The Four Elements of Creativity. (3)

The following was written as a lecture for my students and all young artists. I will be publishing one element each day in my blog for the next four days. To read this lecture in proper sequence, please scroll to the first entry below titled "Fire" and read upwards from there. Thank you.

AIR



Ross Bleckner, Untitled (Sphere and moulding) 1987

This was the hardest element to write about. The words kept evading me.

In Italo Calvino's book, "6 Memos for the Next Millennium" his essay "Lightness" lays out the argument that artists are always trying to throw off weight. This weight could refer to the heaviness of words as a writer, or in my case as a painter, the too thick thingness of my plastic materials. I am reminded of a ziggurat, a pyramid of steps for us mortals to climb closer to the heavens, constructed from a mountain of materials. Its as if the very means from which we strive to ascend is the thing that also weighs us down.

An artist once told me she didn't care where she lived geographically, "because when I work, I'm 'up there'." This statement is more the potent when one realizes the many lives behind this particular artist. Suffering her family to the horrors of the holocaust, fleeing the Iron Curtain, living in Paris, Israel, New York and now, finding herself in a small rural American town. Her ability to escape the pain and geography of her past by simply working her way to "up there" spoke volumes to where all artists arise and descend from.

Where is "up there", and how does one get to it?" I always forget how I got there myself. Despite the many steps of the ziggurat, the road to heaven is blocked from easy access. The jealous gods will not allow artists to be their equal, so they hide the ascension into divinity. They lash out at mortals who attempt to ascend "up there" where the gods dwell, just as Prometheus was punished for stealing fire for humanity. Likewise, Aphrodite became jealous of Psyche's beauty and sent Eros "down here" to shoot his arrow at her. No, artists cannot be gods, at best, a demi-god like Michelangelo, but never a god. So, we must sneak our way "up there" by stepping our way through the rituals of our work. Climbing the steps of our ziggurat blindly, hoping we will arrive. The way to divinity is always a new puzzle to refigure with no assurance of success.

I often go to my studio, after the distractions of a real life, and say, "Now, where was I?" I have to pull out old work to reassure myself that I've risen to "up there" once before, and that I might find it again if I work some more, work myself into a cathartic trance that puts me into a state of feeling no pain or geographic boundaries.