We all need someone to assuage our doubts and to take our work seriously
When conditions are right, even the desert blooms. It is rare and it is brief but, triggered by the unlikely presence of sudden moisture, green shoots push through the dry ground and reach for the sun hungrily. That which parches so quickly also feeds the processes that the plants use to grow and to germinate.
And among the sudden blooms insects and lizards move. Life begets life.
It is hard to reject the idea of the interconnectedness of things in the face of this. A circular causation, if you will.
Art, too, cannot spring from nothing. The myth of the solitary artist, oblivious to his or her surroundings and working in isolation to produce unique work, is one of the great canards of creativity.
We build on what has come before. Like the rain that falls, however sporadically on the desert surface, tradition waters the most dormant seeds.
And, again, the seed itself cannot come from nothing. More than that, the seed that is ready to respond to the rain must have known — the change metaphors mid-stream — encouragement. Encouragement in the form of a kind word, support, a slap on the back, a smile.
I remember reading Alice Miller’s The Untouched Key. It is a book first and foremost about childhood trauma and how that manifests itself in later life. But it was her discussion of Picasso and Hitler and their relationship to art and creativity that stays with me. (I read this almost 20 years ago so I may have the details wrong.) In short, both suffered trauma but one boy — Picasso — was encouraged in his art and surrounded by love and affection while the other — Hitler — was mocked and abused and beaten.
This may appear a rather simplistic argument. Perhaps it is. But I suspect that youngsters who are encouraged to create will find a happier relationship with the world than those who are prevented from exercising their creative talents.
It may take a single person to say that they believe in what we’re doing. It may take a simple “I like that” to give an artist the belief to create more.
Self-doubt is a constant companion to any desire to create. Finding someone to help you quieten that doubt — and to be able to do it yourself is an extremely rare gift, akin to self-fertilising hermaphroditic animals — is almost as important as being creative in the first place.
I think it happens early or not at all. So I’m not counting mentors or agents or managers or groupies. This is usually about a responsible adult who takes seriously something you have written, painted, carved, drawn, sung, or played. Someone, in other words, who sees past the creator to the created work and recognises promise and encourages you to create some more.
