Before I start rambling I want to say/share three things up front.
One, I am glad there are ALL kinds of people in this world. I would not want everyone to be, think or see things as I do. I recently heard of a young man who walks across the country. That's what he "does". Sometimes he works odd jobs for cash and sometimes he is graced with the kindness of strangers who help when he is in need, And you know what? I think he is as important to our world as the doctor or the sanitation worker or the teacher because, like all of us, his story can inspire. It can ignite an imagination. It can offer hope for those who feel like they themselves are an outsider or a little lost.
Two, I do NOT believe I have the answers for most young or aspiring artists. But I DO believe the way Sofie and I got "here" can be as inspiring and offer a glimpse into another way to live life. Choices that can be made today. Especially in a world that seems hell-bent on sinking everyone into debt, identity crisis and existential despair before they are 25. It's still about choice. And, since we are here to say "Look, we are doing it!", then I think it's worth hammering that point home sometimes.
Three - My Zen teacher used to say that our ambitions and pursuits in life are akin to cupping your hands together and then having someone pour cups of sand into them, each cup representing a different undertaking or passion. One cup at a time, for each new pursuit, passion or focus you take on. At some point, the only way to take on another half cup of sand, a new pursuit or passion, is to let go of some of the sand you already hold or the newly added sand will fall off the sides. Or you can fill your hands by only adding a part of, say, 6 or 7 different cups instead of at the whole of 2 or 3 of them. In addition, some of the sand in your hands also will likely leak out as you try to open your hands wider to hold/make room for the new sand. . . now you don't have a full grasp on any of those passions. . . that simple visual, and recognizing it was perfectly indicative of my own way of trying to do or take on too much, always made me smile.
Anyway, on with it. . .
One of the things I love about writing little stories, and now a novel about a fantasy world, is that it requires me to get out of my own world. Literally to step, thru the senses and experiences of the characters, into a place foreign and unknown.
But in many cases the inspiration for what I create DOES come from this world we live in, though it may be, as in my case, from another time.
This week I was writing a scene where my character needs to travel quite a distance in one chapter to make some deliveries. I was halfway thru when I realized that I had no idea exactly how far some of the places she needed to go were spaced from each other. They were there on the map, of course, but the terrain, the roads etc had only been lines on that map til then. She had a full basket to carry or barrow to push. Though the light is longest this time year in the story, it seemed a long way to travel . . . at least by our modern ideals.
So I turned, as I always do, to a very detailed book of life in and around early Victorian London. And what I find when I do this sort of research is exactly how far we have come, and how far we have fallen back, in terms of what we are capable of and/or willing to do in our own daily lives.
Reading about Victorian London market vendors who did not live in the city proper, but who came in from the surrounding countryside, and how they would rise in the middle of the night and start out for the city by 2 or 3AM. They would walk up to 6 or 7 miles (10 or 11KM) pushing a barrow or carrying their goods with them to reach the market. Then they would turn around and walk back home after the market was done or when they had sold out of their goods, often purchasing what they themselves required to haul back with them.
This was NORMAL for so many people.
For folk who needed to do this daily, the idea of leisure time was so rare an occurrence. Other than Sunday after church, they had perhaps no more than a half hour each day before falling into bed exhausted. Then waking four or five hours later to go and do it all over again.
To find that place to write from, when we live now in a world where some people I've known won't get up and DRIVE five minutes to the store at a still reasonable hour because it's "too far" or they're "too tired" is rather hard to comprehend. Have I ever walked/hiked that far when it was not just for sheer leisure or hiking for personal enjoyment? No, I do not think I have. Not once, let alone day after day, carrying a heavy bundle or pushing a barrow, just to survive.
And I do not want to compare myself to those hard working people of the Victorian era but when I read these things I realize that, even today, this is why I seclude myself in the world of my choosing. Blocking out much of the outside world.
We live in a world that embraces bigger cars and trucks, more conveniences, more ease and comfort at the expense of, literally, our own well-being, more all-in-one stores, faster and further reaching ability to travel and more choices and options on everything and anything you can think of.
Now I am not saying I wish to live in Victorian London. Well, maybe in the world of Larkrise to Candleford. . . the books I've read certainly cover, in all the repulsive detail, the smoky darkness, the noise, the dirt, the smells and the discomforts just as well. But I DO feel that the idea of walking a few miles, of rising before the sun to accomplish or pursue goals, should NOT be a shock or a tribulation given our modern convenience filled world! It's certainly not a true hardship. And it should not come with the cry of others saying "oh, how horrible". Those Victorian market sellers are people who did what they had to in order to survive. To build a life. To feed themselves and their families. It was routine. It was just life.
In building the life I have now, I had to do a similar sort of "research". With the exception of a few Zen monastics I knew there were really so few examples in the city of people who chose to live with less. It seemed so out of the box to set out finding a place to live that was inexpensive, yet felt safe. A small, functioning town where we could get by without a car at all. Without highways and off ramps. Choosing to go with no iPhones or telephone data charges, no cable tv or satellite/dish. No eating out, which meant cooking all our meals at home from scratch. Using coupons all the time at the stores. Stocking up when something was really cheap. Now, the "research" in this case was close at hand. . . these were all things my mother and grandparents imparted to me, by their own life examples, as I was growing up. They lived thru and were part of the Great Depression and war-era generations that got by and sacrificed to survive. My own mother, a single mother working a service industry job, doing whatever she had to so we could be comfortable and safe. These were the very best examples I could have had, that much I know.
We never had much. . . but I never once felt, or look back now and see, a lacking of anything important in that life we lived.
Somehow over the years those sacrifices and willing choices became the signs of an "impoverished life". Again, I say, really? I know people who literally cannot cook a meal at home. Who can't navigate a grocery store without calling home on the i-Phone to ask where things are located. . . let alone those who would not be alright for one day without their cell phone on them at all times.
On my last two trips on a city bus before we moved I had two very different experiences that highlight the extremes. In one, on a bus filled with middle school age kids heading home from school. In the two dozen or so of them who likely take this crowded ride home every day, most were just being kids, laughing, yelling, sharing things from their Facebook and twitter feeds on their phones. In the midst of it all sat one girl, headphones plugged into an iPod, sketch pad out drawing away, oblivious to the din around her and, I like to think, daydreaming in a world of her own making. She didn't interact with the other kids at all though she clearly knew some of them. At every stop, as one or more of them rose to leave, they had a dozen kids that they had to say goodbye to as they made their way thru the crowd. When this girl reached her stop, three others got off there too. Yet she kept her headphones on and, with just a wave to another girl sitting nearby, she walked alone towards her home. I got a little misty eyed recognizing something inside her that was also in me at that age and I thought, "there's a girl who is always going to be just fine."
In the second experience, two high schoolers, boy and girl, sat on a far less crowded bus and the girl was sharing with him some of the trouble she was having at school. The boy, his face buried in the screen of his phone, was distracted, obviously. At one point she said something to him about it and he apologized, saying he had to keep an eye on his phone so that he would know where his stop was. She seemed dumbfounded, and said, "But you take the bus home every day!" and he replied, "I know, but I need my phone to tell me which stop is mine." I looked out the windows at the passing street signs, landmarks, restaurants etc etc and wondered how has it come to that? At 12 or 13 I used to navigate the streets of a fairly large city, take streetcars, make transfers and figure out how to traverse the maze-like streets and alleys if I had to get somewhere walking. I worry for kids like that because that young man has created a world too. One that it seems may not work to his best interests going forward. One that, in many ways, may limit his choices and shrink his world in not-so-advantageous ways.
For Sofie (who also grew up in a frugal minded family) and I, the choice was simple. Still is. We would not have been able to get to this point, making a full time living as makers-of-things, working from our home studio every single day, without having made those sacrifices at the start and without having had the experiences of our own childhoods when we had to rely on ourselves far more than most kids today ever will. We could not have done it without the examples of self sufficiency in our own families that showed us the way.
That's just a fact.
So, was it/is it worth it? No question. Do we feel like we sacrificed anything vital? No, not at all.
Today we are more self-sufficient that ever, I believe. We have zero debt, we have IRA's and a good little savings nest egg. None of which was a reality when we started this quest together and most of it is possible because of how we chose to live our life and how hard we work to maintain it. Yet we actually make LESS than we ever did working "career jobs" in the city when we couldn't seem to stay ahead.
By the way, we DO have a car now too. One that a little old lady drove once a week or so to the grocery store. Literally! We named her, in honor of Barbara, the woman who owned it for it's first 24 years, hence the name "Babs". So when we got Babs, that 24 yr old car had all of 16.000 miles on it. The woman's son, who was a friend of mine, just wanted the blue book value. . . which was $300. Babs runs like a dream and we continue to treat it as the previous owner did, driving it mostly for necessity too. We have had to put gas in it just twice since February. :) Our mechanic tell us if we take care of it as we are, she'll outlast most cars a quarter her age.
What did we give up then? Well, it's a short list. Being close to family. City conveniences. Looking outside of ourselves for entertainment. But even giving up those few things brought more "perks. . . less obligation, less opportunity for frivolous spending, less anxiety and, as far as "entertainment" goes, I personally have read more books in the last five years than in the previous 20. As a child, reading and discovering new books and new worlds was my salvation. . . so that has been like finding an old friend again.
I've had people tell me outright, "Oh, I could never live like that." and "You sacrifice so much!"
So much? To enable me to do the thing I've wanted to do all of my life instead of wishing and just shrugging my shoulders at the seemingly impossible thought because I won't entertain the idea of "world-building" a life that this can support? Those are the folks that I want to remind of what daily life was like for most people just 150 years ago. Heck just 40 years ago. Remind them of the days when, say, TV was free and you had to get up off the couch to change the channel . . . and likely get up again in 5 minutes to mess with the rabbit ear antennae to get the station to come in halfway clear.
