Creating or Mimicking

I recently met the late Srinivasa Ramanujan in a magnificent biography by Robert Kanigel which I reviewed on my blog site. I bring him back up in this blog because Ramanujan taught me something of value. Even though his area of creativity was mathematics, I saw its application to those of us who are writers, for in a sense, art is art. And when a person delves into the mysteries of pure mathematics, they indeed are involved in a creative process not unlike someone who faces the blank page or empty dance floor or musical score without notes. How these thoughts came together was when I was reading an article in Writers Ask a quarterly publication by GlimmerTrain. The article was a compilation of interviews from a large sampling of writers, seeking their thoughts on research they do to write their novels. The line that caught my attention was this:

“…Then when I’m sure about the structure of my story, I almost always go back and review a few of [Raymond] Carver’s endings to make sure I haven’t overdone it.”

I love Raymond Carver as a poet, essayist and short story writer. He was a most talented man. Interestingly, like Ramanujan, Carver had little education were he to be compared to the writers in the interview. I remember reading somewhere about the moment he saw his first magazine and realized there were such things, so humble were his beginnings. His greatness came from a combination of a life lived hard yet honestly and his fierce determination to get his view of the world onto paper. He had influence along the way in the form of his editor, so much influence that he eventually had to break off the relationship. His integrity required of him that he find his own way. So it was with Ramanujan when he wrote in his reference letter while seeking a position that would compensate him for doing his work:

“I have not trodden through the conventional regular course which is followed in a university course, but I am striking out a new path for myself.”

There is a reason for this parallel thinking and that is because true

creativity is wholly the creator’s work. Yes, we have mentors, but we must seek them not for how they do things but how we respond to what they are doing. Then it is ours to discover how we can get a similar response from our readers. There is a fine line between mimicry and creativity. The mockingbird can’t be faulted for his amazing reproduction of the sounds around him, but he will never trump the warbler for sheer ethereal songs. As artists, we must be ever so encouraged to find out what it is within us that we are driven to share and be equally driven to have it be our unique contribution, one that spills out of our own life through our own exclusive means of expression.

I can’t ever imagine ending one of my short stories like Carver did for I don’t see or feel the world as he did. His way often amazes me and makes me shiver with the power of its effect, but it is not how the world appears to me. I must find an equally powerful and effective way, but it must be mine. For in writing we need not only tell the truth but also be the truth, for that is what gives fiction its sense of reality.

Author Kanigel gives us one further bit of realism where creation is concerned. When he observed the life of Ramanujan, the greatest mathematician since Newton, Kanigel confirmed this:

“His success did not come entirely through flashes of inspiration. It was hard work. It was full of false starts. It took time.”

But what is possible through creativity is genius, and the beauty and awe that result from that cannot be compared to  work that mimics the art of another.

First Things First

It was 1994, I think. I was sitting in an audience laughing myself simple as author, Julia Cameron, shared both her life and how she’d come to write The Artist’s Way. The book was a blazing success, and she was most entertaining with the sense of humor only a recovered alcoholic has, having stripped themselves clean of the puffery most people employ to fill out the dents in their persona that denial and non-accountability whacked in there.

I worked through The Artist’s Way back  then as I was just starting to write and my life was in chaos, both of which the book addressed. The activity that Julia stressed in order to tap into our source of creativity and wisdom was what she called Morning Pages – 3 pages (8 ½ x 10) of longhand writing about anything or everything that crosses your mind done the first thing when you get up each morning.  As Julia says,

“They [Morning Pages] appear to have nothing to do with creativity, yet they are the bedrock on which my creative life is built. They are the terra firma of my book The Artist’s Way and the central, life-changing tool that guides and safeguards creative emergence.”

Trust me if you will, Ms. Cameron is not being overly effusive in that statement. The book she recently published is specifically on the topic and is entitled, The Miracle of the Morning Pages , which I heartily suggest you read if anything in this blog strikes a chord. You see this recent book was written 25 years after Ms. Cameron's original experience with Morning Pages, and the power of this practice is now time-tested. Whether you are in the arts or just living a life that has far too many issues unresolved, this simple, doable activity could change your life.

I started the Morning Pages all those years ago, but I didn't realize their power, and somewhere along the way stopped writing them. So this past February, after Bert found Julia’s new book mentioned above, Bert, friend Adrienne and I began this practice anew, and we were all amazed at the results and continue to be.

