Hello,

How are you doing?

I’m doing fine and dandy, as I’m over here contemplating what is my art.

My colleague who insists that I am an artist is presenting me with opportunities to practice being an artist. I love it, and it’s forcing me to think about what my art is. I’m realizing some of the things I thought were my art likely are not, but honestly, saying that is too reductive. I’m torn, like Inigo Montoya, between explaining, which will take too long, and summing up, which will omit the nuances.

Art isn’t just a thing you create, although it is that; nor is it only a thing you do, although it is that, too. It’s also a lifestyle of honoring your creative spirit by expressing it in myriad ways. In this sense, we are all artists. God created all of us to create, and we each have beautifully unique ways to do so. Whether through cooking, engineering, painting, dancing, designing, building, or what have you, we all can and do create, even if we don’t recognize it in ourselves.

This got me thinking about the difference between creativity and facility as they relate to art. For example, I’m creative with words. I know a lot about language and how it works. I’ve studied literature and generic tropes and citations. I’ve studied typing and handwriting and revision and editing. I’ve learned about paper making and bookbinding. Everything about producing the written word fascinates me, and I seek to learn about it. Now, I haven’t said one thing yet about how this helps me be creative with words, but the pursuit of knowledge about words has placed me solidly in a world of words where I have both the desire and the background to arrange words on a page in such a way to bring ideas to life. I can sit down at a blank screen or page and write something into existence. I’ve been like this my whole life – before the formal study, before the degrees, I was just a girl who loved to read and write and learn about reading and writing. I’ve discovered I have both creativity and facility when it comes to writing.

I can say that writing is my art.

I want to say that dancing and music are also my arts, but I don’t know if that is accurate. I have facility of movement and an ability to play and appreciate music in its various forms. But when it comes to movement and music, I don’t have an extemporaneous bone in my body. I’m not creating much of anything in terms of dance or music. In those areas, I demonstrate I am a good learner and a willing executor of steps and music (even if not always an accurate one). I will do the choreography that is taught to me. I will play music that is provided for me. I will watch in awe and wonder dance and musical performances. I struggle to choreograph, and I haven’t even attempted to compose or arrange music.

So it would seem that dance and music are not my arts.

But.

I haven’t put the same time and effort into dance and music as I have into writing. Maybe they are my arts but I’m not knowledgeable enough to practice them. I’ll pause here to say that my husband tells me I don’t need to have a Ph.D. in something to feel like I know enough about that something. I agree with him. And I also know that even with a Ph.D, in English, I don’t feel like I know enough about it, so how am I supposed to feel like I know enough about dance and music to create them?

Oh, wow, I just convicted myself.

It’s probably not that I don’t know enough about dance and music but rather that I’m afraid to start, because I don’t feel like I know enough. And I’m probably also afraid to do something poorly. But you can’t grow to doing things well if you never start and do them poorly. I’m limiting myself with my own mindset. How dare I? I wouldn’t accept that from you, so I shouldn’t accept that from myself.

That said, learning your craft is part of practicing your art. Twyla Tharp says, “Skill gives you the wherewithal to execute whatever occurs to you. Without it, you are just a font of unfulfilled ideas. Skill is how you close the gap between what you can see in your mind’s eye and what you can produce; the more skill you have, the more sophisticated and accomplished your ideas can be” (163). She goes on to say, “You’re only kidding yourself if you put creativity before craft. Craft is where our best efforts begin” (163).

So here I sit with the craft of writing burning like fire in my bones with not as much output as you would think with the number of ideas in my head. So that’s a thing I need to do – get the ideas out of my head and onto the page.

And I also sit here with a “font of unfulfilled ideas” about musical extravaganzas that incorporate writing and dance and music, because I don’t have the “wherewithal to execute whatever occurs to” me. Some of that wherewithal is skill; I need to learn more about the crafts of dance and music. And some of that wherewithal is gumption.

I am a person who will delay doing because I enjoy learning. Learning is important, but it can become a procrastination technique.

Lest I berate myself too much, I actually am working on some of those extravaganzas I mentioned. I am thinking of movement to go with music that supports the words I’m writing. I’m listening to soundtracks and pieces of music contemplating how they can help me tell the stories I want to tell. I am making progress in my extravaganzas as well as in myself.

And that’s my bit of creativity for today.

Work Cited

Tharp, Twyla. The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Simon & Schuster Paperbacks, 2003.