The Artist's Way

Finding myself totally at a loss how to become "unstuck", I decided to revisit a suggestion the therapist made several years ago - to do the exercises in the book The Artist's Way.

I had thumbed through it several years ago, but that was when I was working in an office.  One of the mandatory exercises is to write three pages of longhand when you wake up, which seemed prohibitively onerous if I would have had to cram this into an already stressed and overcrowded morning.  Now that I am a freelancer and almost never have to set the alarm (except on Sundays), this is very doable.

So I will start.

I think "creative block" definitely describes my problem.  I mean I practice daily and learn new music, but I am at a loss as to what to do with this big talent (yes, I have a big talent, I just don't have all the skills, or any of the educational underpinnings, not to mention the physical stamina, free time, and youth to pursue it along traditional channels), so maybe these exercises will help.  Although I want to continue singing and would like to be able to incorporate my big dramatic mezzo rep (the bits and pieces I can sing without getting tired) into something but the question is what? I am in an environment that is crawling with singers and performers of every possible sort so I see nothing I can do that would be of interest to anyone except teachers and friends.  (FWIW yesterday I sang "Acerba Volutta" better than I ever have, I think, from start to finish.)

I would even be happy to find some nonmusical creative outlet (e.g. continuing to market my play until someone picks it up) if I can get inspiration somewhere.

I had another insight, namely, that a lot of the general discontent I feel began when I started going to that Unitarian church.  Not just because of the Mentor but because that was the first time I had a lot of contact with working performing artists of all sorts.  I live on the Upper West Side, and believe me, that's where they all live, from Hell's Kitchen up to Inwood.  Previously I had only known one working artist - a Tony-winning costume designer, but I saw her as the exception not the rule and in any event she was not in a field that I was interested in.  I knew starving artists who had Hellish lives (including one who managed to live on Welfare for years until she found a rich husband), and weekend artists who had day jobs at the various companies I worked at (as many of them at my last job were my subordinates, or my professional peers' subordinates, I hardly envied them), but not anyone who really made a living out of performing (or out of performing and teaching). I knew lawyers, doctors, and various types of academics, and occasionally I felt a pang of envy that they got to do something both interesting and lucrative, but those feelings were short lived because I could have gone to law school for example, if I had really wanted to.  I have never felt that something like that was out of reach because of circumstances beyond my control or bad choices I made long long ago.  But I really do feel my interest in performing was jinxed from the beginning.  I had no one in my corner.  Until I met him and of course that was a mixed blessing.

Then I began to "meet" real singers online.

And the Lutheran church is the same.  Although there are not many singers there at my level certainly not in the choir regularly there are a number of instrumentalists and other kinds of performers who make a living at it.

There was an old Jewish joke my mother used to tell (I hope I remember it).


A man who has made a lot of money buys a yacht, and then he buys a captains uniform.  He visits his mother in the uniform and says "Look Ma!  I'm a captain!"  So she says "By you you're a captain and by me you're a captain, but by captains are you a captain?"


So there it is in a nutshell.  By singers (certainly the hoards of conservatory graduates living in New York) I am not a singer.  Not really.

Speaking of my play, I remember being at the auditions for the lead at the community theater in Texas where my play was produced, and singing a few bars of "Mon Coeur" to demonstrate what I wanted to the auditioning women.  This literally blew people away.  They had never heard sounds like that come out of anyone's mouth.  I suppose that is what I am looking for - at least once in a while.

Keeping my fingers crossed that The Artist's Way will help me uncover some "wow" moments for myself, as nice punctuation to all the hard work...