Hi lovelies,
I hope I am catching you in a moment of ease, my friends. I am sitting at our little kitchen table, my toes getting cold on the faux hardwood floor while I wait for the heater to kick in, my tea gone cold writing this ditty on how we harvest and use ideas in our creative work.
The 28th was my birthday, AND thanks-giving, which is special for me because I was born on the holiday, so every 5-6 years I get to celebrate this return of the holiday and my birth-date converging yet again.
The birthday, the holiday, the end/beginning of this cycle, it all converges and has got me reflecting. So I wrote this meditation on a common teaching I think a lot of us were taught as artists, and two distinct ways we might interpret it.
I hope you’ll read some or all of it. If you only read a bit though, skip to the ending because I really want to hear your thoughts!
EVERYTHING IS FODDER FOR THE WORK
I have been thinking about how framing and worldview changes how we understand creative teachings. Let me explain.
As I was training in acting I was introduced to a number of widespread ideas about creativity and being an artist in the world. One idea was that as an artist in the world, everything I experienced, everything I saw was fodder for my creative work – therefore, I needed to pay close attention in case something I experienced could be used later in my craft.
I remember learning this while training at Circle in the Square in New York, and taking it very seriously. I tried to see every interaction I had, every walk I took down the street, all the people I passed by, as holding the potential for being part of some great acting role or some great creative work that I would undertake someday. My own internal life, too, became part of my scrutiny. Like a scientist fascinated with its subject, I began to experience my emotional life like it was separate from me. I remember crying one night after a particularly hard day, and in the midst of my pain thinking, “Oh! I’m crying, this is good! I need to remember exactly how this feels so I can repeat this in class.”
ARTISTS ARE THIEVES
After a few weeks of this, I started to become alarmed. I noticed myself extracting data from intimate moments with my partner, from witty banter with friends, and from painful exchanges with my family. I was told there were no boundaries for great artists; as one of my teachers put it, artists are very good thieves, we steal and borrow from everything and everyone. Overheard conversations on the subway, passing glances noticed in a park, personal experiences, memories, trauma – it was all fodder for the work.
This teaching seemed to clash, though, with another lesson I’d been taught, which was that artists were striving to stay present in the moment. Being in the midst of a conversation with a friend and mining the interaction for my own creative uses inevitably made me feel like I was no longer present with that friend. Moreover, it was a shitty feeling, laughing and chatting and secretly thinking, “Ooh! That was a great line, I need to write that down when I get home.” The whole thing started to feel dirty. And I started to feel wary of my interactions with classmates, knowing that they were being taught the same lesson I was – how much of what I shared with them could potentially wind up in some play or screenplay? Or used privately as emotional bait for their acting work?
I started to question what was real. Was I actually upset, or was I just trying to extract an emotional moment for the work? Was this intimate moment with my partner genuine, or was I playing a part? This scared and worried me. Was it impossible to live a genuine life and be a great artist? According to what I’d been taught, the two seemed to be in conflict.
EXTRACTIVE EVANGELISTS
I’m thinking about this this morning because I’m currently reading The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin, and in his words I hear echoes of what I was taught all those years ago. He writes, “Widening one’s scope allows for more moments of interest to be noticed and collected, building a treasury of material to draw from later”. I felt myself physically react to these words, an internal cringe as I thought, Oh boy, here we go, another extractive evangelist.
White, western culture is rooted in a history of extraction. Colonization wasn’t necessarily the beginning of our extractive culture, but I do think it was a period of history which brutally amplified a culture of seeing the world, its peoples and its resources as available for dominating, taking, and abusing*. This framework is so deeply threaded into our psyche that it can be difficult to see it for what it is: one – very narrow – worldview. Not all encompassing, not ‘the way it is’, not inevitable. Just one point-of-view that became dominant through centuries of essentially white European shittiness.
So from one POV, this teaching I was given, about taking in and using everything in my life as fodder for my creative work, fits very cleanly into this extractive, colonialist worldview. Just as colonizers justified their actions as edicts from God, or later rationalized through racist, bullshit science, I could justify the mining of my personal relationships by calling myself a Great Artist, destined to make something truly magnificent, the ends justifying the means. (yikes)
EVERYTHING, EVERYWHERE, ALL FOR ONE
I sat down to come up with examples of artists extracting from themselves and from others for use in their own work, and quickly realized that to do so would be like pointing out that we breathe air. Yes, of course artists draw from their own experiences, and the experiences of others, of course we reinvent old narratives and write about our own lives and steal choreography and bring back fashions from thirty years ago. This is what we do, isn’t it? We ‘hold the mirror up to nature,’ as Hamlet says.
