discipline | The Direction of Intention

Stand Out [David’s blog on Two Artists Tuesday]

Posted on January 30, 2024 by davidrobinsoncreative

Yesterday, in our basement reorganization shuffle, I moved my paintings. It is not a small task to move the remains of a life’s work. At this point, I’ve moved them hundreds of times: between studios, into and out of shows, within a studio space to make more space. Paintings take up a lot of space. Besides my clothes, my unsold paintings have been the extent of my possessions most of my adult life. During this latest painting-location-change I realized what an oddity I must sometimes seem. It sparked some random recall and minor revelation.

It’s not always easy to be a sore thumb, the one one that sticks out; the one doing life a bit differently than the expected norm. The lone tree in a vast field.

I read this quote this morning from Robert Pirsig‘s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “Schools teach you to imitate. If you don’t imitate what the teacher wants you get a bad grade…Originality on the other hand could get you anything – from A to F. The whole grading system cautioned against it.”

One of my favorite activities to do with teachers comes straight out of Augusto Boal and the Theatre of the Oppressed. Each teacher “reenacts” for their peers the simple ritual of preparation they do each morning for the upcoming day. The revelation was always the same. “I’m preparing to control my students,” a wide-eyed teacher gasped when the penny dropped, “It’s the opposite of what I want to do.”

We live in the church of the individual yet the message we actually preach is conformity.

I had the opportunity to create a school-within-a-school and I followed the popcorn path suggested by Neil Postman. He wrote that “learning” in our system conditions students to suss-out what teacher wants and regurgitate it. It was possible to kickstart their original impulse toward curiosity but it would require a bloody battle of about six weeks. Hold the line. Don’t fill in the blank for them. And one day, in a fit of anger and defiance, one student would take the brave step and say, “This is what I want to learn!” Support the step of the defiant one and the rest of the students would follow. They would dare to speak their truth and follow their passion. Postman was right! The battle was bloody. It took exactly six weeks.

This is the ubiquitous misunderstanding about originality: it requires the removal of boundaries, the absence of control. A free-for-all. The opposite is true. The most disciplined people I’ve ever known are artists. Their discipline is internal, not imposed. It was the seed of the question I’d ask the teachers after their uncomfortable revelation: “What would it look like if each day you prepared to unleash the student’s curiosity? What, then, would you have to control?” It was an uncomfortable question. It would require them, probably in anger and defiance, to take a brave step. To stand out. To do something different. To expect their students, through the pursuit of their burning questions, to control themselves.

Everyone has a unique star to follow. Sometimes they simply need help to see it.

read Kerri’s blogpost about THE LONE TREE

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Education, Flawed Wednesday, Possibility | Tagged: artistry, conform, conformity, control, curiosity, david robinson, davidrobinsoncreative.com, discipline, individual, Kerri Sherwood, kerri sherwood itunes, kerrianddavid.com, kerrisherwood.com, meaning making, Neil Postman, originality, passion, revelation, Robert Pirsig, story, studio melange, teachers, teaching, the melange, truth, zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance | Leave a comment »

Harness The Energy [on KS Friday]

Posted on August 9, 2019 by davidrobinsoncreative

boundaries song box copy

Lately, in my new role as co-managing director of a performing arts space, I find myself repeating the same simile/metaphor over and over and over and over… (insert Kerri’s eye roll). This week, my favorite-simile-repetition goes something like this: communication is like a river, it needs proper banks if it is going to flow. Without banks, it spills out all over the place flooding basements and creating havoc.

Needless to say, our job thus far is largely about placing proper banks on this flood plain of communication. Placing proper banks, at first, creates consternation and resistance. No one likes a limit until the limit works in their favor, until the constraint makes life easier.

Boundaries. Limits. Constraints. It is what I adore about the arts: freedom of artistic expression is the result of discipline, technique, and practice. And, the heart-desire of discipline, technique and practice is unfettered play. It is a paradox. It is boundaries placed on a rushing torrent so it can flow. The harnessing of creative energy. Communication is an intentional art and art is communication with an intention.

Kerri’s BOUNDARIES is a bubbling brook, bright with the morning sun, tumbling and playful within its banks. It seems so easy, her flow. But I know the truth. This ease and flow, this call to put your feet in the brook and rest for awhile with the sun on your face, comes from the years and years of hours and hours and hours of practice. Boundaries. A riverbank, a limit that will work in your favor. It is the creative flow through a heart that desires to play and play and play.