Seriously, it was not that long ago that even those simple, everyday things were very, very different.
In writing stories about a world like the Bewildering Pine, it feels like such a comfort to dive in, once again, to creating another way of life. To explore world-building thru these tales of many different elven folk and the secrets their little world hides. It's not a moralistic tale at all or, at least, not in it's planning. The whole of the original plan really was to take two or three dozen of "those would be great characters in a book" people I have known or met in my life and set them at odds as elven folk within a world that is not quite what it seems. Each with their own part to play be it part of the larger quest or just figuring out how to live their own small lives and be true.
The book is also a nod to my own family roots. To that ancestry and their new beginnings. To the changes that passing time brought in their world and even to the lost language and customs of the "old country" they left behind.
Mostly though, it's just another way of continuing what I have been doing my whole life. Creating a secluded, safe world where I can disappear and let my own imagination be the only guide thru.
On the written page or in real life (and real life is what I am talking about here!) it's all really just a matter of world-building and, in world-building, one thing remains the constant. . .
ANYTHING is possible. You just have to create it!!
And as for that Zen lesson I mentioned, it took me awhile to get it. . . in response I used to raise my hands up in front of my teacher and say. . ."Good thing I have large hands!" :)
xo
nicolas
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label advice. Show all posts
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Sunday, March 9, 2014
Do What You Want, Be What you Are
So I want to begin sharing more of the day to day process and inner workings of being a full time maker-of -things. Let me start by sharing a little picture with you.
This is my studio work table on a random morning taken about a week or so back. Now, the funny thing about this picture is, I almost did not use it for this blog because, as I looked at it, I thought "Oh that's too neat. . . it looks staged." I'll pause while those of you with a neater bent to their organization and creative work spaces gasp and shudder at the thought. : )
In actuality, all I removed from the scene were paint rags and some scraps of notes that were not relevant. The rest, as seen, is pretty much how my work table looks. . . on a good day.
That little clear space on the front/right table, on the clay mat, that is where I make almost everything in my shops. All the rest are the parts of projects that are going on right now, things drying, things waiting for their day in the photoshoot sun, things in progress etc etc. This is the eye of the storm I suppose you could say. . . because it is always a clam and workable space to me. And, in the chaos, it all makes sense.
The point of this simple little post is this:
Too often I think we unlearn things that were simply inherent to us because our "teachers" believed their way to be better. In the end, as we grow up, we fight our natural tendencies because we may have been taught that they were not good ways to be. Nowhere is this more destructive than in the creative realm.
In my world, that "teaching" was an endless string of contradicting statements that for years kept me from being the wonderful mess-maker that I am.
Family "teachers" said:
"When you are done (playing) put everything away! It's a mess!"
Except so many of my "games" were paracosms and ongoing worlds that didn't end when I had to stop playing for dinner, sleep or some other such nonsense. . . . They went on without me so how could I just pack them all away? How could I slip back into them seamlessly if they were neatly stacked in a closet or forced under the bed?
Art teachers in school said:
"Focus on one idea or technique. Don't try to do it all. Finish the project you've started. Perect what you are doing"
Except that I never was a one thing at a time person.
Not in reading books ( I have 5 going right now)
Not in traveling. The first time I went to Europe I looked at the map of the continent and said, "Right, 17 days and I'm going to 14 countries! (umm that did not work out once I hit France. . . and so I DO learn you see!)
Certainly not in creative projects, which, I believe, tell ME when they are ready to be finished and not vice versa. So some sit for days. Weeks. Even months till the finish is apparent to me.
In my first "career" of the culinary arts, I was taught by the chefs I worked for:
"Don't try to do too many things, just pick a cuisine and master it." (So, needless to say, I fell into the Fusion/cross cultural cuisine trend of the 90's with all my heart and soul!)
Oh the list goes on and on. . .
It took me years to learn that I have this pattern of creative chaos and that it works perfectly for me.
Let every idea come forth.
Jump at making whatever makes me happiest
Figure the rest out as I go along.
That's being me. That's who I am. Yet I spent a great deal of my early adult life trying to "do it the right way" by what I had been taught was best.
And while I had to do some work to learn how to make this authentic, natural me into a workable model that could make a viable living, it really only came together when I finally sloughed all that old, repetitive programming off and let myself be the creative soul I was born as. . . working with, instead of against, myself.
That's what allowed this to now grow into a full time occupation that suits me perfectly.
The interesting twist to the story is this. For all the "creative" mess one may see in my life, in my daily way of being a maker-of-things, let me tell you where my life has no mess and jumble.
Basically that would be in every other department.
There are few people who get my time, few outside distractions are ever allowed in, I make very few obligations/commitments and selectively extend myself and there are just very few things I feel compelled to do other than create. I have not heard my phone ring in four years and, like the old days, only return calls at the end of the work day when done. I moved to a place where I can walk to almost everything I need (including places in nature where I can be alone) each day.
That too was something of old programming that I had to break. We are told to "do one thing" when it comes to work, art, careers, interests or anything we want to "achieve". . . but then we are told a well rounded life includes all that excess which pulls us in 20 directions at once.
How many people I have known that felt that a well rounded life was about having all THOSE diverse interests filling up their schedule and making the hours something to be counted and rationed?
How many people have I listened to as they lament not having the time to do the things they really love while constantly rushing off to yet another engagement or obligation?? How many friends have I watched running around frazzled all day long, every day, so caught up in being "busy" and saying it as if being busy were an accomplishment in and of itself?
But I'd swear, if you ask me, busy is a modern synonym for "messy" in regards to living life.
And when I did it, it just made me feel further away from what I most wanted to be doing.
And so my advice to others, about a creative life, when asked, is:
Neat or messy, one thing or a whole basket full of ideas, or anywhere in between makes no difference
Do what you want but be . . . what. . . you. . . are.
And what you are IS inherent. Yes it can be molded and tightened up and tinkered with.
But the core of it is going to be something you always and already were. . .
Because following that path and being just what you are is always going to lead to happiness doing what you most want to do.
So as a word of advice from a mess-maker extraordinaire, messy is cool. . . it's fine to stray and wander and indulge in many wonderful ideas and pursuits. . . just tidy up the REST of life and let the true you rule the creative day.
xo
nicolas
This is my studio work table on a random morning taken about a week or so back. Now, the funny thing about this picture is, I almost did not use it for this blog because, as I looked at it, I thought "Oh that's too neat. . . it looks staged." I'll pause while those of you with a neater bent to their organization and creative work spaces gasp and shudder at the thought. : )
In actuality, all I removed from the scene were paint rags and some scraps of notes that were not relevant. The rest, as seen, is pretty much how my work table looks. . . on a good day.
That little clear space on the front/right table, on the clay mat, that is where I make almost everything in my shops. All the rest are the parts of projects that are going on right now, things drying, things waiting for their day in the photoshoot sun, things in progress etc etc. This is the eye of the storm I suppose you could say. . . because it is always a clam and workable space to me. And, in the chaos, it all makes sense.
The point of this simple little post is this:
Too often I think we unlearn things that were simply inherent to us because our "teachers" believed their way to be better. In the end, as we grow up, we fight our natural tendencies because we may have been taught that they were not good ways to be. Nowhere is this more destructive than in the creative realm.
In my world, that "teaching" was an endless string of contradicting statements that for years kept me from being the wonderful mess-maker that I am.
Family "teachers" said:
"When you are done (playing) put everything away! It's a mess!"
Except so many of my "games" were paracosms and ongoing worlds that didn't end when I had to stop playing for dinner, sleep or some other such nonsense. . . . They went on without me so how could I just pack them all away? How could I slip back into them seamlessly if they were neatly stacked in a closet or forced under the bed?
Art teachers in school said:
"Focus on one idea or technique. Don't try to do it all. Finish the project you've started. Perect what you are doing"
Except that I never was a one thing at a time person.
Not in reading books ( I have 5 going right now)
Not in traveling. The first time I went to Europe I looked at the map of the continent and said, "Right, 17 days and I'm going to 14 countries! (umm that did not work out once I hit France. . . and so I DO learn you see!)
Certainly not in creative projects, which, I believe, tell ME when they are ready to be finished and not vice versa. So some sit for days. Weeks. Even months till the finish is apparent to me.
In my first "career" of the culinary arts, I was taught by the chefs I worked for:
"Don't try to do too many things, just pick a cuisine and master it." (So, needless to say, I fell into the Fusion/cross cultural cuisine trend of the 90's with all my heart and soul!)
Oh the list goes on and on. . .
It took me years to learn that I have this pattern of creative chaos and that it works perfectly for me.
Let every idea come forth.
Jump at making whatever makes me happiest
Figure the rest out as I go along.
That's being me. That's who I am. Yet I spent a great deal of my early adult life trying to "do it the right way" by what I had been taught was best.
And while I had to do some work to learn how to make this authentic, natural me into a workable model that could make a viable living, it really only came together when I finally sloughed all that old, repetitive programming off and let myself be the creative soul I was born as. . . working with, instead of against, myself.
That's what allowed this to now grow into a full time occupation that suits me perfectly.
The interesting twist to the story is this. For all the "creative" mess one may see in my life, in my daily way of being a maker-of-things, let me tell you where my life has no mess and jumble.
Basically that would be in every other department.
There are few people who get my time, few outside distractions are ever allowed in, I make very few obligations/commitments and selectively extend myself and there are just very few things I feel compelled to do other than create. I have not heard my phone ring in four years and, like the old days, only return calls at the end of the work day when done. I moved to a place where I can walk to almost everything I need (including places in nature where I can be alone) each day.
