“This is a man’s sport… You can’t go in there with doubts. You can’t accept failure, and you certainly can’t go into a situation thinking, ‘Oh, gosh, what’s going to happen?’ You make what’s going to happen. This game isn’t for negative emotions, or being scared.” – Brian Wilson, San Francisco Giants pitcher, as quoted in the SF Chronicle

Mr. Wilson is talking about baseball, of course, but this quote really struck a chord with me.

My disclaimers: Sports and Dance are close cousins. I think professional dancers and athletes share physical ferocity, grace, and attitudes. And isn’t this world STILL “a man’s sport”? Isn’t the art world, too? It definitely feels like it sometimes.

My other disclaimer: What follows is by no means a finished or polished manifesto or artist statement. But it’s probably better that way. It’s just a continuing discussion.

DONE WITH DISCLAIMERS! Onward…

Lately, I’ve been struggling with my confidence in many areas of my life – work, dance, art, love. I find myself constantly wondering, “What is my direction?” What is my focus? What am I striving for? Why am I always pushing myself and doing what others consider to be “too much.” Is it too much? Why do I stretch myself over several arenas of art instead of staying in just one?

The answer is is that I can’t help myself. I love art. And I have a wide-spectrum understanding of all that the word “art” may encompass. Above all, I love creating, so I don’t feel the need to limit myself to one medium. And here’s the thing – I’ve begun to realize that the art, and the things that I make – choose me.

Recently, I started a new dance for camera project. I really felt stuck at some points in the process. I haven’t even looked at the footage yet, but I have this underlying fear that nothing I shot was worthwhile. But time limits my ability to re-shoot. I know I’ll have to work with what I’ve got. At one point in the process, I wondered, “Why am I doing this? I have so much going on – why can’t I just set this aside? Maybe even – dare I say it – give up on it?”

There are projects like that, I know – where you have to just understand that maybe now is not the time for it to happen. But this was not one of those projects. I know because as soon as I had that thought, my next thoughts turned to how many people I had talked to about this project, how long I had been thinking about it, the band who had agreed to contribute the music to it, even the nameless, voiceless, subjects of inspiration – this project was for them now. It’s not about me.

This is how art and dance and creating takes on spiritual connotations for me at times. I know what I’m making is good and true and solid when it feels pulled out of me – like I’m a channel for something bigger than me.

I constantly return to a quote from one of my favorite novels – Sabriel, by Garth Nix: “Does the Walker choose the Path, or the Path the Walker?” The way I rephrase it when it comes to my work is: “Does the Artist choose the Art, or the Art the Artist?”

This new dance for camera project has many themes, but the main one – and perhaps the one that I return to in most of my work – is mystery. I am drawn to mystery. Maybe this is why I feel at home in modern dance, which is an abstract art form. For me, the question is always more intriguing than the answer. In my pieces, I try to ask good questions rather than preachy answers. Of course my work is imbued with my “answers”  – my perspective, opinions, background, socio-economic status, etc. I know that I only have so little control over that aspect. But I hope in a dedication to mystery, my work becomes accessible to my audience. (There is always the danger that they are not interested in the questions being posed, but that’s another factor I have little control over that.)

What I’ve learned in making dance and art is that no matter what I plan, how I budget, what I think the piece will look like when finished, the facts remain: The project will ALWAYS take longer than I think, the process NEVER goes according to plan, and the product USUALLY surprises me when finished. (At least I can proudly say, I’ve always been on budget.)
And I am often frustrated by what seems like a lack over control over my own process, but I realize how much making art is an interaction with mystery. Who’s in control here? Again, the Artist or the Art? The vision that I start with is only the seed for the garden that grows over time. We’re not surprised when bare dirt becomes a forest – how can I be surprised when the art that emerges in the end looks very little like what I started with?

This is not to say that I shouldn’t plan or budget or be fully invested in working hard in the process. It’s a balance of that and trusting what’s happening in the moment with the process and knowing that whatever the outcome, that’s what the piece IS. As one of my university mentors, the choreographer Michelle Ellsworth, said, “Listen to your art – what does the PIECE want?”

I hope I’m making sense here. I’m realizing more and more that my thoughts and statements about art really do approach a spiritual confession for me. Heretical, probably, but again, art is more than a hobby or even my passion – it’s my interaction with the Universe.

This thought is helpful to me when I return to that question of why am I striving and pushing so hard? I never feel like what I’m doing is enough. I struggle with the desire and idea of becoming a “professional artist.” What does that even mean? Why do I have certain expectations and images associated with that, that I think I have to adhere to?

My path will not look like anyone else’s.
I make what’s going to happen. But I can trust in the act of making, I am not in control.
I can’t own my art, since it was never mine to begin with – but I can trust my deep underlying drive at being a creator and feeling at one with the Universe when I create.
There’s no room for fear or doubt – only the love of the work.