“How did all this sternness get in here? We let it in. We dragged it in. We even begged it to come in. And why? Our own natural antic and animal high spirits scare us silly. There are few things more fun than exercising our talents, and since most of us keep them on a pretty ttight leash, we are scared that if we let them off, we will need a lion tamer.” — Julia Cameron, Walking in This World.
“Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.” — Julia Cameron
“Our stern alarums changed to merry meetings;
Our dreadful marches to delightful measures.”— William Shakespeare
“Frivolity is a stern taskmaster.” — Bill Griffith
I’ve had the experience of being the one thoroughly enjoying doing my art, and being told I was being too frivolous, too wild, the instructor asking what was wrong with me and not wanting me in her classes any more because I was “disruptive”. And I was, since I was verging on going bonkers at the time. My lions weren’t just loose, they were crazed.
So, I tend to approach my own art – frivolously. I think the purpose of that is that I never want to take myself too seriously. I want to have fun when I do art. But a part of my great joy in life is learning new stuff, so I am always trying new media, new approaches, new styles, doing things badly – so I can learn to do them “better”, of course. I admire art in all media, in all styles, and whether it is done well or “badly” – as long as I can see the spark is there. True art to me always has that spark of life, that hint that someone was truly feeling something … special when they did it. It looks alive.
So, here I am looking for pictures of lion tamers, and what do I find? This piece, which just struck me as something so alive.
AND, I find sito, which I had never heard of but which is SO COOL!!!!!
SITO is a website for individual and collaborative artists. Here you will find art portfolios of hundreds of artists around the world. Also, SITO.org creates and hosts a number of Internet-based collaborative art projects, including the award-winning Gridcosm and HyGrid.
SITO is free. Look around. Post your art or opinions. It’s all subscription and advertisement-free. To post artwork, you’ll need a SITO ID.
So, back to my lions. I am fortunate that I finally have acquired my own “lion tamer”. I was diagnosed a few years back with bipolar disorder, so my lions now are medicated. But not everyone’s lions are so aggressive that they need medication, of course. Some of those lions are so overstuffed and lazy that they might need someone to wake them up. Some of the lions are still running around lose and you might think they need to be controlled. But, the natural state of lions is to be free. And you do have to remember that they are at heart wild animals. Let your lions lose to roam free in the world, and you never know what they might bring home to inspire you. The wisdom is in knowing when the lions are simply being lions, and when they have become something you have to worry about.
“To be an artist you must let yourself be. Stop getting better. Start appreciating what you are. Do something that simply delights you for no apparent reason. Give into a little temptation, poke into a strange doorway, buy the weird scrap of silk in a color you never wear. Make it into an altar cloth, set your geranium upon it, frame it – try letting yourself be that nasty, derogatory little word, “arty”. — Julia Cameron
2 Responses
I love this lion tamer art–the really bright, vivid one. So, how is Artists Way going for you? I’m not doing the course, but I love the material. Thanks for visiting Sacred Ordinary, too. Your take on yearning is sure a valid one–very Zen, and the ideal I imagine most of us hope to attain, but seldom do.
Heh. Artist’s Way is a great deal of fun. I decided before I started doing Artist’s Way that I would blog this year about art journaling. I’m having a great time exploring all the wonderful artist’s blogs I’m discovering and learning more about the art journaling process and myself.
I doubt very much that most people would want to go through the things I have to get to the point where I am. I had years and years of yearning, much of it out of control. My thoughts on yearning for spiritual completeness, religion and biochemistry and structure of the brain would be an interesting book. Fortunately, much of it is already written in Antonio DeMassio’s “The Feeling of What Happens”. Let’s just say the amygdalya is a strange and wonderful part of the brian. And I am grateful to the chemists who seem to have made it possible for me to finally control the things I feel.