Let’s Dance

Posted on March 14, 2014 by davidrobinsoncreative
from my cartoon series, FLUB

from my cartoon series, FLUB

[This is a response to my dear friend who believes he will someday be worthy to call himself “artist.”]:

There is a trap that every artist must negotiate: the mistaken notion that “artist” is something you achieve. “Artist” is something that you are (and every child is an artist, wouldn’t you agree?). Art is an exploration of life. Some of the greatest artists in history had no training and no experience. They, like you, enjoy playing with various colors and never followed a textbook or a guideline because art doesn’t happen in textbooks and the only guideline that ultimately matters is in the heart of each individual artist. Art is an exploration. It is a relationship with the mystery.  It is not a prescription. There isn’t A WAY to do it. There is your way. And my way.

Art is an engagement with something intangible and if it is life giving to you, that is all that matters. It gives you life and you bring it to life and that dance of giving and bringing life is the work of the artist. The viewer will never see what you see because they do not have your eyes or your life experience or your heart. They will see what they see and interpret it according to their life-filters. Some people will love your work, some will hate it, most will be indifferent – and that has nothing to do with you. You can’t (nor should you) determine what they see. A painting or photograph is like a doorway: the viewer can step through or not. They can choose to engage or not to engage and you have no power over what they  do or see or feel or think. And, it is vital that you understand that because the notion that you can control what they think is the very thing that leads you to believe that you must pass some credibility test to be deemed and artist. When a viewer engages with a work of art they cease to be a viewer and themselves become an artist. Engagement with art is never passive; it is creative. They enter their own dance of creation. They become creators. Yours is to offer the doorway, not to push people through it.

In truth, the shadow side for the artist in trying to control what other people think is that they give away the essential thing: what they think. Why assign to other people the responsibility for your identity as “artist.” If they like your work then you are an artist? If they hate your work then you are not? You can either serve your heart (art) or please other people but you cannot do both.

I’ve coached a legion of people who set up great studio space for themselves and then never go into it. People are great at creating separation from what they want. They can get close to it (set up the studio) but fear stepping into it (picking up the paint brush) because the act of making art is the act of releasing control. It is to offer without condition. It can be a scary thing to give voice to what you see. It is vulnerable to show your heart to the world. It is only scary until you own it and get out of the trap of valuing other people’s point of view over your own.

Another form of separation is to say, “I will be an artist when I sell my work.” Selling your work does not make you an artist. Making art is what makes you an artist. Acceptance does not make you an artist. Making art is what makes you an artist. 10,000 hours in the studio will make you better and better (meaning freer and freer to express) but it will not make you an artist. You are an artist in the first hour and an artist in the 10,000th hour because you are exploring your relationship with life. You might have better mastery of the tools in the 10,000th hour but “master of tool” and “artist” are two distinctly different things. The  artist uses the tool, the tool does not define the artist.

You have the courage to go to your studio and get lost in an exploration of life through image and color. You lose all sense of time because your relationship with the mystery is pure. And, in the end of the day, who cares if anyone sees you as an “artist;” who cares if you see yourself as an “artist.” All that matters is that you enter that sacred studio place and open yourself to the mystery and say, “Let’s dance.”

Go here to get my latest book, The Seer: The Mind of the Entrepreneur, Artist, Visionary, title_pageSeeker, Learner, Leader, Creator…You.

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Filed under: Art, Creativity, Power, Truly Powerful People | Tagged: , , , | 5 Comments »

Find Your Voice

Posted on March 1, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

722. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Yesterday I worked with teachers and students in an art cadre. We explored what it means to make art.

I am resistant to write, “We made art” because it implies that the “art” was a product, a thing separate from the process. It implies that the “doing” was incidental and the outcome was the thing called “art.” That notion is upside down. The art is not the outcome. The art is the process yet we have no language to correctly express it. What happened in our art cadre was essential. The students and teachers recognized that a great product requires a great process; the process is the essential.

We focused entirely on process because I know that students and teachers alike are all the time squeezed into demonstrating outcomes. They are forced to let go the primary in service to the secondary. Art teachers are generally under siege and always have to prove their value to school districts because school districts see “art” as an incidental. Consequently, art is often taught as a product and therefore not art. It is misunderstood as something non-essential.

There is an entire industry known as “self-help” dedicated to a single, simple impulse: the full expression of the self: how to give full voice to perceptions and ideas without impediment. In other words, how do we get out of our own way? This is a question of process and reachable through “art” when art is understood. Businesses invest fortunes to “brainstorm” new ideas, to see patterns and give form to new conceptions. Perception is the province of “art.” I hear whining from the glass towers of commerce: “Why aren’t schools producing self-directed, critical thinking workers?” Answer: dedicating the focus to outcomes and answer regurgitation (in other words, beat the art out of people) will always produce a hiring pool of anesthetized answer regurgitators. We get what we produce. Self-expression and critical thinking are sister skills. Quash one and we quell the other. Art would seem to be an essential skill for business.