That too was something of old programming that I had to break. We are told to "do one thing" when it comes to work, art, careers, interests or anything we want to "achieve". . . but then we are told a well rounded life includes all that excess which pulls us in 20 directions at once.
How many people I have known that felt that a well rounded life was about having all THOSE diverse interests filling up their schedule and making the hours something to be counted and rationed?
How many people have I listened to as they lament not having the time to do the things they really love while constantly rushing off to yet another engagement or obligation?? How many friends have I watched running around frazzled all day long, every day, so caught up in being "busy" and saying it as if being busy were an accomplishment in and of itself?
But I'd swear, if you ask me, busy is a modern synonym for "messy" in regards to living life.
And when I did it, it just made me feel further away from what I most wanted to be doing.
And so my advice to others, about a creative life, when asked, is:
Neat or messy, one thing or a whole basket full of ideas, or anywhere in between makes no difference
Do what you want but be . . . what. . . you. . . are.
And what you are IS inherent. Yes it can be molded and tightened up and tinkered with.
But the core of it is going to be something you always and already were. . .
Because following that path and being just what you are is always going to lead to happiness doing what you most want to do.
So as a word of advice from a mess-maker extraordinaire, messy is cool. . . it's fine to stray and wander and indulge in many wonderful ideas and pursuits. . . just tidy up the REST of life and let the true you rule the creative day.
xo
nicolas
Sunday, February 16, 2014
The Thread
I think my blog will be taking a turn in the coming weeks.
I have, for two years, been telling myself I wanted to write (seriously) more often in the hope of sharing and explaining my creative path and the way my childhood informs all of my creations today. I’ve been successful in fits and spurts. Yet it has been extremely hard to write about the most important details of that childhood and share them.
To be truthful, I had no idea why.
Last night I read a wonderfully thought provoking short story called “Mr. Goober’s Show” by the esteemed sci-fi writer Howard Waldrop which, today, has me going deeper into my own world to understand why some things “work” and some don’t for myself, for others and for and within the creative life so many of us wish to live.
In the story a man relates the experience of his sister and he in the 1950’s when, while visiting with an Aunt, they uncover a mechanical (pre-war) television that, according to the Aunt, does not work because the way television is transmitted in the story’s active time (1950’s) has changed and so there are no programs broadcast the old way anymore.
The children, left alone one evening, plug in the old TV and, after a bit of fiddling with the knobs, they DO find a broadcast which, since there is no sound, they can only watch. They dub the show “Mr. Goober’s Show”. The genius of not explaining exactly what they see is part of the draw of the story. The years pass, the sister becomes obsessed with discovering what they saw as the brother seems to be less concerned and interested over time. The sister goes to work in the technical/ TV field and, in a series of letters over the years to her brother, explains the futility and ever-increasing obsession with wanting to know what they saw. How it was even possible given the technology and the science.
I won’t give the end away but, the thoughts that are now in my mind began with my own recollections of two shows I saw as a child that I simply have never been able to find in adulthood, even in this vast internet age of every little detail of every single movie, show and program being catalogued. They seem to not exist.
Now, the two characters, the brother and sister, go in opposite directions with Mr. Goober’s Show. While they both are totally taken with it as children and talk about it into their young adult lives, the boy, we are led to believe, simply loses interest and the girl becomes obsessed with unraveling the magic though the obsession leads her deep into the technical aspects of what it COULD have been and away from the early experience of it.
To me, it reads as a dual warning for adulthood.
When I was a child, my world, from a very early age was filled with my inserting myself into many roles and fantasy worlds. These were based on historic or dramatized events. At one time or another I was an astronaut in a cardboard capsule fitted with hundreds of christmas lights and switches I taped in place or poked through holes. I was a high seas pirate on a front porch ship, a Shaolin monk, an Egyptian scribe (and sometimes pharaoh) , I stormed the beaches at Normandy and climbed Mt Everest, explored alien worlds and fell through time portals. I lived in Medieval castles and fought dragons and demons time and again the victor. I lived on the Prairie along with the Ingalls family and solved crimes as many 70’s TV cops (often Kojak because it involved the lollipop and wearing my grandfather's fedora). I created entire sports leagues in the back yard and invented my own futuristic sports, made up board games and card games of my own in winter too.
What happens in adulthood is clearly a duality that we often choose one or the other path as laid out in the story I read. We either lose the sense of magic and wonder of childhood and move on leaving it behind, or we get so caught up in the explanation of all things magical, how things work, what they mean, that they must make sense and what is and is not possible, what we imagined versus what is “real”. We get so wrapped up in this that those early worlds are torn down by the time we reach adulthood and left in tatters around us.
But adulthood is just another fantasy world. And while people look at artists as dreamers, it is often the average 9-5er who is living just as distorted a dream. Usually one that is constructed of, and constricted by, equal parts “have to” and “reason” that the magic is often left out altogether.
Have to and reason can destroy artistic magic too. . . which is why I think art schools ultimately damage as many as they help. . . so why would any other lifestyle be any less damaged by the same factors?
What’s the balance then? For me, it seems to be that we never should leave that magic behind or totally understand it either. This is why, in a nutshell, I have been unable to write about those early experiences.
Technical explanations and scientific certainty can be fascinating but deadly to the imagination as well. I’d rather not know how things work and I’d rather not try to explain where my ideas come from or how they are completely linked, every one of them, to something within that has been nurtured since my childhood. There's a magic in them that I lived, have understood as inherent, and I have tried to explain without success even to myself. And there are those few events that are truly and simply unexplainable. How can I write about them without feeling like I have to explain them or say, "This is what I have come to understand about that day, that event or that memory."
I think the key to telling great, compelling stories, and that is what all artistic outlet can be reduced to, is in what you do not reveal. I tell bits and pieces of the whole but I leave just enough out to allow for the viewer to have a door in for themselves to my world and my work. I want to create things that inspire imagination and open to larger landscapes within. It’s pure storytelling and it is the core of every creative being.
It’s the ephemeral, untouchable essence of who we are. . .
In the simpler sense, there are parts of me that desperately want to know what those two old shows I saw as a 6 or 7 year old were. . . and an equal part of me that never wants to see them again. I want to maintain my own memory of them as they were experienced then which, in seeing them 30 years later, can never be the same, can they?
So this creative dream I live now. . . yes, it is a construction of my own. No one wrote the book on living it and no one told me how to make it happen.
I am asked constantly, "You can make a living doing THAT?" and while the simple, actual answer is "Yes." it leaves out all the magic because, in truth, not everyone can. It's not enough to be good at something or to excel in business or have great people skills and even a staunch self belief matters only a smidgen. The creative path requires the absolute presence of magic. And the magic requires that we never answer all the questions ourselves. We leave them for others to discover and to find within their own creations in their own time.
That’s the magic of the story.
Of life.
I’ll be trying to create a more revealing feel here in the coming months. Posting more updates on projects and little bits of inspiration here and there going forward. Turning the focus into more of a daily process of what I am actually doing and how.
Focusing on the magic of my todays as much as my yesterdays.
In those posts, some of the larger story will come through but, in the grand scheme of things, the magic I want to convey is not from the past.
It’s in the here and now.
Today.
It’s not a memory but the one constant and unbroken thread of my life.
The one, as in the William Stafford poem, that I will never let go of.
I hope you will continue creating the magic of YOUR life
And follow along with me too. : )
nicolas
I have, for two years, been telling myself I wanted to write (seriously) more often in the hope of sharing and explaining my creative path and the way my childhood informs all of my creations today. I’ve been successful in fits and spurts. Yet it has been extremely hard to write about the most important details of that childhood and share them.
To be truthful, I had no idea why.
Last night I read a wonderfully thought provoking short story called “Mr. Goober’s Show” by the esteemed sci-fi writer Howard Waldrop which, today, has me going deeper into my own world to understand why some things “work” and some don’t for myself, for others and for and within the creative life so many of us wish to live.
In the story a man relates the experience of his sister and he in the 1950’s when, while visiting with an Aunt, they uncover a mechanical (pre-war) television that, according to the Aunt, does not work because the way television is transmitted in the story’s active time (1950’s) has changed and so there are no programs broadcast the old way anymore.
The children, left alone one evening, plug in the old TV and, after a bit of fiddling with the knobs, they DO find a broadcast which, since there is no sound, they can only watch. They dub the show “Mr. Goober’s Show”. The genius of not explaining exactly what they see is part of the draw of the story. The years pass, the sister becomes obsessed with discovering what they saw as the brother seems to be less concerned and interested over time. The sister goes to work in the technical/ TV field and, in a series of letters over the years to her brother, explains the futility and ever-increasing obsession with wanting to know what they saw. How it was even possible given the technology and the science.
I won’t give the end away but, the thoughts that are now in my mind began with my own recollections of two shows I saw as a child that I simply have never been able to find in adulthood, even in this vast internet age of every little detail of every single movie, show and program being catalogued. They seem to not exist.
Now, the two characters, the brother and sister, go in opposite directions with Mr. Goober’s Show. While they both are totally taken with it as children and talk about it into their young adult lives, the boy, we are led to believe, simply loses interest and the girl becomes obsessed with unraveling the magic though the obsession leads her deep into the technical aspects of what it COULD have been and away from the early experience of it.
To me, it reads as a dual warning for adulthood.
When I was a child, my world, from a very early age was filled with my inserting myself into many roles and fantasy worlds. These were based on historic or dramatized events. At one time or another I was an astronaut in a cardboard capsule fitted with hundreds of christmas lights and switches I taped in place or poked through holes. I was a high seas pirate on a front porch ship, a Shaolin monk, an Egyptian scribe (and sometimes pharaoh) , I stormed the beaches at Normandy and climbed Mt Everest, explored alien worlds and fell through time portals. I lived in Medieval castles and fought dragons and demons time and again the victor. I lived on the Prairie along with the Ingalls family and solved crimes as many 70’s TV cops (often Kojak because it involved the lollipop and wearing my grandfather's fedora). I created entire sports leagues in the back yard and invented my own futuristic sports, made up board games and card games of my own in winter too.
