“Fame! I wanna live forever…”

Maeve and I just sent Clark out to Vulcan Video to get the movie FAME.  (Vulcan Video is our last surviving Austin original home-grown video store. If you can’t find it at Vulcan, the movie does not exist.)  Why FAME? Maeve has been accepted at the McCallum Fine Arts Academy for high school.  It is the closest thing to the Performing Arts High School Model in New York on which the movie FAME was based.
I must confess that I was initially hesitant to support Maeve’s decision to go to McCallum. It is a public school (where are my politics now?) and Austin inner city schools certainly have their problems. Maeve also applied to two St.’s–St. Stephens and St. Andrews.  But the Saints have yet to come marching in with admission acceptances, and Maeve has decided she wants a public school experience after years of private, so here we are.  Actually, I am surprised by my initial  concern about her choice of visual arts. Because I am a visual artist one would think I would want to encourage my child in this direction since she has such aptitude, talent and propensity to do so!  Ah, it seems that for all my bohemian open-mindedness there is a conservative streak in me when it comes to my kids’ education.  I really had Maeve pegged as an “academic” (which she is) and thus wanted to encourage her to go to a school with a concentration in liberal arts to help develop her amazing intellect.  Alas, as all parents learn sooner or later, our children have minds of their own, and an inclination to do what they want to do.

I am not worried about Maeve. She will be fine wherever she goes. And truly, an art education can provide her with the skills necessary for survival in the 21st century: flexibility, adaptability, right-brain mode development. Indeed, I saw a book recently that talked about the importance of liberal and fine arts in educating people to be able to think creatively.  To have a child excited about art is such a thrill–and to have a program in our midst which encourages students to pursue a career in the arts could not be more perfect.

So we watched the FAME kids dance and sing and blunder their way through the NYPerforming Arts School, which did not minimize the vicissitudes and challenges of pursuing a career in the fine arts.  And my daughter and I smiled, knowing that her adventure lies before her and I will be dancing and singing and drawing along with her as she realizes her dream of being an artist.

The art scene.  I think of Andy Warhol and cavernous, drafty soho lofts with floors covered in paint.  I see Basquiat paintings, large and outrageous covering the walls, with black-clad hipsters milling about holding glasses of wine, making Barnard or NYU-educated remarks about the art. I see model-tall, anorexic women, lovely, with haunted expressions, smoking cigarettes. looking intense and earnest.  The scene is hip, hip, hip.

I was at a  gallery opening here in Austin last night which is what inspired my thinking about the art-scene( as I have imagined it above).  Alas,  there were no Basquiats or Warhols on the wall, just lots of photos and paintings and drawings of nude models. The place was small, but tasteful, with high ceilings and clean concrete floors. It’s small size made it feel intimate, conducive to conversing with other people looking at the art. It was really nice to have a “waiter” come around and offer small glasses of red or white wine, and I made a note to myself of the practicality and cost-effectiveness of this strategy of providing alcohol to a lot of people.

As I watched people come into the gallery, I did see model-thin women–a few with what my daughter would call “emo makeup,”  and some black-clad men with a token tattoo here and there.  And the purple-cloaked woman who sashayed into the room certainly caught my eye, as did the young woman in black patent-leather thigh-high boots. Ah, and one young woman who I overheard to be one of the nude models in some of the photographs, showed up wearing a feathered mask.

I stood there in my own “Free-People” labeled cashmere sweater, with modest green earrings, blue- jeans (which cost a fortune) and red high-heels, marveling at the costuming–the artfulness of the people. I smiled knowing I was not hip, nor will I ever be.  It was enough for me to see my two paintings on the wall of this juried exhibit. Even more thrilling, a friend of mine bought one of those paintings. And, I was grateful to have the opportunity to show a bit of the Austin art world what calligraphers are up to these days. (or at least what this calligrapher is up to!)

I left the party early as more revelers came in. Perhaps some of the wilder belly-dancing costumes on some of the women coming into the exhibit could be explained by the fact that Studio II Gallery is next to Lucila’s Belly-Dancing studio.  This is the same Lucila who sponsors the monthly full-moon drum circle of which my husband and I are regular attendees . And the gallery is also near Plum Blossom Studio where I occasionally enjoy massages and acupuncture treatments, facials and tarot-readings. My house is a stone’s throw away from all of these places–my own “Scene” of art, home, health and community.

