Monday, February 11, 2008
Creative people don’t have to be maladjusted, do they?
Posted by Zach in News

I just recently finished watching a documentary on Arvo Part that Aaron Greene lent me. I first heard Part’s music in college during painting class. It was the only thing that could get us to shut up and paint (when I say “us” I mean “me”). This documentary, Arvo Part 24 Preludes for a Fugue, contains short vignettes of Part in his day to day business. Unlike people who articulate one thing in their art and another thing in their life, he is exactly what you might expect from his music. He’s innocent and joyful and simple. I’m glad of this, because it suggests that great art can arise out of gratitude.

The success of his music counters the popular assumption that the realm of art can only be inhabited by the maladjusted. This assertion is quite common isn’t it? Not long ago, I watched an interview with several playwrights. They were remarkably angry. Now I don’t mean to minimize the momentum that dissatisfaction can bring. There is an undeniable power to plays like Waiting for Lefty and Look Back in Anger. However, it seems that the protest play can’t sustain an entire body of work. When it becomes dominant it starts to spiral in on itself. This creates a reduction in the theater. Do you know what I mean? It constrains. In the end, you’re left with Broadway 2008.

Maybe this happens because folks don’t feel satisfaction as powerfully as they feel dissatisfaction. The romance of the ordinary is hard to come by because it presupposes gratitude. There are a few exceptions, but they’re scattered. Of course, Thornton Wilder’s Our Town stands out. No matter how many high schools butcher it, it still shines. Horton Foote has a number of plays and teleplays that communicate much the same type of magic: The Dancers, John Turner Davis, Trip to Bountiful.

Coming back to Arvo Part, wouldn’t it be a wonderful thing if more artists produced work from a vantage point of joy? Something saturated with gratitude? I think this kind of work is much more difficult to produce, but it seems like it would last longer. Instead of spiraling in and constricting itself, it would spiral outward and become perpetually more grand. Maybe one day stages, concert halls, and museum walls will be inhabited by the work of the well adjusted.

I’ll end with a quote from my buddy Arvo:

“You can kill people with sound and if you can kill than you can–maybe there is also the sound which is something opposite of killing. The distance between these two points is very big, and you are free. You can choose. In art everything is possible, but everything that is made is not necessary.”

4 Responses to “Creative people don’t have to be maladjusted, do they?”

Nate comments:
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

Thanks for stating it so well; I totally agree with you. I enjoy doing fun and energetic work, and the end product is far more enjoyable to look at. However, sometimes I like to do more depressing or angry works of art as a way of releasing negative energy, but I usually don’t like to look at them again. They are filed in the trash.

lonelydreamer13 comments:
Wednesday, February 13th, 2008

ughh! i SO Disagree with you!!! i seriusly need to be like almost depressed to make art!

dark, ethereal, rain & faeries are what motivates my artwokr. it is what injects relevance, mysteriousnes and magical into my art!! i like to write poems about birds too. because birds are like magic— they can fly. and i cannot. and it is a profound thought!!! like, people say, don’t be so dark, but i think of it as the darkness is a shadow of the light, reflecting the light–u know?? it like the whatever the “edginess” is only a mirror to the darkest places where the awesome serious epic battles are fighting, u know? rly!

i make my most serious watercolors when it rains. it’s like the sky crying!! it is so beautiful and real. not like most things. it is life giving and awesome.

i thoguht about this alot and i rly wanted to share somrthing with you.
Here is a poem for you:

i am all alone.
i feel like a drone.
but not a like bee,
because a bee is free.
free to be me?
when will we be free
to bee
ourselves.

—

peace.

Anna Grace comments:
Thursday, February 14th, 2008

Thought I’d share something by a French author which seems quite relevant (another really fascinating dimension to your insightful statements):

“People can’t imagine that during the years when I was writing these inexplicably sombre books, I was so happy that at times I was unable to sleep, and cried out of sheer joy.”
— Julien Green, “Journal” (1975), pg. 903

Jessica comments:
Sunday, February 17th, 2008

I was told by a dear friend to check out your more recent writings ;) This one took me by surprise and I agree with most of what you said. Dissatisfaction can produce major momentum, i know by experience and watching other people, and I believe some of the most amazing artists/composers/writers were also some of the most unhappy, or dissatisfied. However when that creativity is spurred on by a deep joy and satisfaction, the work tends towards the divine simply because it transcends ordinary human selfishness.
Another point: the expression of something melancholy can also produce a kind of satisfaction, as I’m sure you know. But there’s no comparison to the exilheration of completing something you know grew from that joy.
Thanks for posting this :)

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