What happens in adulthood is clearly a duality that we often choose one or the other path as laid out in the story I read. We either lose the sense of magic and wonder of childhood and move on leaving it behind, or we get so caught up in the explanation of all things magical, how things work, what they mean, that they must make sense and what is and is not possible, what we imagined versus what is “real”. We get so wrapped up in this that those early worlds are torn down by the time we reach adulthood and left in tatters around us.
But adulthood is just another fantasy world. And while people look at artists as dreamers, it is often the average 9-5er who is living just as distorted a dream. Usually one that is constructed of, and constricted by, equal parts “have to” and “reason” that the magic is often left out altogether.
Have to and reason can destroy artistic magic too. . . which is why I think art schools ultimately damage as many as they help. . . so why would any other lifestyle be any less damaged by the same factors?
What’s the balance then? For me, it seems to be that we never should leave that magic behind or totally understand it either. This is why, in a nutshell, I have been unable to write about those early experiences.
Technical explanations and scientific certainty can be fascinating but deadly to the imagination as well. I’d rather not know how things work and I’d rather not try to explain where my ideas come from or how they are completely linked, every one of them, to something within that has been nurtured since my childhood. There's a magic in them that I lived, have understood as inherent, and I have tried to explain without success even to myself. And there are those few events that are truly and simply unexplainable. How can I write about them without feeling like I have to explain them or say, "This is what I have come to understand about that day, that event or that memory."
I think the key to telling great, compelling stories, and that is what all artistic outlet can be reduced to, is in what you do not reveal. I tell bits and pieces of the whole but I leave just enough out to allow for the viewer to have a door in for themselves to my world and my work. I want to create things that inspire imagination and open to larger landscapes within. It’s pure storytelling and it is the core of every creative being.
It’s the ephemeral, untouchable essence of who we are. . .
In the simpler sense, there are parts of me that desperately want to know what those two old shows I saw as a 6 or 7 year old were. . . and an equal part of me that never wants to see them again. I want to maintain my own memory of them as they were experienced then which, in seeing them 30 years later, can never be the same, can they?
So this creative dream I live now. . . yes, it is a construction of my own. No one wrote the book on living it and no one told me how to make it happen.
I am asked constantly, "You can make a living doing THAT?" and while the simple, actual answer is "Yes." it leaves out all the magic because, in truth, not everyone can. It's not enough to be good at something or to excel in business or have great people skills and even a staunch self belief matters only a smidgen. The creative path requires the absolute presence of magic. And the magic requires that we never answer all the questions ourselves. We leave them for others to discover and to find within their own creations in their own time.
That’s the magic of the story.
Of life.
I’ll be trying to create a more revealing feel here in the coming months. Posting more updates on projects and little bits of inspiration here and there going forward. Turning the focus into more of a daily process of what I am actually doing and how.
Focusing on the magic of my todays as much as my yesterdays.
In those posts, some of the larger story will come through but, in the grand scheme of things, the magic I want to convey is not from the past.
It’s in the here and now.
Today.
It’s not a memory but the one constant and unbroken thread of my life.
The one, as in the William Stafford poem, that I will never let go of.
I hope you will continue creating the magic of YOUR life
And follow along with me too. : )
nicolas
Sunday, November 24, 2013
Fairy Tales
It occurred to me very recently that perhaps the main reason I drift in and out of blogging is because I feel that so much of what I want to say and convey about the creative path I am on and the origins of it in my life are not spoken but, rather, find a way into my work each and every day. Often, at then end of the day with a number of visual images, gargoyles, fairy houses and Egyptian Gods and Goddesses all coexisting on my studio table, I realize my entire day has been filled with unspoken dialogues and enough words to fill a three volume set. :)
It also seems to make sense to me that I can choose the pieces to display here in blog form, not for publicity sake but for an opportunity to reveal what is behind them. Bit by bit to find the core ofmy place of origin and to, in a sense, add to the map of my life.
The other day I completed this piece as the first of a set that will be featured next year in Bewilder and Pine,
This piece speaks to many of my origins. The worlds I would create within my childhood. Often invested in them alone and keeping them close to my heart as I just felt that any outside input or exposure would change them. Alter them and, in fact, weaken their power and place within my own mythology.
Second, as a pre-teen, my love for model railroading and building entire scenes of a new layout every year remain one of the most treasured ways that I spent time in that older-youth era. Of course, this was a pursuit embraced by my family as well so I could work on it in the open but, I am positive, no one ever really saw INTO that world I created each year. Every figure and every part of the overall scene had a backstory. A dialogue and a plot that often changed over the two months it was up and running. I'd add to it and rearrange it each year with a fresh view of it. In reality, the train was the least of my concerns. It was about taking these little pieces, people and structures and making something new from them that fit wit my own paracosm.
And fairy tales. . . I simply adore them. The dark, the light, the rambling and the brief. They remind me, simply put, of the worlds I create as well as the possibility of anything becoming our reality in this world.
Once, when I first moved to the Oregon Coast, I considered renting a piece of property/that had been started as a retreat space with a beautiful A-Frame house. The price was truly way out of my price range but I debated and schemed how I could manage it all because the original owner had built, in the middle of the woods, a large, free standing mushroom room. Seriously. it stood 8 to 9 feet tall at the peak of it's red spotted mushroom cap roof and was about 7 feet in diameter on the inside with stained glass windows, electrical outlets and a hardwood floor. I mean, it felt like a portal had opened and this mushroom had somehow slipped to our side from a fairy tale side of existence. What magic!
So, my point is that I truly believe that every person must create from what they know inherently. Or it comes off seeming false somehow. That doesn't mean it should or will be easy as often the most difficult roads are the ones that lead us back to ourselves.
And if we are lucky we find that trail of crumbs that the little Hansels and Gretels in us left behind. . .
we find or way thru the dark woods and past the scary creatures of this world. We survive to create new and personal tales. . . .and we all do this no matter what the path we take.
So, you'll likely see me around more often and I hope you won't mind the display of my work in the posts. It is how I get to what is inside and to what I truly want to say. . . . and quite often, it is all I have to say. :)
Thank you, as always, for reading. :)
nicolas
It also seems to make sense to me that I can choose the pieces to display here in blog form, not for publicity sake but for an opportunity to reveal what is behind them. Bit by bit to find the core ofmy place of origin and to, in a sense, add to the map of my life.
The other day I completed this piece as the first of a set that will be featured next year in Bewilder and Pine,
 |
| Miniature N Scale - Hansel and Gretel Discover the Witches Cottage |
Second, as a pre-teen, my love for model railroading and building entire scenes of a new layout every year remain one of the most treasured ways that I spent time in that older-youth era. Of course, this was a pursuit embraced by my family as well so I could work on it in the open but, I am positive, no one ever really saw INTO that world I created each year. Every figure and every part of the overall scene had a backstory. A dialogue and a plot that often changed over the two months it was up and running. I'd add to it and rearrange it each year with a fresh view of it. In reality, the train was the least of my concerns. It was about taking these little pieces, people and structures and making something new from them that fit wit my own paracosm.
And fairy tales. . . I simply adore them. The dark, the light, the rambling and the brief. They remind me, simply put, of the worlds I create as well as the possibility of anything becoming our reality in this world.
Once, when I first moved to the Oregon Coast, I considered renting a piece of property/that had been started as a retreat space with a beautiful A-Frame house. The price was truly way out of my price range but I debated and schemed how I could manage it all because the original owner had built, in the middle of the woods, a large, free standing mushroom room. Seriously. it stood 8 to 9 feet tall at the peak of it's red spotted mushroom cap roof and was about 7 feet in diameter on the inside with stained glass windows, electrical outlets and a hardwood floor. I mean, it felt like a portal had opened and this mushroom had somehow slipped to our side from a fairy tale side of existence. What magic!
So, my point is that I truly believe that every person must create from what they know inherently. Or it comes off seeming false somehow. That doesn't mean it should or will be easy as often the most difficult roads are the ones that lead us back to ourselves.
And if we are lucky we find that trail of crumbs that the little Hansels and Gretels in us left behind. . .
we find or way thru the dark woods and past the scary creatures of this world. We survive to create new and personal tales. . . .and we all do this no matter what the path we take.
So, you'll likely see me around more often and I hope you won't mind the display of my work in the posts. It is how I get to what is inside and to what I truly want to say. . . . and quite often, it is all I have to say. :)
Thank you, as always, for reading. :)
nicolas
Friday, July 12, 2013
You are "Here"
If there was one special superpower I would love to be able to instill in others at will, especially other creatives who want to make their way to making a living from a craft, it would be the ability to step back and distance themselves enough to realize that everything in this life takes time, maybe an entire lifetime in some cases, to unfold and I'd give them the ability to stop thinking in the short term with an immediacy there is almost never a good reason to hold. I'd give the gift that would allow them to just grow into their work one day at a time. Because, the truth is, sometimes we just aren't ready yet. . .
Is that two superpowers? Maybe. . .
The Gods know I was as guilty as anyone of trying to hit it big with everything I ever did. Always thinking of the best scenarios and the highest accomplishments and, often, that came at the expense of the reality that I hadn't the skill or the know how to get there on a jet rocket trajectory. . and to be honest, my endless energy and belief in what I was doing took me further than I probably should have gotten with the abilities I had. Belief does factor in to a degree. . .
