Life's Negotiations

Ever notice how people skirt around calling themselves artists, even if they draw or write regularly?

What's that about?

When I do it, I imagine a thick black line drawn between the aficionado and the "true" artist or writer.

Drawing negative space, in art class lingo, is about seeing the space between objects as having the same dimensions and depth as the objects themselves.

When you draw this, it often looks strange. Like a bunch of disconnected shapes.

It's a good exercise because it trains your creative mind to see all that's happening in front of you and recognize that all of it is useful to capturing your subject.

The relationship between mass and space is valuable outside of art too. I was thinking about it after my morning run.

Last night I began a six-week class with Danny Gregory, an artist who has developed a following for his illustrated journals.

Rather than journaling about thoughts and feelings, he encourages people to remove preconceived assumptions about the objects around us. To sit still long enough to observe what's really going on: at the breakfast table, in your medicine cabinet, even with your favorite pair of shoes. (Last night we started by drawing our hands.)

A topic close to my heart - and what brought me to my first life coach - was how to be creative in my daily life. I loved traveling to Italy to an art workshop in the mountains and taking classes like this one that introduce new ideas. The real challenge is bringing the lessons and energy I get from these experiences into the day-to-day.

Over the weekend, the New York Times had a story about Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist whose stroke changed her perception of the world and her place in it.

Her theory is that most English-speakers are controlled by the left lobe, where language is processed and the source of our logic, judgement and context, over the right lobe, in charge of creativity and empathy. Her stroke rendered her left lobe temporarily incapacitated, so she could experience euphoria - the atoms in her body being connected to the air and living beings around her and the freedom of her spirit moving beyond her body.

While this sounds like a spiritual out-of-body experience, because Dr. Taylor is a neuroscientist her story adds a level of credibility especially useful for non-believers. She can explain what happened metaphorically, physically and scientifically.

I'm reading, "The Private Lives of the Impressionists" by Sue Roe about my favorite period in art history. Connecting these paintings to historical events and the friendships among the artists brings more to the interpretation of their beloved work.

Between the soap opera of love affairs and illegitimate children, I'm struck most by how little they were thought of by fellow artists and patrons at that time. It's surprising, when you consider how prevalent Monet's reprints are today (let alone Van Gogh's who came a few years later and similarly struggled for acceptance).

For these artists - Monet, Pissarro, Cezanne, Renoir, Manet, Degas - to stay true to their inspiration and keep creating despite the ridicule and poverty they endured, took possibly a combination of ego, insanity, determination, vision, and camaraderie.