The Creative Process: Painting, Writing, and the Case for Ruthlessness (by Tess Callahan)

Even before I began writing, I loved to draw and paint. Although I enjoyed it, I never considered it as a profession. Maybe I was afraid of the impracticality, or like my character, Oliver, (in my novel April & Oliver), I was simply afraid. Accessing one’s own creative power can be terrifying. Disowning it, on the other hand, opens the door to catastrophe, as poor Oliver finds out.

To keep me sane, and in an effort to understand the world, I’ve lived and traveled in a variety of continents. It hasn’t helped on either score, by the way. I now have more questions and less sanity. Nevertheless, traveling has added a thick, rich texture to my life. Throughout these journeys, my journal and sketchbook have been my navigation tools. For me, the two are complimentary, and over the years, visual art has taught me to be a better writer.  

Painter Roy Kinzer (shown left) who formerly taught at the Montclair Art Museum, unwittingly taught me as much about writing as any writing teacher. He pushed his students to see large, abstract forms, positive and negative space, and nuances of color – such as flecks of green in a skin tone or reds in a swatch of grass. By forcing myself to yield my preconceived ideas to the reality of what was actually in front of me, I slowly began to give that same courtesy to my characters. My stock assessments of them fell away as they revealed their true and surprising selves. Also, Kinzer’s insistence that we work on all parts of the canvas at once, rather than get bogged down in minutia too soon, trained me to stay fluid with the overall arc of my storyline.

Years ago I saw a film about the creative process that has stayed with me ever since. French director Henri-Georges Clouzot persuaded his friend Pablo Picasso in 1956 to make a documentary of his painting process. The film, called The Mystery of Picasso, shows the artist creating more than a dozen paintings, and illustrates the relationship between creation and destruction.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHlTvE-AI3Q (2 minute trailer)

As with Kinzer, Picasso starts with broad geometric shapes that immediately take possession of the entire page. Then come shading, color and depth. The most striking thing about the film is Picasso’s spontaneity, the dexterity with which he changes course. In one breath he has drawn an intricate fish. Just when you think it is perfect, he dives back in and transfigures it into a rooster. His changes are ruthless. He has no hesitation about obliterating what he has just done in order to transform it into something else. Just when you want to scream out, “Stop! You are destroying a Picasso!” he leaps in again to vaporize the rooster into a demon’s head. As an artist, it’s hard to watch this film without gasping. Many of us know the anguish of realizing we have to cut the very line we thought was brilliant. With Picasso, there is no anguish. His mercilessness is stunning. He may have been an arrogant SOB in life, but in art he was without egoic attachment. The film illustrates his total surrender to form. By prior agreement, when Clouzot finished shooting The Mystery of Picasso, all of the paintings were destroyed. 

The Hindu goddess Kali is the deity of creation and destruction. Robert Bly writes about her as an example of a “Death Mother” in Sleepers Joining Hands, and elsewhere. Generally, she is depicted with four arms that carry a sword, a trident, a severed head dripping blood, and a skull cup catching the blood. Her necklace is made of the skulls of her victims, (our inner demons and egoic attachments). She symbolizes the link between destruction and restoration in nature, and is feared for her extreme methods of initiating change - the forest fire followed by new growth, flooded plains followed by alluvial soil. Despite her ferocity, or rather because of it, she is the embodiment of divine energy, or Shakti.

Picasso did not fear his own Kali energy. On the contrary, he slept with her and made babies with her, lots of them. Painting and drawing have introduced me to Kali, too. She is the goddess of change; in other words, the goddess of Now. When I am tempted to save a favorite cut line in a scrap file for possible use later on, Kali tells me, “Baby, just hit delete.”

Comments

[Laura Orem]

Wow! This is terrific, Tess! How difficult it is to really see what you are looking at, and how much more difficult to get the hell out of your own way.

I'm going to be thinking about this post for a long time.

[jim morgenland]

Another delightful, thought provoking piece. I remember cleary the first time I heard the term "negative space" and learned its a term not unique to the visual world. I often have turned to the principals taught in algebra in solving problems, the solution comes clear if you can see the problem in its reverse. In music, like visual art, what is not heard is as important as what is. Jazz and Classical artists know this, rock artists seem to get as they mature, assuming they survive.

I love that Picasso destroyed all the pieces created after the completion of the film. To me, temporary art has always fascinated and interested me. Sandcastle competitions have always awed me, the amount of time and detail that goes into the creations, then to watch the ocean reclaim the sand with each pulse of the next wave. It's what makes live performances so special, to be there, (if I may quote a favorite author of mine)"at the moment at hand".

[Tess Callahan]

I didn't think this was possible, Jim, but you've actually made me want to open an algebra book so I can better understand what you mean about seeing problems in reverse.

Your comment about music, "what is not heard is as important as what is," reminds me of another line from T.S. Eliot's Four Quartets:

"And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea."

Thanks, Jim!

[Ayiana]

Hey. I phoned my dad to tell him I had stopped smoking. He called me a quitter.
I am from Luxembourg and also am speaking English, tell me right I wrote the following sentence: "Information about how to stop excessive sweating."

Best regards :P, Ayiana.