No Shame November -- Visual Art

Visual art has always fascinated me...and, to be honest, completely eluded me. 

Sure, I won a blue ribbon a couple of times in elementary school for the Texas Wildflower contests (I remember one of the times I won, I totally threw that crap together at the last minute. It was some daisies on some black paper that I drew with white and yellow chalk, and smeared up "artistically," and I WON.  The bar must have been really low, because I've seen that in recent years and it was total crap, I tell ya.)

Art, just like dancing, playing an instrument or reading/writing/easily understanding poetry, has just always completely fascinated me and made me feel just the tiniest bit frustrated that it didn't come easily to me.  I know I shouldn't complain, because I know I'm good at other things.  I'm a better than average singer, I think I'm a decent actor, and I think I have potential to be a pretty darn good director.  I guess it's just that whole "grass is greener" cliché.  I want to be good at ALL THE THINGS.

The other night, I went to Dan's Silverleaf in Denton, TX to see Julia Sinclair (again), Foreign Fields (more on them tomorrow, probably, for Tuesday Tunes...still processing their album that I bought!), and Seryn (AGAIN!), and watching so many freakishly talented musicians just trade off instruments and be incredible at all of them made my heart ache a little bit. 

You know what...maybe it's not envy, so much as just...a respect that's hard to put into words. I see these incredible artists (musicians, visual artists, dancers, etc.) throwing every ounce of their bodies and souls into what it is that they're doing, and I guess it's kind of like my heart is aching in a non-painful way because it understands.  I know what they're feeling and how it feels to express it in a passionate way through a medium other than just spoken words, and my heart is empathizing. 

But back to visual art for a moment.  A year ago (ho. lee. crap.  it's been a YEAR you guys), when we did Café des Artistes, I was definitely the most envious and the least comfortable with the visual art portion of our exercises we did before constructing the show itself.  My friends/castmates Danielle and Lindsey did an incredible job in the Visual Art portion of the show, both as actors and as artists.

My very favorite piece of art in my house right now actually came from that show.  Danielle and Lindsey would each work on a drawing throughout the performance, and then I guess it would get either kept or tossed out each night so that they could start fresh each new evening.  The piece that Danielle drew during our last performance just really called out to me, and I asked her if I could have it.  She was gracious enough to give it to me. (I just wish I'd gotten her to sign and date it for me! BLAST!)

It's hanging up in my house, framed, and I love it.  And, now that Danielle has moved to Chicago to pursue theatre, it's a wonderful reminder of her that I see every morning while I'm putting on my jewelry:

When Words Are Your Art

Rehearsals for Café des Artistes  "officially" began last night.  We had a couple of meetings and discussions last week and the week before, but we are officially off and running. 

One of the cool things about doing such a collaborative piece is that we're encouraged to bring in our own thoughts, reactions, ideas for what might be included in the final production, and there's a lot of discussion in these early meetings and rehearsals.

Did I mention that we'll be not only exploring the lives of artists, but also the artistic process(es) an artist goes through while he or she is creating art?  The mediums being explored are music, dance, writing and visual art.  Tashina, the director, surprised me when she put me under the umbrella of writing.  Being a singer, I naturally assumed I'd be picked for music, but...I'm really, really excited to be trying something new and challenging myself.

Last night, at rehearsal, we were reading through some random texts that Tashina had pulled but hadn't yet assigned to a particular art form(s) or actor(s) yet, and we talked about each one after we read through them.  One of them got me thinking about something that I'm still having a hard time expressing, but I'll try...

Remember when I wrote this post and I talked about how much I loved with Kristin Chenoweth said about how we sing or we dance because we can no longer speak?  Because words fail us?  Well...I agreed with that wholeheartedly.  As artists, we're so very lucky because, when words fail us, we can sing.  We can dance.  We can paint. 

...but what about the writers, whose words are their art?  What happens when words fail them?

I'm not talking about Writer's Block.  At least, not really.  I'm talking about when our emotions take over and even words aren't enough to explain or express how we feel.  Let me come up with an example --

Imagine a relationship between a writer and his/her partner...or even a relationship between two writers.  Let's put them onto the stage, in the context of this show, even, so I can create a world that's slightly outside our reality. Their words are their work, passion, and their art.  Imagine the other relationships between the dancers, the musicians, the painters. 

Now imagine these relationships breaking down in some way.  The lines of communication are no longer working as they have before.  It's beginning to seem impossible for the artist to express himself, so he uses his art to express his frustration, his love, his rage, his jealousy, or what have you.  He paints.  He composes.  He releases it into his body in movement.

Can the writer still write?  When he can't communicate with his partner verbally, maybe, can he still use those words, that mastery of the language, to express himself?  Or does that just become more work than art at that point? 

(I'm not expecting answers from this, by the way...I'm just rambling in a stream-of-consciousness thought process trying to explain this...to myself.)

I was mulling this over last night long after rehearsal had ended, and I went back and read through some of the earlier scenes and dialogue/text we read through last week and I came upon what had initially appeared to be a simple back-and-forth word game between two people.  A word association game. I say a word, you come back with a word—the first word that pops into your mind—in reply.  It can be related to the first word, or just another word that the prompt word made you feel like saying.

I had a tiny bit of an epiphany that I hope we get to explore in rehearsals...perhaps the writers just go back to the language in its simplest form.  Perhaps it's a starting over point for them in that relationship, going back to a simple place where the words aren't so heavy-laden with double meaning or allegory or symbolism.  They're just...words. Words that invoke feelings all on their own in their barest form. 

When I re-read the word-association dialogue, it took on a whole new meaning for me. 

And that -- I think -- is the point of this whole process. 

(or at least one of the points)

Feeding the Soul

“Writing and reading decrease our sense of isolation. They deepen and widen and expand our sense of life: they feed the soul. When writers make us shake our heads with the exactness of their prose and their truths, and even make us laugh about ourselves or life, our buoyancy is restored. We are given a shot at dancing with, or at least clapping along with, the absurdity of life, instead of being squashed by it over and over again. It’s like singing on a boat during a terrible storm at sea. You can’t stop the raging storm, but singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship.”
— Anne Lamott

 This morning I was reading my own personal Tumblr feed and I stumbled upon this quote. I don’t know Anne Lamott. I haven’t read anything by her. I did look her up on the always-reliable Wikipedia, and I’m definitely curious enough to check out a couple of her books from the library.

But I LOVED this quote.

One of the things I love the most about it is that it references both the creators of the art as well as those experiencing the art that has been created. “Writing…decreases our sense of isolation” and that writing can restore our sense of buoyancy as readers. “Singing can change the hearts and spirits of the people who are together on that ship” despite the raging storms of life that are always present.

This really spoke to me and to what I think we will (and hope to) accomplish with Café des Artistes both throughout the process and once we are in performance.

I’m looking forward to decreasing any “sense of isolation” we feel in our everyday lives by working those issues into our art, as Tashina said at our first meeting, and creating something out of them. I’m excited to “change the hearts and spirits” of each other as we work on this project together and then do the same for our audiences.

Let’s do it.

—Mandy

(Note: this is cross posted on Sundown Collaborative Theatre's Tumblr (please note there are two separate hyperlinks there for Sundown's site and the Tumblr site!), where the cast members of CdA will be posting once a week about the process, our inspiration, and anything else that comes to mind. I strongly suggest you follow that Tumblr and follow Sundown on Twitter!)