Autonomic Art

I’ve been involved in music since I was a kid. I tried to write songs at a very early age, and I started instrumental music with piano lessons when I was 6 or 7. The piano teacher told my parents I just didn’t have the talent to play because I struggled with it so much, but what was really going on is that my eyes were bad and I couldn’t see the music. No one knew it at the time, but after I got my first pair of glasses, it all went clear. Yet, I didn’t go back to the piano because it cost a lot and too much time had passed, which is a very sad thing for me.

But no one could keep me out of music. I kept trying to write songs. I listened to music like people drink water to stay alive. Then, in fifth grade, they put some of us on recorder flutes and started to teach us melodic notation and, as we prepared for sixth grade, our band teacher asked us what instrument we’d like to play. I said “trombone.” I was very enamored of the trombone. Who wouldn’t be? But she looked at me and said, “You look like a drummer.”

So I was a drummer.

I went on to play drums with school band, drum and bugle corps, a local symphony, rock bands, a country band, a rockabilly band, church bands, so on and so forth. With drums and percussion, I was better at the symphonic and drum corp stuff than playing on the set, but I did okay. I always liked to sing, so I tried my hand at that and did okay. I eventually took guitar lessons and a few piano lessons to get the theory down, and kept writing songs which, for me, was and still is an autonomic response to life.

But I’ve known some musicians and other artists who quit. They just quit playing, quit singing, quit painting, quit their crafting, quit making quilts or building cars and whatnot. They quit producing their art pretty much completely. Which has always been strange to me. I honestly don’t understand it. It makes me wonder why they were doing the thing in the first place. I mean, there are all kinds of petty reasons we might cling to in order to justify our expression of art or craft or skill, when we shouldn’t be trying to justify it at all.

I like this quote from Stephen King. He said,”"Life isn't a support system for art. It's the other way around."

I’m with that.



Peace to you.



© LW Publishing 2011

The Work of Art

There are at least two basic theories about creativity that you hear articulated in different ways by different people.

Theory #1: One theory is that a person creates something out of nothing. Sort of – poof – and they have some new idea or some new song or some new thing. They feel that what they have come up with came out of nowhere.

Theory #2: And then there is the theory that a person creates something out of a kajillion things that they can’t even necessarily understand. The mind is full of puzzle pieces that life has tossed in there, and somehow the mind or the spirit or both begin putting the pieces together until the picture starts to make sense.

I am a theory #2 person. To my way of thinking, only God is a theory #1 person. So I go with #2, and the reason is that I can sense the puzzle pieces floating around within me and in the world. I can sense when they are starting to connect. My job is to do things to help them connect. In my mind, that is the “work” of an artist. To develop the skills that enable you to bring about these connections.

If I’m right about this, it suggests that if you want to be “creative” and you’re waiting for some sudden flash of insight from out of nowhere, you’re not likely to create very much. And if you want to be creative, but you don’t train yourself to do the work necessary to put the pieces together, then I don’t think you’ll produce much either.

Art is not for sissies.

Being creative means developing skills. It’s about craft. Songs, poems, stories, needlepoint, paintings, relationships, cars – whatever – the created thing has to be crafted in one way or another. Albert Einstein did not wake up one morning with the theory of Relativity bouncing around in his head. He agonized over it for a long, long time. He found pieces of the puzzle in the work of other scientists, which he added to other pieces he observed in everyday life. He had to develop his math skills because it wasn’t his strong suit, and he knew he’d need to get the math right to present the theory. He pressed pieces thinking they would fit, but they didn’t, so he had to keep looking. Finally, he managed to put it together. He didn’t create a law of nature. He painted it into his mind and into the minds of other people. Well. A few people. The rest of us just scratch our heads.

But the point is the same. Every work of art takes work. You have to do the work. To my way of thinking, that includes your stories, your paintings, your children, your spouse, your church, your songs, your movies, your theories on life and death, your work, your play . . . everything.

Life is an art.



Colossians 3:23-24

Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2010