I had reasons for pressing on in that way in spite of what I lacked. . . some of the reasons were healthy and many, of course, not so much. In the end my greatest enemy was my inability to see that it takes time to develop and mature into any pursuit. There is no better or more proven way and often, those who find the rocket trajectory beneath them, come down too fast and too hard on the other side.
Of course, looking back, I could not have gone about it any other way. I didn't know enough and I, of course, did not have these superpowers either.
I knew I had to press on though.
I knew that you do and will figure it out as you go.
It is hard for me to write or explain the path I took to get "here". It seems, sometimes, like such a short story having just walked away from owning a coffeehouse two years ago to now creating all of my art and craft that currently supports my life. But in truth, it is a lifelong story that has been unfolding all these years and it wasn't until I embraced the beginnings, the mistakes and the growing pains I did experience and began to work with what is inherent in me from childhood that the page turned and I started to find my way. . . and, just for the record, I am not "here" yet, nor will I ever likely be. I expect it to be a lifelong pursuit and a lifelong path of creative expression, ups and downs and ultimately as many frustrating days as perfect ones. But that's all fine with me. . . I no longer feel the need to achieve anything that is big-goal oriented. Just to work hard at my craft every day to bring something beautiful into it each day and to hopefully be fortunate enough to share that with others along the way.
The fact is our life should teach us about repetition and patterns and the way life prepares us over and over for the cycles it moves by. We all went through those wonder-filled childhood years, were subdued in those awkward teenage angst years and dodged the insecurities and the uncertainty of stepping out on our own for the first time. We all had our individual experiences to work with of course,but the point here is they should also teach us that we will repeat them in life within any pursuit we undertake.
The cycles of life repeat always and in all ways.
So, you want to follow a creative dream? Then whether you really begin that path at 15 or 35 or 55 be prepared for the phases of it to mimic your early life. I actually think this is what keeps most people from trying something new with all their heart. The realization hits early on that this is not going to be easy. That you'll have to learn new skills, leave old programming behind and reinvent your life to fit the new "you" that you envision. You have to walk through it all again. . . the young innocent phase, the awkward teenage phase, the first steps into adulthood phase and hopefully, eventually, the mellowing into it mid-life phase where it all comes together.
The calm in the storm. . .
And, since you went through it over those early years of life, it should not take as long this time around.
Don't hang the entire world on an ideal of quick success and always give yourself a chance, a REAL chance, to grow into it as you have anything else throughout your life. . . And then, eventually, one day,
You are "here"
~nicolas
Is that two superpowers? Maybe. . .
The Gods know I was as guilty as anyone of trying to hit it big with everything I ever did. Always thinking of the best scenarios and the highest accomplishments and, often, that came at the expense of the reality that I hadn't the skill or the know how to get there on a jet rocket trajectory. . and to be honest, my endless energy and belief in what I was doing took me further than I probably should have gotten with the abilities I had. Belief does factor in to a degree. . .
I had reasons for pressing on in that way in spite of what I lacked. . . some of the reasons were healthy and many, of course, not so much. In the end my greatest enemy was my inability to see that it takes time to develop and mature into any pursuit. There is no better or more proven way and often, those who find the rocket trajectory beneath them, come down too fast and too hard on the other side.
Of course, looking back, I could not have gone about it any other way. I didn't know enough and I, of course, did not have these superpowers either.
I knew I had to press on though.
I knew that you do and will figure it out as you go.
It is hard for me to write or explain the path I took to get "here". It seems, sometimes, like such a short story having just walked away from owning a coffeehouse two years ago to now creating all of my art and craft that currently supports my life. But in truth, it is a lifelong story that has been unfolding all these years and it wasn't until I embraced the beginnings, the mistakes and the growing pains I did experience and began to work with what is inherent in me from childhood that the page turned and I started to find my way. . . and, just for the record, I am not "here" yet, nor will I ever likely be. I expect it to be a lifelong pursuit and a lifelong path of creative expression, ups and downs and ultimately as many frustrating days as perfect ones. But that's all fine with me. . . I no longer feel the need to achieve anything that is big-goal oriented. Just to work hard at my craft every day to bring something beautiful into it each day and to hopefully be fortunate enough to share that with others along the way.
The fact is our life should teach us about repetition and patterns and the way life prepares us over and over for the cycles it moves by. We all went through those wonder-filled childhood years, were subdued in those awkward teenage angst years and dodged the insecurities and the uncertainty of stepping out on our own for the first time. We all had our individual experiences to work with of course,but the point here is they should also teach us that we will repeat them in life within any pursuit we undertake.
The cycles of life repeat always and in all ways.
So, you want to follow a creative dream? Then whether you really begin that path at 15 or 35 or 55 be prepared for the phases of it to mimic your early life. I actually think this is what keeps most people from trying something new with all their heart. The realization hits early on that this is not going to be easy. That you'll have to learn new skills, leave old programming behind and reinvent your life to fit the new "you" that you envision. You have to walk through it all again. . . the young innocent phase, the awkward teenage phase, the first steps into adulthood phase and hopefully, eventually, the mellowing into it mid-life phase where it all comes together.
The calm in the storm. . .
And, since you went through it over those early years of life, it should not take as long this time around.
Don't hang the entire world on an ideal of quick success and always give yourself a chance, a REAL chance, to grow into it as you have anything else throughout your life. . . And then, eventually, one day,
You are "here"
~nicolas
Saturday, June 15, 2013
Paracosm
It has been awhile since my last post and the reason is singular and simple. Writing does take my soul deeper into my own experience and, recently, in writing some unrelated thoughts to answer someone else's questions about my life as a maker-of-things, I came to a deeper revelation about that very part of myself. . . and so I have taken the time to really mull it over internally and explore it fully before writing about it here. And this is what I have discovered. . .
If there is one thing that most artists I know have in common who have been able to create a successful art business, and even most people I know who are TRULY happy with their day to day lives, it is that what they live, what they are creating and what they love in life is a direct link to something from their childhoods and that untainted past. Some part of them that never quite went away and fuels, in some way, their life pursuits today.
On the extreme end of those childhood experiences, there is the idea of the creation of a paracosm which is defined as: a detailed imaginary world or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.
I had many such worlds in my childhood.
Nothing I played, drew or created was just a game but had back-story and detail and a running dialogue within. From my imagining of being alive in ancient Egyptian times or in the Roman Empire, Pompeii, Alexandria, Druid times, Viking times etc and on down to my creation of little towns and worlds each year with the model railroads I built under our holiday tree.
Everything had a place, a story, a reason.
When I sit and create the things you see in my shops, in all three of my shops, they are, in no uncertain terms, a direct link to my childhood experiences and explorations of the world around me.
As I grew into my teens and 20's I, like most, felt a need to become more "grown up" and set off into the "real world" to find my way. . . this was, unarguably, the greatest mistake I ever made. One that I plan to rectify for the rest of my days.
And I truly believe that the "mistake" part of that was the desire to leave that childhood past far behind. Of course, in my quiet, alone moments, I allowed myself to indulge and revisit it at times but, as my world became cluttered with people and social events and owning businesses and adult life. . . I left more and more of it there.
I will, in the near future, reveal more of my own paracosm and try to show how it formed me and how it has come full circle. How I believe that life is indeed cyclical and how we often allow the negative aspects, people and events to remain with us along our path while discarding the most integral parts of our soul which are meant to help us as we grow into our later years because they wre there at the foundation of who we are.
The thing that is often NOT talked about with paracosms is how so many adults are creating them daily in what we like to think of as our adult world. This life is. for lack of a better definition, ALL fantasy. All paracosm. It is US who creates the place, the story and the reasons for anything in our worlds. And if you can step back and allow that one idea to sink in and become truth, then you may recognize how the choosing of it is always up to you.
Whatever you subscribe to is indeed part of your created paracosm. Career pursuits, ideals of success, ideals of relationship, security and contentment. . . even the dialogues we desire to hear, the way we fantasize about one thing or another. . . we create all of those too. Do they work? I can't speak for anyone but me. Except to say that whatever you believe in is strictly YOUR creation. And often we are so caught up in wanting to "belong" in a union, a community or group, an accepted circle of some sort that we allow too much outside information and influence to shape our world within.
I tried many adult paracosms over the last 20 years that just did not fit because the inherent landscape of my childhood was simply too strong to be changed that much.
So, when I began to return to it and allowed myself to roam within it freely again just a few years ago, I immediately recognized that what I sought, what I desired and what made me happiest had been there all along. . . I began creating the creatures and worlds that were alive in my thriving childhood imaginings. I allowed them all to come back and through that indulgence I suddenly began connecting with others who found them appealing for whatever reason.
The more I allowed myself to dwell within that paracosm again, the happier I became.
The more of the "adult life" I left behind, selling my business, moving away from the grind of the city, leaving happy hours and social commitments and the larger community behind, the happier I found myself being as well.
My world of many and much became a world of few and little and allowed me the space to grow into that vast landscape again. It requires a lot of space. . . a lot of solitude. . . and a lot of internal silence.
I do believe paracosms are truly meant to often be singular experiences. But for children, that never seems to present much of a problem does it? For me, as that child, that alone time was so precious and desired over almost any activity involving others. I had friends. More than I can remember but only a few who were able to occupy the landscape I created in my deepest imagination.
It is funny how, as adults, so many take such a strong dislike to being alone. And maybe, just maybe, that is because we are not happy with the paracosm we have created as an adult. If it requires others for happiness, it is not deep and true enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting to share what is within. . . but that will follow the act of creation. . . not the other way around. Find and know yourself completely first and THEN others can follow safely in your footsteps. YOU are the explorer of the landscape within. The better you know it, the more likely others can traverse it with you in safety and
the more likely you will attract the right people to be a part of it.
I had that wrong for years too.
And of course, for me, this is all ultimately about creativity. One of my favorite writers once said that "if you want to be a writer you just have to be crazy enough to sit down and let the words bang out."
