I can think of only one activity in which I would possibly describe myself as artistic, and that is writing; at least if I'm going with the definition, "having or revealing natural creative skill."
The key here is the word "natural."
I can paint. I can draw. I could create pottery vases or even carve wooden figurines. I could play the harp in readiness for my audition for angelhood. But these are, or would be, learned skills. If you try hard enough, you can learn to do just about anything. What you cannot do is make it come naturally.
Betsy and I spent some time in Taos with her daughter, Lynne. We all painted and sketched. Mine were mechanical reproductions of the scenes before my eyes; Lynne's, very evidently, came naturally. They had a feel, a soul, to them, that mine lacked. Even had mine more adequately reproduced the subject, though I'm most certainly not making that claim, hers would still have been more artistic.
When I write, I am, to adopt a modern expression, "in the zone."
No, not always. Of course not. But when the result is good; good to me, which is all that matters,
I don't even feel that it is me writing. Or, if it is, it is some other me. Some subliminal me.
When that happens it is indescribable. Perhaps it's like some drug-induced high from the '60's, though I cannot say from personal experience.
Maybe all of us, when we are truly creative, feel that high.
There's another definition of the word which I also like, "aesthetically pleasing."
I love to take photographs. This is not an artistic endeavor! Especially today, with digital cameras which do all the work. But it has it's own creativity.
It's kind of on a lower scale.
I see, naturally, what creates a good image.
The camera does the rest, but I point it!
I hope my photographs are aesthetically pleasing, because that's my goal. But I hope, sometimes, for more than that. Some of them I am simply looking for the beauty that is abundant in this world. Sometimes that is enough. But real artistry should surely engender emotion, not simply beauty. Seeing it, and then capturing it, that's the trick.
Just last week I was driving down Colfax to Story Time at The Center, when two figures rushed into the street in front of my car. A young Hispanic woman dragged a little boy of perhaps five by the hand. Under her other arm she clutched a huge plastic basket piled high with laundry.
In the boy's other hand he hauled an immense plastic bottle of laundry soap. In a second they were gone, safely across the street and out of sight as I moved the car forward. Of course I didn't even have a camera with me, and if I had, everything moved too fast and too unexpectedly for me to have had any chance of capturing that wonderful image; one of those pictures worth a thousand words in the stories it tells. But, "thinking like a camera," if you like, I did capture the shot. It is burned in my brain. I can look at it whenever I want, and seeing it I can describe it to others.
One of the greatest gifts of one's own artistry is, at least for me, that it changes for ever how I see what I see. When I'm driving, or standing in line, or doing the dishes, I feel the words of some imaginary writing come into my head, or I'm framing the perfect photo.
If I reach the stage of life where I no longer raise a camera or a pen, I hope that gift remains with me, and continues, forever, to lighten and enlighten my life.© September 2014
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