Month: April 2016

Artists are quite familiar with rejection. We submit images of our work for review by unknown expert jurors and steel ourselves for rejection. Sometimes we submit an actual, physical piece of work for judgment (and rejection) by a stranger. One needs a pretty thick skin to do this again and again. Recently, I remarked to my son as I was preparing to enter a piece for jurying, “I’m paying fifteen dollars for the opportunity to feel the sting of rejection.” Wondering why I do it. (As luck–and I–would have it, that time I was accepted.)

 

Why do we do it? Well, it’s very nice to have a piece accepted into an exhibit, to go to the reception, have a glass of wine, nice hors d’oeuvres, to have the piece viewed by others, to be in the running for an award or even sell the piece. We do need to eat, pay the gas bill, etc. There is the possibility of a monetary reward. And it’s quite validating to get into a good show, to have a whole booth full of work, pin one’s hopes on a particular weekend to have the heady feeling of having one’s creative attempts admired, loved, gushed over (and to pay that gas bill). In 2008 I got into the St. Louis Art Fair, a show that is notoriously difficult to get into. Fifteen hundred applicants for something like 120 spots. That was definitely the high point of my artistic career. At the time I said to myself, “Enjoy this weekend!  It may never happen again!” And I did so enjoy it.

 

Recently I’ve begun playing pickleball. People ask, “What is pickleball?” and I always say, “It’s the fastest growing sport in North America!” It’s a wonderful sport that takes place on a court that’s smaller than a tennis court, with a similar net to tennis, played with oversize paddles and often played as a doubles game. Pickleball players are notoriously good-natured. When I say, “Sorry!” to whatever partner I’m playing with, I’m usually told, “There is no ‘Sorry’ in pickleball.” And quite importantly, we do not say Winners and Losers. We say First Place and Second Place. How nice! How lovely! I’d like to think that every time my work is not chosen for a show or exhibit, it merely came in second. Not rejected. Not horrible. I am not a complete failure as an artist (and a person), not deemed inferior in every possible way by a total stranger who knows nothing about me and cannot possibly know what this means to me, my loved ones, my friends and my dogs.

 

So let’s follow the lead of pickleball players. Let’s do away with Acceptance/Rejection in the art world, especially this little tiny corner of the art world that so many of us inhabit. And if we can’t make this change outside of ourselves, we could at least attempt it within ourselves. I could imagine that sometimes I’m in first place and other times I’m in second place. That’s all. Never last place. Never awful. Never utterly rejected and therefore dejected.

This term (French, “open air” or “in full air”) is normally used to describe artists painting or drawing outdoors, rendering what they’re seeing at a particular moment in their medium of choice. I wonder if we couldn’t all consider ourselves “plein air artists” when we’re out in the woods and meadows taking in the fragrance of spring, the constantly emerging and changing colors and shapes of flowers and plants. I say we could. I definitely say we should. The act of truly seeing is a creative act, whether we try to recreate what we’re observing or not.

I particularly love the translation “in full air,” since oh my, isn’t the air just terribly, achingly full in spring? There is a woods here in my town, a ten-minute drive from my house. (I know, I am incredibly lucky.) Lately, I’ve been taking extra long walks with my dogs there, since it’s just so beautiful right now and since I can. I can! Again, very lucky. We take the less traveled trail along the creek and then we cross the creek by scrambling down a bank, winding up in the most remote part of the woods, where again we have our choice of trails to follow.  Since it’s spring and new wildflowers are popping up daily and opening up to greet the full air, we climb the big hill, where flowers are plentiful and where we see no one else. I do love people but I also very much LOVE having the woods to just me and my dogs.

I am overwhelmed right now with gratitude. A little bit baffled, even, at my good fortune. For I have the time, the ability and the freedom to do this, morning after morning. Many do not. I do not take this lightly. I realize that at 7:00 or 7:30 a.m., the other cars are taking their owners to jobs. Indoors. Possibly jobs they do not even like. I’m quite certain that many, if not most of them have much better incomes than I do–but I’m quite sure, too, that I am the lucky one. I don’t need many of the things that money can buy. I’m hoping my car, at 180,000 miles, will give me 100,000 more. I don’t mind finding out. My house will be paid for in a few more (10??) years, if I am lucky (which I am). I thank Franklin Delano Roosevelt for helping me live more securely at this stage of life. I thank my sister (my CPA), for making sure I paid in. I am lucky all the way around.

My gratitude lately has been immense. I feel personally blessed by the revolution of this glorious thing that is Spring. I know it’s not actually here for my benefit–but in a way, it is. I benefit from it. I am healed by it. I marvel at it–right here within my grasp. Free of charge. Amazing. Glorious. Spring is a creative act. And if we partake in it, we are creators, too.    

The word “understory” refers to the shrubs and plants growing beneath the main canopy of a forest. Where I live, most of the understory in the woods is, unfortunately, something called bush honeysuckle. While it is bright green and looks like a cheerful thing in early spring, popping into life after the bareness of winter, it is a non-native, invasive plant. Plants like this choke out the native shrubs and plants, filling up the understory of our woods with something whose main virtue is that of shelter for birds. A good thing, for sure, but bush honeysuckle also offers bright red berries that are tasty and appealing to birds but offer no nutritional value. So this is a pretty bad deal all around. Parks and conservation departments urge us to destroy the plants if we have them in our yards, so that they don’t continue to spread.

On a long ramble in the woods the other day, as I enjoyed the long view, I was struck by the similarity between a forest’s understory and what I will call our own understories. Deepak Chopra says that my core self (what some would call the soul) is perfect and cannot be altered or damaged by life, circumstances, or anything I or anyone else could ever do. It (I) will remain perfect for eternity. Oh, I find this amazing!  Mesmerizing. Liberating. My various good and bad traits, my little peccadillos, strengths, vulnerabilities, all of the negative and positive aspects of what I call my personality, he says, are not part of my pure, true self. My pure, true self is perfect. YES.

 

I usually think of myself as the fully fleshed out self that I present to the world, and for that matter, to myself, with all those traits and characteristics, all my various circumstances and all of my history. But to believe Deepak, I am part of the forest–the sycamore, the eucalyptus, the redbud, the maple–perfect just as I am. My understory is all kinds of other things. I want my understory filled with authentic, true-to-me, polite, i.e., non-invasive, elements that belong in and peacefully coexist within the forest. I want my underpinning to be strong but not invasive. I want real and true growth springing from the ground I’m rooted in, a bed of beautiful plans and ideas blooming in me, creativity blossoming, wandering, daydreamy thoughts, innovative ideas that foster, rather than inhibit my own and others’ enrichment. I do not want repetitive, negative thoughts, petty grievances, old slights and hurts choking off all these positives.  I do not want circular thinking, assumptions or fear winding themselves around me and preventing my growth. I want true grounding, unimpeded by my own unwillingness to let go and open up. This is what I want my understory to be.

 

So, just what is my understory? What is yours? Can we alter them? I say yes. Will we? I say yes, at least, for my part, I will. I can and I will alter some things. I can and will do some pruning. For the sake of the forest.