The Path of Art

Recently, a friend has asked me some questions about writing and photography as avenues for following an indistinct but powerful new urge toward self-expression. I'm fully aware that most people don't think of themselves as "writers" or "photographers" or artists of any kind.

But my experience over many years of teaching, counseling, editing, and otherwise supporting people as they pursue creative impulses is that we all, indeed, are artists, at least in the following sense.

If you listen carefully to your emotional core, and are aware of the rhythms that surge through your body and mind at certain stages of life, you are bound to feel a change when the moment arrives when you have to strike out in a new direction.

Suddenly, almost without warning, your mind starts wandering. Then, suddenly, your eyes start smarting as if you are seeing everything around you in a new light. Walking through your city, it is like you have new eyes that see details that previously remained hidden from you.

The expression on that nun's face, the shine of that apple, the dead rat in the gutter, the way the light reflects off a pair of boots. The movement of that person's body in a pair of jeans walking in front of you, the flapping of those two pigeons taking a bath in the street next to you, the lonely glance of an old man glimpsed fleetingly in the window of a passing taxi, the odd, quizzical stare of a baby who somehow seems to sense you are in a different state, subtly altered from who you were yesterday.

These can be scary experiences, if you don't indulge them when they sweep through you. Many a man or woman has walked away from a happy marriage in this state. Many others have quit their jobs, or somehow maneuvered themselves into getting fired.

It is a terrifying prospect to be all of a sudden out of control. Not everyone can handle it.

But, hold on to the moment, breathe through it, start exploring one form of artistic expression or another, and trust me, a new you will emerge. You may accomplish things you never, ever imagined. Don't be afraid.

Your artistic moment has arrived.

Or, if you prefer, bury all these instincts, intuitions, and urges, and return safely to the fold. Either option is entirely honorable. Art is art. Life is life. Rarely do any of us locate a perfect balancing of the two.

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