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.

Primitive Projectiles

There seems to be a common theme to the subjects and activities that fascinate me. Here is a brief outline of the criteria necessary:

-It needs to be reasonably involved and/or complex
-A relatively high level of skill should be involved
-I should be able to learn it on my own, or at least without much guidance
-There should be little if any probability that anyone could ever make any money doing this
-If there is any practical application to developing the skills involved, it probably has gone obsolete about a century ago

I am also apparently susceptible to, as one of my ex-girlfriends put it: "The quintessential male near-obsessive  urge to throw things".


So, considering all this, it shouldn't be too surprising that I have a long standing fascination with making and using simple range weapons (for targets). In college I started making boomerangs. Pictured here is the first one I made and still my favorite:

 Last summer I made a sling and spent hours happily flinging rocks across an empty baseball field

This year I decided that the time was right to try something I've been wanting to do for a long time: Build a Longbow. I used Red oak with a muslin backing.I finished it with Tung oil. The handle is wrapped with leather. It measures 70' nock to nock when unstrung. I have no idea what my draw weight is. Here is my bow when strung...

                                       

... and unstrung

 Here's a close-up of my top nock

 I decided that the plain muslin backing was a little dull, so I painted it.

Here's some close up of the handle and arrow shelf

I'm shooting carbon fiber arrows that were made by a company that hasn't paid me to endorse them. My quiver is made out of the leg of an old pair of khakis. Not very interesting looking, but functional. I almost showed you my target, but it looks like what it is: A large cardboard box stuffed with more cardboard with a target drawn on it.

 I did, however, make myself a nifty armguard out of scrap leather

I wanted to have a cool picture of me firing an arrow, looking all keen-eyed and dangerous-but with no one else to hold the camera, this is as close as I could get

 When I went to retrieve a stray arrow, I found this little guy. His form isn't too bad, but I think he needs to get his elbow up.

I've been practicing for a few months now. I think my aim is getting better...

Food for thought

Here's something to consider:

Look down at your clothing. What are you wearing? Does it fit you? Is it comfortable? Did you think very much about it before you put it on, or like me, did you just pick the first items that appeared to be clean? Even if you took elaborate care and thought in choosing every item you wore- making certain your shoes offset your shirt just right, and so forth- here's something so simple and obvious that it probably never even occurred to you at the time: Every garment you are wearing was most likely made by another person. There are of course rare exceptions to this statement, but chances are even if you have made every item of your own wardrobe, it is unlikely that you also harvested the raw material, processed it, dyed it, and wove it into a cloth. These activities were all done for you by other people who you will, in all probability, never meet.

They might live on the opposite side of the world, or two houses away for all you know. Now think about the hundreds and hundreds of items you use every day, from the tools you use, to the food that you eat, to the place where you live. Every one of these things represent a moment in the life of another living person with thoughts, loves, and dreams like yours. They each have friends and family as well. They made these things for you. They most likely never knew or cared that the thing they were doing in that moment was for you. Whatever their reason for creating the object in question whether it was an exquisitely crafted piece, made with the joy of a crafts-person, or the cheapest piece of mass produced garbage produced at the end of a long shift, somebody made these things. Each and every life in this society is utterly dependent on the work of anonymous others.

If you met these people face to face, what would you say to them- The person who designed your computer, who harvested the cotton for your clothes, or made your favorite cup? Would you want to thank them, or offer criticism? What if you discovered they were the person you cut off in traffic, or the guy you smiled at in the street?
Would this change anything?

Here it is, the fact that is so massive, that it is nearly impossible to see . It is as easy to take for granted as gravity or oxygen and just as necessary for our survival:

We are all, in the most real and tangible sense, connected to every other human life on this planet. Our actions, for good or bad change the world around us in ways we can never comprehend. Regardless of belief or politics, Each and every person is an important part of our world that helps shape it into what it is, regardless of whether they understand that or not.

Taking this into consideration, don't we owe every person we meet a huge debt of gratitude? Isn't it our duty to, at very least, be kind to one another?

Under this light, the highest human aspiration would be to make the world a better place for everyone else in whatever way we can.  

Tempest: Before and After

    I have very self-consciously not posted anything on this blog for some time. Partly because, as I stated in my last entry, I didn't want to give anything away to the audience before they had the opportunity to see the show. Another element in this decision was knowing how involved a process this build would be. In short, you can either talk about swimming the English Channel, or start swimming. You can not do both at the same time. Now that the dust has settled, and the final curtain has come down, I can discuss a little of my process and display some of the results here.

