The Speed of Art

  My artist mother, who went to art school for three years, once told me she read that Michelangelo didn't carve his sculptures into the stone, but rather waited until he "saw" what was inside and only then chipped away the stone until the image already fully born in his mind became a reality.

Likewise, it took him years to plan and execute such works as the Sistine Chapel ceiling because he so carefully planned all the details (as you can see in the above sketches for and the finished Libyan Sybil).

On the other hand, I remember watching a one hour TV show where an artist "speed painted" an entire picture in 60 minutes.  It was impressive, and yet an entirely different way of painting.
Does one technique negate the other?  Of course not!  These differences are apparent in all art forms.

Beethoven, for example, apparently agonized over notes, as his messy surviving manuscripts attest:
  I don't think anyone would fault him for "making corrections" as he composed.

Mozart, on the other hand, often poured out an entire composition in a single sitting with NO corrections, as if the piece were fully formed in his mind and he merely "dictated" it:
  This happens with authors, too.  I remember in my early days of writing sci fi I read that Isaac Asimov, who published almost 500 books, was so prolific he said he didn't have time to edit but would make sure what he wrote (on a typewriter) was "right the first time."
Does this mean if it takes ten drafts to "get a story right" there's something wrong?  Of course not!  An artist and his/her work are as individual as, well, the individual.  And that's a wonderful thing!

I've had poems appear fully formed in my mind and have had to write them down immediately before they were lost.  Once I was driving and dictated a poem to my husband because I was so afraid I'd "lose" it before we got home.  The first magazine I submitted it to bought it.  The same thing happened with another poem that woke me at 3:00 a.m.  (Not the same magazine, though.)

But a story I first tried to write 25 years ago didn't "work."  I laid it aside and came back to it a few years later.  Two more rewrites didn't make it work either.  I came back to it a third time with a drastic rewrite, cutting it in half.  Still didn't work.

Then not quite three years ago my father was diagnosed with lung cancer.  I needed something to distract me from the daily concern I had over his gradual decline as well as helping my mother with his care.  So I dug out the last rewrite of this story, kept the opening scene, and threw away the rest.  I decided, just for fun, just as an exercise in "listening" that I would let the characters tell me the story instead of me trying to force a plot on them.

That was more than 300,000 words ago.  I'm on Book Three of an epic fantasy that will probably take two more books to finish the entire story.  I don't even care if it ever gets published; it's been my "grief therapy" as well as a joy to write.

So which is true "art"?  The fully formed fun rhyming poetry that sold right away, or the hundreds of pages of prose pouring from a soul full of sadness over the space of almost three years?  I would say, "Both."

After all, art has no "speed," only a great need to be expressed by the one creating it.

(And in case you were wondering about the poems, here's the first one, written while I was driving):

Mannersby Katy Huth Jones
There's a napkin in my lapkinfor the chewing I am doingon this crumbly, yumbly pastrythat my Momma shares with me.
It has sprizzles and some drizzlesand the ooey gooey fillingstarts to dribble, drabble, plop andso I have to lick it off.
Then when Momma sees me lickingall the cream that has been drippingon my sticky, gluey fingersshe says, "What's that in your lap?"
So I answer, "It's a napkin,but my fingers are too gummyso I have to lick the stickies'fore they turn to Elmer's Glue."
So my Momma smiles and leaves meto my chewy, gooey pastryand the napkin in my lapkinis as clean as if brand new.