The Artist's Way (11 page)

If you do not trust Murray—or me—you might want to trust Goethe. Statesman, scholar, artist, man of the world. Goethe had this to say on the will of Providence assisting our efforts:

Some of you are thinking, “If it were that easy to take an action, I wouldn't be reading this book.” Those of us who get bogged down by fear before action are usually being sabotaged by an older enemy, shame. Shame is a controlling device. Shaming someone is an attempt to prevent the person from behaving in a way that embarrasses us.

Making a piece of art may feel a lot like telling a family secret. Secret telling, by its very nature, involves shame and fear. It asks the question “What will they think of me once they know this?” This is a frightening question, particularly if we have ever been made to feel ashamed for our curiosities and explorations—social, sexual, spiritual.

“How dare you?” angry adults often rage at an innocent child who has stumbled onto a family secret. (How dare you open your mother's jewelry box? How dare you open your father's desk drawer? How dare you open the bedroom door? How dare you go down in the cellar, up in the attic, into some dark place where we hide those things we don't want you to know?)

The act of making art exposes a society to itself. Art brings things to light. It illuminates us. It sheds light on our lingering darkness. It casts a beam into the heart of our own darkness and says, “See?”

When people do not want to see something, they get mad at the one who shows them. They kill the messenger. A child from an alcoholic home gets into trouble scholastically or sexually. The family is flagged as being troubled. The child is made to feel shame for bringing shame to the family. But did the child bring shame? No. The child brought shameful things to light. The family shame predated and caused the child's distress. “What will the neighbors think?” is a shaming device aimed at continuing a conspiracy of illness.

Art opens the closets, airs out the cellars and attics. It brings healing. But before a wound can heal it must be seen, and this act of exposing the wound to air and light, the artist's act, is often reacted to with shaming. Bad reviews are a prime source of shame for many artists. The truth is, many reviews do aim at creating shame in an artist. “Shame on you! How dare you make that rotten piece of art?”

For the artist who endured childhood shaming—over any form of neediness, any type of exploration, any expectation—shame may kick in even without the aid of a shame-provoking review. If a child has ever been made to feel foolish for believing himself or herself talented, the act of actually finishing a piece of art will be fraught with internal shaming.

Many artists begin a piece of work, get well along in it, and then find, as they near completion, that the work seems mysteriously drained of merit. It's no longer worth the trouble. To therapists, this surge of sudden disinterest (“It doesn't matter”) is a routine coping device employed to deny pain and ward off vulnerability.

Adults who grew up in dysfunctional homes learn to use this coping device very well. They call it detachment, but it is actually a numbing out.

“He forgot my birthday. Oh, well, no big deal.”

A lifetime of this kind of experience, in which needs for recognition are routinely dishonored, teaches a young child that putting anything out for attention is a dangerous act.

“Dragging home the invisible bone” is how one recovering artist characterized her vain search for an achievement big enough to gain approval in her family of origin. “No matter how big a deal it was, they never seemed to take much notice.
They always found something wrong with it. All A's and one B and that B got the attention.”

It is only natural that a young artist try to flag parental attention by way of accomplishments—positive or negative. Faced with indifference or rage, such youngsters soon learn that no bone would really meet with parental approval.

Often we are wrongly shamed as creatives. From this shaming we learn that we are wrong to create. Once we learn this lesson, we forget it instantly. Buried under
it
doesn't
matter,
the shame lives on, waiting to attach itself to our new efforts. The very act of attempting to make art creates shame.

This is why many a great student film is never sent off to festivals where it can be seen; why good novels are destroyed or live in desk drawers. This is why plays do not get sent out, why talented actors don't audition. This is why artists may feel shame at admitting their dreams. Shame is retriggered in us as adults because our internal artist is always our creative child. Because of this, making a piece of art may cause us to feel shame.

We don't make art with its eventual criticism foremost in mind, but criticism that asks a question like “How could you?” can make an artist feel like a shamed child. A well-meaning friend who constructively criticizes a beginning writer may very well end that writer.

Let me be clear. Not all criticism is shaming. In fact, even the most severe criticism when it fairly hits the mark is apt to be greeted by an internal
Ah-hah!
if it shows the artist a new and valid path for work. The criticism that damages is that which disparages, dismisses, ridicules, or condemns. It is frequently vicious but vague and difficult to refute. This is the criticism that damages.

Shamed by such criticism, an artist may become blocked or stop sending work out into the world. A perfectionist friend, teacher, or critic—like a perfectionist parent who nitpicks at missing commas—can dampen the ardor of a young artist who is just learning to let it rip. Because of this, as artists, we must learn to be very self-protective.

Does this mean no criticism? No. It means learning where and when to seek out right criticism. As artists, we must learn
when criticism is appropriate and from whom. Not only the source but the timing is very important here. A first draft is seldom appropriately shown to any but the most gentle and discerning eye. It often takes another artist to see the embryonic work that is trying to sprout. The inexperienced or harsh critical eye, instead of nurturing the shoot of art into being, may shoot it down instead.

