The Artist Commitment: Your thoughts
The
Artist’s Commitment
I promise
to always remember
my power, love, and intelligence
as an artist,
and the vital role that artists have played
in every culture and time.
I will never again invalidate any artist,
including myself, or any work of art,
but rather ally myself with all artists
to end our economic oppression, and
enthusiastically encourage the creativity
of every human.
Rational Island Publishers
developed by the Re-evaluation Co-counseling Community
Years ago I had the pleasure of working with both Marni Gillard and Doug Lipman in a “Coaching Coaches” workshop in New York. Upon leaving Marni provided me a copy of “The Artist’s Commitment” that was given to her by Doug. I was struck by the words and have kept it close to me at all times. I issued a call for other storytellers to respond to it. Some believed they could not commit, others shared how they were able to commit. Over the next few blog posts, we will hear from others about their take on these words.
On a personal note: I don’t think a commitment means in all cases. I believe it is a pledge to consider these words when working with an artist. If an artist is guiding by the heart, advice is often a good thing to provide. However, the advice needs to be requested. I do believe we need to empower artists more than disassemble them. The journey of an artist may be a difficult one sometimes but there are greater degrees of difficulty. Despite this, I do listen to these words and work to honor them.
I would be interested in your thoughts. My friend and colleague Eric Wolf, from the art of storytelling site suggests that I put a call to others to respond. I issue the call. I look forward to the response.
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This is too fuzzy-wuzzy for me. In my Outside-In model for working artists, this encourages the shadow of narcissism.
I am thinking about one very poor performer in particular. Those who use the artist shake their heads and complain to everyone else, “I wish that they would stop doing XYZ. It’s awful.” The directors won’t tell the performer to their face, and rather than say, “no, this is not the time for you,” they allow the artist in public shows where the public says, “Well, this storytelling thing is not so good. Let’s go back to Karaoke night next time.”
Speaking only for myself in the platform of my artform of traditional oral storytelling and the community within it, this statement just continues the problem of the unwritten rule of “never say anything negative to each other.” An artist who wants to be brilliant in their own mind and expect every audience to “get” them is free to engage in that type of narcissism if that is what they wish to do privately.
The issue for me comes about when an artist wants to be in front of every single audience. When an artist crosses the line into the “professional” world and wants to be paid they need to be ready for rejection that may or may not be coated in the shellac of validation. It is the responsibility of the director to say, “No, your work is not yet ready for *my* audience.” We don’t hear those words enough in the old Oral Storytelling tradition. In every other art form, there is a process to move from point A to point B. In storytelling (the old community that we are) there’s too much “how do you feel about your work?” rather than “this is what I saw as an audience member.” To be audience-focused in our critique of others is not to invalidate- it is rather to hold up a mirror, imperfect glass and all and to say, “Let me help you see what you can not see.” It’s the third pane of the Johari window. A good artist seeks out others to “invalidate” their own beliefs and performances, allowing the artists to be lifting their eyes from their navels to the attentive audiences of the real world.
In addition, when referring to “economic oppression,” do you mean of artists in particular or of the worldwide economic situation. If you mean artists, then being economically oppressed is a choice that an artists makes for themselves- usually because they’re full of lovingly validated untruths about their work. You can be unready for the stage and still get booked….once…by others.
All over the U.S. and Canada, storytelling guilds that want to grow and be impactful are hindered from it because someone will need to be the grownup and say which members are “ready” and which need work. Woe to the guild leader who dares to grow as they’ll be met with gossip, anger and shunning.
And after all that, maybe I’m wrong.
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