On Creativity: The Secret to Creating Great Art

    My stint as a visiting artist at Hartwick College earlier this year was nothing like I expected yet everything I could have wanted. Being placed somewhat unexpectedly in the role of educator alongside the familiar one of puppet-builder proved both challenging and rewarding in a myriad of ways I could have never anticipated. It is an old axiom that the teacher learns more than the students. I found this to be very true. One of the most surprising aspects of teaching for me was the way it confronts you in a very real and tangible way with what you know.

     Since the end of my residence, I have been slowly trying to compile observations about living the creative life in a series of essays. I am attempting to confront the realities of the creative process in as pragmatic and rational manner as I can. I do this partly to record my own ideas in a coherent form, but mostly out of a sense of gratitude to my former students and colleagues. It is my fervent hope that these writings can help others along their journey. To this end, I will endeavor to speak in the broadest possible terms, using the word "Artist" in it's most general sense.  

    On a personal note to all those I associated with during my Residency: I apologize for those moments when I could be cranky irrational and overly demanding. The only defense I have to offer is that I felt that I could relentlessly demand excellence from you because time and again you proved capable of it.
I am extremely proud of the work we did together!

"Here are my Principles, and if you don't like them...well, I have others!"

-Groucho Marx

The Secret of Creating Great Art

There is a moment that every working creative dreads. It is that moment when an enthusiastic and appreciative person asks “How do you do that?” They don't mean how was one specific project accomplished. They want to know how to PAINT, How to WRITE, How to ACT! It as if the artist could, by some magical act of beneficence tell them a simple universal truth that would part the veil and magically welcome the questioner into the sacred order. Any answer that can be given is going to come as a terrible letdown. It will ring false or trite in the ears of the audience. They come to you seeking to unlock Truth and Beauty and are forced to make due with cliches like “Write what you know”.

No artist can tell you what you want to learn in a few short sentences. They can give you a few pointers, certainly they can draw you a map, but you need to embark on your own voyage. The process is always going to be your greatest teacher. I have been fortunate enough to have had the guidance of many wonderful instructors, both in a formal and casual capacity, and have found their insights of inestimable value. At the end of the day, however, I must admit it was the wood that taught me the most about how to carve.

I have discovered that there is,after all, a great and universal truth to the creative process that can be stated simply and succinctly. Here it is-At long last revealed the secret that every successful artist knows! I should warn you, it's terribly disappointing the first time you learn it

The secret to creating great artwork is simply this: Make bad art.

Behind every masterpiece painted lies a graveyard of terrible drawings. Every soaring violin composition reached it's heights on a scaffold of hours worth of scratchy shrieked notes. That beautiful inspiring passage from your favorite writer is only possible because of pages and pages of poisonous prose. Those dancers that float effortlessly across the stage have fallen more times then you can count

This is another one of those stories we tell ourselves as artists: Some people are just “born with it”. They are naturally talented, and so opportunity falls in their laps. They are blessed by the gods with something divine that makes them more that the rest of us.
That's true. It's called a work ethic.

Don't get me wrong, Natural talent is real. There are people who are more musically inclined, more graceful, more visually oriented from birth. I have met these people. This is an excellent start. It opens the door for them but rest assured they have to climb the mountain just like anyone else.

Here's what really happens: A young person shows some aptitude for a task. They are praised by their friends and family, and so they continue to try. With a little more effort and a little more positive reinforcement, they realize that they really enjoy doing this more than anything else. Because they are doing what they love, they embrace it. They work hard and never notice the effort because they enjoy every minute. Obstacles become challenges. The desire for praise turns inward. Instead of wanting the praise of parents, the young artist wants to be the best, to say something original. Parents worry about these new found obsessions and start to encourage their child to do pursue other interests. Peers may even mock the young artist for their strange new obsession, but by now none of this matters as much as the passion. Like any other addiction, it takes hold of the person's being and begins to define them. As the process of learning the craft gets more difficult, the artist becomes less and less capable of extracting themselves until they can barely imagine doing or being anything else. I know this to be so because it is my story, along with thousands of others.

The special trait that artists have that you believe you don't isn't talent. It's passion and determination. Successful creative people are simply those who continued to work. Stop telling yourself that you aren't “Born with it” or whatever other convenient excuse you are hiding behind. Nobody wants to hear how you can't even draw a stick figure. That's a cop-out. If you truly want to draw, pick up a pad of paper and fill it in. Once you've finished that one, move on to the next. Make your mistakes like everyone else, and learn from them. Don't expect to get it right the first time. You won't. Keep trying. Each attempt teaches you something new. Remember, you are honing a skill. It's a lifelong process.