How do the Morning Pages accomplish what they do? I’m not sure I see it all, but of this I am clear. There is an elemental activity that goes on continuously in all human beings, call it an energy or force that is constantly active. I refer to it, thanks to Don Juan Matus, as our attention. We don't have a choice about whether it is active or not. Where our choice lies is in directing its focus. If we don’t take an active role in directing it, attention generally focuses along the lines of habit – paying heed to old stories, opinions, expectations—our usual habituated look at things. Or worse, it trundles through life like an early morning dog on the run, nosing into all kinds of garbage. 

If we take an active say in where we place our attention, many possibilities open up to us, not the least of which is being present. Another is awareness of our intuitive core, the home of creative instinct. That instinct can serve our artistic endeavors or direct us toward solving issues that are diminishing our lives. By the simple act of putting pen to paper and writing continuously for 3 - 8 ½ X 10 pages whatever comes up or whatever you indicate you want to understand, your attention resides in the present and accesses your creative inner core. Rumi, the Sufi mystic, referred to this aspect of ourselves as The Friend, and you will soon find out why.

Get yourself past the New Agey frame of reference that Julia comes from, if that bothers you, so you can find out for yourself what this amazing practice has to offer. Each day, Morning Pages become the first thing you do because that makes the pages easier to write. Your attention is still close by and hasn't yet gotten caught up in that infernal inner chatter or shot off to La-La Land. Get up, grab your coffee then sit back down and write.

ONE WARNING – The Morning Pages are absolutely private. Do not let anyone read then. It will inhibit you if you think someone might see what you are writing. If you have someone in your space that you fear might not honor your right to privacy, put the journal where it will be safe. You must feel you can write whatever comes to you. That is critical to the success of these pages. You can discuss ideas and insights as you wish, but don’t give anyone access to the journal itself.

I would suggest you read The Miracle of the Morning Pages before you start. Then buy yourself a journal that you like of the proper size and get started. If you hit a morning where nothing is coming, just keep writing something, repeating a question or soliciting the flow to begin, until it does.

For those of you who take me up on this, I would love to hear your comments about your experience. Friend Adrienne, who’s new to all of this, reports her results have astounded her. Help those still fence-sitting by sharing your experience of a week with Morning Pages. We’re all waiting…

The Serendipity of Success

 The stories of success that most enchant us are those that we, or those involved, cannot explain. That doesn't stop us from trying to figure them out, speculating on the possible causes or dismissing them as blind luck, but they continue to haunt us as they suggest a possibility we can’t quite grasp.

Maurice Sendak was an American illustrator and author of children’s books. He based his stories on childhood influences: his immigrant origins, the Lindbergh kidnapping, the concentration camp deaths of his extended family, which he found out on the day of his bar mitzvah, and parents consumed with anger and depression. He felt many children had experienced what he had at some level, not the same events but the confusion, fear and disempowerment they represented. Sendak wanted to share with his young audience what he considered the reality of most childhoods. He vowed he’d never lie to them. Needless to say, rainbows and sunshine were not part of his illustrations.

In 1963, Sendak had an idea for a book which he entitled Where the Wild Horses Are. His editor, Ursula Nordstrom, loved the idea and was purported to say the title was poetic and evocative. She offered him a contract, and Sendak set about working on the book. Several months into it, Sendak realized he had a problem. He couldn't draw horses. He wasn't a school-trained artist. Upon informing her that this project wasn't going to work, he met the business face of Ursula Nordstrom. In an “acid-tone[d] response” she asked what could he draw.

“Things,” he said.

So his editor suggested another title, Where the Wild Things Are, perhaps with more sarcasm than was mentioned in my source.  Likely no one continued to grouse about it, however, because 19 million copies have been sold since its publication in 1963. Who’d have ever imagined? These ugly little character things, a boy who disobeyed his mother, a mother who sent her son to bed without supper (this was the 1950s, and they were no-no’s) and a “violent” story.

In a quote of Sendak’s, I found what I would call a clue to his “serendipitous” success. One I've seen before in similar tales. Here’s what he said:

"I'm totally crazy, I know that. I don't say that to be a smartass, but I know that that's the very essence of what makes my work good. And I know my work is good. Not everybody likes it, that's fine. I don't do it for everybody. Or anybody. I do it because I can't not do it."

The italics are mine. The two points are critical. The most pertinent question a creative being must be able to answer for himself is what is my art about. This doesn't mean defining a genre. It refers to what in you has to get out. Understanding that puts us in touch with the force governing point two, the “I can’t not do it,” part of an artist. That drive is not to be confused with obsession. It represents a depth of engagement that generates satisfying results and often notable art. Accepting these two realities often places a person in the path of serendipitous success.

