Watching artists grow - part 1

One of the greatest joys of my life is watching artists grow and develop.  First of all, it's quite difficult to become an artist.  It's one of the most difficult things a person can do.  (Check out this earlier blog for another example)  So watching it happen is sort of like watching a miracle.

Case in point - Emily Hickman.  I first met Emily when she contacted me for an Art Business Consultation.  She'd been honing her metalsmithing skills for several years, and wanted to learn how to get her work into more shops and galleries.  She had four "lines" at that time.  For the uninitiated, a "line" is a group of pieces that work together based on similarities.  Emily's four lines were 1. sea creatures, 2. items featuring a cats eye shell, 3. simple shapes brightly colored with enamel on copper, and 4. hammered silver pieces.  All were quite different from each other.  Each would have to be marketed separately to a different clientele all together - which makes producing marketing materials rather expensive, and typically drives an artist to distraction trying to keep it all together under one roof in her head.

Narrowing the scope was imperative.  But bodies of work were already created in each category, and it seemed so wasteful to just give up without trying.  So we crafted a temporary plan to market the other liens, while turning all her creative energy to the hammered silver line.  And thus, Hammering Woman was born.

Interesting things happen when an artist focuses on one area.  I hear artists all the time balking about this because they feel it limits their creativity.  But an unexpected thing happens by imposing this limitation: the creativity within that limitation expands exponentially.  Secondly, by focusing on this area, the skill level increases dramatically.  Thus, the confidence to create ever-increasingly challenging work grows.  Thus the line grows because (confidence in technical skill) + (time spent creating new work) = increased creativity.

So Emily has been sending me photos of her newest pieces, and they are simply stunning.  Her earlier pieces in the Hammering Woman line were characterized by classic shapes (rectangles, teardrops, circles) with slightly organic edges.  The simple shapes and lines are very popular, and among our best-sellers at Manya Vee Selects.  The newest pieces still retain the classic shapes, but have a new elegance to them - a refined quality that is quite breathtaking.  She's even experimenting with incorporating bits of 18-karat gold with the sterling, such as a little gold ball on the surface of a silver earring, or an amazing stone bezel set in 18-karat gold.

So keep it up, Emily!  Now we are all watching to see how you grow!

Manya

www.ManyaVeeSelects.com

Manya@manyaveeselects.com

Meeting the Audience

Let's face it: the arts can be brutal.  Uplifting, meaningful, inspiring even; yes, the arts can be all of those things.  The arts can also be brutal.

Recently I sat through one of the worst performed plays I've ever seen.  By this judgment - and I want to be fair, here - I mean the following, specifically:

• the actors didn't know their lines (most were reading straight out of the script, believe it or not)
• they didn't know their blocking; didn't know their entrances and exits
• as a result, there was precious little characterization of any poignancy and, therefore,
• relationships between the characters (which make up the heart of any entertaining performance) were almost entirely non-existent

In short, it was a lot of well-meant, if quite hapless, flailing around up there.  What was the problem?  In a sentence: the play was badly under-rehearsed.  It should never have gone to curtain in that state.  Now, perhaps we might fault the cast for not trying harder.  However, in fact, it is squarely, and almost solely, the director's fault.  (I know - that sucks, but it's part of the onus of being the director.) 

On the other hand, one might argue that I am, unfairly, taking this way too seriously.  That, after all, it's only community theatre (which it was).  Or, in a similar vein, that the audience got what it paid for (the ticket price was, I admit, absurdly low).  Of course, that argument always overlooks the obvious: community theatre or not, modern audiences pay the ticket price  + performance time + commute time.

There's a rule in theatre: Audiences take their time very seriously; dramatists who fail to, soon quit.  For example, I know from experience that you can get away with such poorly rehearsed theatre for about ten to twenty minutes, tops.  Most audiences will forgive just about anything up to that time limit.  After that, however, is a different story as the audience will, first, grow restless, then bored, then resentful.  Yep, stretch that period to half an hour, an hour, an hour and a half, two hours or (as was the case here), well over two hours and now you have an audience that is fairly growling, "Can we just get this f*king thing over with, already?"  In the case of this show, by the time I ducked out early, 1/3 the house had already left.  Clearly, they had better uses for their time.  Then, too, right before I left, I could hear the mutter on all sides: "Is this show ever going to end?"

So, yes, in the dramatic arts, it's important to meet the audience's expectations.  (Fail to, and they will let you know real fast.  Particularly American audiences.)  Therefore, meet their expectations or quit.  Those are the rules.  I know that sounds brutal.  Maybe it is.  But those are still the rules.  If you don't want to play by them?   It's simple: do something else.

But you know what?  The visual arts are ruled similarly (if less dramatically).   Fail to meet the audience's (or collectors') expectations and your fine art or fine craft will collect dust on that gallery shelf until the gallery owner moves you out, replacing your work with another's that moves enough to help him pay his rent.  Same rules: meet their expectations or quit.

Perhaps this awareness is why I am so amused these days at squabbling by, say, two self-appointed cognescenti over whether, say, a painting is great art.  I could care less.  What I want to know is whether that painting will meet a collector's expectations.

And, after that?  Well, let's just say that after a decade or two of meeting audiences' or collectors' expectations, we'll know who the artists are and who chose some other field.

