This past Sunday, I saw Bruce Springsteen perform for the 15th time. He is my favorite musical act, the best live performer I’ve seen, and one hell of a poet. Over the years, I’ve taken inspiration from him in a myriad of ways, from his skill adopting the voice of different characters, to his unique ability to stay in the right side of sentiment with out crossing the line into sentimentality, he has taught me so much about the craft of writing story and poetry. As I watched another incredible performance on Sunday with an E Street Band that sounds as good or better than it did the first time I saw him, I came to another realization: we need more poetry from older poets.
The creative industry in general trends younger. Everyone looks for The Next Big Thing, and much of the media coverage related to debut albums and novels, under-a-certain-age lists, etc., and while I get the appeal of the prodigy, there are subjects about which young people are not generally equipped to write well. Listening to this concert, I was struck by how much Springsteen’s later work—especially the songs from his crisis albums, The Rising and Letter to You—spoke to me. The song Ghosts, for example, stands up to anything else in the show, and is, in my opinion, the best song about the effects of the pandemic.
Springsteen is an especially good example of what an older poet offers. He has had a long and sustained late-career renaissance, which started with The Rising, his 9/11 album. While there was always depth and political meaning in his songs—even when they were nominally about cars and girls—but his later work has a depth and maturity that speaks to me as I get older. Thunder Road and Badlands remain both timeless classics and great poems. They have a timeless quality and bring the house down every time he plays them, but the guy who wrote those isn’t the same guy who now discusses the issues of the day with Barack Obama.
I still love the songs I grew up with—and seeing a favorite act perform the songs I grew up with is always going to be a highlight of this type of show, but hearing the music of an artist who continues to grow as I grow adds to the experience.
In a way, it’s a shame that only artists like Springsteen who were successful in their youth get to have an audience for their mature work. I wish we got to read more debut poets who’s writing has matured after their youth.
The figure looked around. Something had definitely changed. His world, constant spinning motion for as long as he could remember, had now become still. He sniffed the air suspiciously and noticed that it was dryer as well. On all sides there were boundaries where, once, there were infinite possibilities. He called out to his creator, Mr. Munch, but the glass was soundproof. He raised his hands to his face, grabbed his cheeks, and screamed silently, forever trapped inside his gilded frame.
The 20th anniversary of Fred Rogers death passed earlier this week. Aside from making me (and I’m sure a bunch of other people my age) feel both sad and old, it was, as these anniversaries often are, an opportunity to revisit the incredible influence Mister Rogers and his show had on my generation, and to remind ourselves how relevant and important his message remains today. I read so many tributes to his lessons about kindness, selflessness, self-affirmation, and acceptance of others, all of which are well-deserved. These are lessons which are, if anything, more important today given the current state of society, but one thing I did not see, which I would like to address here, is the way he encouraged us to be creative, to play, to make believe.
Every episode of Mister Rogers Neighborhood included a trip to The Land of Make Believe, a portal-fantasy world accessed by his model trolley, where Rogers’ puppet characters interacted with the human actors to address the theme of that week’s series of episodes. The stories were fantastical, often featuring characters visiting from The Purple Planet or making use of a magical boomerang, and worked to reinforce the lessons Rogers taught in the real-world segments of the show.
The importance of make believe fit with Rogers belief in the importance of play. Rogers said, “Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood.”
The inclusion of both the real-world and fantasy elements separated Mister Rogers Neighborhood from the other major educational programs of my childhood. Most programs were either entirely fantasy, like Sesame Street, where humans and Muppets existed in the same world, or entirely based on a non-fiction conceit, like Reading Rainbow.
Mister Rogers always emphasized the difference between what was real and what was pretend. It is was important to him that kids knew the difference. For example, he would only let Big Bird guest star in The Land of Make Believe segment because Carol Spinney, the puppeteer who created and performed Big Bird did not want to reveal that Big Bird was pretend on the non-fiction portion of the show. While one can debate Rogers and Spinney’s views on presenting fantasy to children, the dichotomy which Rogers drew between the real and pretend segments of the program reinforced the concept that The Land of Make Believe constituted play time.
Despite this dichotomy, Rogers would often take elements of the make-believe portion of the show into the real-world setting. In one episode, he creates a pet on a stick puppet and sings the same song to it that King Friday sang to his pet on a stick. He would also often engage on other forms of creativity, like drawing with crayons or playing with a toy truck.