The Tempest:In Detail

I finally got around to documenting some of the puppets used in the production of The Tempest. Here are some of the better close ups

Ariel: My initial idea for Ariel was that s/he would be a shape-shifter and take on the form of various birds. the director, Malissa Kano-White was kind enough to indulge me. We had two actors playing the role. They would alternate lines accenting the amorphous male/female nature of the character and allowing for a great range of motion. The eagle worked as sort of the embodiment of the storm 

 The heron became a source of comic relief, due in large part to the actors' manipulation

 The owl was Ariel's gentle side.

 I tried to make the wings as naturalistic as possible

 The Director wanted Ariel to have a "True Form" that was non-corporeal and abstract, possibly made up of several components. After a lot of discussion and experimentation, we agreed on a floating two part mask based around the idea of a Celtic spiral. each puppeteer would control the mouth of one half. It required a great deal of co-operation and coordination

 The mask halves could split and join together, permitting them to work autonomously or in tandem. I initially designed the halves to match, but later realized  they would have more personality if each side "spiraled" a different direction. Here is the "Up" side...

 ...and the "Down" side. The puppets were backed with black fabric which made it possible for them to vanish against the dark background simply by being turned around

 Sebastian was one of the villains. I based my character design around archetypes. For this character, I wanted a lean and angular "Grand Vizier" look. at nearly six feet, this was easily the tallest of the puppets

 For Stephano the drunken butler, I wanted to accent the clownish sense of imperiousness and self centered nature. I gave him the proportions of a toddler. He has a vaguely porcine aspect.

 Several of the gender roles were reversed in this production. The wise councilor Gonzalo became Gonzala, a feisty yet kindly grandmother figure

 Trinculo the jester was one of my favorites. I wanted him to have an air of constant anxiety along with a  buffoonish cast.

 Antonio, Prospera's usurping brother, I wanted to have the air of arrogant entitlement of a "Burra Sahib"

 One of the concepts I wish I had more time to explore was the living nature of the island. I wanted to create the feeling that any part of the environment could spring to life. For example: this pile of boulders that was onstage for the whole show...

... became a terrifying "Hell-hound" to chase the clowns offstage. I actually researched medieval hunting breeds to get the look just right. I purposely used the same painted muslin that our set designer used for the backdrop to help them blend in

 The same is true with this seemingly innocuous  log of driftwood -

 ...that becomes a massive wolfhound!

Tempest: Jason's Shots

Here are some fantastic photographs of our final rehearsal taken by my good friend Jason Sexton. His website is:http://jasonsextonphoto.com/

...and sometimes I get cranky and wind up writing Letters to the Editor

Published in this weeks edition of "Hometown Oneonta"
(The Daily Star wants it to be 177 words shorter)

During the course of my apartment hunt, I was recently shown an apartment with a hole in the ceiling large enough to fit a dining room table into. The owners of the building treated the fact that the tenants of the apartment upstairs may at any moment become roommates with a blasé indifference that needs to be seen to be properly admired. They assured me that the obvious massive structural damage was no problem and could be patched up and ready for me to move into by tomorrow.
The truly astonishing thing about this story is not merely that it is perfectly factual and presented without the slightest exaggeration, but that the landlords in question were actually willing to rent Non-Student Tenants.

A person like myself who has been searching for less than a year might actually stand a chance of finding a place to live here.

This sort of thing must be stopped!

Oneonta, as you may know is in the midst of a severe housing crisis. Of all the apartments here, a mere 97% of them are made exclusively available for student rental.

Clearly this is not sufficient. All local rental units must be converted to student-only housing without delay!

Unfortunately the landlords of this town are forced to contend with a persistent population of non student renters, who, with their unreasonable demands, are far from ideal tenants. These are the sort of tenant who will actually have the audacity ask for their security deposit back, request to be allowed to keep pets, and worst of all demand to live in the kind of conditions where the SPCA will allow animals to live. Our poor landlords are virtually powerless against this outrage. The rules governing rental housing in our beloved town are so hard on landlords that they may occasionally consider obeying them! Some are left no choice but to rent to so-called “Young Professionals” (which we all recognize as a euphemism for things like:“Adjunct Professor” or “New Family”).

It is essential that the town council do everything that they can to eliminate the subtle menace of these adult renters from gaining a toehold in our beloved town. If we allow such undesirable persons to find a place to live here, they may eventually buy houses, start businesses in our precious vacant storefronts and disrupt the cherished Status Quo with completely unwelcome prosperity. I urge you, Citizens of Oneonta, to do everything in your power to prevent this dangerous element from making their homes here. Keep our rents high and standards of living low! Make sure our younger population stays transient and do your part to prevent terrifying change from taking root. We must do everything in our power to prevent any potential of a population increase.

Only by taking definitive action against this menace today can we keep things exactly the way they are!

John Ryan
Oneonta?