Going to the Dogs: Labrador Vs. Chihuahua
Which artist are you?
My Guide Dog, Kody, and I were crossing the street when a woman passed us walking two Chihuahuas. Toy chihuahuas. Little tiny things no bigger than my hand.
The dogs began growling and scrabbling at the pavement, trying to reach my sixty pound yellow Labrador Guide Dog, who promptly dove for cover beneath my skirt, and hid his face in my leg in stark terror. The itty bitty menaces were ten feet away, and yet my seasoned, fearless Guide Dog was reduced to a huddled up, crumpled pile of furry terror in the face of all that yapping, snapping power. Hmmm… not quite sure what that says about Kodak’s ability to fight off monsters, but I am sure of one thing.
We as artists are just as bad as Kody! How many times have you read through an opera score and wanted to play the leading character, but thought to yourself, “There is no way in hell I’d ever be cast for that role; I am just not good enough.” You’ve had years and years of training, you bring down the house when you do recitals, but somehow auditioning for the role of your dreams is tabeau? Yeah, you’re Kody.
Have you been ogling a window in a high-end gallery every time you walk by, envisioning your paintings hanging there with a hundred thousand dollar price tag attached? And then you go home, and refuse to pick up a paintbrush because if you took that much time away from the kids, you’d be a bad parent. Yeah, You are Kody, too.
Maybe you pick up the New York Times and scan the lists, and choke on your morning coffee because you wish it was your name on that page with the number one bestseller. Or you wish it was you walking onto that stage at the Grammy’s and holding that shiny trophy in your hot little hands. But your guitar sits collecting dust rather than fingerprints, and your finished novel sits in the closet because you can’t stand the thought of another rejection letter. You are Kody, too!
Stop hiding your face out of tiny little inconsequential fears, and start doing your job! Kodak faces down buses, huge airplanes, and things as a Guide dog that would make most of us cringe! He never flinches when a truck rumbles by inches from his paws. He just leads me fearlessly wherever life takes us. So should your creativity as an artist lead you. You have too much to do to let a little thing like fear snap and snarl at you, sending you scurring to an imagined safe haven. Kodak, after realizing that mom wasn’t going to whip out a flaming sword and slay the advancing villains, got himself under control, and realized that he had to be a big strong Guide dog. It was up to him to save his human from the scourges of little dogs, by guiding her safely away. :-d
Was Kody in danger from two walking pipsqueak bad guys? Not a chance. Are you in danger if you audition, or paint for that window spot or write? No. Will you be embarrassed if you don’t get the part the first time you audition? Yes, and the second and the third time… it’s called rejection. It’s part of being an artist. Eventually, when you learn it’s only a little nip, and it doesn’t leave your throat cut open, you’ll get up and do it again. You will if you love your art enough.
Things like fear, rejection—things that hold you back from getting your art where you want it to go, they are the chihuahuas, and you are the Big strong Guide Dog. Or are the roles reversed. Are you going to be the little guy barking at the weirdest things and chasing after things a zillion times bigger than you?
Some days you’re the windshield, and some days you’re the bug. Some days you’re the Guide dog, and some days, You are the Chihuahua.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Sunday, September 6, 2009
Learning from the Masters: Timing is Everything
I am an avid reader, but often times, I get a few pages into a book, and drop it because I “can’t get into it.” Either the characters don’t appeal to me, or I’ve figured the plot out already, or there’s not enough reality to make the book believable… A good book is like a good song. You know after the first few bars of a song if this is something you want to stick around for or not. You either sing along, turn it up and rock out, or make a grab for the skip button.
One of the keys to art is timing. And lately, as we flood the bookshelves and music download sites with product, timing gets lost in our drive to put product out. Okay, do not get me wrong here… I’m under deadlines, too, I have to make money doing this, so I’m all about that bottom line, but beneath that business side of me lurks the perpetual artist. Have you ever stood in front of an impressionist painting in a museum, and seen faces, and turned to leave, thinking you were bored? Then, just as you drew your eyes away… something made you look again. You stand there for several minutes, engrossed in watching the light play on the brush strokes, waiting for whatever-it-is to appear again. Slowly, the silhouette of a magnificent woman emerges through the blurred lines. No matter what artform you work with, writing, painting, performing… we all have to be the masters of timing, so that just when the person thinks those faces are not worth a second glance the light glimmers on a strand of the woman’s hair, and the onlooker gasps in understanding and surprised wonder.