One of the saddest moments of the day came after the cadre. Two teachers stayed to talk. They told me that they knew what they are doing to kids (yes…doing TO kids) is wrong. They are required to produce products. They believe that they have no voice in the matter. They told me that they agreed with everything we explored but must serve the product expectations of their district. I didn’t ask the question I wanted to ask. There seemed no point. I wandered when they would wake up and recognize that supporting a system that they knew to be harming kids was also taking a toll on their health and lives. Voice is not something other people give you. It is something that you have to agree to give away. Voicelessness is a terrible thing to exchange in order to follow a rule, especially if you do not believe in the premise of the rule.

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Cooperate

Posted on February 21, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

714. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

During my drive from Champaign to Omaha, just after sunset, it began to snow. There was a swirling wind and in a matter of moments it was a white out. The road was mostly invisible. Cars immediately fell in line behind cars. Trucks slowed and set a careful pace. People cooperated without debate, without knowledge of the other drivers’ political affiliation, gender, race or sexual orientation. We needed each other. There was no power game or status imperative. All the silly illusions fell away. We needed each other and we did what came naturally. We cooperated.

There is a collision of two great thoughts that I appreciate. The first comes from my friend Roger, a director of plays and studier of humans; he once told me that denial was one of the strongest human impulses. The second thought comes for E.O. Wilson (I’ve rattled this off more than a few times) who said that the strongest human impulse is to belong. Combine the two thoughts and you get an amazing collision of impulses: a species called humans that need to belong to each other but deny it. This contradictory impulse makes possible The Gap or Old Navy; can you deny that you shop at a chain store to express your individuality as a way to belong? I can only imagine that the Martians are having a hey-day studying us.

And then the illusion drops, the second strongest impulse retreats and only the first remains. We need each other. We drive into a white out. The hurricane wipes our city off the map, the earthquake knocks our houses off their foundations. We pull together, put down our need to be right, and line up to help. We see our belonging. We see this thing called “”the common cause,” namely, survival.

The question, then, is obvious: do we need to wait until we’ve exhausted our fuel supply, depleted our aquifers, or warmed our globe before we suspend our denial and see this thing called “the common cause?” More and more contemporary science is finding that we have it all wrong: survival is not something achieved by the fittest; survival is a cooperative art.

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Play For Meaning

Posted on February 12, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

705. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

Horatio took me on a whirlwind tour today. We met his art teacher, Jo, and I listened as they discussed artists like Sylvia Plath and Diane Arbus, artists whose work explores the darker shades of life. Both women killed themselves. Horatio posits that their artistry in some ways chronicled their march toward an inevitable conclusion. Like a raft caught in the current, hurtling toward a waterfall, they determined that there was nothing to be done, no greater meaning to be found, and went over the falls.

Horatio and I often stray into the topic of meaning making. What’s it all about? What is the greater purpose and meaning of this experience of life? I’ve decided that meaning is something we make and not something we find. Meaning is something we bring to the dance. However, we come to the dance with great expectations. We look for someone to dance with, we look for an experience that might lift us from the ordinary routine, we yearn for someone to notice us, we want food to eat, a future to create; we seek experiences. We want more. Life is made sweet in the yearning.

We get lost when we think someone else has what we need or that someone else can fulfill our yearning. Our job is to engage life; no one can do that for us. Our job is to bring our selves to life (I intend the double meaning of that phrase). Our job is not to fulfill another person’s need just as their job is not to fulfill ours. The meaning is in what we bring to the dance; if we bring joy there will be joy. If we bring blame there will be blame.

Tonight Horatio and Teru made a lovely dinner and had a cake for my birthday (coming soon!). Their daughter Nina and her beau Keith came along with Nina’s 4 year-old daughter, Jordan. I spent much of the evening learning from Jordan how to play Chutes and Ladders and a cupcake game. The first rule is that there are no rules. The second rule is that because there are no rules things like winning and losing are ridiculous. The only thing that mattered was that we played. She showed up and I showed up and the rest was imagination and wonder. You’ll be surprised to know that in a single evening I played the role of Santa Claus AND was placed forever on the naughty list (my name is written on the list in magenta crayon). It is an existential dilemma of massive proportion that required the creation of a third rule: naughty and nice are relative terms and who needs lists anyway? Meaning is never found in the list and always found in the play. So, as Jordan taught me tonight: play and the meaning will soon follow.