Often people come to creative pursuits from the perspective of how they can make a living doing the thing they want to pursue. . . but this is really backwards thinking. . . the creator must create first and find it within . . . it must come from the places deep within that are the storehouses of the inherent.
Those who try to "create to sell" rarely find success and almost never find lasting happiness or fulfillment within that pursuit.I tried that as well and guess what. . . it never worked.
I am glad I found my way back. Reconnected with the child within who had been waiting all this time for me to finally understand that HE is who I am. He was, after all, there first. He was born, not of a plan or a constructed architecture of hope. . . not of a reinvention that I contrived or designed. . . but of something so deep and pure that it simply can not be ignored.
I shall never set him aside for anything again.
So think about the idea of your lifetime thus far and the paracosms you may have once created and continue to create now.
Do you see the paracosms of your yesterdays and today?
Do you find it all to flow in a cyclical way too?
Do you see the pure essence of YOU in the child you were?
Does he/she still have a foothold in your adult world?
Are you kind to him/her when he/she appears?
I hope so.
There will likely never be a truer "you".
-nicolas
If there is one thing that most artists I know have in common who have been able to create a successful art business, and even most people I know who are TRULY happy with their day to day lives, it is that what they live, what they are creating and what they love in life is a direct link to something from their childhoods and that untainted past. Some part of them that never quite went away and fuels, in some way, their life pursuits today.
On the extreme end of those childhood experiences, there is the idea of the creation of a paracosm which is defined as: a detailed imaginary world or fantasy world, involving humans and/or animals, or perhaps even fantasy or alien creations. Commonly having its own geography, history, and language, it is an experience that is often developed during childhood and continues over a long period of time: months or even years.
I had many such worlds in my childhood.
Nothing I played, drew or created was just a game but had back-story and detail and a running dialogue within. From my imagining of being alive in ancient Egyptian times or in the Roman Empire, Pompeii, Alexandria, Druid times, Viking times etc and on down to my creation of little towns and worlds each year with the model railroads I built under our holiday tree.
Everything had a place, a story, a reason.
When I sit and create the things you see in my shops, in all three of my shops, they are, in no uncertain terms, a direct link to my childhood experiences and explorations of the world around me.
As I grew into my teens and 20's I, like most, felt a need to become more "grown up" and set off into the "real world" to find my way. . . this was, unarguably, the greatest mistake I ever made. One that I plan to rectify for the rest of my days.
And I truly believe that the "mistake" part of that was the desire to leave that childhood past far behind. Of course, in my quiet, alone moments, I allowed myself to indulge and revisit it at times but, as my world became cluttered with people and social events and owning businesses and adult life. . . I left more and more of it there.
I will, in the near future, reveal more of my own paracosm and try to show how it formed me and how it has come full circle. How I believe that life is indeed cyclical and how we often allow the negative aspects, people and events to remain with us along our path while discarding the most integral parts of our soul which are meant to help us as we grow into our later years because they wre there at the foundation of who we are.
The thing that is often NOT talked about with paracosms is how so many adults are creating them daily in what we like to think of as our adult world. This life is. for lack of a better definition, ALL fantasy. All paracosm. It is US who creates the place, the story and the reasons for anything in our worlds. And if you can step back and allow that one idea to sink in and become truth, then you may recognize how the choosing of it is always up to you.
Whatever you subscribe to is indeed part of your created paracosm. Career pursuits, ideals of success, ideals of relationship, security and contentment. . . even the dialogues we desire to hear, the way we fantasize about one thing or another. . . we create all of those too. Do they work? I can't speak for anyone but me. Except to say that whatever you believe in is strictly YOUR creation. And often we are so caught up in wanting to "belong" in a union, a community or group, an accepted circle of some sort that we allow too much outside information and influence to shape our world within.
I tried many adult paracosms over the last 20 years that just did not fit because the inherent landscape of my childhood was simply too strong to be changed that much.
So, when I began to return to it and allowed myself to roam within it freely again just a few years ago, I immediately recognized that what I sought, what I desired and what made me happiest had been there all along. . . I began creating the creatures and worlds that were alive in my thriving childhood imaginings. I allowed them all to come back and through that indulgence I suddenly began connecting with others who found them appealing for whatever reason.
The more I allowed myself to dwell within that paracosm again, the happier I became.
The more of the "adult life" I left behind, selling my business, moving away from the grind of the city, leaving happy hours and social commitments and the larger community behind, the happier I found myself being as well.
My world of many and much became a world of few and little and allowed me the space to grow into that vast landscape again. It requires a lot of space. . . a lot of solitude. . . and a lot of internal silence.
I do believe paracosms are truly meant to often be singular experiences. But for children, that never seems to present much of a problem does it? For me, as that child, that alone time was so precious and desired over almost any activity involving others. I had friends. More than I can remember but only a few who were able to occupy the landscape I created in my deepest imagination.
It is funny how, as adults, so many take such a strong dislike to being alone. And maybe, just maybe, that is because we are not happy with the paracosm we have created as an adult. If it requires others for happiness, it is not deep and true enough. There is nothing wrong with wanting to share what is within. . . but that will follow the act of creation. . . not the other way around. Find and know yourself completely first and THEN others can follow safely in your footsteps. YOU are the explorer of the landscape within. The better you know it, the more likely others can traverse it with you in safety and
the more likely you will attract the right people to be a part of it.
I had that wrong for years too.
And of course, for me, this is all ultimately about creativity. One of my favorite writers once said that "if you want to be a writer you just have to be crazy enough to sit down and let the words bang out."
Often people come to creative pursuits from the perspective of how they can make a living doing the thing they want to pursue. . . but this is really backwards thinking. . . the creator must create first and find it within . . . it must come from the places deep within that are the storehouses of the inherent.
Those who try to "create to sell" rarely find success and almost never find lasting happiness or fulfillment within that pursuit.I tried that as well and guess what. . . it never worked.
I am glad I found my way back. Reconnected with the child within who had been waiting all this time for me to finally understand that HE is who I am. He was, after all, there first. He was born, not of a plan or a constructed architecture of hope. . . not of a reinvention that I contrived or designed. . . but of something so deep and pure that it simply can not be ignored.
I shall never set him aside for anything again.
So think about the idea of your lifetime thus far and the paracosms you may have once created and continue to create now.
Do you see the paracosms of your yesterdays and today?
Do you find it all to flow in a cyclical way too?
Do you see the pure essence of YOU in the child you were?
Does he/she still have a foothold in your adult world?
Are you kind to him/her when he/she appears?
I hope so.
There will likely never be a truer "you".
-nicolas
Sunday, January 27, 2013
Escapism
Listening to the NY Times Book Review podcast yesterday and one of the guests was Joe Queenan who was discussing his habit of rereading books again and again.
At first I was intrigued because I have a few titles of my own that I could read a dozen times (and have) and always find something new within.
But what struck me most was a comment he made about how reading is, for so many people, an expression of the desire to escape their world into another. And he believes this is especially true of those who read voraciously as he does.
As he spoke of his own reading habits, it became clear that it is something more than just enjoying books and stories. . but that they are truly another world for him to exist in. He copies lines, passages and quotes for future reference, then organizes and stores them. So the escape continues outside the covers of the books themselves into his own world. . .
He connected this pursuit to being similar to anything people do in excess. . . and, for me, the light went off imediately in my own head.
*** *** ***
As a child, I did not create to escape anything horrible or unjust.
I had a rather charmed upbringing in a simple, working class, urban home in Pennsylvania. My hours and hours of "escape" were fueled by the fact that I simply preferred those self created places and imaginings more than most of the possible interactive reality with kids my age. (this from ages 7 to 17 really. . . and, in truth, through most of my adult years as well) My interests from sports, to ancient Egyptian art to sci-fi fantasy, writing stories, music and building miniature railroads was all something I felt most at ease delving into totally alone so as to be created by just one set of rules. My own. . .
And I was a voracious maker-of-things within each of those elements. The worlds I created extended beyond the time spent within them. In my head, there were constant dialogues and imaginings of what would come next. Sort of like previews of upcoming shows. This was the main part of my world for many years.
Somewhere along the way, in my early 20's, that got sidetracked . . . set aside. . . and I lost my way for awhile in life in general I think.
It seems to me that so very often, under the guise of growing up, we think we have to leave much of that early escapism and creation behind. Also, there are people who perhaps never had that in their own childhood years and they actually discover it later in life. Sadly, they relegate it to "hobby" or "interest" status as that is the more grown up way to give it voice.
Now this, it seems, is all in the interest of having these things fit into our adult lives and this is, in my world, backwards thinking.
Do we ever find it if we venture far from those childhood places or allow our passions and loves to be compartmentalized into being called indulgences, hobbies, interests and a few-hours-a-month-when-time-allows activities??
In my life, after all these years, those indulgences and worlds of my own creation are front and center again. They occupy almost EVERY waking hour and they are how I make my living now. They are the very essence of my world today, as they were all those years ago and, yes, that comes with costs that few would be willing to pay.
With the exception of the computer, where I do indeed sell most of my items and creations on the internet, I have left behind the modern world almost completely. I am certain that it is not a place where creativity can reign or be nurtured because it is all about the moment and the minutia of our lives. Instant and constant flooding of the unimaginative and mundane.
Creativity, on the other hand, takes time and effort and imagination and solitude to discover. . . to unlock something magical within.
The desire to connect in today's instant access world only serves to push more and more people into forced community instead of celebrating the unique, the individual, the mystery and, maybe most importantly, the solitude and aloneness of us all.
Which is, to me, the best thing we can slow down and explore.