As artists, we cannot control all the criticism we will receive. We cannot make our professional critics more healthy or more loving or more constructive than they are. But we can learn to comfort our artist child over unfair criticism; we can learn to find friends with whom we can safely vent our pain. We can learn not to deny and stuff our feelings when we have been artistically savaged.

Art requires a safe hatchery. Ideally, artists find this first in their family, then in their school, and finally in a community of friends and supporters. This ideal is seldom a reality. As artists, we must learn to create our own safe environments. We must learn to protect our artist child from shame. We do this by defusing our childhood shamings, getting them on the page, and sharing them with a trusted, nonshaming other.

By telling our shame secrets around our art and telling them through our art, we release ourselves and others from darkness. This release is not always welcomed.

We must learn that when our art reveals a secret of the human soul, those watching it may try to shame us for making it.

“It's terrible!” they may say, attacking the work when the work itself is actually fine. This can be very confusing. When we are told, “Shame on you” and feel it, we must learn to recognize this shame as a re-creation of childhood shames.

“I know that work is good…. I thought that was good work…. Could I be kidding myself? … Maybe that critic is right…. Why did I ever have the nerve to think…?” And the downward spiral begins.

At these times, we must be very firm with ourselves and not pick up the first doubt. We simply cannot allow the first negative thinking to take hold. Taking in the first doubt is like
picking up the first drink for an alcoholic. Once in our system, the doubt will take on another doubt—and another. Doubting thoughts can be stopped, but it takes vigilance to do it. “Maybe that critic was right….” And,
boom,
we must go into action: “You are a good artist, a brave artist, you are doing well. It's good that you did the work….”

When
God's
Will,
the romantic film comedy I directed, debuted in Washington, D.C., it was a homecoming for me. My earliest journalism work had been for the
Washington
Post.
I was hoping for a hometown-girl-makes-good reception. But in the reviews printed prior to the opening, I did not get it.

The Post sent a young woman who watched an entire movie about theater people and then wrote that it was about movie people. She added that “Most” of my dialogue had been
stolen
from “Casablanca.” I wondered what movie she had seen; not the one I made. My movie had forty odd theater jokes and a one line joke about “Casablanca.” Those were the facts but they didn't do me any good.

I was mortified. Shamed. Ready to (almost) die.

Because the antidote for shame is self-love and self-praise, this is what I did. I went for a walk through Rock Creek Park. I prayed. I made a list for myself of past compliments and good reviews. I did not tell myself, “It doesn't matter.” But I did tell my artist self, “You will heal.”

And I showed up for my opening. It was a lot more successful than my reviews.

Three months later, my film was chosen for a prestigious European festival. They offered to fly me over. To pay my expenses. To showcase my film. I hesitated. The Washington shaming had done its slow and poisonous work. I was afraid to go.

But I knew better than to not go. My years in artistic recovery had taught me to just show up. When I did, my film sold at a great price and won a headline in
Variety.

I share the headline because the irony of it was not lost on me. “
God's
Will
Hit in Munich,” it read.

It
is
“God's will” for us to be creative.

It is important to be able to sort useful criticism from the other kind. Often we need to do the sorting out for ourselves, without the benefit of a public vindication. As artists, we are far more able to do this sorting than people might suspect. Pointed criticism, if accurate, often gives the artist an inner sense of relief: “Ah, hah! so that's what was wrong with it.” Useful criticism ultimately leaves us with one more puzzle piece for our work.

Useless criticism, on the other hand, leaves us with a feeling of being bludgeoned. As a rule, it is withering and shaming in tone; ambiguous in content; personal, inaccurate, or blanket in its condemnations. There is nothing to be gleaned from irresponsible criticism.

You are dealing with an inner child. Artistic child abuse creates rebellion creates block. All that can be done with abusive criticism is to heal from it.

There are certain rules of the road useful in dealing with
any
form of criticism.

1. Receive the criticism all the way through and get it over with.
   
2. Jot down notes to yourself on what concepts or phrases bother you.
   
3. Jot down notes on what concepts or phrases seem useful.
   
4. Do something very nurturing for yourself—read an old good review or recall a compliment.
   
5. Remember that even if you have made a truly rotten piece of art, it may be a
   necessary
   stepping-stone to your next work. Art matures spasmodically and
   re
   quires
   ugly-duckling growth stages.
   
6. Look at the criticism again. Does it remind you of any criticism from your past—particularly shaming childhood criticism? Acknowledge to yourself that the current
   criticism is triggering grief over a long-standing wound.
   
7. Write a letter to the critic—not to be mailed, most probably. Defend your work
   and
   acknowledge what was helpful, if anything, in the criticism proffered.
   
8. Get back on the horse. Make an immediate commitment to do something creative.
   
9. Do it. Creativity is the only cure for criticism.