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Receive

Posted on February 11, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

704. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” Rumi

In the past several weeks I have traveled many places. I’ve spent some time in the house where I grew up. I walked the streets of my boyhood and revisited the sacred sites of my childhood. The houses in the neighborhood seem so small. I’ve had the opportunity to revisit memories, to stand in spots where life seemed to bring overwhelming experiences; these, like the houses, now seem so small. I’ve chuckled more than once at monsters that I used to tote and how, from this vantage point, they seem like stuffed animals, cuddly toys. That is the power of memory, our great capacity to re-member our lives with every visit to the past.

In my walk-about I am consciously pulling down the barriers. I am surrounded by people who love me and whom I love. I am astounded by a generosity of spirit that greets me everywhere I go. I am learning to receive and the curious thing about receiving is that you need do nothing but open or perhaps surrender. The only requirement to receive love is that you show up. Who knew!

During this period of wandering I’ve been working again with the Parcival story and thinking about the moment in the story when Parcival removes his armor. Armor protects but it also restricts. Armor is a great way to not be seen. In order to want to take off your armor you must first put down your sword; you must change your idea of the world and your place in it. Carrying a sword is a great way to keep love away. After dropping your sword, you must be lost for a while and break your rules. Parcival’s sword shatters and he weeps. He removes his armor and follows a hermit into the woods. He stops seeking, stops trying to prove, suspends the fight and starts living moment to moment. And, when he’s forgotten about roles and knights and proving, the Grail castle reappears. He steps inside unprotected and claims his inheritance. He becomes the Grail. Love finds him when he stops looking for love.

Sometimes we wear our past like armor. We hang onto injustice, we identify ourselves by the trauma, and we claim our limitations as if we were born to bear them. I’m learning that these are the barriers we erect against love. To drop the armor all that is required is to let go of the past and re-member. The love, like the Grail castle, is waiting for us. As the hermit says to Parcival when he turns and discovers the castle, “Boy, it’s been there all along.”

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Open Your Words

Posted on February 10, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

703. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

It is an old theme but has floated to the surface of many conversations this week: language is not passive. The language you use orients you to the world.

A few nights ago, Judy and I talked about the power of language, particularly paying attention to language that “closes” as opposed to language that “opens.” For instance, to say, “I can’t” is to use language that closes you to possibility. To say, “I wonder…” is to use language that opens you to possibility. Try it. Pay attention to whether you use language that opens or language that closes you to possibility. Make a game of interpreting your world according to opening to possibilities and pay attention to how your worldview changes.

In another example, Skip helps his students be conscious of their left-brain language of measurement. When they ask if something is good or bad, best or optimal, he’ll ask them to rephrase it so the emphasis is not on a measurement, not on a judgment, but on the engagement. A wine is not “better” or “worse,” it is an experience; describe the experience. Open. Participate. Judgment or measurement removes you from the experience. Step in. Move into the other side of you brain. Judy tells me that she asks students if a choice is “skillful” or “useful” rather than good or bad. Discernment is different than judgment.

It seems like such a small thing. Plenty of people dismiss the notion that their language has power; they tell me that life happens. It does indeed! Life happens and then we story it. We give meaning to our experiences. We interpret our lives. The color, shape, texture, movement, and power we experience are according to the story that we tell.

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Walk Toward The Vanishing Point

Posted on January 17, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

679. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The other day in Melissa’s class, the students were drawing pictures. They were learning about perspective. Most were drawing according to single point perspective: all lines meet at a single spot called the vanishing point. In the drawings, roads and train tracks ran toward the horizon, telephone poles and barns all followed the lines disappearing into a single point.

The lesson will continue for a long time. Now that the students have drawn lines to a single point they will begin exploring the greater implications of perspective. They will discover for themselves that things look radically different according to where you stand. They will learn that you can never occupy another person’s perspective so you will never be able to see what they see (imagine the implications); they will discover that perspective is personal and as varied at there are people on the planet. The possibilities of an exploration in perspective go on and on. We forget that at one point in history artists were mathematicians. Artists were scientists. There wasn’t the separation or the story that we tell today. Imagine the implications for education if we weren’t so blinded by subject separations and so singly prejudiced against the arts. Music is math, after all. Color is either chemistry or optics depending on whether you are mixing paint or light.

The next day, we met with other teachers, each sharing their experiences in the classroom. Beth (an amazing educator) listened to Melissa’s story and said, “I love the term, ‘vanishing point!’ There’s a whole world happening beyond that point and we just can’t see it.” She was lost in thought for a moment and then exclaimed, “Beyond the vanishing point anything is possible!”

