Truth be told...

"Artistic growth is, more than anything else, a refining of the sense of truthfullness. The stupid believe that to be truthful is easy: only the great artist knows how difficult it is."

- Willa Cather

Some mornings, when I'm feeling a little lost, I'll try to find a quote that I can base my thoughts for the day on. This morning it was the one above. Truth in art. Art and truth. Hell of a thing to think about on a Wednesday when it's 95 degrees out. Perhaps I should base my thoughts for the day on something less challenging like...oatmeal or... socks. But, no, we must press on.

This quote spoke to me because I feel like I spend my life in this pursuit these days. All my activities, in one way or another are geared toward getting away from my concious self and trying to reveal what lies underneath. Music, dance, comedy...all require this kind of truth to be authentic. Authenticity. That's good. Not originality, but authenticity. I gave up trying to do anything new a long time ago and decided to make my focus authenticity, because I believe that innovation is a natural offshoot of authentic being and will naturally occur if you are being truthful in your actions.

Ah, but here's the tricky part. In dance, since I have spent ten years doing it, I feel that I have developed my own style. I am able to express the range of my emotions through my body (on a good day) on a consistent basis. Movement is second nature and if I can banish the inner critic, I find that I am an open conduit for creativity to flow through. My partner, the music, my body, all in synch and in agreement. But in Improv comedy, I'm having trouble. Now, I know that I'm really just a baby in this artform and that to be truly authentic in any pursuit, one must first aquire a skill set that allows the artist to forget about the rules and just "be". Nonetheless, I can't help being frustrated. I've done a lot of inner and outer work on myself to get to a point where improvisation (on the dance floor) is just a normal occurence. One would think that this kind of freedom would naturally flow over in to other creative pursuits, but it doesn't seem to. Or, not much anyway, for me at least. I find that I am right back in my head, experiencing the same kind of "analysis paralysis" I did when I was taking my first steps as a dancer. Argh!

The positive aspect of this is that I have realized what the key is to unlock my creativity, now I just need to learn how to use it in a bunch of different locks.