Beginning: How I Made Peace with Art

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“What hope there is for us lies in our nascent arts, for if we are to be remembered as more than a mass of people who lived and fought wars and died, it is for our arts that we will be remembered.” ~ Maxwell Anderson, “Whatever Hope We Have”

“Art is fundamentally a survival device of the species. Otherwise it wouldn’t be so persistent.” ~ Milton Glaser via Bruce Mau

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away I used to manage Broadway shows and national tours. I was ridiculously lucky that I always worked with big budget, award-winning productions that had incredibly high production values and top-notch talent. I started that work when I was 22 and stopped about 6 years later. Somewhere along the way, I got discouraged despite all of the success of the shows. I was afraid that I was losing a part of myself, that I was running all over the country working on artistic productions when so much of the world was suffering. People were starving, victims of war and poverty, there was so much violence and the world needed a lot of healing. And what was I doing with my fancy education? Putting on a show. I felt hollow for making art. I started to wonder if art mattered at all.

So I set off on a journey that took about 6 more years. I tried new careers, new organizations. I collected some additional skills and made my way to a good paying job that gave me the opportunity to travel and explore. If someone asked me what’s the one great discovery I’ve been hoping to make all these years on my travels it would simply be this: I want to know what matters.

David Stone, the Broadway producer of productions such as Wicked, once told me that a life in theatre, or any performing art really, is difficult. So difficult that if I could find something, anything, else that I’d be reasonably happy doing, I should do that instead of theatre. “It’s just too damn hard a life,” he said. “You should only do it if there’s literally nothing else you want to do.” I believed him and that thought lingered with me for a long time. It may have even inspired my journey away from the theatre.

In the past few weeks, a new idea’s been gripping me. Maybe art in some form is what I’m meant to do. Maybe it is my reason for being this time around. I go to museums. I watch street artists. I have recently been gobbling up books of all kinds as if tomorrow all the paper literature of the world may be gone for good. It inspires me, pushes me, makes me look at the world differently. Art reminds me of how lucky I am to be alive.

If I accomplish nothing else in 2011, here is the one enormous, glorious realization that may be sending me out into the world in a very new and unexpected adventure: art, mine and yours, matters. No matter its form or audience or scale. We don’t know who it will affect, or when or how or why. Creating is an act of faith. The act of creating, building something from our hearts that celebrates the world as we see it, may just be the most valuable thing of all.

The image above can be found here.

This blog is part of the 2011 WordPress Post Every Day Challenge.