Beth deals in possibilities. She is one of the few people I’ve known who recognizes that we actually live at the vanishing point though most of us pretend that we know what’s going to happen. Beth courts the vanishing point. She plays with it. She tries things just to see what will happen. Hang out with Beth and you will jump in puddles, race through tall grass, and take a turn down a road just to see where it leads. She knows that when you walk toward the vanishing point you walk into possibilities. Beth knows that life is vital in the direction of the vanishing point; the foreground of the picture is the present; it is where we currently stand. Beth knows it is the deepest human impulse to say to your self, “I wonder what’s over that hill?” And then follow the impulse. Beth knows this greatest of human impulses is at the heart of great education. Beth knows like Melissa knows, it is so simple and so possible when they are allowed to walk with their students toward the vanishing point instead of being forced to turn away from the horizon and pretend that there is something standardized about learning.

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It’s About Seeing

Posted on January 16, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

678. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The book is starting to take over. I’ve been working on it for a week or so with lots of bumps and uphill pushing. Today it announced where it wanted to go and required that I type a short prologue that I thought was post worthy:

This is a book about seeing.

Not many people see. Most people merely look. Just as most people hear but they do not listen, most people look but they do not see.

And, although this might not make sense yet, seeing has more to do with stories than it does with eyes. It works like this:

Everyone can see as a child. And then something happens. Children learn to name things with words. Then, they learn to spell the words they use to name things. Soon, they grow up and have a hard time seeing beyond their words.

It is a funny paradox about words: they can imprison your mind; they can also set you free. It all depends up how the words are used.

Artist’s and entrepreneurs share this trait: in order to master their craft they must learn to see again. And, in order to see, they must once again understand the power of their words.

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Choose Your Words

Posted on January 15, 2013 by davidrobinsoncreative

677. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

The walls in the bathroom of the Blue Moon are covered in quotes. I’ve spent a fair amount of time passing through that little room over the past four years and I am always pleased to find new quotes. Today this one jumped from the wall:

“One must be leery of words because words turn into cages.” Viola Spolin

I’m working on the chapter about the power of language. I was just writing about how the alteration of a single word can change a person’s perspective. Change one word in your inner monologue and you can change your world. That principle is the point of the classic children’s book, The Little Engine That Could (I think I can, I think I can); how many little engines out there are repeating, “I think I can’t, I think I can’t!”

I meet many people in my travels that tell me they are seeking their purpose. I wonder how their lives would change if, instead of seeking their purpose, they swapped the word “seeking” for “creating;” purpose is not something we find, it is something we fulfill. Purpose is not something that exists separate from us; it is something that exists within us. Imagine how your life might transform if you altered your premise of separation (my purpose is something that I seek) to a premise of generation (my purpose is something that I live). The entire arc of your life might change if you simply altered a single word in your field of expectations. Viola had it half right: words can turn into cages or words can set you free.

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Be The Source

Posted on December 29, 2012 by davidrobinsoncreative

660. Join me in inspiring truly powerful people. Each day I will add a new thought, story or idea to support your quest and mine.

While preparing a new curriculum this morning, I reviewed work from the past and came across this phrase, something I wrote 4 years ago: In our language usage we often say, “_______ gives me joy.” So, for instance, “Painting gives me joy.” This phrasing leads us to believe that the joy is in the painting and you are the recipient of the joy. It leads us to believe that these “things” like joy, happiness, and contentment are external gems, separate from us, something we must seek to find.

Joy, happiness, and contentment are not things, not nouns. The painting does not give you joy, you bring the joy to the experience of painting. The capacity for joy is in you and ignites within you when you put yourself into a generative relationship. As I too often quote Viktor Frankel, “Happiness ensues.” Happiness and joy are not something you seek (separate from you), they are qualities that follow (originating from within you); joy is movement; a feeling is a verb. You are the source not the recipient.

I realize that I am writing a lot lately about the power of language to shape our perception. At present I am in a coffee shop and I just heard the barista tell her coworker that this upcoming year she will learn to say “no.” The couple at the table next to me are having an intense conversation and I just heard, “That’s just the way I am!” followed by, “Why can’t you be happy?” These are stories and the language is not incidental. It matters if you define yourself as separate from you joy. It matters if you believe that you are separate from your creativity or that you must do something to “deserve” happiness. If you define yourself as separate you will live separate from your powers of happiness, joy and contentment. You will think you need to seek them from others. You will define yourself as fundamentally powerless because you will orient yourself toward what you get from experiences instead of recognizing your infinite capacity to bring power to your life, to be power and vibrantly alive. Be the source of dynamic movement instead of a chaser of nouns. It matters.

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