    It should be noted I can only speak to MY end of the creative process of The Tempest, because that is the only part I was wholly involved in, and thus,fully understand. Nobody should ever make the mistake of believing that I accomplished anything on my own. Theatre is by it's very nature, a collaborative process. This show was the work of many hands. I am deeply grateful to everyone who participated in The Tempest. It would have been a very different entity  if even one of the 30+ people involved were not a part of it. I intend to give full credit to certain key players in a later post. For now please accept my deepest gratitude and know that you made this show both nothing like I expected and everything I could have hoped for.

Last November I posted a few of my early process shots. I thought I would begin by showing you what these puppets look like now that they are complete. If you want to see the drastic changes these have undergone you can check out my original blog here

First here is one of the two seagulls that were in the show. They have come quite a long way from the bald foam. If you look carefully, you can see that two of the rods have been repaired. I wish that I had managed to take better pictures during the show and rehearsals. one of the most enduring images of this production for me was this seagull silhouetted against the purple lit Cyc curtain.

Next here is the head of our heron. Because of his "eyebrows" and the funny walk the puppeteers found for him during rehearsal, he has been christened "Groucho". Notice that he has different eyes from the original process shot.  Also. the puppeteer who operated him found the original controls cumbersome. I needed to shorten them for her ease of manipulation and comfort

 Finally, Trinculo. Aside from one stage, Trinculo was the "guinea pig". He defined the look and feel for the rest of the human characters for me, I only wish I could take credit for the beautiful costumes of these puppets, but they are the work of Kristen Palazzoli. I will discuss them in great length later. The hair turned out nothing like I planned, but in retrospect, couldn't have logically been any different.

More later. Thanks to all!

Tempest: First Look

     I'm in an interesting position as a chronicler of my creative endeavors.  I'm working on a big project (A full stage version of Shakespeare's "The Tempest" using puppets). It is a project that I'm very excited about and naturally want to discuss in great length. I'm incorporating all kinds of new building techniques and doing work that I'm extremely proud of for it. On the other hand, I want to avoid doing just that because I want my audience to come into the theater with as few preconceptions as possible. The more I tell you now, the more you'll know to expect later and the piece won't seem quite as fresh and new. I don't want to spoil the surprise.

    After a little internal wrangling, I've decided to carefully tip my hand on occasion, to give anyone interested the smallest peek behind the curtain from time to time. My hope is that I can keep everyone generally aware of what I'm up to without, as it were, giving away the gold. 

   So- without further babbling from me here are a few process shots which I hope you will enjoy. bear in mind that what I'm showing you are very much works in progress at this stage and will change a great deal by opening curtain.

This gull is a simple 3 rod puppet built out of polyfoam for simple movement. It can flap and turn it's head from side to side. It has a wingspan of approx 3 ft. 

Slightly more complex is this heron's head. It is also built out of foam with a latex and cheesecloth overlay. The beak is operated by a simple trigger mechanism. Learning how to make simple resin cast eyes was a real boon for this project and my work in general.

Most of the puppets for "The Tempest" are going to be in a modified Bunraku style. For ease of performance I'm going to keep my design of the rigging as simple as possible. In the human characters this means a nodding head rig rather than a mouth trigger. Few of my cast will have any experience in puppetry and I want to make sure that they learn the basics of lip sync without being wholly dependent on it.

 Trinculo is a court jester and one of Shakespeare's comic characters. I exaggerated his facial features to cartoonish proportions and gave him a vaguely worried and hangdog expression. I want him to be tall and lanky, in contrast to Stephano the butler, who I intend to make short and stout.This will hopefully suggest the classic "Abbot and Costello" comic dynamic for these two clowns.

Sketchbook Project: Inner cover- The Big Reveal

The more I thought about it, the more obvious it was to me which topic I should chose for the Sketchbook Project.

Dinosaurs.
Dinosaurs are cool.

Not only that they're a good conduit for some of my obsessions:
Birds
Bestiaries and field guides
Dragons
Comparative Anatomy

     To be honest during my childhood, I never had the typical all-consuming obsession with dinosaurs that boys are supposed to, but, then dinosaurs were much different back then. I liked them, to be certain and had my favorites, but back then dinosaurs were thought of as huge lizards, cumbersome slow and stupid. I was always more interested in behavior. Elephants and lions were more intriguing and tangible to me. Suddenly in the nineties,  dinosaurs were reshaped as though they were made of Plasticine. Lumbering cold blooded  prehistoric monsters became active, agile, well adapted animals with complex social structures. Dragging tails lifted from the ground to become elegant counterbalances. sprawling legs straightened and became muscular running limbs. Chest cavities expanded to make room for the big hearts and lungs of warm blooded creatures. Dinosaurs became beautiful and fascinating, more like birds than reptiles.

