Not the Artist's Way

The last thing I want to do is start a new blog, but here I am starting a new blog because I am so darned opinionated lately. My upcoming rants will probably be a lot about art, artists, making or not making art. I want to vent on this blog so I can remain anonymous as I have my name attached to a job, published writing, and other public works. See, there I have to keep up a front but here I can talk about how I hate my art and say other things that may offend the people who might want to pay me money to do something in the future.

Some days I'm just a cranky cat. (photo: Björn Franken)

My other concern about being anonymous is that I am a grateful member of Al Anon and might want to discuss that here, too. As I think about some of these artist's "recovery" programs I invariably like to compare and contrast.  A few days ago, in a creative funk, I looked up A.R.T.S. Anonymous, simply because it uses the 12 step format that I know and feel comfortable with. While they don't have meetings in my area I did join their online group and am still testing the waters.

Some of this material reminded me of when I went through The Artist's Way about 6 or 8 years ago. In fact, I have a copy but can't find it so I ran down after work to get it out of the library. That did a lot for me but as I re-read the material after not looking at it for awhile I find I think of it very differently. I'm 41 now and have been regularly publishing my writing since then. But, I hate what I am writing and I still don't do the art I went to art school to learn all about. In fact, I WORK in an art school and find myself perpetuating some of the things I hate about art school. (More about that another day.) So, my thoughts about The Artist's Way this time are not so much to slavishly go through the exercises but to read and reflect and to use the tools that might help.

Part of why my view of why The Artist's Way is different to me now is that I see it as a bit uptight and a maybe a cult of personality. The Al Anon anonymity and "Take what you like and leave the rest" have worked out much better for me.