So why the icky feeling in my gut when I’m half-listening to a conversation I plan on using later for my screenplay?
>> Elvis stole songs.
>> Shakespeare stole stories.
>> Eugene O’Neill brought his own familial dysfunction to the stage.
>> Elizabeth Gilbert narrated her own journey in a novel.
>> Audre Lorde penned poetry from her rage, grief, and joy.
>> Lizzo writes upbeat anthems about loving herself and her body.
>> Roshani Chokshi draws from her cultures and others to create fantasy worlds.
Every artist’s work is inspired by someone or something. So is mine. But I have noticed that sometimes I feel fine about harvesting an idea from a particular source, and other times I have an instinctual, gut reaction that says: This isn’t right.
I think what it comes down to is how we harvest those ideas – or decide not to. And I think our how is often shaped by the worldview we’ve been conditioned under.
THE ACTUAL LESSON INSIDE THE LESSON
What I’m trying to say is that we have inherited a dominant, extractive worldview, and it has insidiously inserted itself into how we understand creativity. Because wrapped up and warped inside what I was taught about extracting from the people and experiences in my life, is actually this really beautiful lesson about creative living.
Rick Rubin writes: “The universe is only as large as our perception of it. When we cultivate our awareness, we are expanding the universe”.
The lesson is not: Pay attention to everything and everyone and use whatever it is that you observe and experience so that you can make something great.
The lesson is: Pay attention, with non-judgement and kindness, to everything and everyone, so that you can grow and become a more observant, experienced, conscientious artist.
Do you see how the first lesson is about extracting for an outcome, but the second lesson is about receiving and regenerating?
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A quick clarifying note about Circle in the Square: I loved my time at Circle in the Square. I grew tremendously during that time in ways I’m still benefiting from today. It’s not my intention to vilify their teachers or their teachings, but rather to point to how pervasive cultural narratives influence how we teach and understand creativity – even with the best of intentions.
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REGENERATIVE CREATIVE LIVING
I have been really curious about what happens to our creative living when we take a regenerative worldview, and resist an extractive one. And the best source that I currently know for deeply understanding the difference is with indigenous folks and their teachings. Robin Wall Kimmerer writes: “Paying attention is a form of reciprocity with the living world, receiving the gifts with open eyes and open heart.”
Pay attention – not so that you can steal something for personal gain – but so that you can be open to the gifts the world is offering, and so that you can know how to offer your gifts in return.
An idea is a gift and it arrives with a responsibility. And because the framework we are using is a regenerative one – meaning, we are valuing both the artists’ ability to sustainably receive and respond to ideas, as well as the world’s ability to provide them – I think there should be guidelines we use when we ‘harvest’ ideas out in the world.
Lucky for us, Robin Wall Kimmerer has generously articulated the guidelines of the honorable harvest. Originally intended for how we harvest plants and animals from the earth, I find there is a surprising synchronicity with the ‘harvesting’ of ideas.
As you read them, imagine them applying to the harvesting of ideas. What stands out to you when you consider using them in this way?
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Guidelines of the Honorable Harvest
“Know the ways of the ones who take care of you, so that you may take care of them.
Introduce yourself. Be accountable as the one who comes asking for life.
Ask permission before taking. Abide by the answer.
Never take the first. Never take the last. Take only what you need.
Take only that which is given.
Never take more than half. Leave some for others.
Harvest in a way that minimizes harm.
Use it respectfully. Never waste what you have taken. Share.
Give thanks for what you have been given.
Give a gift, in reciprocity for what you have taken.
Sustain the ones who sustain you and the earth will last forever.”
(Braiding Sweetgrass)
Or perhaps we could think of the last principle as: Sustain yourself, your community, the earth, and your nourishing relationship with creativity will last forever.
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FOOD FOR THOUGHT
> In what ways does your creative living already abide by Kimmerer’s framework? In what ways could you more closely align with her guidelines?
> How do you know when your creative practices are regenerative? What sensations, thoughts, or feelings do you notice?
> How do you know when extractive thinking crops up in your creative living? What sensations, thoughts, or feelings do you notice?
So curious to hear your thoughts on this one. Join Rest & Love in Creative Living to share your thoughts! (link below).
Much love to you all.
Warmly,
Caitlin
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Did you want to respond to the ideas here? Would you like to read more about this sort of thing? I send call-and-response email newsletters whenever I have the capacity to do so. It’s called “Rest & Love in Creative Living,” and you can join here.