    Today with the combination of new technology and amazing recent discoveries out of the deserts of Mongolia and China, dinosaurs are wilder and more wonderful than I could have ever imagined. We've discovered astounding new species and reexamined what we believed we knew. There are answers to puzzles we thought unsolvable, and exiting new lines of inquiry to explore.
In my sketchbook, I intend to concentrate mostly on the most birdlike aspect of dinosaurs- feathers. This will give me a focus and the chance to investigate some of the most captivating current notions. I intend to be as accurate as possible using the most up to date information available, but inaccuracies are inevitable as new discoveries surface. Even the great Charles R. Knight couldn't avoid this.

The color of the cardboard cover reminded me of the sort of stone where you might find fossilized tracks. I liked the monochrome of the inner cover, so I drew  with coffee. The drawing is bisected by the pages so that you can't immediately see what is casting the shadow.
The dinosaur casting  a long shadow is Compsognathus. They were small theropod dinosaurs about the size of a chicken. He is following the footprints of a Greater Rhea, a South American cousin of the ostrich. Without giving too much away, this is not going to be my last bird/dinosaur juxtaposition.

There you have it. My Sketchbook Project is officially underway. More updates coming soon!

Crittercam: The new girls

    I've been remiss. It's been two months since I last posted anything here. the reasons for my neglect are complex and diverse. If you are well enough acquainted with my recent history, you may already understand some of them. I hope you will not take it personally that I chose not to describe them here. I'd just like to take a moment to apologize to the regular readers of my blog . Ill try to be more consistent in my posting habits from now on...for both of you!

    As you may already know I keep a small zoo in my apartment. It currently consists of a lizard,a tree frog, some fish and birds. I don't ordinarily write about them because quite honestly they don't do very much that's interesting. I also don't want this to turn into one of those bizarre obsessive blogs that catalog every detail of the lives of somebody's pets. I figure enough people already don't read this thing.

   Having said that, occasionally something cool does happen with the menagerie that I'd like to share even if I'm the only person who's interested. Such is the case today. Today I finally got a pair of female Lady Gouldian finches. I've had two males for a while now and have been looking for potential mates for my boys for a couple years (living in a small town in Upstate NY may have it's advantages, but it does make it a little challenging to obtain exotic birds). I thought it would be a nice way to ease back into posting to put up a few shots of my birds. The birds had different ideas about that. I picked out some of the better pictures of my uncooperative little subjects from today. Bear in mind none of this is what you'd exactly call "great photography" 

The breeder I went to had a lot of cool mutations and color variations available. I stuck as close to the "standard" variations as possible. I like holotypes. The black headed variety is apparently more common in the wild and the red heads are more common in captivity. Gouldian Finches are endangered in their wild habitat. It should be mentioned here that Australia has had a very sensible export ban in place for it's native fauna since 1959. Since finches in general only live about 15 years, and since the person i brought them from is extremely reliable and keeps flawless breeding records, I can guarantee that my birds are captive bred. 

 I like this one, I have no idea what they're looking at

 This is about 10 to 25 percent of what you wind up with when photographing birds: a blurry picture of where the bird was a fraction of a second ago

 Occasionally, and for no readily apparent reason, an animal will suddenly decide that they really hate photography and will do everything in their power to ruin every shot you try to take of them, even going so far as to spontaneously run into pictures of other animals just to make them blurry and unusable. This was the last good picture I was able to get of the black headed one for about an hour.

 Meeting their new cage mates

 A rare family portrait showing all my finches. There are a pair of zebra finches, spice finches and a society finch that share a large flight cage with my Gouldies.

 From left to right: My male Society finch (I'm trying to find a girlfriend for him), the new girls, a female Spice finch and my female Zebra (Her chest is bald because her mate plucks at it. I tried to remove her so that she could regrow her feathers once, but she sulked and was so miserable that I relented and put her back. I'd rather have her look miserable than actually be miserable. I guess that proves finches can be just as stupid as people!)

 Here is my redhead girl next to one of the males. You can really see the difference here!

 I managed to line up a good  picture of the black headed one... then she mooned me.

                                                                   Gotcha!