence of craft with purpose is a defining moment. I'd also like to suggest that the above process is not specific to painters and fine artists. A singer songwriter will have the same arc, from mastery of technique to style exploration. If one rereads the preceding paragraphs, all one must do is replace Alma Tadima with Stevie Wonder, and the pre-Raphaelite movement with funk. One can easily conjure the image of a session singer or studio musician who's capable of stylistic versatility, as compared to the singer-songwriter with a singular vision and zero interest in straying from their inspired path. The parallels between the various disciplines in the arts are startling. The creative process is consistent among them, as are the milestones in the artistic journey at large. The particulars can vary, as can the timing and order of the major milestones in rites of passage. The universality of the journey need not be an indictment of our uniqueness. The last thing on earth I'd wish to do here is reduce any one of us to a walking cliche. Rather, we can take solace in the shared territory. By way of transitioning back to our founding principle of muse, it is my identification with the artists of the past, our shared trials and passions, the fact that we are made of the same stuff that inspires me personally. I take refuge in muses from the past, the fact they were passionate about the very things I've devoted my life to. I identify with them, allowing the affinity I feel to comfort me when things get tough. I feel a bit less crazy in light of this sense of belonging. The fellow artists I meet who are on similar paths are not competition, but kindred spirits. I've been asked on many occasions how to nurture voice. In reply, I find myself reiterating a distaste for speaking about the nuts and bolts of craft. There are endless books on technique available at the touch of a Google finger. The world does not need more of it. Further, it is not satisfying for me in the least to speak of craft. What inspires me is the electricity that powers the toaster, the invisible force that spirits a tumbleweed across barren earth. When asked how to nurture the ineffable force known as voice, I find myself facetiously suggesting I cannot teach one to grow a soul. I can recommend practices like actively keeping a sketchbook to keep an open line to intuition.

Spiritual Growth Behind Great Work

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I can cite anecdotes like those sprinkled throughout this chapter. Hopefully, they hold some currency or resonate. But the true answer may well be making emotional maturity and spiritual evolution a priority in your life. On that spiritual note, the current academic milieu has made any notions of soul, spirit, or spirituality bad words in the educational arena. There are plenty of good reasons for this. But the staunchly materialist stance in education throws out the spiritual baby with the institutionalized religion bathwater. Oh, I fully understand that the bloom has fallen off the cultural rose, given the centuries of institutionalized abuse of religion, things involving bloodshed, like the crusades and the inquisition, as well as that unfortunate string of molestations and cover-ups. But those who bristle at the mention of a soul are thinking too hard. In the vernacular, the word simply refers to the part of us all, call it some combination of intellect and emotion, that is not the physical body. When confronted with the poker face after carelessly dropping an S bomb, I often qualify my error. Oh, I backpedal. I simply meant it to signify opra spirituality. You know, I think, the kind non-threatening to Middle America, the kind that conjures no images of communes or Kool-Aid drinking. Still, I wander at the power of language to betray us, to reveal a true understanding of our metaphysical disposition in the universe. My advice to those with a desire to nurture voice is to reconcile the fact that emotional maturity and spiritual evolution still hold currency, to return them as cultural values, ends in themselves, to get woke and see beyond the social conditioning inherent in education and embrace the interior realm that's transcendent of the body. Reconciling resistance is key to all manifestation. In the empowerment of art, this impasse is key. Those who resist any notion of spirituality will inevitably be reduced to being technicians or wrists. Those who get over the semantic hangups and acknowledge we possess consciousness will remain the alchemists. Empiricists and Newtonian materialists cherry pick the invisibles they choose to acknowledge in life. They quickly dismiss as quackery those invisibles that cannot yet be quantified by observation or verified by the scientific. Method, yet they easily throw around words like love, principle, and ethics, betraying a belief they are in fact real. My call to action would be that we rise above the limitations of semantics and perspective, individually and societally. On the macro level, much of the divisiveness and cultural strife would dissolve. On the individual level, whether we identify as artists or not, we would step into our true power. Neapolitan or chunky monkey Aesthetics A set of principles concerned with the nature and appreciation of beauty, especially in art. Two a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, with the creation and appreciation of beauty. Three a particular theory or conception of beauty or art, a particular taste for or approach to what is pleasing to the senses, especially sight. 4. The philosophy of art that examines subjective and sensory emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste. We are all born with a sense of aesthetics, as unique as a thumbprint. Over time, we adopt worldviews, inclinations, emotional imprints, values, opinions, desires, and passions. We are carriers for the historical baggage of ancestors and the unfinished spiritual baggage of our parents. Claiming our voice is the equivalent of returning to the initial aesthetic sensibility that defines us, despite all the added stuff. We define our sense of self using mind and ego, adopting labels like student or son or daughter, CPA or mechanic. Moving beyond such labels and tapping into our inborn sense of aesthetics, our innate preferences, is a gesture symbolic of shedding the ego-driven sense of self that interferes with creative expression. Conclusion. The idea of being abducted by Hades and spirited off to the underworld, and regularly, is understandably haunting. Though abiding amuse like the angel of music in Phantom of the Opera can make for a complicated relationship. It can be a wonderful gift if honored, if cherished and nurtured. We artists, writers, creatives, and visionaries have been given a wonderful gift. The opportunity to master a craft as a vehicle for getting better at life. Art always mimics life, and the honing of a craft, the nurturing and development of an artistic voice goes hand in hand with the spiritual life journey. The two are inseparable. It is well known that we must always