As a creative child, I appreciated the emphasis on creativity and play. In a world which seemed to devalue it as I grew older, it was nice to see a respected adult make time for it each day. As an adult I appreciate it even more. The older we get, the less time there seems to be for active play. So much of our time gets taken over by work and responsibility, and play disappears from most of our lives. Adult leisure time consists largely of passive activities, like watching television and movies, listening to music, and reading, which though it requires a more active mental participation, still has a predetermined ending (and path to that ending) created by someone else. Even more nominally creative activities, such as wine and paint nights, often offer a step-by-step processes where the participants all end up with the same painting at the end of the night. Very few adults engage in real, unstructured, creative play.
Art is one way adults can engage in creativity and play. I’ve written about the way my writing functions as play in this space before. Kurt Vonnegut, who is a much greater authority on writing and art than I, also advocates for creativity–real creativity for creativity’s, not commercial success’ sake.
“Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake,” the famous American author wrote. “Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”
Many adults say they want to be creative, and yet say they do not have time for it. The answer, as is it so often, is to do what Fred Rogers would do: Make time for make believe. Acknowledge its importance, and schedule creative time as part of your day. Yes, the “real” part of your life is important, but so is your creative time.
Make time for make believe.
Connect with me on facebook, twitter, and instagram for all my latest news, discussion, and creative endeavors.
If you’ve been following this space for a while, you know that I often draw inspiration from various museum exhibitions I patronize throughout the year, (And if you’ve not been following for a while, I bid you welcome.) Writers can learn a lot from other creative professions, and I am particularly drawn to the way painters approach their artistic practice. I’ve often written about lessons I’ve learned from famous painters (including this post about Matisse and dealing with impossibility of perfection), and Miro’s description of his creative process in I Work Like a Gardener matches my own. It is no surprise, then, that upon visiting The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Cubism and The Trompe L’oeil Tradition, I found something I could relate to my writing practice. While the show, which showed the influence of Trompe l’oeil on the cubists, featured many exquisite paintings by the great cubists Picasso, Braque, and Gris, it was a picture of marble texture from a French painting manual which caused me to consider my own writing practice.
Consider the following picture:
A picture of marble from a French painting guide
It is a full-page example of how to paint textured marble from a French painting manual contemporary with the time Georges Braques was learning to paint. A classically-trained French artist was expected to be able to replicate the look of various materials so that they looked realistic. There are similar examples in the manual which show the materials and techniques needed to paint wood, paper, stone, etc, realistically. The French painter was expected to be able to replicate these materials in their work to such an extent that viewer would not be able to tell the difference between the imitation and the original.
According to the exhibition, the goal was to emulate Parrhasius, who according to Pliny the Elder, entered into a competition with Zeuxis to see who could paint the most realistic painting. Zeuxis painted grapes so realistically that a bird flew up to it (thinking they were real grapes). Parrhasius’ painting appeared to be behind a curtain, and Zeuxis requested that the curtain be drawn so that he could see the painting, except the curtain was actually what Parrhasius had painted. Zeuxis admitted defeat and said that while he had deceived birds, Parrhasius’ painting was so realistic that he had deceived another artist.
While this level of skill might seem mythical, the trompe l’oeil painters got pretty close. Consider this painting of two chipped, plaster reliefs by Jean Etienne Liotard from the exhibition:
Trompe L’oeil, by Jean Etienne Liotard
Braque, being trained in the tradition, was expected to achieve a similar level of skill.
While the cubists did not paint realistic, representational art, they were classically trained. One can see the skill they had for imitating materials and textures, especially, in the works presented in this exhibition. The challenge presented by the gallery cards early in the exhibit was to try to figure out which elements of each paining were painted, and which were collaged. It was often nearly impossible to tell.
Take for example, this painting by Picasso.
Painting By Pablo Picasso
In order to achieve this level of skill, an artist would have to spend hours painting entire canvases of textured material, like the one presented above. Its inclusion in this show not withstanding, no one is hanging a picture which imitates a slab of marble on their wall. But, to achieve the requisite skill and become a master artist, painters like Braques and Picasso would have to spend hours in the studio working on pieces that were not intended for exhibition or sale, whose only purpose was to help them hone their own skill. Only by spending hours practicing, could he become the artist they wanted to be.