Maurice Sendak knew what he was and who he was and didn't appear to be tempted to be anyone else. He knew also what was his to do, and he did it. This quote describes that awareness beautifully:

“Art has always been my salvation. And my gods are Herman Melville, Emily Dickinson, Mozart. I believe in them with all my heart. And when Mozart is playing in my room, I am in conjunction with something I can’t explain — I don’t need to. I know that if there’s a purpose for life, it was for me to hear Mozart. Or if I walk in the woods and I see an animal, the purpose of my life was to see that animal. I can recollect it, I can notice it. I’m here to take note of. And that is beyond my ego, beyond anything that belongs to me, an observer, an observer.”

To be successful, we must be infatuated with what we do, not infatuated with success. That cuts the job down to a size that we can engage with in the present moment.  And it also means that no matter what the outside world does, we experience ourselves as satisfied and successful. If along that way, life gives us notoriety and/or money, so be it. If it doesn't, we still have lived a life worthy of our time on this earth.

Sendak was sometimes censored and sometimes praised, but that

flux of human emotion didn't tempt him to change. It wasn't  money that made him successful, it was who he was that brought his art to a level that touched people and made the world pay attention. 

Money often rewards that accomplishment, but it is not its progenitor nor is it a true measure of success. If you’re stuck on that point, meaning money is your motivation and your measure, you may miss out on serendipity and success.

Would You Give Your Life to Save Art

by Christina Carson

Recently Bert and I watched a movie entitled The Monuments Men, based on a book of the same name, a true story written by Robert Edsel, an ex-American oilman, who moved to Europe and became interested in Art. He questioned how so much of it survived the double threat of Nazi destruction and Russian theft during WW ll and sought the answer. The movie, written, directed by and starring George Clooney, is a fascinating story of what human beings can accomplish when impassioned by the same love and sense of value for a common goal. The goal was to locate and save as much of the treasured Art of Europe as they could. The plan was to do it with volunteer museum directors, curators, arts scholars, educators, artists, architects and archivists.

The 345 men and women who ultimately served in this capacity came from 15 nations. They were of all ages and joined the military sub commission MFAA (Monuments, Fine Arts and Archives section), went through basic training, and got dropped off in a combat zone to do their work – find the Art and rescue it. Their job was made even harder by starting late in the war. The Germans were in retreat and destroying their Art caches as they went.

These saviors from the MFAA were placed in situations of grave danger, little resources, no trained expertise in this endeavor and very little planning, but saw their work as having to succeed at all costs. We owe to them their vision, one which grasped how greatly civilization could be devastated by the loss of many of the greatest works of art every created.

Coming from a culture where art is the first thing we drop out of education when budgets are cut, and from a society where  only a small fraction of the population shows interest in Art, I wasn't in the best of positions to understand what these volunteers knew inherently about its value  Not until I chanced on a young woman in Florence, Italy whose delight it was to take her afternoon and show me the antiquities of her city, did I realize the effect Art could have on a society that honors it as a necessity of life.

But my real metamorphosis from ignorance to appreciation happened one dark January afternoon in Amsterdam when I visited the Rembrandt Museum. The collection is housed in a restored 17 ^th century building in which Rembrandt lived and worked for twenty years. The small rooms lent a sense of intimacy to the viewer, and that afternoon I was the only person there.  I walked into an upstairs room, looked around and then moved toward a painting on the far wall, but every few seconds I whipped around as one does when they sense someone else is in the room. Several times this happened until I finally stopped and stared at

one of the paintings. I realized then what was going on. I could not distinguish the eyes of the subjects in the paintings from those of an animate being. They were so alive that it made me feel like I’d stepped through a veil and had actually entered the room where these men in the paintings were gathered. I could feel their eyes on my back which was why I kept turning around.

There I stood; my first introduction to what can happen, what can be created, brought to life that does not die in the works of great masters. Art is not only an archive of visual history but also a conduit that brings forward the state of consciousness that can create in this fashion. Treating that state of consciousness with the reverence it deserves, to me is the real importance of honoring and saving antiquities. That state of consciousness is a key to tapping vast creative potential within us all.

The danger toward Art today is not its loss through plunder; in fact a great danger exists in this era of endless distraction. Saul Bellow pointed to it when he said: 

“…I wonder whether there will ever be enough tranquility under modern circumstances to allow our contemporary Wordsworth to recollect anything. I feel that art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos. A stillness that characterizes prayer, too, and the eye of the storm. I think that art has something to do with an arrest of attention in the midst of distraction.”

Art is our mother ship in whatever medium it occurs. It is the ark that keeps placing us on the high hills and offering a vista about our true nature in this universe we're still far from grasping. Would you give your life unto its keeping? I believe I would.

Christina Carson, Writer