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| Enlightenment |
My creative-life wasn’t all bad and fear-filling. Yes, I had a number of significant negative experiences during my creative development, but I also had a few positive ones as well. Choir was something that I actually excelled at. While I gave up on drawing, writing and crafts-related creativity, music was something that I enjoyed and I was actually encouraged to pursue. My amazing voice (not my words, but the words of my choir teachers, peers and family members) has since left me, a use it or lose it type of thing. But all of the way through high school, I excelled at music. I taught myself how to play the piano, by ear (I can’t read sheet music fast enough to play it). I taught myself how to compose music (again I can’t read sheet music fast enough to play it but I can write it and make it sound good).
Music was such a huge part of my high school life that three of my seven classes were music related for my sophomore and junior years of high school. During my senior year, music was the first four of my seven classes. Yes, over 50% of my classes were music related. Another class, my last class of the day was drama. So 5/7ths of my senior year was creative learning and expression.
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| The Bridge |
When I sang with a group, I was strong. I had a wide vocal range. I sang bass by choice, but when another group was having trouble with their part; my choir teacher put me in their section to sing their parts with them to strengthen them. I sang bass, tenor, alto and soprano parts on demand. I was the strong when with a group, but when I sang solo, my nerves just about killed me. Think of a long tailed cat in room full of rocking rocking-chairs; that was me singing solo. While I had a strong voice and a musical gift, admittedly the repeated blows from past creative failures and subsequent creative beatings had left me with the self confidence of a boy who had been turned down by every girl in school, except one, and he has to ask her to the prom.
Why did I not pursue music or theatre outside of high school? A few things happened to crush that dream.
My mom and father figure (non-biological dad type) divorced after thirteen years, at the end of my junior year and my mom and I moved out of town, ten miles away, but I went to same high school. Since my car died my senior year I was stuck riding with my mom. I tried out for the school’s spring play, Arsenic and Old Lace, and landed the role of Teddy. When I told my mom, she said there was no chance I would be doing that because she wouldn’t be able to, she refused to, wait around for my rehearsals to be over after she got off work. And when I told our play director, well, she simply flipped out.
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| My Moon |
Then, near the end of my senior year I had a one on one session with my guidance counselor. What is it with guidance counselors? I really don’t like nor trust them, and maybe this story is the reason behind it. When he asked what I wanted to do after high school, I told him that I wanted to teach music. And his response, after reviewing my transcripts was; “You haven’t done anything with math and to be a teacher requires a lot of math. College requires a lot of math. You won’t be able to go to college.”
Well at that point in my life, math was truly a weak point in my scholastic career. I hadn’t taken any math since my sophomore year (it wasn’t required) so basically I was being told that teaching music wasn’t an option and I gave up. Guidance counselors, to quote someone from somewhere (I think it was the Pirate DJ Happy Harry Hardon from the movie Pump up the Volume; “If a guidance counselor knew anything about careers, would they have been guidance counselors?”
So instead of pursuing my passion, I joined the Navy, because I felt it was expected of me. I served for four years, got out and floundered in and out of jobs got married, because I felt it was expected of me and then came kids because I felt it was expected of me. But I wasn’t happy.
I wasn’t creating.
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| The Mountain |
My Creative Rebirth:
I was 32 years old and taking some classes at a local community college and it was here that I met my first creative coach, a mentor. And although she was only in my life for twelve short weeks, she was the most influential person in my creative resurgence. She was my creative writing instructor. The first day of class, the first thing out of her mouth after introducing herself was the following, and I quote:
“Welcome to creative writing. You will not be graded on grammar. You will not be graded on spelling. You will not be graded on punctuation. When you turn in your homework, I want your shitty first draft.”
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| Love in Solitude |
I nearly fell in love. Not once was I graded on the imperfections of my work, but instead I was provided an avenue to express myself freely without judgment. The class was hard. Everything was written by hand, her way of ensuring she was getting our “shitty first drafts”. The in-class work was intensive. The homework was heavy on the work, but the class was rewarding and motivating. During the course of the class I wrote the first chapter of my book, Bullied (still to be finished) read it here http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/2007/09/bullied-chapter-1.html and I wrote several short stories including Un-born; read it here with a warning; it is graphic and includes a detailed description of a rape, so with that said: http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/2007/09/un-born.html
I was reborn from that experience. My creative nature was nurtured into life and a lot changed for me from that point. I bought a bass guitar, separated from my anti-nurturing wife, moved in with my sister, divorced said wife, started playing music with my future brother-in-law and bought my first digital camera. It appeared to be like some form of mid-life crisis and even some called it that, but I call it an awakening to what I was supposed to be.
Two months after buying my bass guitar, my sister, her boyfriend and her roommate played a gig at a little gather of people from my sister’s church. We played a seven song set. Again, this was two months after buying my bass guitar, which I had never played as in instrument before.