So, what does this have to do with writing? As I’ve written about before, writing advice tends to focus on product rather than skills: How many words are you going to write each day; how much time are you going to spend writing; how many books/stories/poems are you going to finish/publish/submit this year. These types of goals are important, but they neglect a key component of improving as an artist: intentional practice. While the current theory of writing instruction, from K-12 to the post-graduate level is that writing makes you a better writer is likely true to some extent, it neglects skill development as an important part of a writers’ development. What little skill-based advice there is tends toward over-simplified, trite advice like avoiding alliteration oreliminating adverbs. While I’ve criticized these one-size fits all approaches to writing advice in the past, they are symptomatic of a the larger issue. Skill-based advice and instruction gets boiled down to this type of shallow nonsense because most writers do not take the time to authentically and intentionally work on aspects of their craft as writers for fear of falling off the hamster wheel of productivity.
When was the last time you worked on your metaphors? By this, I mean not trying to come up with a perfect metaphor for a story your working on, but just sitting down and writing a series of metaphors (or similes, or personifications, etc) to get better at the actual skill. When was the last time you wrote dialogue that was unconnected to a character you were already writing? I bet it’s been a long time.
Years ago, I did an exercise from The Creative Writers Notebook where I had to come up with as many portmanteau as possible. Portmanteau is not a device I use often in my writing, but that was all the more reason to do the exercise and to expand my tool box as a writer. It’s been too long since I’ve done those kind of exercises regularly.
Meanwhile, artists post pictures of their figure work, or their progress drawing a particularly difficult body part like hands. Intentional practice and skill development, is a part of their tradition, and it is not, to the same extent a part of ours.
If we look toward non-creative fields, we would see the same thing. A boxer works on the speed bag to improve hand speed, but they do not come into the ring spinning his hands the way they hit the bag; a basketball player works on dribbling drills to improve ball-handling, but the intricate patters they practice are made to improve coordination rather than be practical, in-game moves; a musician practices scales, but does not play those scales straight through in performance. As writers, we should understand that, much like these other pursuits, practicing the component skills of our craft is an essential component of growing in our art.
Last week, I saw the Matisse’s Red Studio exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. The show features the painting after which it is named, but also focusses on the artist’s other works, especially those featured in the Red Studio painting. It is a really good exhibition and I enjoyed it immensely as an art lover. I also learned a lot about Matisse’s creative process, and as I often do when examining another creative’s method, found things I can incorporate into my own writing process.
The MOMA’s gallery cards are exceptional. Instead of just listing the name of the piece, the artist, and the medium like most museum’s do, the labels which accompany the art at the MOMA often include full paragraphs about the work which contextualize the piece and give some insight into both the importance of the work and, when known, the artist’s process or artistic vision.
One can learn a lot by reading the cards. For example, I learned that not only was Matisse a tinkerer, he often left vestiges of the original, or drafting, stages of his work in the final piece when he revised. Take, for example, this painting.
The position of the leg was obviously changed, which can be seen in the extraneous line near the lower half of the extended leg. There is also evidence that Matisse tinkered with the position of the figure’s arm (on the same side of the body), which he attempted to disguise in the shadows.
Here is the same painting with the relevant areas highlighted.
In many of the other paintings, the viewer can see pencil lines, presumably from the sketches he made on the canvass before he started to paint. They are not noticeable at the distance from which one usually photographs a painting, but up close, you can see them clearly. Here is an example:
What struck me most about these pieces was not that Matisse revised so much as part of his process. The world of the writer–and I assume the artist as well–is oversaturated with advice about revising one’s work. Revision is part of the process and it is par for the course. Rather, what stood out to me was that these vestiges remained in the final piece.
Many writers, many artists, many creative people in general, will work on their pieces in a futile pursuit of perfection. I have been guilty of doing so myself, working on a piece right up until the deadline, trying to make it as perfect as possible before submitting it for publication. I make sure to give myself deadlines, to seek out open call with hard deadlines, and rarely self-publish because I often get in my own head about revision.
There is an old saw in the creative world, “Finished, not perfect,” and like most oft-repeated advice it has become cliché and, in doing so, has lost much of its impact. It’s something people say, post about on social media, and hang up on posters in their classroom, and then ignore when it comes to their own practice. Seeing the Matisse pieces on the wall–and reading the gallery cards–is much, much more impactful.
