Art and fear david bayles and ted orland pdf

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On the Acknowledgement of Fear as a Powerful and Evocative Resource in the Artmaking Process

Alexander W. Greengaard, Excerpt from graduate thesis, Goddard College, March 30, 2014. In any mean and manner of artmaking, there is a force that debilitates and paralyzes: an overwhelming nervous anxiety that halts production, a crushing fear that breeds doubt and regret. Some of these fears are marked. The writer suffers writer’s block. The player endures stage fright. But it is not the nature of the craft that shapes the artist’s fears, but rather the act of creation (Bayles 1993). Ordinarily, and through the lens of the observer, there is nothing remarkably taxing about this process. The writer sits at a typewriter and produces a manuscript. The actor stands on the stage and breathes power and emotion into the hearts of a captivated audience. The painter presses a landscape into the canvas with manic expediency. These acts are without exhaustion, and without danger. And yet, the fear an artist squares against is perhaps the greatest peril: a crippling paralysis, born from within, and alluding to imminent, overt, and tangible failure. Fear poses an insurmountable obstacle to the artist: it slows the work, it sullies the drive, it diminishes the return. Fear has a presence in all process.

It is also necessary. Fear is communicative and powerful: a galvanizing force that yields high risks and high rewards. It has the potential to motivate, to build solidarity, and to push the echelon of the artist’s capabilities. Fear is the obstacle that renders the artist’s intentions meaningful. It is the muse of bold choices. In the right hands, those of the clever, the wise, and the brave, fear can be an invaluable resource. An artist able to identify the fears and anxieties which stand before progress is equipped with knowledge of the enemy. An artist willing to acknowledge these fears is in standing to redirect them. But fear is not often identified or acknowledged. Not openly. Assuredly not in common space. Fear is significant of weakness; and so, more often, it is hidden. This need not be. Through an understanding of the relationships between creativity and fear, and a distinct subsequent acknowledgement therein, an artist may channel an inarguably incapacitating creative obstacle into powerful resource in the artmaking process.

Identification.

Or, What Do Artist’s Fear?

Understanding relationships between art and fear is core to the artist’s utility of this force to advantageous ends. This is not as daunting an endeavor as it appears, as the form and marrow of an artist’s fear is largely internal. As such, the identification of the creative gates that harness each artist is an individual process, and broad in variance. However, there are commonalities; profound ones, that bind each tortured individual to a singular subset of shared frustrations. There are, as it were, a few common enemies.

The Gifted. An immense and untimely source of artist fear is rooted in Western philosophical debate over whether genius is innate or earned. For the purpose of exceptional storytelling, or, perhaps excellent marketing, a common visage of the great artist depicts notions as talent or expertise as divine gifts. For the prodigy, the work comes naturally and effortlessly; guided by invisible, capable forces. Others see the artist’s talents as a culmination of monumental diligence, an honor earned rather than a gift given. Two paramount works have, in contemporary parlance, addressed relationships between creativity and fear, examining this line of inquiry extensively, and to similar function: Bayles and Orland’s Art and Fear, and Twyla Tharp’s The Creative Habit. In both works, the gift-debate is identified as a central source of artist fear; and, in both, a definitive stance is offered. Tharp posits: “It is the perennial debate, born in the Romantic era, between the beliefs that all creative acts are born of (a) some transcendent, inexplicable,

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Dionysian act of inspiration, a kiss from God on your brow that allows you to give the world The Magic Flute, or (b) hard work” (Tharp 2003). In presenting this notion, Tharp is also lending an answer: “If it isn’t obvious already, I come down on the side of hard work” (Tharp 2003). In Bayles and Orland, this discussion is also paramount: “Yet even the notion that you have a say in this process conflicts with the prevailing view of artmaking today- namely, that art rests fundamentally upon talent, and that talent is a gift randomly built into some people and not into others” (Bayles 1993). Like Tharp, Bayles and Orland find little practicality in the gift model: “This view is inherently fatalistic- even if it’s true, it’s fatalistic- and offers no useful encouragement to those who would make art” (Bayles 1993). Both works offer the position that the gift model is generally accepted by Western society, and that it is categorically misleading. It should be noted that both Tharp and Bayles/Orland make example of Wolfgang Mozart to illustrate this position. Perhaps the classic model of the child prodigy is well suited to the formulation of the argument that diligence is at the heart of genius. At 28, Mozart’s fingers were markedly disfigured, rendered grotesque and mangled from practice (Tharp 2003). Perhaps, to the working artist, this suggestion embeds the proper imagery to speak for itself.