Creativity Is A Human Birthright

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learn, grow, evolve, and adapt to survive. And this includes our spiritual life. If we stagnate or plateau in our craft, neglecting our artist's journey, the stakes will inevitably raise. The universe will remind us that we are languishing. And reclaiming that journey, the birthright and the responsibility it represents, is the empowerment we all seek. Marianne Williamson posits we are all meant to fulfill our highest potential, that on an evolutionary level, the intention of intelligent life itself is for all conscious creation to fulfill its cutting-edge capacity as a contribution to our evolution.

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Best not to argue with the universe. Disclaimer.

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In therapy in my early twenties, I was so diplomatic relaying life experiences that my therapist finally asked me to quote, stay in one camp for a millisecond or two. In other words, to commit to a given view of a situation or event without hopping to another perspective. A habit designed in an unexamined way to let others off the hook. I suppose I did pride myself on a balanced view of the world, a healthy appreciation of perspective and semantics. Another way of putting it, I had commitment issues when it came to the definitive. I was too damned judicious for my own good. Though I have retired diplomacy at half a century, I still see all sides of most issues, rendering me a true centrist when it comes to politics. True to form, I will take this opportunity to qualify the premise of this entire chapter. I've suggested that many self-identified creatives, primarily those with a discipline they've honed through practice and technique, find themselves eventually called to connect their chosen craft with a sense of purpose. In other words, they realize and come to terms with why they've gravitated toward their chosen mode of expression. I've equated this impasse with, quote, finding one's voice, a popular cultural aspiration of late. I've suggested that connecting one's craft with a sense of purpose may also be the road to the often sought after but rather elusive contentment. It's universally agreed upon that well-being and inner peace go hand in hand with feeling purposeful through service or contribution. For the purposes of this book, when speaking about the innate human drive to tell stories and the role storytelling plays in culture, it is nearly impossible to leave out discussions on creativity in general. It is worth noting that the drive to contribute, often dubbed a calling, muse or ministry, is completely independent of self-identifying as a creative, an artist, an innovator, or a storyteller. Many serve by putting roofs overheads and food on the table. Many serve by engaging in volunteer work or philanthropy. Mother Teresa put her theology into practice in the trenches of humanity. The very definition of service. But all these contributions suit the particular gifts of those offering them. Each one of us contributes according to our unique talents. If this is not creativity, I don't know what is. I would argue that to be human is to be creative. No one is exempt. Oh, we've all met someone who claims not to have a creative bone in her body, or conversely, who quote, cannot draw a straight line. My oldest sister has historically relinquished the title creative to myself and our other sister, a polymath. Either out of humility or self-admonishment, she allowed us to own the title. Though her frequent declaration rang a bit sad to me, I knew the joke was on her, in an unexamined way, for homemaking, something she saw as mundane, brimmed with creativity. Her green thumb represented the quintessence of the act of creation. Her use of herbs and produce she nurtured in her garden became lavish meals for others to enjoy, the creation of which was an art form in itself. Entertaining in her home was nothing less than creative expression, problem solving, creativity in action, is required daily to run a household and rear children. Not to mention birthing them, the ultimate creative act. For those creatives who identify as storytellers, ostensibly a large chunk of this book's readership, any profound epiphany about the role of storytelling in one's personal life or culture at large may remain elusive. Either it hasn't happened yet or it never will. Many find themselves in filmed entertainment due to a childhood love of the medium, a desire to be part of a tradition that captured their imagination or impacted them in youth. Some find themselves in the literary realm writing commercial fiction for a sheer love of craft without having much to say. These same writers will themselves claim they're not out to change the world. They may even say they're out simply to entertain and earn a paycheck. For these individuals, life is ostensibly about everything but lofty aspirations, of contributing to the whole of humanity. Life may be about providing for family and sharing joy rather than fretting over global concerns. Making