It occurred to me that I haven’t devoted many blog posts to art – especially since that is the linchpin of my site. I’ve been a little caught up in politics. I also want to encourage those who have never considered themselves artists to not feel excluded in any way. Being an artist begins with processing the world that has been given to you and reacting to it. It is a state of being; a creative act.

I just finished a book by Anne Bogart called ‘and then, you act: making art in an unpredictable world’.  As an artistic director of a theater company, Bogart’s focus is theatrical artistry, but her lens is wide. She has many valuable things to say that would resonate with anyone who sees the world creatively.

The first paragraph that grabbed me was in the introduction, where she gets right to the point:

Love is not a feeling. No matter now much you feel, love means nothing when unrelated to action. Love is action. In order to engage in effective action you must first find something you value and put it at the center of your life. When you put your life into the service of what you value, that action will engender other values and beliefs. Through engagement, things happen.

Bogart mentions a friend of hers in the theater who was feeling depressed and useless about her role in the world. She had heard that Mother Teresa would be in Manhattan and felt called to go to the Indian Embassy for a chance to see her. Mother Teresa caught her eye in a crowd and asked what she could do for her.

The woman described her feeling of uselessness and declared her desire to go to India to help. Mother Teresa responded sternly: “There are many famines. In my country, there is a famine of the body. In your country, there is a famine of the spirit. And that is what you must feed”. Her friend went on to be a powerful force in American theater.

Intention is a huge part of creation. Why do we choose to do anything? Like author Toni Morrison once said, the best art is political and revolutionary. We can be motivated by our traumas and feelings to create works of art or music, but for what ultimate purpose?

Context. To understand how personal pain can illuminate larger issues that others can relate to. What is the point of art without an audience? What is personally cathartic can be even more so when shared with others.

Bogart articulates this so well:

Art reimagines time and space, and its success can be measured by the extent to which an audience can not only access that world, but becomes engaged to the point where they understand something about themselves that they did not know before.

Within the context of artistic intention, Bogart asks the reader: who is your community? The people who are around you at this particular moment in your life are your most important mirrors. They will bring you closer to those who are like-minded and share your vision. If you wait for your ideal collaborators to show up so you can create, they never will. Everything you need as inspiration is in your life at this very moment.

So many creative people postpone creation because they aren’t deeply engaged in their lives. Consider this, though. How many happy and fulfilled people do you actually know? Don’t look at social media because that is false representation. Even the people in your life who lie about being fulfilled are great fodder for art. The quiet lives of desperation masked by superficiality are like Mother Teresa said: they represent a famine of the spirit. You could write novels on the subject.

Digging deeper for what is real about people brings you closer to them in a way that they (and also you) may not understand yet. This is about what it means to be human. Even if you are filled with bitterness and disgust – that is still inspiration.

Most of all – don’t worry about getting it wrong. What you see through your own unique lens will evolve throughout your life, but there is really no endgame. No winning or losing. Don’t worry about being brilliant or perfect – your authenticity is far more important.

A crucial part of discovering who we are is not micromanaging ourselves to the point where we end up doing nothing. That is the biggest crisis. All acts of creation are brave and unusual, with no guidebooks or assurances. Your acts of bravery give others permission to be brave.

In choosing artistic content, Bogart offers sage advice:

I listen to my body-barometer in choosing content. For me, there must be something uncertain, something at risk. The decision to do a project and my commitment to it are based on a physical sensation, a frisson du corps, or goose bumps. The content should promise a leap, potential for adventure and the possibility of collapse or failure.

Many people I know never go after what they want because of fear of failure. What they don’t understand is that failure is an inevitable part of the process. That isn’t what kills art. What kills art is giving up after failure. Plus, failure is subjective. If you put something creative out into the world, the act itself could never be a failure. You must keep going.