The Deadline. A timely and sardonically appropriate enemy, the deadline appears to be an ample benefactor to the creative block, and, a poignant source of fear for working artists. As deadlines draw closer, artists display a tendency to create new distractions, and new necessities: affairs that, often superficially, must be tended before the artmaking can continue. Writer F. Scott Fitzgerald was a known casualty of this potentially destructive pattern of behavior, as evidenced by his 1936 short story “Afternoon of an Author.” A particularly revealing passage reads: "‘Yes, I certainly need to get out," he thought. "I'd like to drive down the Shenandoah Valley, or go to Norfolk on the boat.’ But both of these ideas were impractical--they took time and energy and he had not much of either--what there was must be conserved for work. He went through the manuscript underlining good phrases in red crayon and after tucking these into a file slowly tore up the rest of the story and dropped it in the waste-basket. Then he walked the room and smoked, occasionally talking to himself” (Fitzgerald 1936). In accordance with Fitzgerald’s use of his own creative block as a source of inspiration, working artists might be wise to, at minimum, be aware of the effects of deadlines on their creative habits.

Expectations. Perhaps the most debilitating act of the artist is the production of groundbreaking work, as evidenced by the consequence of precedent. Often, fear of inability to meet the expectations established by the artist’s own body of work can lead to insecurity, self-doubt, and subsequent delineation of productivity. Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, spoke of this notion during a 2009 TED Talk: “And it’s exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book” (Gilbert 2009). And later, “It’s exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me” (Gilbert 2009). Undoubtedly, expectations set by previous works in the minds of the artist and the audience can have a profound impact on an artist’s ability to produce.

Approval. Fear surrounding the notion of approval is perhaps the principal fear an artist faces, as it is rooted in uncertainty; bound by the opinions and sentimentalities of others. Artists fearing reactions of their audiences can become crippled and counterproductive, stopping short in their pursuits solely due to the reactions of outside forces. An artist’s work is personal, and, more often than not, becomes entangled in conceptions of self-worth (Bayles 1993). As such, negative public reaction can be extremely disheartening to the working artist, whose livelihood bears a direct connection to the ability to satiate audiences. This phenomenon has the potential to amplify over time, leading to countless documented cases of severe depression, social anxiety, and various external repercussions.

Acknowledgement.

Or, How Can Artists Use Fear?

While the identification of fear is, for the working artist, a healthy and productive enterprise, it is a mere stepping stone compared to the potential of acknowledgement and use. Fear is a

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powerful force and, although its natural inclination is to cripple and debilitate, it can be applied to motivate and inspire. Like any force, fear implies a natural directionality. If the artist is to use fear to advantageous ends, an adjustment in perspective and focus will be necessary. In other words, the working artist need not be crippled by fear. There is another option: identify the force, acknowledge it, and redirect.

Fear is a powerful motivator. Deadlines are often underrepresented: looming forces that suppress creativity, amplify anxiety, and produce unnecessary tension. But deadlines can also yield results: ones that can potentially counteract the effects of creative blocks. Artists who are mindful of the positive potential of deadlines set personal time-management goals which are, more often than not, liberated from external deadlines (Bayles 1993). Pressure to produce need not be confused with work ethic, and, the high-drama of the final hour can often have a positive effect on the work itself. Seemingly to the contrary, common conception holds that work produced under deadline-induced creative blocks diminishes in quality. This need not be true, either. Frank Herbert has written extensively about this concept in Murray’s Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers: “I have never had the problem of a writing block. I've heard about it. I've felt reluctant to write on some days, for whole weeks, or sometimes even longer. I'd much rather go fishing, for example, or go sharpen pencils, or go swimming, or what not. But, later, coming back and reading what I have produced, I am unable to detect the difference between what came easily and when I had to sit down and say, "Well, now it's writing time and now I'll write." There's no difference on paper between the two” (Murray 1990). This sentimentality is empowering, although not entirely surprising discourse from Herbert, whose body of work is monumental. It is within this sentiment that Herbert’s ability to use fear as a resource becomes apparent, in denying deadlines the faculty to interfere with the quality of his work, and living up to his own words from his breakthrough novel Dune: “I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer” (Herbert 1965).

