The Creative Process

Action always generates inspiration. Inspiration seldom generates action.

Frank Tibolt
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One of the amazing things to me about being an artist is to see the result. I can read someone's poem, see a picture or hear a piece of music and not know what went into making it. I can appreciate the result. But when I look at my own work and know the steps, the struggle, the doubts, the discoveries, the anguish and delight that brought it into existence, I am impressed if the result is good, but I'm more amazed at the existence of the creative process itself. It is a gift to me to be able to do the kind of work I do and have done all my life.

One draws a line on a piece of paper, picks out a tone on a musical instrument or puts a word down on a page and the famous thousand mile journey has begun with that single step. I do a lot of writing in my head before I approach the keyboard. There's an idea. I let it sit in my mind and draw nourishment from my life, my memories or what I've learned from other writers. Soon it begins to send forth shoots and blossoms. I start putting words down and joining them together, making patterns of thought. A patch of a mental garden begins to take shape. I decide what to put in it, what looks nice there, what is appropriate and what's not.

Then I stop and breathe. The creative process is afoot and I can trust that it is. It will supply me with the ideas I want because I have put down the right soil and nourished it propoerly. I can answer emails, delete spam, go to the market, wash the dishes or even take a nap and when I come back to it it's waiting and ready for me. In the meantime it has grown some more and I will see that when I type the next word.

As an actor getting a new script was like receiving a surprise package or a map to buried treasure. What was a printed book, with words and ideas, bound together by the hand of a playwright soon took on another life as my life was bound up in it. Eventually the book was once again just a book but the work of art was in the action on the stage. That is the alchemy of theatre.

DB - The Vagabond
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WEEKEND PUZZLE

Below are some familiar phrases. Only one of them is legitimate. Which one is it and what is wrong with the others? That is your chore.

EXTRA: You get bonus point if you can think of other illegitimate ones.
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CLOSE PROXIMITY
CRIMINAL INTENT
FALSE PRETENCE
FREE GIFT
OPENING GAMBIT
PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA
PIN NUMBER
SPOTLESSLY CLEAN
UNEXPECTED SURPRISE

Good luck
DB
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Aw, grow up.

Everyone else my age is an adult. Whereas I am merely in disguise.

Margaret Atwood
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"The actors are come hither, my Lord." Shakespeare
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I was recently talking with a friend who is about my age and I said that these days I was masquerading as a senior citizen. He said "So am I." He's also an artist.

It's not so much that creative work keeps you young as that it is outside of age altogether. Mozart, in his music, was a wise old man even though he only lived into his 30's, Some writers don't start writing their novels until their 70's or 80's.

In my younger years I triad to be an adult. I wasn't good at it. Back then I thought I knew what an adult was, a serious minded professional, a responsible and contributive member of society with a solid goal and a well defined purpose in life, an authority figure in his chosen line of work. But I was none of those things.

I was a performing artist, an actor, a player. A player is one who plays. Just because I was able to convincingly depict grown ups on the stage didn't mean that I was one.

Furthermore, a serious adult doesn't find anything amusing about the serious issues of life. But I, thank heaven, and to the great scorn of some around me, had a sense of humor which I still have.

Now, if I can't remember someone's name it doesn't throw me into a vortex of grief over losing my memory. After all these years I have a large library of names stacked up in my mind. You can't expect me to remember all of them at the flick of a switch. I send the research assistant who resides in my brain down into the vaults to go through the files until he comes up with it.

I'm still the boy I was 60 years ago, discovering life and gratefully turning my discoveries into things that are beautiful, I hope. Now, in my current disguise, I enjoy playing the role of an adult and a senior citizen. Just don't ask me to grow up. .

DB - The Vagabond
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No smart aleck remarks about Peter Pan, please.
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