And this, I think has trickled right down to every form of escape, even reading which, as Mr Queenan states in his thoughts about e-readers,“ they have purged all the authentic, non-electronic magic and mystery from their lives.”
It's all about magic really. . .
And taking the time to create it is the best thing I believe I can do every day. Because ithas paid me back ten-fold in ways I have yet to even tally.
I hope you will take the time and create it too.
nicolas
At first I was intrigued because I have a few titles of my own that I could read a dozen times (and have) and always find something new within.
But what struck me most was a comment he made about how reading is, for so many people, an expression of the desire to escape their world into another. And he believes this is especially true of those who read voraciously as he does.
As he spoke of his own reading habits, it became clear that it is something more than just enjoying books and stories. . but that they are truly another world for him to exist in. He copies lines, passages and quotes for future reference, then organizes and stores them. So the escape continues outside the covers of the books themselves into his own world. . .
He connected this pursuit to being similar to anything people do in excess. . . and, for me, the light went off imediately in my own head.
*** *** ***
As a child, I did not create to escape anything horrible or unjust.
I had a rather charmed upbringing in a simple, working class, urban home in Pennsylvania. My hours and hours of "escape" were fueled by the fact that I simply preferred those self created places and imaginings more than most of the possible interactive reality with kids my age. (this from ages 7 to 17 really. . . and, in truth, through most of my adult years as well) My interests from sports, to ancient Egyptian art to sci-fi fantasy, writing stories, music and building miniature railroads was all something I felt most at ease delving into totally alone so as to be created by just one set of rules. My own. . .
And I was a voracious maker-of-things within each of those elements. The worlds I created extended beyond the time spent within them. In my head, there were constant dialogues and imaginings of what would come next. Sort of like previews of upcoming shows. This was the main part of my world for many years.
Somewhere along the way, in my early 20's, that got sidetracked . . . set aside. . . and I lost my way for awhile in life in general I think.
It seems to me that so very often, under the guise of growing up, we think we have to leave much of that early escapism and creation behind. Also, there are people who perhaps never had that in their own childhood years and they actually discover it later in life. Sadly, they relegate it to "hobby" or "interest" status as that is the more grown up way to give it voice.
Now this, it seems, is all in the interest of having these things fit into our adult lives and this is, in my world, backwards thinking.
Do we ever find it if we venture far from those childhood places or allow our passions and loves to be compartmentalized into being called indulgences, hobbies, interests and a few-hours-a-month-when-time-allows activities??
In my life, after all these years, those indulgences and worlds of my own creation are front and center again. They occupy almost EVERY waking hour and they are how I make my living now. They are the very essence of my world today, as they were all those years ago and, yes, that comes with costs that few would be willing to pay.
With the exception of the computer, where I do indeed sell most of my items and creations on the internet, I have left behind the modern world almost completely. I am certain that it is not a place where creativity can reign or be nurtured because it is all about the moment and the minutia of our lives. Instant and constant flooding of the unimaginative and mundane.
Creativity, on the other hand, takes time and effort and imagination and solitude to discover. . . to unlock something magical within.
The desire to connect in today's instant access world only serves to push more and more people into forced community instead of celebrating the unique, the individual, the mystery and, maybe most importantly, the solitude and aloneness of us all.
Which is, to me, the best thing we can slow down and explore.
And this, I think has trickled right down to every form of escape, even reading which, as Mr Queenan states in his thoughts about e-readers,“ they have purged all the authentic, non-electronic magic and mystery from their lives.”
It's all about magic really. . .
And taking the time to create it is the best thing I believe I can do every day. Because ithas paid me back ten-fold in ways I have yet to even tally.
I hope you will take the time and create it too.
nicolas
Wednesday, January 23, 2013
After the Pause. . .
When it comes to starting or maintaining blogs, more than anything else, the one thing I I hear people say about starting one is, "I just want to wait til I know exactly what I want to say."
Which is when I turn and say, "It's more important to just sit down at the computer and write and let others decide what is of value and what is worth reading. . . you can always delete later"
It comes down to fear, of course.
But there are times, once the writing is started, to pause and think this over too. Not out of fear but out of a desire for more succinct expression. And, for me, the first three weeks of 2013 have been that.
I could keep on going with just random thoughts, creative inspirations, mystic meanderings and poetic expression and that, of course, would be just fine as they are all part of me. But I am finding myself, on this rising side of 40, wanting to be a bit more succinct and to lay down the stories and thoughts that have taken me thru my life to this place. To a life I have CREATED just as I have created all thru my years and will for the rest of them, if I am able.
So first, what is "this place?"
It would be easy to say the "place" is a very small town on the Oregon Coast I chose because it allows me to live and work as an artist with little or no worry about needing to make more money to survive or combating the frantic and disconnected vibe of a city.
But it would be more succinct to say that this "place" is the whole of my inner existence. Much of which I , as many of us do, tried to shake off in my young adult years thru my early 30's. under the guise of "growing up".
I feel fortunate now to have been allowed the gift of seeing myself clearly again. To have recognized that the only people I have met who are truly happy souls are those that are doing what they love. Those who are living their entire lives creatively and choosing their actions each day with thought and consideration to how it does, or does not, facilitate that dream.
It's not the creativity of painting or writing or sculpting. . . it's the deeper creative force of living.
I am fortunate to have come to this place and time and to have believed in it, and in myself, enough to walk away from the rest and to create this world of my own imagining. To trust what feels right and what opportunity seems to be presented along the way.
I also have left so much behind.
This life includes few people by nature of the necessity of so much internal and uncluttered time .
Few material "things" that are not true needs and only truly soulful luxuries.
It is not about acquisition or compiling something for the unforeseeable future.
It is about the one thing I know I have to believe and trust in.
The greatest privilege that any of us have
Living FULLY today
My direction then, for this blog, is to tell the story of how I got to this place again. The cycle from childhood to adulthood that took me right back to what I always was. A maker of things. And how I came to believe again in it and to create a life built from that instead of from what we are taught life is supposed to be.
If I am lucky, I will find the words to put even a piece of it into some sensible structure. . . and I will hope that it helps someone else out there to have the courage to step into who they are and to leave the rest behind as well. . .
Allowing them to come home again and to live their todays as fully as they can too.
Here's to hoping that is you. . . today. . . and always.
nicolas
Which is when I turn and say, "It's more important to just sit down at the computer and write and let others decide what is of value and what is worth reading. . . you can always delete later"
It comes down to fear, of course.
But there are times, once the writing is started, to pause and think this over too. Not out of fear but out of a desire for more succinct expression. And, for me, the first three weeks of 2013 have been that.
I could keep on going with just random thoughts, creative inspirations, mystic meanderings and poetic expression and that, of course, would be just fine as they are all part of me. But I am finding myself, on this rising side of 40, wanting to be a bit more succinct and to lay down the stories and thoughts that have taken me thru my life to this place. To a life I have CREATED just as I have created all thru my years and will for the rest of them, if I am able.
So first, what is "this place?"
It would be easy to say the "place" is a very small town on the Oregon Coast I chose because it allows me to live and work as an artist with little or no worry about needing to make more money to survive or combating the frantic and disconnected vibe of a city.
But it would be more succinct to say that this "place" is the whole of my inner existence. Much of which I , as many of us do, tried to shake off in my young adult years thru my early 30's. under the guise of "growing up".
I feel fortunate now to have been allowed the gift of seeing myself clearly again. To have recognized that the only people I have met who are truly happy souls are those that are doing what they love. Those who are living their entire lives creatively and choosing their actions each day with thought and consideration to how it does, or does not, facilitate that dream.
It's not the creativity of painting or writing or sculpting. . . it's the deeper creative force of living.
I am fortunate to have come to this place and time and to have believed in it, and in myself, enough to walk away from the rest and to create this world of my own imagining. To trust what feels right and what opportunity seems to be presented along the way.
I also have left so much behind.
This life includes few people by nature of the necessity of so much internal and uncluttered time .
Few material "things" that are not true needs and only truly soulful luxuries.
It is not about acquisition or compiling something for the unforeseeable future.
It is about the one thing I know I have to believe and trust in.
The greatest privilege that any of us have
Living FULLY today
My direction then, for this blog, is to tell the story of how I got to this place again. The cycle from childhood to adulthood that took me right back to what I always was. A maker of things. And how I came to believe again in it and to create a life built from that instead of from what we are taught life is supposed to be.
If I am lucky, I will find the words to put even a piece of it into some sensible structure. . . and I will hope that it helps someone else out there to have the courage to step into who they are and to leave the rest behind as well. . .
Allowing them to come home again and to live their todays as fully as they can too.
Here's to hoping that is you. . . today. . . and always.
nicolas
Tuesday, August 7, 2012
The Value of Time - Etsy Lessons - Creating a Life Around Creating
It is one of the biggest discussions in the creative marketplace.
"How do you value of the time you spend making an item you sell?"
The mistake, to me, is in the asking of the very question itself.
The question, from the working or want-to-be working artist's perspective should be:
"What is the value of the time you are given to spend creating?"
Subtle difference? Only in the wording.
The first question asks us to look at how much we want to make for our creative efforts. Regardless of the skill level, the perceived value, the quality of materials, the market that exists for the finished product etc etc. It's a sales/financial oriented question top to bottom and often, in my experience, it puts people in a huge hole from the beginning in their attempt to make a viable living from their craft.
The second question asks us to define how valuable it is for our SOUL to spend time creating. There are only 24 hours a day. How many of them can be spent doing what we truly love is directly influenced by only one thing really. How we have built our life around us to sustain those creative hours. In other words, how simply we live. The less money we have to make "out there" to support ourselves, the more time one can spend within. In that creative space.
The question, at it's deepest root is, do you value "having" or "being"?
I believe the reason more people focus on the first question is because it is how we are programmed to think by the society we have grown up in. An acquisition based philosophy that leads to so much suffering and sadness.