Overcoming fear can be empowering. The resourceful working artist does not seek absolution from fear. But this does not mean that fear cannot be overcome. On the contrary, it must be overcome with each new piece; and with each of that piece’s subsequent parts. While both the resourceful artist and the tortured artist have a relationship with fear, the resourceful artist seeks the rewards of overcoming fear. In fact, Bayles and Orland see a fear as a commonality between those paralyzed by their fear and those empowered by it: “After all, artists who continue and artists who quit share an immense field of common emotional ground” (Bayles 1993). If Bayles and Orland are correct in this assertion, the difference, the driving element that pushes the persevering artist to persist, may lie in the reward. And the act of overcoming personal fears in order to produce great works can be very appealing to some. To others, it may not be entirely simple to overcome these fears. The working advice here is to simplify the process. To identify and acknowledge the fears artists face, understand that these fears are shared, and thereby see the rewards that lie ahead if those fears can be overcome. Nearing the end of a long and widely revered stage career, Sir Laurence Olivier developed severe stage fright, which revolved around a new and overwhelming fear of forgetting his lines. This began to manifest in the noted avoidance of eye contact with other actors, the use of thick character accents, and the donning of heavy stage makeup (Holden 1988). It was during this period that Olivier was approached to play one of the most line-heavy roles on the stage: Lear. By this time, he had also become visibly weakened by public battles with prostate cancer and thrombosis. He took the role, despite his illness and fear, and it was regarded as one of his greatest performances (Holden 1988). For Olivier, as for other resourceful artists, the benefits outweighed the risks.

The work itself can defeat our fears. For many artists, coping with fear is not only a part of the process, it’s the point. Art is dynamic; it is living and versatile. It is personal and public. And its communicative capacity is unmatched. As such, the artwork itself, and the creative process therein, are an artist’s most powerful tools for standing against fear. Perhaps the most classic practitioner of this notion is Salvador Dali, whose highly symbolic works produced, in true surrealistic fashion, phenomena that simply could not exist under the constraints of reality. Under such liberated conditions, Dali could use his work to defeat his greatest fears: insects, intimacy,

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and death. “Ever since the days when I was a babe in arms, the moment anyone spoke to me about death as an inevitable event, I have always shouted, ‘Lies!’ I’ve always felt that in the last minute everything would work out. And I haven’t changed my mind” (Bosquet 2003). Like Dali, the resourceful artist has the capacity to redirect the powerful emotion of fear into productivity by using the art to engage it. Another strong example of this concept can be seen in the writings of Tobias Wolfe, most notably in the short story Bullet in the Brain. In the text, the protagonist, a harsh book critic, takes a moment to reflect on the abhorrent portraiture of a bank frieze course. “The artist had a few tricks up his sleeve and used them again and again - a certain rosy blush on the underside of the clouds, a coy backward glance on the faces of the cupids and fauns” (Wolfe 1995). Here, Wolfe uses the character of the scathing book critic to allude to his own insecurities about his writing. Later in the story, the critic is killed off by means of his own hubris. Wolfe is creating a meta-dialogue about the role of critics in the thoughts and emotions of artists, while simultaneously identifying, holding accountable, and defeating elements of his own work which have led to insecurity. For Wolfe, fear is a resource, a utility that can build quality and consequence into an artist’s body of work.

This is not to say that fear can be dismantled or absolved; that some combination of incantation and self-help can cure the effects of anxiety on a global epidemic of tormented artists. On the contrary, fear can and will continue to antagonize and afflict the working artist. This is the price of progress, and it is steadfast. But awareness can be just as powerful. Awareness implies knowledge of the enemy. It implies agency, rather than fate, as the catalyst of human events. And with it, with observation and understanding, an artist may, if so inclined, use fear as a means to serve greater ends.

Works Cited

Bayles, David, and Ted Orland. Art & Fear: Observations on the Perils (and Rewards) of Artmaking. Santa Cruz, CA: Image Continuum, 1993. Print. Bosquet, Alain. "Conversations with Dali." Alibris Marketplace. Ubu Classics, 2003. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. Fitzgerald, F. Scott. “Afternoon of an Author.” Esquire August 1936: P. 35. Print. Gilbert, Elizabeth. "Elizabeth Gilbert: Your Elusive Creative Genius." TED: Ideas worth Spreading. N.p., Feb. 2009. Web. 01 Apr. 2013. Herbert, Frank. Dune. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1965. Print. Holden, Anthony. Laurence Olivier. New York: Atheneum, 1988. Print. Murray, Donald Morison. Shoptalk: Learning to Write with Writers. Portsmouth, NH: Boynton/Cook, 1990. Print. Tharp, Twyla, and Mark Reiter. The creative habit: learn it and use it for life: a practical guide. New York: Simon & Schuster. 2003. Print.

Wolff, Tobias. "Bullet in the Brain." The New Yorker 25 September 1995: p. 82. Print.