a difference on a grassroots level can feel less overwhelming and futile. Making a difference among one's immediate circle of loved ones can prove more gratifying than charitable attempts to feed the hungry or forge world peace. This author hosts no judgment whatsoever on those artists and storytellers who are content to be a cog and a larger machine, fulfilling a role in production, for example, without any pressing desire to put one's own stories out into the world or make one's personal difference. However, in years of teaching and tracking former students who find themselves working in the industry without telling their personal stories, the former often becomes drudgery and the latter begins to nag. Let us always remember the powerful words of Maya Angelou, there is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside of you. Further, I would caution that as fulfilling as providing for a family can be, once children have flown the coop and empty nest syndrome sets in, old aspirations and deferred dreams often come back to roost. The drive to express one's unique gifts, to tell one's story that's been there all along suddenly takes the front seat again. Then there's the awareness of mortality that comes with aging, in a heartbeat, leaving a mark in the form of a personal legacy is paramount. One's offspring, to be sure, can be counted as legacy. Even so, no matter how thunderous the pitter patter of little feet once rang, expression of personal legacy still nags. Think back to the earlier anecdote of the falsely humble screenwriter with no tolerance for subtext. In the same way the joke was on him, story inherently incorporates the patron's projections. Those who downplay the importance of storytelling may be blissfully ignorant to the role it plays personally and societally. In my teaching, I remind students who would rather not be burdened with learning story structure that those visual development artists they admire certainly have a grasp on story, experts or not. Their work is empowered, if not by an academic understanding of story, then certainly by a love of it. There are plenty of content creators who dismiss elitist views on art and storytelling, who seek strictly to entertain or even consciously subvert by creating lowbrow entertainment. To the purveyors of this mindset, I would say that even this kind of content impacts society and contributes to dialectic. For example, the oxytocin produced by laughter serves to bond the tribe, forging identification, affinity, and altruism, all beneficial to propagation. It's how we're wired. Conversely, content can inadvertently impact society in a negative way. In the earlier chapters, we explored the phenomenon of action-adventure films, habituating audiences to violence or feeding a cultural addiction to adrenaline and cortisol. Far from asserting moralism, this book encourages an awareness of what kind of content one is putting into the universe. Even falsely humble, lowbrow, or unassuming fair with no lofty aspirations to change the world has an inadvertent impact. Such is the power of story. When we are not actively consciously creating, we are creating by default. Concluding the disclaimer. Again, this book is not meant as a call to action to contribute. To the contrary, I have waxed a bit facetious when citing social media's overuse of terms like finding one's voice or purposeful contribution. If anything, this book is meant to provide a roadmap for those who do identify with a calling to contribute. Most today would acknowledge some version of the mind-body soul model when it comes to the human condition. This model is rooted in both Aristotle and Plato's philosophies. Later, Rene Descartes popularized mind-body dualism. The idea of a tripartite soul still resonates. However, Aristotle's tripartite state is another matter. In the most simplistic terms, he believed the state should function as a macrocosmic version of the soul. According to this model, each faction ideally contributed to the whole of society in accordance with its inclinations and gifts reason, appetite, and spirit. Through a modern lens, the elitist overtones of this ideal society proved problematic. What we can take from it, however, is the enduring sense in colloquial terms that it takes all kinds for civilization to function. Put another way, it takes a village. We all have value to the collective by nature. We contribute according to our respective dispositions and inclinations. It's said that art with an agenda becomes propaganda. It may be more accurate to say that art with a quote political agenda loses its merit as it no longer seeks to be appreciated objectively for sheer aesthetic value. Rather, it carries a utilitarian endgame. Even with this distinction in place, art has always been inextricable from social reform. Political agenda is in the eye of the beholder, as is the line between social issues and politics. Humans are social creatures by nature. Society is a mere extension of our humanity. Regardless of where one draws the line between art and propaganda, we must all remain vigilant about

