One of my favourite quotes is “All the arts we practise are apprenticeships, the big art is our life,” penned by M.C. Richards, an American poet and potter. While it may resonate with many readers, others – for whom art has always seemed a little unapproachable – will be unmoved. Unless I can convince them, that is, to pick up Elizabeth Gilbert’s book Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, which reads like a love letter to the artist within us all.
In Big Magic, Gilbert invites us to consider that we are all capable of getting to the “big art” if we are receptive to the idea of “big magic,” i.e. the cosmological existence of creative ideas and how these ideas are brought into being by human thought. And creative ideas don’t only hang out in certain bohemian enclaves, she argues. They stalk us all, and the sooner we give them permission to enter our lives, the sooner we can get on with the richly fulfilling business of bringing those ideas to life.
While the skeptics amongst us may feel her theory sounds too much like “if you just sprinkle it with a little fairy dust, the light will come on,” we need to remember that when songwriters, poets and visual artists tell us they have no idea where their ideas come from, that the poem wrote itself or that they were gifted with a song last night, they are alluding to this same mysterious energy.
Most of us have also been struck by those lightning bolts from out of the blue. They could be innovative solutions to a challenge at work, another way to communicate with your teenage daughter, a way to synthesize seemingly unrelated ideas, or a colour scheme for your living room you’ve never tried before. But we have been hesitant to explore our creative depths more fully because it is something that takes a lot of… courage.
Fear often stands between us and creative living. We fear we have nothing to say, that no one will be interested in what we have to say, that what we have to say is self-indulgent nonsense and has no right to be considered art, that what we say indecently exposes us. Maybe we are too old, or too young, or too busy, or too fill-in-the-blank to say anything at all.
Courage challenges these fears, furnishing us with the confidence needed to take creative risks. Courage is the voice that says, “I’m here, I am as entitled to tell my story – be it in clay, spoken word, paint, song, fabric, wood – as the next person. You may not like it or think it any good, but I do and, frankly, that’s all that matters.” We listen to Gilbert, Glen Gould and others, who stress that being involved in art is all about cultivating a state of grace, transcendence, wonder and serenity. Its public purpose is secondary.
Pursuing what we love and are curious about is as essential to us as, well, herding sheep is to the border collie. Denied the opportunity to engage in constructive work would result in the collie “eating the couch” just as it would have us burrowing further into wells of self-dissatisfaction. Creating affirms our value, elevates us, and temporarily relieves us of the burden of being who we are. It allows us to experience what R.W. Emerson felt when he said, “There are no days so memorable as those which vibrate with some stroke of the imagination.”
And there will be days when nothing vibrates, and the magic has momentarily fled. Gilbert reminds us that every endeavour in life comes with some disagreeable aspect, whether it is because you need to endure the cold as a figure skater, the breathing exercises as a singer, the seclusion as a writer, or the weeding as a gardener. If you love the creative work enough, however, the discomfort or frustrations will be amply compensated by the satisfaction you gain from being absorbed in it.
So, kudos to all of you opening up your summer studios, going back to unfinished canvases, sharpening your woodcarving tools, tuning up your ukulele, or breaking ground for the water feature designed for the garden. And courage to those who want to try. Magic is in the air; rejoice, breathe in the inspiration, and pass it on!
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