Did you ever stop to wonder why Inuit art is so expressive? Swept up in its mystery and magic, did you ever wonder if you could learn anything from it? In my books, there are five main elements that have brought us this gift from the north. I think they’re worth taking a look at:
The natural, childlike nature of the artists. The Eskimo are playful. Traditionally, they met the stresses of long winters in close quarters with games and amusements.
In 1898, 28-year-old Charles Frederick Goldie returned to his hometown of Auckland, New Zealand after studying painting at the Academie Julian in Paris. He moved into his former art teacher’s studio in Auckland and the two began co-working on a large-scale, historical painting – like Raft of the Medusa – depicting the arrival of the Māori people to New Zealand.
In R.J. Palacio’s 2012 children’s novel Wonder, about a boy living with a rare medical facial difference, a middle school teacher named Mr. Browne encourages his fifth grade class to use precepts to guide the school year. “Like a motto,” says Mr. Browne. “Any saying or ground rule that can motivate you.” On the first day of school, Mr. Browne writes on the blackboard, “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”
A subscriber wrote, “Do you ever get stuck? I’m not producing, yet I have endless ideas. I have a studio doggie, take walks in nature, eat well — all the right stuff — but I’m still stuck. There’s some kind of block when I come back to the cabin. Any ideas?”
n addition to the pillars of a studio dog, a daily walk and a quality snack, one other mysterious component could perhaps aid in the recovery of the blocked artist.
Here, in France, potions are in fashion. Miraculous mineral waters, copper bracelets, Thalassotherapy, algae injections, mud activities, the pleasantries of colonic irrigation — there are ways of purging the bad stuff from the lungs, brains and bowels. Going by the number of Boxters and Beamers parked outside the fashionable Miramar in Arzon, Brittany, it would appear that the schemes that sell some of these elixirs are big business. Perhaps it’s got something to do with the perennial French interest in “The Cure.” I overheard one woman say, “Thalassotherapy has better odds than Lourdes.” As an aside, in my opinion, these folks aren’t getting enough roughage.
Studies have shown that if you gather a bunch of nine-year-olds in a gymnasium and describe to them the physics of a back handspring, you’ll see in return a collection of head cocks and fidgets. Instead, researchers noticed that kids will jump to their feet when an actual gymnast performs this right in front of them. A back handspring — like a life in art — is perhaps easier to attempt when you’ve witnessed someone else doing it.
After painting steadily for six months while doing a minimum of socializing, I gathered my accumulated works and destroyed them. Oh, maybe I kept a few of the better ones. I had made up my mind that this six months was going to be strictly about learning and experimentation. There were piles of half-finished paintings showing every touch of goofballitis that hit me. Stuff was dripped, rollered, squeegeed and scraped. Paint was on discarded doors, chunks of Styrofoam, linoleum panels and hand towels. Some paintings attempted materials and techniques that found me incompetent. Other works had occasional modest glimmerings of goodness.
In a previous letter, I touched on the idea that your vocabulary might be responsible for personal happiness, effectiveness or creativity. Could it be possible that we are formed by the words we use? For example, might the elimination of the word “failure” promote “success?” Might the constant use of the word “happy,” make you so? You may see a few problems. We may know of folks who give lip service to “love,” while they practice “hate.” You might think that the program will not work if you think one thing and say another. But the idea behind the concept is that the words themselves are what you may become. Words maketh the man.
Last night in Vancouver, a sparkly-eyed woman in a wide-brimmed hat introduced herself to me as an artist’s coach. “What kinds of problems do artists bring to you?” I asked.
She began with a gentle, meandering observation on the individuality and uniqueness of all artists, then described how many grapple with uncertainty when it’s time to grow. In all her years working in galleries, art advising and coaching, she has witnessed how creating an enjoyable artist’s life requires knowing why we make art in the first place.
In 1926 a young man by the name of Al Hirschfeld sketched a caricature of an actor on a theatre program while attending a New York performance. A friend convinced him to copy it onto a clean sheet of paper and submit it to a newspaper. Thus was born one of the great caricaturists — more than 7,000 published drawings and a career that lasted until his death at age 99 in 2003. Hirschfeld, who studied art in Paris and New York, had noted how sunlight bleached out colour and turned people into what he called “walking line drawings.”