The Joy In Art, The Art In Joy

Within the artistic process we forget the simple things are the most important. We overcomplicate things, ruminating, thinking of all the things that need to get done, and all the ways it could go wrong. The draft, the editing, the practice. We forget that the elements of our practice that gives us the biggest “bang for your buck” if you will, are often the simplest. This is how I feel towards the practice of joy during practice, during process, and the creative journey. The act of making something fun, sometimes, allows us to let go of the insecurities, of which artists have an excess, and allow us to surrender to play.

Play is one of the biggest contributors of getting “unstuck”, in my own practice, but also I have seen it in others. We can get bogged down by trying to make something “good,” not wanting to suck, or being led by the structures of Ego, telling us that we have a shot at ____, fill in the blank with any award, or attention our work might garner. The truth, at least how I see it, is that the creative/artistic work we do also wants something, it wants to become itself. So when we become too tied to ideas — ideas we might love mind you; when we start trying to control and dominate the work, it will inevitably become stagnant. The project, art piece, the words become stuck, they have lost something in our obsession to control and dominate its existence.

For those of us -who are in practicum within our particular industries as professional artists, in other words that we receive something in exchange for our art — this might be a particular struggle. When we have some level of expertise or mastery of our work- our hubris becomes our downfall. There are two ideas that I try to live by- though I am by no means exempt of my own hubris, my own ego, wanting to prove something to the world perhaps- or simply to myself. The first is the buddhist ideal:

Approach everything with a beginner’s Mind

and the second is —

You have something to learn from everyone who crosses your path

To me coming from a beginner’s mindset, is that of the innocent, of the child. Who takes in the world with open eyes, open arms, and an open heart. That to me is joy personified.

It is the act of Throwing something against the wall and seeing…