When Words Speak Pt 3: Character Shifts

My Fellow Contributors,

Here is the third part of my own going series "When Words Speak". In this episode I go over Character Shifts and how you can use this technique to give your performance a unique feel and energy. 

This week I perform William Carlos Williams poem, "This is Just to Say".

Next episode I will be going over Pacing. 

Undoubtedly Yours,

Bermuda the Man

Where do the artists dwell?

Everywhere that is inspired by art and culture is expensive and thereby often excludes the very makers of said art. Think of Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, and Paris, for example. Not every artist has the money to live in these cultural, artistically-supportive environments. In face, most do not.

This fiscal limitation leaves the artist, presumably, to settle in more affordable areas. In California, an example of such an area is San Bernardino. But as anyone who has stepped foot in San Bernardino will tell you, that is not a land of impoverished artists. Though this does not mean that they aren't there, hiding out behind the cheap rents and mortgages. And, of course, there are the people who stay with their parents for what would have previously been considered an obscene amount of time. Yes, the average artist in California seems to be hiding out, Jack Kerouac-style, in suburbia, and hardly to be found in the fancy locals listed above.

I can only assume, and consult my limited experience of growing up in anti-intellectual settings myself with little to no art to speak of, that this lack of community or home base among artists must be damaging. Art is of itself an isolating endeavor and to push onward with its production without even the regular respite that consultation with other artists can provide is all the more depressing a notion.

But communities are formed from this very need even in a place as seemingly culturally barren as San Bernardino. And maybe those communities and their collective artistic endeavors are actually stronger as a result of their lack of competition. After all, what is a new literary magazine in the grand scheme of L.A.? But in Pomona, the Inland Empire, it gets notice even if for nothing else than being one of a very small gathering of its kind.

However, this positive thinking is not enough for me to put to bed the notion of how wonderful it must have been to be an artist in 1920s Paris, at the center of the cultural world and of production of meaningful art (I just watched Midnight in Paris again so pardon the momentary daydream). I realize that that setting has been glamorized and the extent to which many of the famous 20s writers were living the romantic yet impoverished life in fabulously rundown apartments is exaggerated and misunderstood. But one fact remains indisputable, they were real artists and expats living in Paris and creating. Can that even happen now?

And why aren't the artists dwelling in San Bernardino and other comparable areas not having more of an affect on the cultural environments in which they reside? Why do we have to drive to the ArcLight to see an independent movie? All I can assume is that, in the Inland Empire, the population of the culturally curious and insightful is still much less than that of everyone else, and that can be quite frustrating. And this is likely because the people who do happen have the money to make any lasting changes to the fabric of a community's culture are still largely the ones who choose to leave those areas most in need.

Plenty of brilliant artist have come out of culturally-needy communities. However, that said, all artists, desire to experience the satisfaction of a more artistically aware environment. But the choice to live the life of an artist often is one that diminishes or all together excludes the income required to live in such a setting. The alternative- of creating, in the case of A Few Lines, our own literary community in the face of a seeming lack of one- has proven to be a satisfying one. Can't live in a literary center? Create one.

Now if we could just get Ontario Mills to show some decent movies.

Depression. Yay.

"Well, to be honest, I'm feeling kinda depressed"

-The depressed whale

Sylvia Plath put her head in an oven, Hunter S. Thompson and Hemingway put shotguns to theirs, Fitzgerald killed himself with alcohol. And those are just the ones who come immediately to mind. It bothers me immensely to contemplate how many of the great artists and thinkers have suffered to the point of desiring to entirely blot out their own consciousness. A study was conducted over the span of ten years that found “between 59 and 77 percent of the artists, writers, and musicians suffered mental illness especially "mood disorders," compared to just 18 to 29 percent in the less artistic professionals” (Reynolds).

I’ve been thinking a lot about this, about depression and the artistic/academic temperament. “Artistic” and “academic” are not commonly paired in such a manner, and I’m sure many people would take issue with said pairing. However, I place them together here because academics, at least in the humanities, are appreciators of art and certainly dedicate a majority of their lives to the study of art, whatever their art form of choice may be. So, in this way, artists and academics spend their lives in the service of art, either by means of creation or examination.

Considering the suicide rate and carelessness rate (and by that I mean accidental overdose) among artists and intellectuals, I think we can easily see the connection between depression and the people who spend their lives in service to art. But, why is this so? Why is it that the people who create the most beautiful and moving renderings of reality are also the ones who suffer the most mental pain? I think it is often mistakenly believed to be the fault of solitude. People are quick to point out the isolationist and misanthropic tendencies of artists and intellectuals. And there is something to that notion. Often, intellectuals, in their skepticism, deprive themselves of opportunities for community. However, I don’t think this isolation is the primary culprit.

It is a lack of ignorance that causes depression. And when I say “ignorance,” I stress “ignore.” The purpose of art is to examine the world; it does not allow for ignorance. In order to create art, you have to face the world and humanity and all of their flaws, head on. If you hide under the covers, you won't see a thing and you won't have a thing to write about. And if you appreciate art and study it, you are spending your time with commentary on the world, and again, this does not allow for ignorance or hiding from reality.

People say that artists and readers are cut off from the world, but nothing could be further from the truth. Artists (and I'm thinking specifically of writers) and readers (and all other appreciators and consumers of art) are by no means cut off from the world; in fact, they are the only ones who are fully engaged in it, the only ones who are taking the time to really look at it.

In Midnight in Paris the character of Gertrude Stein says, “The artist’s job is not to succumb to despair but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence.” (I hate to quote a character of a literary figure, rather than the literary figure herself, but it’s a great quotation!) Considering how many dark and depressing tales the great artists have created, I’m reluctant to fully agree with this statement. After all, so many artists seem to succumb to despair. But maybe, whether they succumb or not, all great artists also find/create “an antidote.” Maybe even something like The Bell Jar, in all its gloominess, is, in its beauty, the perfect medicine for the illness of emptiness. That story, and all other great ones I can think of, does not send a message of hopelessness- it sends a message of truth. It is not cheesy or falsely hopeful or even defeatist. It is honest- life is difficult and we don’t ever know what’s waiting around the corner. Art, if it is truly great, will always be a variation of that message and it’s a message that by its very expression brings despair and comfort, as does anything worth experiencing.

Until next time,

Leena

Reynolds, Susan. “Is Depression Inevitable for Artists and Creative People?” Gather.com. 19 Feb 2006. Web. 23 Jan 2012.

http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474976731117

"The Depressed Whale." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_dEtaNx2Vc