A Life That Doesn't Suck, Part One

We had the first meeting of "A Life That Doesn't Suck: Financial Crisis Edition" last night. Andrew Simonet of Headlong Dance Theater is running the workshop, and spoke eloquently about how important it is - crucial, in fact, for both ourselves and our culture - to create a sustainable creative life.

He spoke about initiating a shift from being a career-driven artist to a misson-driven one; about creating a community in which the success of other artists is also a success for you/me; and about the importance of strategic planning, including setting a large, even improbable goal and then making incremental, manageable steps towards that goal.

The second half of the workshop involved us taking little steps towards our own artist statements, working to scuplt a paragraph that speaks in the voice of our work, is an accurate reflection of our values and vision, and is still accessible and interesting to others. We made a list of seven words that describe our work, then a list of fourteen words, then a paragraph. Here's my list of fourteen (I'm dealing with my dance work here, though there's a lot of overlap with my collage work):

whimsy
reciprocity
pattern
juice
hobble
eraser
between
group
gifts
touch
askew
relationships
crystallize
wonky

Doldrums

Holly of decor8 blog recently posted about daily flower arrangements as a way to overcome the end-of-winter blues. I like this idea a lot - I love flowers, especially daffodils and irises - but it's not financially feasible for me right now, given that I'm mostly unemployed.

So here I am, stuck in the creative doldrums, and waiting anxiously for spring. Somehow this unpleasant transitional season makes even more acute the questions I always wrestle with: how do I balance art, time, and money? Why do life concerns of bills and housekeeping always take so much time? How come I can't find a job? (Thanks, economy. Thanks a lot.) How can I learn some sense of discipline inside creativity, so that I'm not always only prey to the whims of my impulses?

I'm really looking forward to a workshop in April called "A Life That Doesn't Suck (Financial Crisis Edition)", run by several professional dancers in Philadelphia as part of the city's annual Dance Theater Camp. While I expect most of the discussion to be immediately relevant to the dance side of my art world, I know the issues we'll be talking about - the value of art, building community, time, money - are relevant across the board.

In the meantime, I think I'll go riffle through my box of paper goodies and send friends some unexpected mail. Hopefully that will briefly lift any sense of blah they might be struggling against, and perhaps help my sense of wellbeing, too.