Two of my favorite masters of artistic timing are Pieter Tchaikovsky and Brandon Sanderson. They are masters, specifically, of the climax. No, I know where your mind is wandering… please retrieve it before it falls into the gutter… I mean that edge-of-your-seat, is-it-going-to-end-like-that, I-can’t-take-one-more-sus-chord/sword-swing climax. How many times do you listen to a symphony or concerto by the brilliant Russian composer and know that he’s going to end it there--and suddeny he sends it off in a whole new direction and you’re left wondering what happened? Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn fantasy series, does the same exact thing with words that Tchaikovsky does with music. They slowly work their way into your mind, messin with your emotions so subtlely that by the time you notice, oops, it’s too late, you’ve been bewitched, and you can’t help but turn that next page or shush your chattering date so you can hear the next note of the cello.
The master artist takes his time, and isn’t concerned with how long it takes to get your attention. He knows he has you from the get go. He can afford, not by virtuie of his meager paycheck, but by virtue of his total command of his art, to take his time and set up every little detail just the way he wants it. Like dominos, when the finale falls, the words or notes do so seamlessly, spectacularly, in perfect rhythm with your emotions. He moves beyond that place of fear-driven creation, and into a form of art fueled by the subject itself.
Brandon Sanderson takes six hundred pages to tell his story, but you know from page one that you’ve picked up something worth reading. Every page demands your attention, lest you miss that one little detail that seals the whole thing together. Every scene makes a difference, every word leads you one step closer to that cliff-hanging conclusion. Then he throws you headfirst over the edge of the cliff… and leaves you dangling there for a while… before jerking you up again by a single thread, only to throw you over again just to make you squirm. He takes his time, setting every character’s thought, every nuance of the world he has created, so that you get hopelessly sucked in. The story may seem to drag, but you keep turning the pages, and making your eyes (or fingers or ears) read every word, even in the slow parts, just so you know that one little detail that makes the whole book make sense at the end. These are the kind of books where you can’t just flip to the last chapter and read ahead to learn what happens when things get boring. A: you’ll have no idea what’s going on, and B: you don’t want to miss a thing along the way because there are thousand little climaxes hidden on the way to the big one! It’s like a literary wedding night or fireworks show; the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
And Tchaikovsky’s even worse! Talk about a wild ride! Just when you think you’ve figured out the melody, he builds it, note by note, horn by horn, beat by agonizingly drawn-out beat until the orchestra has you in a musical strangle-hold… and then it drops back to a single violin letting out one haunting note, and that whole building process starts all over. You can’t help but glance at the program and wonder if you moved into the next movement of the symphony, but no, not enough time has elapsed… and the conductor’s hand never dropped.
Just when you get yourself oriented to this new melodic idea, he builds it up again, letting the cellos break your heart, and the French horn set you on edge and the drums shake you apart… and then he drops it suddenly to a complete caesura. Finally, just when you’re about to burst… A lone clarinet gives rise to a whole new idea. And over, and over he works his magic on your mind and ears, building just a little bit with each successive melodic motif until they all culminate at the end, leaving you breathless, holding your clenched hands together, begging for release. He draws each note of the final climax and resolution out with slow ecstasy, milking every last emotion out of you with a practiced hand, and a well-placed formata or two. Playing his music is spectacular, but sitting in the audience, hearing a good orchestra do it… is indescribable.
Both men have complete command of their art form, to the point where you can only witness it and marvel, and enjoy the art for what it is. When I read Sanderson’s books, I know that the long journey, the myriad details and the cruel twists and turns add up to a momentus gestalt worth every minute I spent reading. Likewise, listening to Tchaikovsky’s music--whether ballet, symphony, concerto or song--leaves me in awe of what a masterful hand can do with a few simple notes and a vast array of sounds.
In my own artwork, I can strive to emulate these men, creating not for the sake of productivity, but for the sake of the product itself. Not for the sake of fear, but for the sake of joy. Know that the art will be enough if you let it lead you. Follow real human emotions, perceptions and logic, and the art that results will captivate you audience.
So who are your favorite artistic masters, and why?
-Sassy
One of the keys to art is timing. And lately, as we flood the bookshelves and music download sites with product, timing gets lost in our drive to put product out. Okay, do not get me wrong here… I’m under deadlines, too, I have to make money doing this, so I’m all about that bottom line, but beneath that business side of me lurks the perpetual artist. Have you ever stood in front of an impressionist painting in a museum, and seen faces, and turned to leave, thinking you were bored? Then, just as you drew your eyes away… something made you look again. You stand there for several minutes, engrossed in watching the light play on the brush strokes, waiting for whatever-it-is to appear again. Slowly, the silhouette of a magnificent woman emerges through the blurred lines. No matter what artform you work with, writing, painting, performing… we all have to be the masters of timing, so that just when the person thinks those faces are not worth a second glance the light glimmers on a strand of the woman’s hair, and the onlooker gasps in understanding and surprised wonder.
