Last week, when I mentioned hoping that lines borrowed from famous writers might make other people think of me as “poetic” or “creative,” I was reminded of the discomfort I have always felt with the second of those descriptors, of how that word, for reasons far beyond me, often brings the word “cursive” into my mind.
Really? Who would be reminded of “cursive” when hearing the word “creative?”
Could it be because they both begin with “C”?
I doubt it for then why not “crazy” or “cantankerous?”
Maybe it is because when learning to write in cursive back in elementary school, my third-grade teacher, Mrs. Hinzman, called my impossible scribbling “creative,” as a way of giving praise to my otherwise hopeless scrawl. But whatever the reason, the word has always rankled, which is unfortunate because it has been a part of my life for many decades. I went to graduate school in “creative writing”, and then, as a professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, I taught - as well as several times directed - an MFA and PhD program with that same irritating moniker. I’m sure I said a time or two, to one or another of my colleagues, “‘Creative’ Writing? Really? You don’t hear anyone say ‘creative’ painting or ‘creative’ music, do you? So why not just call it ‘writing?’”
Even in my regular life, on the occasion of hearing someone innocently compliment another person by saying, “She’s so creative!” or “He’s so creative!” I am capable of believing that the “she” or “he” in question must have beautiful handwriting. And, to quote Mr. Biden, “I’m not joking.”
I do fear that by letting my curmudgeonly nature show in this essay I am giving those who don’t know me personally too clear a look inside - though it will be no surprise to those who do know me.
So if any of you have such a… “cul du sac”, shall we call it?… in your psychological makeup, please let me know so I won’t feel alone. Do certain words set you off? Like in that joke about Cucamonga or Niagara Falls? “Cucamonga! Slowly I turned, step by step, inch by inch…”
And now… drum roll please… I’d like to say something about the word “artist.”
Unlike “creative”, about which my grumblings are true yet lighthearted, I can get downright apoplectic about “artist,” I guess because I believe it is art, not cleanliness, that is next to God(liness), and that to be an artist is a condition to which one strives, and a label affixed to one by others, not by oneself.
The great filmmaker, Akira Kurosawa (黒澤 明 1910 -1998) during his speech at the Academy Awards in 1989, said the following:
“I am very deeply honored to receive such a wonderful prize, but I have to ask whether I really deserve it. I'm a little worried, because I don't feel that I understand cinema yet. I really don't feel that I have yet grasped the essence of cinema. Cinema is a marvelous thing, but to grasp its true essence is very, very difficult. But what I promise you is that from now on I will work as hard as I can at making movies and maybe by following this path I will achieve an understanding of the true essence of cinema and earn this award…”
It isn’t simply his humility, running through the speech like a virus, that moves me, but that he was nearly eighty at the time, had created any number of truly great films, and was as serious in his statement as I am in writing this one right now. God bless the man… He hadn’t grasped the essence of cinema yet! And his name was Kurosawa.
Yet during these recent damned days it seems to me that every third time I hear a (usually young) actor or singer or poet or novelist, talking about their work, also hear “I am an artist!” stinking up the place like poop on someone’s dinner plate.
Can you imagine Mr. Kurosawa taking the Oscar stage and coming up with that refrain? “Thank you very much for recognizing me, for I am an artist!”
No, you cannot, for - and sorry for the repetition - he knew that such a label had to be bestowed by someone else.
I am inclined to let drawing and painting, indeed, all of the various visual arts off the hook here, for when we said ‘art’ back in school, they were what we meant. When “Roy G. Biv” became a part of my lexicon, artists were people with paint or clay or glue all over their hands, and I was fine with it, just as I am today.
But since around 2011, when I read the highly acclaimed (but lousy) Patti Smith memoir, Just Kids, about her life with the vainglorious photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, replete with an insistent “We were artists!” mantra on every other page, I came to the position that I have now, which is this:
I believe in art. I believe that art, whether found in film, in poems, in paintings and drawings, in pots or stories or, most beautifully, in music, can show us what it means to be human.
If I have a religion it is art, and it therefore truly does sit next to God(liness).
So I think the best thing we can do is let its beauty of power reign, and otherwise - to quote James Brown & The Famous Flames - “Please, please, please!” shut the hell up about it.
(Starting today I will post my essays at 9 a.m. Pacific time, instead of noon.)
Well I’m here to defend Patti Smith. :). I quite liked her book, Just Kids. It’s been a long time since I’ve read it, but is it possible her self-proclamation of being ‘artists’ was a bit tongue-in-cheek? Anyway, your post and the subsequent comments reminded me of this song by the band, U2. The song is called ‘Walk to the Water’.
‘He said he was an artist
But he really painted billboards
In large capital letters
Large capital letters’
It’s quite a good song.
Ack! Remember the German's?