Recovering a Sense of Safety with The Artist’s Way
At one point in my written exercises for Week 1, this sentence came scribbling out of my pen:
So yep, I’m already getting opened up & things are starting to seep out into my consciousness. Buckle up! (Just kidding, it’s probably not going to be dramatic for you.)
Psst… before we go any further, if you’re wondering what The Artist’s Way is, this short little post is for you:
The introduction to Recovering a Sense of Safety (Week 1 chapter) tells us:
This week initiates your creative recovery. You may feel both giddy and defiant, hopeful and skeptical. The readings, tasks, and exercises aim at allowing you to establish a sense of safety, which will enable you to explore your creativity with less fear.
Cameron explains that we (as children) should ideally have a foundation of nurturing family, teachers, friends, etc.
However, our artistic interests are often discouraged & cast in the light of hobby only, an afterthought to our “real” academic studies and later professional endeavors.
She labels people who have had their artistic drive squashed as “shadow artists” and notes that they often surround themselves with the arts and artists in an effort to have the closest contact they believe they can with what they love.
Shadow artists artists surround themselves by people who pursue creative endeavors; they choose careers that are close to their desired art or parallel it. They judge themselves harshly, and they blame themselves for not acting fearlessly.
But they must learn to take themselves seriously. They must nurture their inner artist child.
Well, that resonated with me.
Although my parents were supportive of my being well-rounded, the priority was always on academic subjects. That was the pathway to a good career and a comfortable future.
As I got older and started excelling at advanced mathematics, the priority placed on “traditional” success felt even more pronounced.
I love math — I enjoy solving puzzles and getting a correct answer. It’s a very rewarding process. I took two different types of calculus my senior year of high school and competed in a calculus bowl. I was a nerd. It was great.
Then I got into my math major in college and correct, numerical answers stopped being part of the equation (ha).
I was introduced to Art History. And nobody knew me, nobody cared what I did or didn’t study.
The trajectory of my life shifted.
Williams College is one of the oldest schools in America, founded in 1793. It’s the quintessential New England campus, and coming from Texas, I felt as though I’d been let into a secret paradise of beautiful buildings filled with wise, funny professors and intimidatingly smart classmates.
Along with my linear algebra and vector calculus classes, I filled my freshman course load with writing, drawing, history, and literature courses. My “shadow artist” whispered that I could justify them as part of my liberal arts education requirements while getting to indulge my creative curiosities.
Previously unbeknownst to me, Williams has the best Art History program in the country (producing so many grads in the field that it’s referred to as the Art Mafia).
Apparently everyone takes the introductory classes. Faced with this unusual peer pressure, I signed up for ArtH 101.
My sophomore year, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday mornings, I walked towards Chapin Hall, its tall stone columns and red brick walls centering the campus, and enter the lower side door to the “large” lecture auditorium. (When I later visited my younger sister at The University of Texas, I vividly realized the relative scales of our schools: 50,000 to 2,000.)
Professor EJ Johnson would approach the podium onstage, his Irish setter Soane quietly padding along behind him to settle down for the lecture. The lights would dim, Professor Johnson would call out “slide” to the student running the projector, and he’d begin to tell us stories.
He explained how humans made stone look like it could move, how a building could feel full of the holy spirit, what made a structure stand.
Gods dictated rituals and demanded residences; wealthy ruling families commissioned marble tombs; citizens constructed churches.
I was…. entranced.
A few images paired with story transformed into windows to other places on earth, other moments in history.
Looking at an ancient Kouros sculpture with its feet rooted to the ground and then at the Parthenon frieze with horses stampeding across the stone, I felt movement break free.
Dark slides of early Romanesque churches with their solid stone walls and curved ceilings communicated strength with a hint of heaviness, and then Gothic cathedrals sprang up, their spires reaching for the skies, stained glass windows spilling light into wide aisles.
The next semester, ArtH 102 taught me how to read a painting, and we traced its evolution from the flat figural tempura boards of Byzantine Christianity to the thick, oily brushstrokes of rebellious French Impressionists to the flashy, aggressive abstractions by New Yorkers after the war, on to Warhol’s point-perfect reproductions of printed ads.
I dropped my math major.
The Art History major required a range of courses representing art from around the world and throughout time. For my remaining 7 courses, I explored humanity via slides and stories:
- An Introduction to Buddhist Visual Worlds
- Italian Art & Architecture (while abroad in Siena, Italy)
- Romanesque and Gothic Art & Architecture
- Methods of Art History
- Pop Art
- The Holocaust Visualized
- Manet to Matisse
I continued to use my electives to study literature, history, drawing, and languages (French, Italian). During our winter study periods — 3 weeks of fun classes between semesters — I took dance, painting, and writing.
Being in the “purple bubble” allowed me to safely explore my creative side, build my framework of references to understand what made great artists great.
I’d had internships in NYC at a museum one summer, MTV the next. But I didn’t know what I wanted to do, what I wanted to become.
My senior year started in 2008. The economy and job market were suddenly a disaster.
I’d loved studying abroad, and some friends had taught in American schools in other countries. So I went to an international school job fair in February, got an offer for the Casablanca American School, and moved to Morocco after graduation. The next year, I was in Sofia, Bulgaria.
Since then, I’ve occasionally found the courage to sign up for acting, improv, and writing courses. I wrote a blog about Remote Year and coauthored a book with a fellow digital nomad.
But I’ve remained largely a shadow artist.
I travel the world and learn about other cultures. I visit museums in my free time, take notes on artists and their work, trying to tie visual threads together.
My instagram feed is full of designers, artists, photographers, writers, illustrators, cartoonists. I double tap, double tap, double tap, and save posts to themed collections.
I have been a producer for design studios for 5 years, and I use my organizational, math, and writing skills to help other people’s creative ideas become realities.
To the outside world, I am a capable, highly analytical, strategic consultant, project manager, and writer.
But inside, in my daydreams and journals, I am a writer, dancer, actor, performer. I have imagined myself on sets and stages, written screenplays and novels, accepted awards and given rousing speeches on creativity & success.
The question is whether that artist will continue to wait in the wings, watching and learning and dreaming, or if I will ever make it to the stage.
By picking up The Artist’s Way, scribbling my three morning pages at the start of each day, and admitting my “shameful” secret dreams to the world here in black serif letters, it seems like I am finally finished staying in the shadows.
Katherine works remotely while she travels the world — on the road since June 2014. Want more? Follow along on Medium and sign up for the mailing list.
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