Two threads, one generated by the death of J.D. Salinger, the other generated by a recent conversation with an artist friend.
In the paper this morning, I read an account of the town in New Hampshire where Salinger lived. His disinclination to participate in the larger world is patent. What the article described of Salinger's life in this town, though, was not the life of a hermit. Salinger participated as fully in his community as anyone could want: Saturday evening church dinners, daily trips to a general store, votes cast in local elections. What was striking, in this age of the long lens and the upskirt shot, was the protection afforded Salinger in return by the townspeople – the misdirection of tourists, the diffident closing of ranks.
[The article notes, by the way, that Salinger would write in a spiral-bound notebook as he waited for his $12 roast beef dinner to arrive, for upwards of an hour or more. What the hell was he writing? The mind reels.]
What I took away from the article was the gentle conspiracy of this town, to provide its resident artist a safe and private space. I have no way of knowing whether Salinger was making art in his spiral notebook, sketching his neighbors and friends, describing the kids who served him his dinner. Maybe he was writing endless grocery lists. Still, the banding together of this town, and its guardianship of Salinger’s time and solitude was sweet to note, even if not a single page from those spiral notebooks ever sees the light of day. The mere possibility of art, and the means necessary to produce it – nurtured by a community. What magic.
Second thread: my friend, talented and proven, though not yet able to support himself with his art, is working an unpaid design internship and looking to wait tables. Our conversation, largely focused on our unhappy work-lives, roams around the topic of what is required to do art. The central themes: time, space, solitude. A certain selfish [bad word, someone will correct me] withdrawal, inconsistent with family and work and marriage. A consistent refusal to strive, to accumulate, to keep the overall apparatus in good tune.
My friend noted that “self-hatred is the cornerstone of American enterprise.” I think he’s right – and certainly Jumpy covered this beautifully in his earlier entry – so, perhaps my use of the word “selfish” in the preceding paragraph has some merit. If you’re going to be a cog in the larger machine, the machine that lights your streets and buys your kid shoes, the machine that allows you to produce said kid in a socially-sanctioned manner, something has to give.
So, here’s where these two threads meet in my head: if you’re not Salinger, and you don't have 1700 inscrutable Northeasterners to run interference, is it possible to live a creative life in 21st century America? And, if so, what do I/we/you have to sacrifice to get there?
Post script: I know, I do, that the above is written from the perspective of an overeducated, middle-class, white woman with artistic pretensions. I get that it could be worse. I still want answers to the questions.
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I will tell you what I've seen. I live in a creative town, and my people for the last twenty-ish years have nearly all been artists.
ReplyDeletePoor. Everyone is poor. It's a given. The people who are making the most art - or any art, largely - are either scraping a living from this art, or are working at jobs that come second to their avocations. Who knows, maybe a few go-getters balance heavy jobs with copious art-making. I've seen that. But these people were dangerously exhausted and didn't, also, have children. Or relationships.
My primary sample community is the theater community. Relatively few of us have children. The ones that do work less often. Family life ascends, art descends. Maybe this picks up later? When children get older? I'll tell you later. The men generally work more than the women.
A willingness to be poor, tired and unavailable to your loved ones, thereby pissing them off. This helps. As to what constitutes a creative life, I would say that you know your own minimum. A little art might be enough, or it might just be enough to hurt. Depends on the ferocity of your impulse to make it.
Exactly. One has to be willing to shuck the promise of a paycheck.
ReplyDeleteThen you need a good economy. Art is purchased after a loaf of bread, stick of butter, bottle of milk, insurance, clothes, rent/mortgage, memberships, charity, wine, sweet new jacket, 401k, Q-tips, anything for your kids or your friendkids. So that leaves about a sawbuck, and that rarely makes for memorable or lasting art.
Art is often given, which is great and blows in equal measure.
"Here, this is a meaningful gift from me!"
"Here, this has no intrinsic value!"
Of course, the lotteryesque specters of Rowling, Koons and Tarantino loom.
Keep in mind that gold can be mashed down to the thickness of a single atom.
Tuna swims straight, as one has come to expect. "Ferocity of impulse." But not just in impulsive spurts--it must be sustainable. Oooh--there's a business cliche for this! "It's a marathon, not a sprint." (Real: This is going to Hurt.)
See young, snobbish Sean Nelson. Watch as he thumbs his teen nose at much of what he sees. Marvel at his self-possession and surety. Thrill to his young adventures, his wild climb.
Now fast-forward (...IF YOU WILL) through his many-faceted climb, steps small and painful, leaps few yet long, until he finds himself, at 36, calloused by his own effort, at the pinnacle of his chosen professions. Not a lottery winner in any given area (arguable, this), but a big draw in many. Writer, musician, actor, critic, sometime bon vivant, thinker.
There's your winner, Lis.
It doesn't take a village, it doesn't take protection. It does take something most of us can't muster, which is plain old persistence.
Oh oh oh--and talent. Both.
Yes. Damn. Persistence. My chief bête noire.
ReplyDeleteOne more sine qua non, for quality and dissemination: balls.
So.....no?
ReplyDeleteOr rather, the only option is what's currently constituted: a life of (a) poverty, (b) neglected or nonexistent family life and (c) constant soul-draining compromise?
I was hoping for rather more utopian daydreaming when I posited the 1700 gatekeepers. And I'm not sure I agree that neither a village nor protection is required. I think both are. I bet Mr. Nelson has been the beneficiary of same. I'm intimately familiar with the width and depth of compromise necessary to support an artist in his pursuit of art -- I've spent a very long time in the trenches of compromise.
There just has to be a better way to do this.
You know I have another angle, Lisa, and when I can come and give it I will. I stand by what I said above, but that doesn't mean it's bad news. And those with families do need protection. That's true.
ReplyDeleteThere is a way, and if you'll forgive me for speaking personally and frankly, here, for you it must be found. You are an artist, it's not elective for you, else you will self-destruct. But fortunately this is not necessary.
The most difficult things to sacrifice are ideas. Those are going to be chief on the pile, I think.
I will return when I can.
P.S. I'm still hoping that others will pony up their Salinger things. Incompleteness. Are not heads supposed to roll?
ReplyDeleteLivingstone's been high on pills for a week. He'll be back, just as lolerz as ever.
ReplyDeleteThe only artist I ever knew personally was also the only Jew in my neighborhood. He was a handsome man who managed a family of four in a particularly nice part of Charlotte. He taught pottery at the local women's college. Not sure how observant the family actually was but NPR blasted from every loudspeaker and the daughter was especially hirsute and they were often cloathed in loamy, woolen outfits so they met all the requisites. Anyway, he was fucking all of the twenty year-olds in his pottery classes. It turns out he's kinda my hero today. I want to be born again as Rick Crown, potter.
ReplyDeleteSo you're arguing that it does take a village.
ReplyDelete