artist – Clara Hsu

Empowerment Or Entitlement

My friends laughed when I said, “Everybody is a dentist until proven otherwise.” I told them I can pull all sorts of things, but strangely they balk at the thought of me pulling their teeth! Why then is it so believable when someone said, “Everybody is a poet until proven otherwise?”

The time artists spend in advancing their skills is no less than someone who goes to school and earns a degree. Just as law students have to pass their bar exams before becoming lawyers, the arts have standards too.

It is of course important to share the joy and encourage others to create. But empowerment is not the same as entitlement.

John F Kennedy famously said, “Ask not what your country can do for you–ask what you can do for your country.” Substitute “your country” with “poetry”. Isn’t advancing the course of poetry the job of every poet?

Image taken from: Boycott Bad Dentists.

What Poets Want

Jens-Ferdinand-Willumsen _Sophus-Clausssen-reading-poems_1915_Aarhus — Jens Ferdinand Willumsen: Sophus Clausssen Reading Poems 1915

What poets want is to be heard. As Owen Dunkel said, “I love my poetry.” Most poets will read at the open mike forever if they are not stopped by the clock. Sometimes even the clock cannot stop them. This phenomenon, however, is not unique to poets. Artists and musicians have the same craving. “Such exhibitionists,” commented Joseph Flummerfelt, choir conductor. To meld all the voices into one without the singers trying to outdo each other is a tough job. Deep down inside every choir member wants to be the soloist.

When it comes to sharing our arts we have little self control. Time is for others to keep.

Artists in Love

brownings — Elizabeth and Robert Browning

The movie Sylvia portrayed the stormy relationship of Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. While Hughes received recognition, Plath felt trapped as a housewife and unable to write under her husband’s shadow. A sad tale, and I wonder during the peak of their romance whether there was a time when they were able to influence and elevate each other’s writing.

Love and art merged for sculptors Rodin and Camille Claudel (she died in a mental hospital), composers/pianists Robert and Clara Schumann (he committed suicide and she raised eight children), and poets Robert and Elizabeth Browning, and each became formidable in their own right. The synthesis requires humility and trust; and love, which does magical things.

Waiting for the Muse

Sometimes it takes hours to write a sentence. Sometimes it takes no time to finish a poem. Inspiration cannot be controlled. It comes when it comes, and it can happen at the most inconvenient time.

I met Li-Yong Lee at the Squaw Valley Writers Conference in 2001, when he was one of the faculty poets. We found a little time to chat at the baseball field, waiting in line for Galway Kinnell to teach us klutz how to bat. Lee told me he worked in a warehouse during the day, stacking boxes. He wanted a job that did not require thinking. Being available when the muse visits is part of an artist’s life.

At an Art Studio

He softens a piece of flesh colored material with a flame and molds it onto a holder. He whips up a bowl of green plaster and spoons it on top. He brings it over to an opened mouth and sets it into the cavity. “Stay still,” he says.

His fingers are slender and moves with dexterity. He works quickly and speaks in a loud voice. On his work table are rows of molds . Some have red pearly tips, some are glazed, each has a name.

He takes care of my father in less than fifteen minutes. He promises to deliver the product by next Tuesday. My father beams at him with hope in his eyes, dreaming of chomping down meat balls and noodles and all kinds of yummy food.

“How many pairs of dentures do you make a day?” I ask.

“Too many. I don’t keep count.”

“You’re an artist.”

“Yes, it’s a kind of art,” he agrees.

The Artist Way

Writers workshops, conferences, editorial services…there are definitely enough activities out there to help a writer write, network, get onto a “platform” and published. The road to success is attainable. Maps and guidebooks are available for purchase. Attending a writers conference is like visiting a place of hope, where you can learn what’s hot in the industry, how to write a best seller and turn it into a money-making series, how to “connect” with fans and keep them, etc. The glory to be the next discovered talent is just a snap of the fingers away.

But the way of the artist goes on a different paradigm. The urge to create supersedes fame, recognition and money. Attractive and perhaps necessary as these elements are, they cannot replace the continuous need to explore, break through, find the voice within the voice that is the artist’s job.

They say today’s artists have to do everything to make it happen. It may very well be the case. Turning artists into businessmen, the world may not understand that artists are best when they are left to do what they do. But as artists, we must not forget.

To Love An Artist

Brent Benaway, painter, my daughter Julia’s boyfriend, left a stack of his paintings in my garage. The one in the front is a girl in a hooded sweatshirt sitting on the floor holding her knees with her hands. Her sneakered feet crossed at the ankles, jeans has a small torn in one area. Her face is pale, mask-like, and her eyes are two black holes without pupils. “Is it Julia?” I asked Brent. “No, she was my ex. I painted her as a birthday present but she didn’t appreciate it so I took it back.”

To be indifferent or uncaring to an artist’s work is to say goodbye to the relationship. I don’t think one needs to understand the art or to like it, but there needs to be an intense interest in the artist’s expression. The soul of the artist resides in his/her work. If the soul is not nurtured the body rejects the closeness.

Deadline?

There’s no deadline in art. Creation is a continuous process with periods of quiescence and activities. Sometimes the medium changes from one form to another and you never know if you’re standing on the threshold of change. Deadline is for functionality, demanded by those who feel they must have something tangible. If you believe in art, you have to believe it all the way. There is no justification. There is no road map. Faith is the only thing you hold on to.

Artists are misunderstood creatures often being labeled as dreamers and lazy bums. No wonder they are depressed, living in an organized world that is measured by the dollar and goes by the ticking clock. Pragmatic parents withholding their financial support or threatening to ostracize their children in order to kill the artistic tendency is one of the saddest things I witness being a teacher. They have failed to see the courage behind the artist, taking the road least traveled, making a difference in the world.

Photo credit: Lei Chen

Artists Don’t Apologize

Cookie, Klimey, Petey and Me — The Artist Way

Workmen arrived before nine to work on the bathroom. I was still in bed. The night owl wrote poems and watched Macbeth until nearly two in the morning, and then danced with Cookie the cat. When I was small I used to look into the mirror at midnight. They said at the hour of witching you may see your life passes by.

Of course that was child play, and long ago I had lost interest knowing what lies ahead, unlike the hero in Shakespeare’s tragedy. I only wonder sometimes if I should get a full time job and work like a normal person—8 to 5, no-nonsense, justifying my existence. But I’m artist, one that requires lots of mental space and catching up. The moment before rising is often rich with thoughts. They are not to be ignored but to be mulled over between the sheets. The artist way has no clock. The artist job is to feel and I don’t apologize.