Jeff

Holy Smoke! (Teacup Tipsy's review)

Jeff Stilwell as Man In The Box.  Courtesy Wendy Enden.

So that's why I've been bonkers the last few days.  Complete creative exhaustion.  Alarmingly incoherent babblings and rantings on Tuesday, the day after we closed.  After several glasses of wine, and Manya's soothing caresses; finally, tortured sleep.  The following day?  Press repeat, if to a less pronounced degree.  And so on.

Why the hell do we do this to ourselves as artists?

Can we do otherwise?  Well, I suppose.  Of course, on that day, a crucial part of us withers and dies.

(Then, too, this subject always brings to mind the painful memories of how many times I've been discarded as manic/depressive.  The odd thing is that the diagnosis typically comes from someone who works a routine 9 - 5 office job; needless to say, someone who has a hard time imagining artistic risk.)

Then, again, from time to time it proves worth it.  I have two things to offer up this morning.  The first is a slideshow of photos from the play in case you missed it.  You'll find the slideshow on the right.  (If you'd like to see larger sizes, simply click on the image.)   The photos ("candids" we call 'em, in the biz) are fairly the prettiest I've seen in some time for a play.  They were taken by a very talented photographer just on the horizon:  Wendy Enden (www.laughingtabbyphotography.com).  Enjoy!

Then, too, Teacup merited a review!  No small thing, given its sole weekend of performances (ordinarily The Enterprise Newspapers will spend its valuable column inches on a show running longer).  It has to be one of the most congratulatory reviews I've ever received; not least because the reviewer, Dale Burrows is not afraid to chastise me when he feels I stopped short of my potential.  Phrases like "that wows,"  "imaginative comedy and thoughtful fable," "blew away those of us," "ground-breaking in ways more than one" characterize the review.  I cheerfully admit that I bawled like a baby when I saw it.

Maybe the pain is worth it, after all?

Jeff

What Price Art? (Bloody Noses)

Goodness, where has the time gone?

Well, I suppose that's what happens when you are mounting a new play.  The final weeks pass by in a flurry of activity.  Barely a moment to catch one's breath.

This one, my heart-warming new fable, Teacup Tipsy, is no exception.  It began quietly enough.  As usual, a couple of designers had to drop out and be replaced.  Barely a ruffle there.  But, then, an actor dropped out when he abruptly lost his car and couldn't make it to rehearsals anymore.  So, he, too, had to be replaced, on the fly.  (That was a bit knuckle-gnawing.)

Nevertheless, after all that, we had managed to settle down into the routine of mounting a show.  Good, solid, work-a-day routine.  Over time, though, we noticed that our actor playing Man In The Box couldn't get his lines down.  Now, I should mention that this is the largest part I've ever written for any actor, anywhere.  It's huge.  It rivals Hamlet in size.  And scope.  Here's a sample...
Sweet-scented olive grove on hillside stood
In gentle climes of sun-strewn hues and balms
Where one may stroll, and sit, and olive chew
And spit the tangy pit to new grove grow
And garland said hillside’s dew with olives new.


I've often awakened in the middle of the night wondering if the part isn't simply too large.  Nevertheless, Greg, the actor I cast, had a great deal of heart and considerable focus.  I believed that he would make it.  The weeks in rehearsal coasted by until we approached that point in the rehearsal process that most actors dread: Off-book day.  That day that you may no longer use the script.  It's all in your head at that point or you're screwed.

Of course, most actors also understand that the real acting begins when you're off-book and not before.  So, while it's a painful transition, it's a necessary one in any production worth mounting.

Anyhoo, as we got closer to that day, Greg and I realized that for a number of reasons, he simply wouldn't be able to get there.  All the heart in the world wasn't going to make a damn bit of difference, either.  What to do?

Well [swallow hard], we'd have to replace him.  Which we did.  (He's currently pursuing Improv acting in Olympia; I'm giving him lots of advice and support as he establishes himself in that demanding field.)

So, now, here we are, the clock is ticking, and we need a new actor who can master an elephant-sized part in just forty-eight hours.  To whom did we turn?  You guessed it.  It took me every minute of those two days, costing three bloody noses from the sheer stress of it all (believe it or not).  I hope never to undergo such an experience again.  Whew!  Of course, after the elephant was, finally, swallowed, I didn't have to do it again.  But, still.

Of course, the story doesn't end there.  I knew that having taken on a role, I could no longer direct; it would hurt the show.  So, Manya stepped in.  She established authority in minutes (no easy thing on the stage) with her characteristically light touch and has led the cast through the polishing phase since.  Tonight is our cue-to-cue tech rehearsal, when the cast and the technical crew are put together for the first time, everyone wondering if this team of oxen will pull in the same direction.

(I can hear it right now. Steve G. is thinking to himself: That puts Manya in the driver's seat with a whip in her hand.  Hmmmm....)

Steve!

Thinking of all of this, I can't help but ponder the price of art and what we are willing to sacrifice in order to create beauty and meaning.

Wish us a broken leg!  Driftwood is fronting the cash on this one, so it plays by their rules.  One weekend only - this weekend, in fact - in a special engagement.  This Saturday (2 pm) and Sunday and Monday (7:30 pm).  Tickets ($10) to be had at 425.774.9600.

Manya Vee Selects, of course, is having its usual wine soiree, this time on Sunday night, at the gallery, immediately following the performance.

See you then!

Jeff