How much money we make is at the core of so much stress in our lives. But that is a perspective that needs to change for the better good in this world. How much we need to make is directly influenced by one thing only. What kind of a life we have created and are creating for ourselves.
I am amazed when people talk about the problems within the world economy today that no one mentions the one thing that seems, to me, to be at the heart of almost all of it.
Greed.
Gone are the days of valuing a simpler life and in it's place we have sunk deep, thirsty roots in the soils of acquisition, status and wealth.
Call it whatever you want but when we NEED the newer car, the faster computer, the nicer house, to live in the middle of a city, the designer clothes, the two week vacations, the dining out, the best concert tickets etc etc etc we are choosing that. They are not necessities. They are superficial needs and that need is a product of human greed and desire. We choose them. And, that is perfectly fine. . . but, if what we want most, if our soul NEEDS is to create? What do those niceties have to do with anything in that chosen life?
We choose. It is all our doing and our undoing.
So, my next question to anyone who wants to make a living creating is:
"How much are you willing to do without?
It might mean tough choices. Giving things up. Doing without. Settling for less.
But sometime less IS more.
Somehow we have gone from a society that once believed in building towards a dream to one that believes we simply DESERVE and have a right to be living the dream.
Charles Bukowski, in one of his better known works, put it best:
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone . . .
<><><>
Our time here on this planet is deceptively short. Too short to think we have enough of it to do all that we might like to do. So it is important to first define what we truly need, one or two things at most, then show that we value them and build our ENTIRE life from those points and ONLY those points. If it does not serve them, it does not belong. Period.
Remember that if it is in our soul, it is a lifetime's work. It will take a long time to fulfill it. A lifetime of building towards that dream we hold. No guarantees. Just the pursuit of a soul fulfilled.
It's enough,
Trust me
Just let go. . .
"How do you value of the time you spend making an item you sell?"
The mistake, to me, is in the asking of the very question itself.
The question, from the working or want-to-be working artist's perspective should be:
"What is the value of the time you are given to spend creating?"
Subtle difference? Only in the wording.
The first question asks us to look at how much we want to make for our creative efforts. Regardless of the skill level, the perceived value, the quality of materials, the market that exists for the finished product etc etc. It's a sales/financial oriented question top to bottom and often, in my experience, it puts people in a huge hole from the beginning in their attempt to make a viable living from their craft.
The second question asks us to define how valuable it is for our SOUL to spend time creating. There are only 24 hours a day. How many of them can be spent doing what we truly love is directly influenced by only one thing really. How we have built our life around us to sustain those creative hours. In other words, how simply we live. The less money we have to make "out there" to support ourselves, the more time one can spend within. In that creative space.
The question, at it's deepest root is, do you value "having" or "being"?
I believe the reason more people focus on the first question is because it is how we are programmed to think by the society we have grown up in. An acquisition based philosophy that leads to so much suffering and sadness.
How much money we make is at the core of so much stress in our lives. But that is a perspective that needs to change for the better good in this world. How much we need to make is directly influenced by one thing only. What kind of a life we have created and are creating for ourselves.
I am amazed when people talk about the problems within the world economy today that no one mentions the one thing that seems, to me, to be at the heart of almost all of it.
Greed.
Gone are the days of valuing a simpler life and in it's place we have sunk deep, thirsty roots in the soils of acquisition, status and wealth.
Call it whatever you want but when we NEED the newer car, the faster computer, the nicer house, to live in the middle of a city, the designer clothes, the two week vacations, the dining out, the best concert tickets etc etc etc we are choosing that. They are not necessities. They are superficial needs and that need is a product of human greed and desire. We choose them. And, that is perfectly fine. . . but, if what we want most, if our soul NEEDS is to create? What do those niceties have to do with anything in that chosen life?
We choose. It is all our doing and our undoing.
So, my next question to anyone who wants to make a living creating is:
"How much are you willing to do without?
It might mean tough choices. Giving things up. Doing without. Settling for less.
But sometime less IS more.
Somehow we have gone from a society that once believed in building towards a dream to one that believes we simply DESERVE and have a right to be living the dream.
Charles Bukowski, in one of his better known works, put it best:
our educational system tells us
that we can all be
big-ass winners
it hasn't told us
about the gutters
or the suicides.
or the terror of one person
aching in one place
alone . . .
<><><>
Our time here on this planet is deceptively short. Too short to think we have enough of it to do all that we might like to do. So it is important to first define what we truly need, one or two things at most, then show that we value them and build our ENTIRE life from those points and ONLY those points. If it does not serve them, it does not belong. Period.
Remember that if it is in our soul, it is a lifetime's work. It will take a long time to fulfill it. A lifetime of building towards that dream we hold. No guarantees. Just the pursuit of a soul fulfilled.
It's enough,
Trust me
Just let go. . .
Monday, July 30, 2012
The Name Game - Etsy Lessons - Creating a Life Around Creating
Etsy Lessons ( short essays on making a creative life )
"The Name Game"
I have wanted, for some time now, to begin to write about my experiences as they pertain to making a living as a "maker-of-things". I suppose that very phrase may be as good a place to start as any.
This question is for the creative soul. . . What do you call yourself?
I prefer to describe myself as a maker of things as opposed to an artist. The reason has nothing to do with my thoughts about the word itself being too general, which I DO think by the way. Saying one is an artist narrows the field about as much as saying physician, custodian, counselor, teacher, performer, laborer etc. Nothing wrong with it really. . . but beneath the surface it usually seems to belie a lack of certainty and confidence while still attempting to stake claim to a desire to be creative.
For me, the realization came that calling myself an artist allowed me to stay stagnant and not move forward with my desire to live a creative life. I floated in apathy and dead space. Though I never stopped creating.
I realized that the term artist described nothing about my passion or my creative soul and offered me no motivation to get moving. At the same time, I had come to think of some of my favorite people around me as artists though they had no traditionally creative outlets.
They were artists at living. They created a life that suited them in every way.
That appealed to me greatly
So, a maker of things? Yes, that, although as general a term at first glance, came to seem far more true to nature. At least, to my nature and to the life I wanted to live.
I make a living by making things. Simple and true enough.
What is most important to me is to be working with my hands and my mind in unison. Exploring many avenues and always in search of new roads to explore and ideas. All with the intent to tell my stories and offer my customers and casual observers the opportunity to be a part of them.
I didn't want to settle on one form of expression. If I was to be true to my creative origin, I could not do that. Though it seems that is what an "artist" is supposed to do.
But me?
I make photographs
I make miniatures
I make entire worlds in forms and words
I make music
I make poems
I make things
And above all else, I play
I felt that, to be successful, I needed to embrace every fiber of the vivid and unending imagination of my childhood. . . or more precisely. . . to bring it all forward into my "adult life" and allow it to take over now as it did then.
With that comes the pleasure and the pitfalls and the constant fight against the programming I believe we all receive about what life and adulthood are "supposed" to be and look like.
Also, it is imperative to say that nothing went as planned during this transition period of my life. I had to think on my feet and constantly rework the original plan, sometimes daily.
I was able to change my life completely in a little over two years. And while I feel that I am well on my way, the path is just beginning in many ways too.
The excitement as raw as it was in my youth.
So, yes, a maker of things indeed.
Not just art
Not just craft
But of a life itself.
nicolas hall 2012
"The Name Game"
I have wanted, for some time now, to begin to write about my experiences as they pertain to making a living as a "maker-of-things". I suppose that very phrase may be as good a place to start as any.
This question is for the creative soul. . . What do you call yourself?
I prefer to describe myself as a maker of things as opposed to an artist. The reason has nothing to do with my thoughts about the word itself being too general, which I DO think by the way. Saying one is an artist narrows the field about as much as saying physician, custodian, counselor, teacher, performer, laborer etc. Nothing wrong with it really. . . but beneath the surface it usually seems to belie a lack of certainty and confidence while still attempting to stake claim to a desire to be creative.
For me, the realization came that calling myself an artist allowed me to stay stagnant and not move forward with my desire to live a creative life. I floated in apathy and dead space. Though I never stopped creating.
I realized that the term artist described nothing about my passion or my creative soul and offered me no motivation to get moving. At the same time, I had come to think of some of my favorite people around me as artists though they had no traditionally creative outlets.
They were artists at living. They created a life that suited them in every way.
That appealed to me greatly
So, a maker of things? Yes, that, although as general a term at first glance, came to seem far more true to nature. At least, to my nature and to the life I wanted to live.
I make a living by making things. Simple and true enough.
What is most important to me is to be working with my hands and my mind in unison. Exploring many avenues and always in search of new roads to explore and ideas. All with the intent to tell my stories and offer my customers and casual observers the opportunity to be a part of them.
I didn't want to settle on one form of expression. If I was to be true to my creative origin, I could not do that. Though it seems that is what an "artist" is supposed to do.
But me?
I make photographs
I make miniatures
I make entire worlds in forms and words
I make music
I make poems
I make things
And above all else, I play
I felt that, to be successful, I needed to embrace every fiber of the vivid and unending imagination of my childhood. . . or more precisely. . . to bring it all forward into my "adult life" and allow it to take over now as it did then.
With that comes the pleasure and the pitfalls and the constant fight against the programming I believe we all receive about what life and adulthood are "supposed" to be and look like.
Also, it is imperative to say that nothing went as planned during this transition period of my life. I had to think on my feet and constantly rework the original plan, sometimes daily.
I was able to change my life completely in a little over two years. And while I feel that I am well on my way, the path is just beginning in many ways too.
The excitement as raw as it was in my youth.
So, yes, a maker of things indeed.
Not just art
Not just craft
But of a life itself.
nicolas hall 2012
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