don't let your taste cripple your art.

They say for any art form, there is a period of time where an artist's taste is more advanced than her ability. A time gap where skill is not equal to desired outcome. An artist can be crippled by his own taste if each failure to live up to that taste becomes too devastating.

I’ve seen many actors (including myself) read a scene and know how it should look, but lack the tools to execute it. It comes out looking like crap. I’ve done a lot of crappy scenes. Then slowly but surely, little moments land. You start to trust your skill. More miniscule moments land. One day, you actually do a scene that isn’t crap. Don’t get me wrong, there’s always room for self-loathing. But you arrive at a place where you’re in the vicinity of meeting your own discerning taste. Sometimes, just for a moment, you can even go to a place above and beyond what you imagined. That is when the magic happens. But you have to get past a lot of failure to find it.

I'm struggling with this as an editor right now. My grand visions fall flat on their face with my current limited abilities. It’s a learning curve. After my first pass at editing my last project I wanted to stab an ice pick through my eyeballs. Luckily I don’t own an ice pick. Luckily two experienced editor friends gave me a few pointers. In addition to all the luck, I’m trying to log in those ten thousand hours so each project has fewer crappy parts than the last one. By the way Malcolm Gladwell, ten thousand is A LOT of hours. Clearly anyone who actually has ten thousand hours to do anything is not the mother of a toddler...I'm not your demographic, but I'm doing it anyway.

Speaking of my toddler, the art form he’s struggling with is talking. His level of understanding amazes me. But when it comes to executing words…well, let’s just say as his parent I understand every nuanced grunt, but they wouldn’t get him far with anyone else. This morning on our walk, he pointed to every single bicycle (we live in Brooklyn, so there were many bicycles) and said "thibick," “buckly,” “bickel,” “bithick.” But instead of getting frustrated each time he was wrong, he giggled and tried again. I'd like to think he didn't inherit my self-loathing gene. But more likely, mother nature protects us from self-loathing long enough to ensure we make it through all the failures that come from learning to walk and talk.  

On the way home we said at least a hundred and thirty seven versions of the word bicycle. He still didn't get it. But he had a blast trying. It has now become my goal to share that enthusiasm for trying with my students (and myself).

“Practice isn't the thing you do once you're good. It's the thing you do that makes you good.” 
― Malcolm Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success

Dad

Wow. 2013. I was absent from this blog for the end of 2012. To be honest, my goal was to keep this blog fun and light, but my Dad died in the fall and I had trouble finding fun and light things to write about. In fact, I went to a holiday party just before Christmas…when there was a lull in the conversation I started to rack my brain for some conversation starters. The only topics I could come up with were baby poop and how to execute a last will and testament. Needless to say, I wasn’t invited to any more holiday parties. 

As soon as the baby was ready to travel last year, I planned a September trip to visit my Dad for his 65^th birthday. I wanted the little guy to meet his grandpa. And boy am I happy we made the trip. When we arrived I could tell that Dad had been keeping quiet about how bad his emphysema had become. His activity was restricted to the couch and a short radius around it. TJ was at the stage when being on a blanket and trying to roll over occupied him for hours. So I put a blanket in front of the couch and the three of us just hung out for a few days. Dad and TJ had an instant connection. And it wasn’t just because Dad had a nose for TJ to grab onto. The two of them babbled to each other all day long, giggling and holding onto each other’s fingers. I managed to get a few words in edge-wise to ask Dad questions…things we don’t think to ask our parents about their lives…his teen years, his time in Vietnam, his career. He had strong feelings about staying in his home to die. I told him I wanted to be there to help him at the end. He said he would tell me when he needed me, but was never quite forthcoming about how much help he really did need. Too stoic and proud. And stubborn. Four weeks later, I was on the plane on the way to see him again when he died. We had already said our goodbyes, but I wish I had been there. Hugged him one more time. Said thank you one more time. I think of him constantly. At first it saddened me every time something came up that I wouldn’t be able to share with him. Now I’m starting to see reminders and thoughts of him as little pieces of his sense of humor that have stuck around and that I get to share with his grandson. Slowly but surely, the fun and light will come back.

Dad wasn’t strong enough to hold TJ when they met, but I managed to balance a lap sit so that I could get one photo of the two of them together.  I will cherish it and that trip forever.