Two of my favorite masters of artistic timing are Pieter Tchaikovsky and Brandon Sanderson. They are masters, specifically, of the climax. No, I know where your mind is wandering… please retrieve it before it falls into the gutter… I mean that edge-of-your-seat, is-it-going-to-end-like-that, I-can’t-take-one-more-sus-chord/sword-swing climax. How many times do you listen to a symphony or concerto by the brilliant Russian composer and know that he’s going to end it there--and suddeny he sends it off in a whole new direction and you’re left wondering what happened? Brandon Sanderson, author of the Mistborn fantasy series, does the same exact thing with words that Tchaikovsky does with music. They slowly work their way into your mind, messin with your emotions so subtlely that by the time you notice, oops, it’s too late, you’ve been bewitched, and you can’t help but turn that next page or shush your chattering date so you can hear the next note of the cello.
The master artist takes his time, and isn’t concerned with how long it takes to get your attention. He knows he has you from the get go. He can afford, not by virtuie of his meager paycheck, but by virtue of his total command of his art, to take his time and set up every little detail just the way he wants it. Like dominos, when the finale falls, the words or notes do so seamlessly, spectacularly, in perfect rhythm with your emotions. He moves beyond that place of fear-driven creation, and into a form of art fueled by the subject itself.
Brandon Sanderson takes six hundred pages to tell his story, but you know from page one that you’ve picked up something worth reading. Every page demands your attention, lest you miss that one little detail that seals the whole thing together. Every scene makes a difference, every word leads you one step closer to that cliff-hanging conclusion. Then he throws you headfirst over the edge of the cliff… and leaves you dangling there for a while… before jerking you up again by a single thread, only to throw you over again just to make you squirm. He takes his time, setting every character’s thought, every nuance of the world he has created, so that you get hopelessly sucked in. The story may seem to drag, but you keep turning the pages, and making your eyes (or fingers or ears) read every word, even in the slow parts, just so you know that one little detail that makes the whole book make sense at the end. These are the kind of books where you can’t just flip to the last chapter and read ahead to learn what happens when things get boring. A: you’ll have no idea what’s going on, and B: you don’t want to miss a thing along the way because there are thousand little climaxes hidden on the way to the big one! It’s like a literary wedding night or fireworks show; the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
And Tchaikovsky’s even worse! Talk about a wild ride! Just when you think you’ve figured out the melody, he builds it, note by note, horn by horn, beat by agonizingly drawn-out beat until the orchestra has you in a musical strangle-hold… and then it drops back to a single violin letting out one haunting note, and that whole building process starts all over. You can’t help but glance at the program and wonder if you moved into the next movement of the symphony, but no, not enough time has elapsed… and the conductor’s hand never dropped.
Just when you get yourself oriented to this new melodic idea, he builds it up again, letting the cellos break your heart, and the French horn set you on edge and the drums shake you apart… and then he drops it suddenly to a complete caesura. Finally, just when you’re about to burst… A lone clarinet gives rise to a whole new idea. And over, and over he works his magic on your mind and ears, building just a little bit with each successive melodic motif until they all culminate at the end, leaving you breathless, holding your clenched hands together, begging for release. He draws each note of the final climax and resolution out with slow ecstasy, milking every last emotion out of you with a practiced hand, and a well-placed formata or two. Playing his music is spectacular, but sitting in the audience, hearing a good orchestra do it… is indescribable.
Both men have complete command of their art form, to the point where you can only witness it and marvel, and enjoy the art for what it is. When I read Sanderson’s books, I know that the long journey, the myriad details and the cruel twists and turns add up to a momentus gestalt worth every minute I spent reading. Likewise, listening to Tchaikovsky’s music--whether ballet, symphony, concerto or song--leaves me in awe of what a masterful hand can do with a few simple notes and a vast array of sounds.
In my own artwork, I can strive to emulate these men, creating not for the sake of productivity, but for the sake of the product itself. Not for the sake of fear, but for the sake of joy. Know that the art will be enough if you let it lead you. Follow real human emotions, perceptions and logic, and the art that results will captivate you audience.
So who are your favorite artistic masters, and why?
-Sassy
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