Art Propaganda And Sanitized Culture

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the function of art and storytelling. We must continue to assess for ourselves who is backing it and toward what end. In today's climate, democracies the world over are crumbling to dictatorships. The world's greatest superpowers are oligarchies, totalitarian regimes, or fascist dictatorships. And if certain factions in this country had it their way, the United States would follow suit. Beyond the institutionalized grappling for power, there is a growing sentiment that the populace are incapable of governing themselves or maintaining peace, that individualism and personal liberty must be squelched in order to manage the masses. It's during times like these we must remain hyper-vigilant against fascism, police state ideology, and the usurping of our personal liberties. It's when the pendulum swings toward totalitarianism, we must champion the preservation of individualism that Plato fought for in the face of fascism. In a commendable way, our moral and ethical realm is ever evolving. The contemporary sanitization of history, often called cancel culture, is founded in an understanding that institution often perpetuates counterproductive narratives. Spiritually, this is accurate and empowering to recognize. So is the pain caused by the glorification and memorialization of historical figures and legacies known to have oppressed entire subcultures or populations. For artists, however, the culture of sanitization means one thing. Content suffers. In literature, thematic content gets watered down. In comedy, artists walk on eggshells for fear of offending or being canceled. Nothing is safe to address. So the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity that wants to find art and literature goes unaddressed. Revisionist history has erased many a legacy, especially in the arts. Think the works of Mark Twain banished from reading lists in school. The argument for erasure cites the perpetuation of stereotypes. While the argument for inclusion subscribes to the age old wisdom we must never forget the horrors of history, lest they repeat themselves. Personally, I am torn on this front, both on the microcosmic and macrocosmic level. For those who lived through genocide, the threat of marginalization and ostracization is very real, and they know the signs. They see it coming on the horizon. The regressive policies of the Taliban and the current Iranian regime show how the pendulum of regression can swing on a dime. Even in the U.S., the reversal of Roe v. Wade after 50 years has haunting implications. Ignorance to history is precisely the climate that allows demagogues to gain a foothold. No one can blame older generations for educating the new in the interest of vigilance. Still, we all know repeated mantras have an unintended consequence. The perpetuation of counterproductive narratives that stilt potential and capacity. On a micro level, we all battle personal narratives that keep us from fulfilling our potential. They are hard to undo. This understanding is arguably at the root of revisionist history, a commendable desire to idealize human nature and society, to surround ourselves with images and ideas that champion our capacity rather than our demons. However well intended, this mentality has residual effects. A direct parallel exists in the mainstream of gay culture. When the gay community was marginalized, the ghettoization made for a great deal of fetish, local color, and even inside jokes that came to inform identity politics. Now that the LGBTQ community is more integrated and every club is mixed, some of the richness and fun is a thing of the past. Sure, mainstream tolerance for diversity and inclusion represents progress. But integration with the mainstream comes at the expense of local color and a cultural identity about which many wax nostalgic. Society is always evolving. The trend serves a just cause, that of recognizing when counterproductive tropes and paradigms are perpetuated in media, art, and literature. But when we sanitize life itself, even with an eye toward idealization, something is thrown out with the bathwater. It's daunting to think how art will redefine itself in a climate of censorship and sanitization. In my own work and life, I resist value judgments like positive, negative, good or bad. Still, I'm hyper-aware that when indulging pain in my work, it takes its toll. I know full well my health was taxed when I beat the threadbare drums of narratives I'd outgrown, under the guise of offering up the angst as catharsis. In the same way artists like Billy Holiday or Amy Winehouse paid the price for opening their veins. I felt the toll exacted on my well-being when I perpetuate dysfunctional narratives from my own personal history. There may be a degree of angst inherent in art, but for me, writing is more energizing and less taxing when it's an act of self-creation, of co-creation, of getting my hands in the clay of destiny. Rather than beating old tired drums, I am better served by rewriting lyrics I once thought written in stone. I am empowered by writing my own song. Evolutionarily speaking, our ideals seem to be evolving exponentially. More than ever, our moral realm is taking a front seat. It's logical that along with this arc would come a profound insight. The angst in art can perpetuate man's baser drives. But the question becomes: how will art evolve with these realizations? How will it continue to redefine itself when the good, the bad, and the ugly of humanity is sanitized from culture? Art and storytelling that upholds any ideology is by definition propaganda. My hunch is there will always be a backlash of subversion among artists. Madeline Lingell's works were largely endorsements of individuality in the conformist climate of the 1950s. They were even considered a backlash to ideas like those of Ayn Rand, thought by some to have a fascist slant. This book is a call to action to consider how we can get our hands in the clay of humanity now, how we can self create a place for art and society that is more than propaganda. This is a plea, like that of Aristotle, to put myself in very good company, to uphold and champion all that makes us human. Now go out there and tell your story. The world depends on it.