In response to the ongoing debate about calligraphy ( is it art or craft; is illegibility okay? what about formal vs. handwriting?),  I wrote the following, part of which I recently calligraphed in my class in California:

Ecclesiastes of Calligraphy

For every piece there is

a time to rule up

a time to jump outside the lines

a time to be formal

a time to improvise

a time to be legible

a time to be illegible

a time to use nibs

a time to use chopsticks

a time to use color

a time for black and white

a time to doodle

a time to put well-behaved lettering on the lines

a time to be silly and fey

a time to be ominous and serious

a time to use gothic

a time to use your own handwriting

For every piece

There is reverence for the client who appreciates fine work:

there is hope that art will bring healing into the world

there is joy for being gifted as an artist,

for making things that matter

there is an honoring of posterity in making artifacts that can last beyond our years,

there is love of humanity for our ability to express ourselves through art

there is payment which goes beyond the money we receive;

for every piece there  is an opportunity to express our uniqueness, to dance with lines and color on a multitude of surfaces, to seize the moment and truly LIVE

I am one of the most fearful, cautious people I know. Or at least I used to be.  It is thus odd to me that the art I do is all about risk: I improvise, trust my intuition, go with my gut. During my “free play” improvisations things come out which surprise me–and it sometimes feels so uncomfortable to not know where I am going.

As a teacher, I feel compelled to offer students an opportunity to take risks in a safe, encouraging environment. My own experience has shown that a willingness to go off the well-trodden path can often lead to discoveries that can change the course of one’s artistic direction and experience. Rather than try to lead people where I think they should go , I try to encourage them to trust themselves, to use the exercises and techniques I offer as jumping off points; I try to help them find their own WAY.  Sometimes I underestimate the need for people to have more structure; sometimes I overestimate peoples’ ability to deal with discomfort. In taking my own risks as a teacher, I am bound to fail sometimes.

Failure. Ah, my worst fear. Or is it?  I think about the word…then feel the feelings, then think again..and I start to smile. I start to laugh!! Ah, how ridiculous. I am a wonderfully imperfect human teacher trying to help other people relax into themselves and I am worried about failure?

Back to risk. I will continue to risk being human–to experiment, to try new things, even if they don’t ultimately pan out.  If I don’t follow my own heart, trust my own WAY, then I can offer very little to any one else.

I really do feel the fear and do it anyway.  Teaching, making art, living life—it is all one big trust walk and I am so happy to be in the thick of it.

Being content.  It seems the artist’s lot is one of constant anxiety. Haunting questions such as, “do I have anything worth saying?” or “am I good enough” or “will I ever sell anything?”can be a familiar mantra in one’s head.  And then there is the isolation one experiences when one chooses to make art. More anxious thoughts  arise such as “my friends will disown me for hiding,” or “why am I so selfish?”, all contributing to a general feeling of unrest.  It takes time–lots of time–alone to develop ideas, to muck around in the paint or drawing or sculpture without guarantee that anything decent will emerge. Who knows, maybe nothing will happen and all that time will be wasted.

Being content. In the face of the myriad struggles which we face as artists, can we really be content?  I was challenged to reconsider the “artist as angst-ridden soul” in a workshop I took with Ewan Clayton in the mountains of North Carolina. He was presenting a Japanese concept (I don’t know what to call it, really) or aesthetic called Wabi Sabi.  In the context of that presentation, he talked about art arising from contentment, not anxiety.   I immediately distrusted this notion, thinking that only through blood, sweat and tears could something worthy of being called art emerge from my being.

I am reconsidering this distrust.  I look at a flower and I draw it. I am peaceful in my observation and joyous in putting down the lines.  Ah, my breath is even and steady.  I really love to draw that flower, I am content.

I feel this way in life-drawing class.  Indeed, I have experienced such peaceful, content moments as I observe and draw the models before me.  Because I have been at this practice for awhile, I know better than to worry about perfection. I simply try to really see and then draw what I see. All the while, content to just BE in the moment.  The same feeling arises when I write calligraphy. I dance my calligraphic line across the page and look in wonder at the connections I have made over the years: I have finally grasped all the basics and can put them together freely in my own way. Not perfect, but the writing is my own.

Anxiety of any kind is highly overrated.  I challenge myself to more times of being content, of allowing what IS  to be..what is.  To let things rise and fall, ebb and flow, to move with the current, to surrender to something larger than me. Life.  Love. Connection.