Teresa R. Funke's Blog: Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life, page 55

You’re Only a Starving Artist if You Choose to Be

I often find myself reassuring friends whose children want to go into the arts that their kids will not starve, nor will they ask for support for the rest of their lives. I know dozens of artists – writers, singers, filmmakers, visual artists, actors – and none of them are starving. Few of them ask their parents for money, either, just as I never have. On the flip side, I know successful business owners who borrowed cash from their relatives to get started. But no one worries about that.

It’s true that any serious artist would rather focus on his/her art full time,  and frankly, we do our best work when finances are not a concern. It’s during those times when we are free to explore our art with no other obligations that we learn and develop and grow. It’s when we do our best, most demanding, most inspired work.

There are times in our careers when we artists may choose to sleep on a friend’s couch so we can spend more time in our studios. Or survive on Ramen noodles  in order to practice our music all day. Or sell our cars to finance a few months off to write. We don’t do this because we are lazy or spoiled or “Bohemian.” We do it because we know that in order to get better at our art, we must sometimes live it.

At other times, we must work. Actors teach classes,  writers take on freelance work,  filmmakers do projects for advertising agencies. Many have day jobs, some work part-time, some pick up odd jobs depending on how much money they need or want at that time.

Just because many of us are not bucking for the highest paycheck does not mean we are not ambitious. Quite the opposite. We are willing and happy to forgo many of life’s luxuries in order to be the best at what matters most, our art.

If you meet a starving artist, know that it’s a choice.

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Technology Snafus of a Cosmic Nature

My friend would tell me that I should have known better than to launch my brand new blog while Mercury is in retrograde. During that time, according to her, plans can go awry and technology can fail, as it did for me. Less than a day after launching the blog, my website’s server crashed. My host worked furiously to bring the site back up, but in the process certain features of the blog appear to have been jumbled. You won’t find a “subscribe” button here, for example, or a sign-up for the RSS feed. Yet. We hope to have them back up in a day or two.

I won’t say I didn’t cuss (and loudly) when this happened, but sometimes, when it seems the Universe is picking on us, it’s actually a good thing. These snafus can teach us patience. They give us a sense of the bigger picture, and a lesson in humility. While my blog launch seemed monumental to me, it would have registered barely a blip on the radar of the internet world even if everything had gone perfectly.  And that’s just a fact.

We creatives love our projects, we believe in them, we send them off with all our highest hopes attached, then we hold our breath and pray for miracles.  But that’s not reality. Reality is one step forward and two steps back. Reality is websites crashing and links not working and people misspelling our names and constant, crazy chaos. But all those mishaps also remind us how much we really care about our projects. Because when something truly matters, no amount of problems will ever hold us back.

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Bursts of Brilliance for a Creative Life

Few things excite us more than a great idea, especially when it’s one of our own. Watch a person’s body language, listen to the passion in their voice, watch the light fill their eyes when they say those magic words, “I have an idea,” or “Listen to this” or “You know what we need to do?” In those moments we are brilliant, and we know it.

I have a friend who started a business in his basement. Whenever something good happened at work, he’d fly up the stairs, fling open the door, and shout to his wife, “I’m a goddamn genius!” And in that moment, he was.

This blog is about celebrating and honoring those bursts of brilliance that hit each of us every day. It’s about believing that our creativity is boundless, and even if we don’t act on every great idea we form, the very fact that we had the thought at all is magic. It’s about relishing spontaneity . . . dropping everything to jot down an idea, to text a friend, to rush across the room to tell a co-worker. It’s about drawing energy from that initial burst of brilliance whether you act on the idea or not. It’s not about success or failure, it’s about creativity and passion and the joy of discovering the amazing insights we never knew we had.

I always said I’d never write a blog until I had something unique to say, until passion drove me to it. So nothing about this blog will ever be rote. I’ll post when inspiration strikes. And in addition to the written content, I’ll also occasionally share videos in which I will give away some of my best ideas for artist, entrepreneurs, and community catalysts. Fully formed business ideas that you can take and act on and make your own. And like all good ideas, this blog will morph over time in ways I can’t yet imagine, and I can’t wait to see where it goes.

One more thing . . . you won’t find comments here, at least not for now. Why? Because it’s not about whether you agree with me or not. It’s about what you DO with any inspiration you find here. I want you to take that energy and turn it toward your own work immediately,  not squander it on forming a response to me or arguing with the last person who posted an opinion. We spend far too much time reacting and not enough time acting.

It’s time to embrace the genius in all of us with no apologies and no hesitation. Because whether your idea changes your life, your community, or your world, once it’s out there, nothing will ever be the same.

 

 

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