It’s probably a myth that the only truly brilliant artists are drunks, drug addicts and suicidal geniuses. Even when brilliance is indeed present, the resulting huge personal losses (harm to spouse, children etc.) no doubt cast a long dark shadow.
Of course, there are many successful artists who avoid self-destructive behaviour. Many of these, however, do cultivate something of an "outsider" stance in order to freely observe and comment on the world. As Bob Dylan put it in an interview I read recently, "Poets aren’t members of the PTA."
Is this true? (…she asked herself, as she prepared to go out to the PTA meeting?)
When you’re a member of a group (such as a family or a church or a corporation), you find yourself living within its boundaries for the well-being of the collective. Membership has its privileges and its costs. Some of the costs may be the kinds of intense life experiences that often fuel artistic expression.
Middle-class family life tends to discourage lengthy meditative soul-searching, intense new relationships, heavy drinking (okay, many people do find a way, but I said "discourage"), drug use, all-night creative bingeing, impulse globe-trotting--and for that matter playing 250 dates a year while driving across North America in a van.
So, does wanting (and working for and achieving) some degree of security consign one to a lifetime of conformity--which results in second-rate work? Does a good life mean bad art?
If you spend considerable time at an unrelated professional job you often can't spend enough time at your art to get terribly good at it. On the other hand, trading everything in for a creative pursuit, however talented or motivated you might be, seems tragically foolish...especially when there's a strong possibility you won't make enough money at it to support yourself.
And what if you actually make money writing songs? Well, in Paul Zollo's book Songwriters on Songwriting (where I read the Dylan interview) Gerry Goffin said he didn't believe that a songwriter could write good songs while living a happy, settled life. He acknowledged that many people would disagree with him, but was making a comment on his own productivity once he had achieved financial security: security which came about having co-written, with Carole King, songs like "Locomotion" and "Natural Woman".
Needless to say, there are lots of aspiring artists on both sides of the white picket fence. Many on the outside say they're married to their art. Some are brilliant...others are only broke and bitter.
And many inside the fence (perhaps at a friendly neighborhood barbeque) reduce their artistic calling to a mumbled footnote: "I'm a (professional something or other) and I do some (mumble) songwriting from time to time." Then they try to smile bravely through their neighbours' (wife's, husband's, parent's) polite expressions of interest.
Maybe it's a cheat, some attempt to have it both ways, but today I see subway busking as the most difficult form of paying my dues I can do right now, without stepping outside my fence.
1 comment:
These are important and interesting questions, Lynn.
I recall a time I was sick of my own happy outlook (my inner Pollyanna). It was during a writing workshop. I noticed that with every exercise given, no matter how dark, my writing would begin in the muck but end up in or moving toward a field of daisies. Blech!
During a break I asked a friend of mine who I knew was writing a play (she planned to stage it during the following year's Saskatoon Fringe Festival. This did happen), if she had any bad girl parts in it, and if she did, could I read for it.
"I do," she said, hesitating, "but you'd have to swear."
"I can swear," I said. "Really! Just ask my vaccuum cleaner!"
The part was mine, and as it turned out, was for a woman with a cleaning obsession ;-)
All of that aside...I think what you are doing, setting aside corporate life, busking, staying up close and personal with your music, is definitely outside the box. You are a brave and talented woman.
Anita
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