Pampered Art
by James Roland
Things are swamped. One of our team just got out of the hospital with appendicitis, we have re-writes due on all our features and articles. There are two pieces I haven’t even started yet, our launch party is set and people are RSVPing, but we still have to line up more music, more artists and dish out a bunch of money to print invites and Ariel’s art…
And all I want to do is sleep. The very thought of being creative takes more imagination than I can muster. I’m great at conceiving ideas, but taking a project to completion has always been a struggle. You start with such intense passion that you actually get a high off it, and then the grown-up world sets in and you have to pay your bills instead of write your novel, you have to plan a party and find legal forms for your website instead of making movies….
I think becoming a mature artist must be a lot like becoming a parent. There are a few brief years when you’re at the top of your form… you have this cute little thing that you can pawn off on the grandparents so you can go have a night on the town with your wife who hasn’t been a mom very long so she still styles her hair and wears clothes that are cute instead of practical. And then, all of a sudden, instead of leading a life that revolves around you, you lead a life that revolves around the bundle of joy… which has thrown off its bundle and is rummaging under the sink where you keep the bleach.
Parents shed their dreams and spend the last 80% of parenthood making sure their kids get to have dreams. And with art, after the initial cute stage, a painting or a film project quickly grows into a hungry, whiney, self-centered little brat that needs guidance, support, wisdom, and money.
And you know what? I resent that. I mean, I still do it. The kids gotta eat, but that doesn’t mean I have to be happy about it.
And anyway, artists always manage to make more art and even the most stressed-out, kid-centered marriage still produces more children. Somehow they survive into adulthood and repeat the life cycle like the back of a shampoo bottle: marry, multiply…repeat.