Because, here’s the thing: No one notices the mistakes when looking at the paintings on the wall. Those who did not take the time to read the gallery cards, most likely, did not notice them at all. I certainly did not until I after the labels pointed them out to me. As someone who sees every mistake in everything I write, even–and especially–after its published, there’s a powerful lesson in that.
As a writer, I’ve long-been jealous of visual artists’ social media pages, especially during this time of year. Traditionally, Inktober is in full swing, and if like me, you follow a lot of artists, you look forward to the myriad of posts which dominate your timeline in response to various art challenges. As a writer, I wanted in on the action. I wanted a way to get more eyes on my page, and to connect with the community of visual artists with whom I might collaborate in the future.
Last year, my friend Gene Hoyle, a long time comics writer and publisher, organized a project called Pagetober, where writers and artists were supposed to collaborate on an inktober project: writers would write something for artists to draw throughout the month of October. It was a great idea, but it kind of fizzled out, and I’m not sure if any of the projects were completed.
This year, I tried again. I approached Marika Brousianou, with whom I had collaborated before, about illustrating a series of flash fiction and poetry throughout October. Thus, “Into The Darkness Peering” was born. So far, it’s working out well. We are 2/3rds of the way through the month, and so far, we have posted something every day on each of our social media. The reaction to the project has been excellent, and we are going to collect the results into a book later this year, and sell some of the individual pieces as prints as well. I have high hopes for the project, which I hope to have ready for con season next year. I like the idea of having prints at my table, which would give it a visual appeal beyond what I would usually have as “just” a writer.
I recommend all writers consider doing a similar project, especially my colleagues within the indie comics community. Why not take advantage of a popular hashtag to drive more traffic to your page? Why wouldn’t you want to engage with the community of comics artists with whom you hope to collaborate in the future? Why not work towards a modular project which you might be able to sell in different mediums?
Below, I have posted a few samples of our work so far, but I invite you to follow along and see all the pieces, on both my own or Marika’s social media pages.
Over the last year, I’ve written extensively about my participation in the Comic Book School 8 Page Challenge. I wrote a comics story and flash fiction story for last year’s anthology, and edited the flash fiction section. This year, I will be co-editing the book and, hopefully, contributing two stories again. I welcome all writers and artists to participate in the challenge, which is starting now. Follow the link below for all the relevant information.
One thing that I’m hearing a lot recently, is that we, as artists and creators, should spend our time in “social isolation” working on our craft, and producing art. Writers, take this time to write: artists to draw or paint, etc. Another thing that I hear a lot is that people are feeling very alone and disconnected at the present moment. We are, by and large, social animals, and being apart from our creative communities can be trying, even if it’s for the greater good.
One way that I’m dealing with all of this is by joining the Comic Book School, 8 Page Challenge. For this challenge, comics creators of all types–writers, artists, inkers, letterers–are challenged to create (or to collaborate to create) an 8 page comics short story. Those who complete the challenge will not only have their work published in an anthology by Comic Book School, but also present their work at a panel at New York Comic Con in October, which is pretty damn cool.
Participants will receive feedback and guidance from professional comics creators such as Buddy Scalera (Comic Book School, Deadpool) and Mike Mats (Editor In Chief, AfterShock Comics). Additionally, since the contest is being hosted on the new create.comicbookschool.com forums, creators will also be joining a community of like-minded artists and writers. The forums will help replicate some of the networking and community aspects of the comic cons that have been canceled.
Best yet, the challenge and forums are completely free. There is no charge to sign up or participate.
“Every year, aspiring creators leave our educational panels with so much enthusiasm,” Scalera said. “We wanted to create something that not only allows them to sustain that enthusiasm, but also to build on it and sustain their momentum throughout the year. The 8-Page Challenge helps our community members do this and to achieve their goals to create and publish comics.”
“I’ve been participating in Comic Book School panels for many years and I am proud to be the first professional advisor for this innovative educational program for the next wave of creators,” added Marts. “At AfterShock, we’re always looking for new talent, and this gives me the opportunity to see how these creators work together.”
I, personally, and very excited about this challenge, which kicks off this week. I hope you join me by signing up for the challenge on the forums at create.comicbookschool.com.
Be sure to check out the links page to read some of my published writing, and to follow me on twitter and facebook.
A. A. Rubin 