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| Church on a Hill |
It was when my wife and I first connected that things started to really happen for me; she was my sister’s other roommate when I first moved in. One day I looked at one of her sketch books and absorbed her talent with drawing, and I admitted to her that I couldn’t draw, which was the truth at the time. She proceeded to give me the basics, gave me the right type of feedback that allowed me to grow. You can see some of my sketch work in this blog as well.
A few years later, after we were married my wife took on the challenge of painting a full wall Noah’s Ark mural in our niece’s bedroom. But it was overwhelming for her. So I stepped in to help. I hadn’t done any painting since my horrid experience in seventh grade art class. But we painted and it turned out pretty good…
http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/2007/11/noahs-ark-mural-phase-i-ii-and-iii.html
http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/2007/12/noahs-ark-mural-phase-iv-and-v.html
http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/2007/12/mural-phase-vi-completed.html
It was soon after the mural was done that I found my love of photography again. I was being nurtured all along by my wife and sister, but it wasn’t until I met my good friend, Shawn, that I had any realization of my true potential with photography. I had loved photography for many years as the result of my experience with Enlightenment which you can read about here… http://the-monkeyspaw.blogspot.com/p/about-me.html .
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| Flying High |
One day in 2007 I woke up and found that I was surrounded by people that could see my potential and encouraged me to go further. Because of the nurturing and positive feedback that I am getting from these people, I am taking it further, one little step at a time.
I used to ask myself, “What if these people had been in my life from the beginning?” Such as, instead of my fourth grade teacher, what if I had my creative writing teacher. What if instead of my seventh grade art teacher I had someone similar to my wife coaching and guiding me or instead of my guidance counselor, what if I had someone like my good friend Shawn urging me to follow my dream.
My life might have been so much more creatively fulfilling. But alas, would have, should have, and could have. I can’t go back in time and change these things so I need to stop living in that past. What I can do is move forward from here and carry with me the lessons that I learned from those experiences and make them a part of my future success.
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| Together Alone |
These are the lessons I have learned over the course of my creative life. I hope that any one of these lessons can help a single one of you because if it does, then my purpose on the world is one step closer to being fulfilled and if not, I will try again to fulfill it. Here are my lessons:
• Be confident in what you know but be honest about what you don’t know. By being open with what you don’t know, you are opening the doors to the opportunity to learning something new.
• Take all feedback, positive and negative, at face value. Positive feedback from anyone can be as damaging to your creativity as negative feedback can. Positive feedback and feed an eternally hungry ego and close off the ability to learn and adapt just as negative feedback and bruise the ego and force you back into your creative cave. All that feedback should be to you is that a person either likes or dislikes your results. It is their opinion. Opinions are like assholes, everybody has at least one they usually stink. This does not mean ignore the feedback. Instead take what you can from the feedback and use it to better yourself and your art.
• Find a balance between your creative life and your personal life. Many time people, including me, can go off the deep end; the pendulum swings hard to the right or hard to left. This is a difficult life to lead, especially for the people around you. When you see the world as “I can either create now or never again” you become unbalanced. This can lead to bitter relationships, where you blame your loved ones for your lack creativity or even bitterness towards your boss or employer. The way you balance is through planning. Make dates, physically in a calendar, for you to go do creative things and make dates with loved ones, again physically in a calendar, to spend quality time with them. Find that balance and maintain it and your loved ones will be more supportive of your creative endeavors.
• Surround yourself with like minded people. People who share your interest, your passion. I am not recommending a divorce here, although I mentioned my own divorce above. I am saying that you need to get connected with people either through a local or even international club. If you are a photographer join Flickr. If you are writer, join a local writer’s guild. If you are painter find a local artist in action group.
• Find your vision of the world around you and find your voice to share that vision honestly. Your vision is not found by mimicking others in your creative field. Your vision is not found by sitting on your ass. You vision is found by actively pursuing your craft and tuning your work to be decidedly yours. You voice is found by being honest with everyone, including and starting with yourself. Be honest about how you see the world. Be honest in your communications. Be honest. If you are honest all things will come to you. Be Honest. If you are honest, others will be honest with you. BE HONEST! If you want to give the world the middle finger; do it. If you want to give the world a hug; do it. Just be honest about it because if you aren't, the world will know.
• Don’t be in a hurry. When you rush mistakes are made. When you take shortcuts important things are missed. Plan your path, visualize your path, assess your path for risks and then execute your journey. While you can’t plan for everything and an eventual bump in the road will occur, go back into planning mode to smooth your path back out, assess your path again execute from where you left off. Don’t rush it, don’t be in a hurry.
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| One View |
In closing of this series, I would like to say thank you to everyone that has helped me get to where I am and to those that have been the road blocks as well. All of you, helpers and blockers, have made me the creative person I am today and will continue helping me become the creative man I am meant to be. So to all of you, thank you. And for those that are struggling to get your creative life in order, have patience, find your path, be honest, keep a balance and continue learning. If you do this, the things you desire will come to you and the creations hidden deep inside will surface.
