Curious Lives

“The arts are not a way to make a living.  They are a very human way of making life more bearable.  Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake.  Sing in the shower.  Dance to the radio.  Tell stories.  Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem.  Do it as well as you possible can.  You will get an enormous reward.  You will have created something.”

Kurt Vonnegut

We are all artists.  We may not all find fame and fortune as artists but we will find out more about ourselves.  In these days of too much Facebook and too many celebrity shows, we need to realize that we ALL have the power to create.

We make the mistake of thinking that only the famous and the celebrated know how to sing, paint or write.  We see their work and feel overwhelmed. The finished product looks daunting.  “I couldn’t possibly do that.” 

But finished products didn’t start that way.  They started with one brave step to try something.

What colors please you?  What grabs your attention? Birds? Poetry? Walking? Knitting?

What musical instrument have you always wanted to try?

We learn so much about ourselves every time we make a choice.

Write a few words about your grandchild. Don’t call it a poem.  That will only scare you off.

Take a pencil and draw your dog.  Draw the guy on the bench. Don’t whine that you can’t draw a straight line. You don’t need one.

Get an old guitar and learn a few chords. – you only need three to sing just about every song you could think of!

Write a paragraph to describe the kitchen in your childhood home.

I have spent my adult life (aside from raising four children), trying to do things I didn’t know how to do.  Playing the organ made me dizzy.  Singing in an operatic voice made me feel like a fake.

Painting very detailed watercolors was impossible.  My nature poems sound phony.  But in the process of trying all those things, I learned that songwriting fed my soul, looser paintings please me, I’m more attracted to Fats Waller than Mozart.

I keep trying, amassing a resume of failures and successes, along with a life full of accomplishments and rich memories.

You can do it too.

In the process of doing these things, we get to know ourselves better. We become better people.  We grow our souls.

The hardest thing is to begin. 

Do it.

Pursuing art, exploring one's creative talents, is a lifelong journey.  There are ups and downs, successes, failures, fame and notoriety and the quiet pursuit.

Artwork is not known to be the fast-track to easy street!  And art made from desperation to make a living, runs the risk of being not from the heart.

A delicate balance, a careful dance.  

I’ll end with REVERIE, a song I wrote (because I needed it) many years ago now. Evan Price, who now plays for Hot Club San Francisco, wrote a few parts for his violin during the recording session. My good friend and collaborator, Audrey Markowitz took an improv leap with her oboe.