The Suffering Artist

In retrospect, I am astounded I could let go of the drama of being a suffering artist.

Nothing dies harder than a bad idea.

And few ideas are worse than the ones we have about art.

We can charge so many things off to our suffering-artist identity: drunkenness, promiscuity, fiscal problems, a certain ruthlessness and self-destructiveness in matters of the heart.


We all know how broke-crazy-promiscuous-unreliable artists are.


And if they don't have to be, THEN WHAT'S MY EXCUSE?

- The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron

Artistic Mandate

My last university assignment was to write my artistic mandate.  This is meant to be measuring stick from which to hold up all future projects, shows, and endeavours to ensure I am doing meaningful, life giving work.  It is important to note that this is an evolving document- even in the month since I wrote this, I have found things I would change.

My encouragement to you is to write your personal mandate.  Whether you are in arts or accounting, being able to articulate what you believe and support is important.  Whether you are faced with big decisions or seemingly insignificant decisions, use your mandate to guide you.  Live intentionally.

My Artistic Mandate

The Vision:

When I dare to dream about my possible future, I see myself doing very physically engaging, thought provoking, truth revealing, and, sometimes painfully, piercing work.  I acknowledge this need in me as an innate desire to create: this mandate is my resolve to nurture my creative passions.  I want to tell stories with the entirety of my body; movement as a language is a knowledge I wish to cultivate.  It is important to me to be a part of creating new Canadian works of art because I believe Canadian artists have unique stories to tell and must do so in creatively and aesthetically stimulating ways.  I place great importance on older, established artists mentoring younger ones. 

The Mission:

I believe in the power of story telling.  I believe that it has the ability to transform lives—both the act of doing theatre and the act of participating as an audience member.  I believe story telling is an integral part of all cultures and must be cultivated and respected.  Stories are powerful because they reflect to humanity what we can become and what we should beware of becoming; truths revealed that we might not have otherwise known.  It is this truth telling that I wish to develop to the best of my ability in myself and then use to empower other people.

The act of making art exposes a society to itself.  Art brings things to light.  It illuminates us.  It sheds light on our lingering darkness.  It casts a beam into the heart of our own darkness and says, “See?”- Julia Cameron

The Mandate:

As an artist, I commit myself to:

-       Life affirming work- art that is redemptive, upholds hope, asks difficult questions without feeding easy answers, and challenges the status quo.

-       Collaboration- working/exploring with other artists to create a collective piece of art.  This includes artists from other disciplines.  I commit myself to cultivating a spirit of collaboration, whether it is a devised piece or someone else’s words.

-       Mentorship- I will find mentors both in my profession and personal life to guide me and encourage me when I get discouraged.  I will seek out those younger than me and invest my time and my self into their development and well-being.

Art lies in the moment of encounter: we meet our truth and we meet ourselves; we meet ourselves and we meet our self expression.  We become original because we become something specific: an origin from which work flows – Julia Cameron

Artistic Values:

I value…

1.     Redemptive stories.

This does not necessarily mean stories with happy endings, rather, it means that the story as a whole does not reflect a despairing and hopeless worldview.  I believe in the hope, truth, beauty, and light that humans are capable of creating.

2.     Art as worship

May my art making always be a fragrant offering to the One who calls me to create.  I trust that if I am open to the power of the resurrection in my life, that God will and does come and join the creative process.

The driving force of God that plunges through me is what I live for – Martha Graham

3.     My Passions, Intrigues, and Abilities

I will pursue that which inspires, captivates, and motivates me without hindrance or worry of what the future brings.  This is not abandonment of responsibility but an acknowledgement of a gift and a commitment to the worthwhile nurturing of the impulse that spurs me to create.

4.     Other Artists

Although isolation is a necessary and healthy part of the creative process, one who stays continually isolated amongst their work is no longer a help to themselves or others.  I recognize my need for others and obligate myself to the artistic community around me.   

The horror of life and an ecstatic awareness of the joys of living, may be true, of every creative intelligence—and from the resultant conflict may arise the state of mind that impels an artist towards aesthetic activity

- Martha Graham

An Air of Finality

Due to an assignment, I find myself reading my first and last journals of my university experience.  I am to write my personal artistic mandate.

This is a fantastic exercise, one that I have already thanked my professor profusely for assigning, and one that I think every artist, nay, every person should take the time to do.

Of the first show I was cast in, I wrote, "Myth will change my life. I know it."

I had absolutely no idea how true those words would be.

So many words I wrote in my first and second year have ended up as prophesies over my life.  How powerful it can be when we write in the name of a calling or a gift.

This time next week I will be the proud owner of the esteemed title: BFA in Acting.

Just pray I don't trip on the way to receiving it.

Okay last one...maybe

In a dancer there is a reverence for such forgotten things as the miracle of the small beautiful bones and their delicate strength. In a thinker there is a reverence for the beauty of the alert and directed and lucid mind. In all of us who perform there is an awareness of the smile which is part of the equipment of gift of the acrobat. We have all walked the high wire of circumstance at times. We recognize the gravity pull of the earth as he does. The smile is there because he is practicing living at the instant of danger. He does not choose to fall.

-Martha Graham

satisfy me in the morning with your love

A darkened room

with a darkened door

satisfied by the squeaking chair

of your rolling, wayward heart

my love

i say as I slip into subconscious

behaviour

waking up without you is half alive

half a person

compliant with mortality.

i am not.

A Great Privilege

About the artist:

"You are a great public servant," [Martha] told her dancers. "You are fulfilling a person's dream of what a man and a woman can be or should beware of being. Sometimes you are doing something for them because they cannot do it for themselves, at least not in the same way. So you are a servant to the public and that is a great privilege and a great honor."

"I believe that we learn by practice. Whether it means to learn to dance by practicing dancing or to learn to live by practicing living, the principles are the same. In each it is the performance or a dedicated precise set of acts, physical or intellectual, from which comes shape of achievement, a sense of one's being, a satisfaction of spirit. One becomes in some area an athlete of God."

You Always Reveal Yourself to Me Through Movement

Martha Graham, teaching a dance class, looked down at a dancer straining rather than strengthening his body and said,

"My child, my child, remember the divinity of your spine. It is your own tree of life. Everything branches out from it."