Hi Darlings!
It is…high time for a deep dive, don’t you think?
Gosh. The last year has been intense in the sorting-out-your-trauma department for me. There have been some devastating realizations, and a few wonderful discoveries, as well.
One thing I’ve begun to unravel is the way my childhood taught me I’m never really allowed to present something unfinished, or acknowledge any imperfection at all. As a result, while I experience messy drafts and failures ALL.THE.TIME in private, I never really show those steps to my fans.
And I’ve started to wrap my mind around the idea that there is so much beauty to be found in sharing snippets of ideas, process and progress, etc.
I’ve noticed that this shift in mindset is taking it’s time for me. I have to remind myself literally every day…and I’m sort of messy at being messy, and a bit awkward at being awkward. Haha. But I’m doing my best to keep wading around in these new waters.
It makes sense then, that my guests’ thoughts on this subject would stick out to me this month…
Andrew and I talked a LOT about “the foundational benefits of art.” It’s easy to imagine that the merit of art is the finished product itself. But really, the core benefits of art are in the process—developing taste and an inner compass, learning how to listen or perceive.
I loved the nugget of wisdom Andrew shared from Stephen King’s book “On Writing.” To paraphrase, King writes that our job as artists is to unearth whatever fragment of a story or idea we stumble upon. Sometimes, that fragment is attached to a whole enormous fossil (and it may become a novel, a play, a film, a ballet, a gallery series)…or it may simply be only the fragment. Either way, there’s value in scooping it up and having a look.
This thought feels so important to me.
I think I might be Savannah’s new biggest fan. She is just so cool. I love love LOVE her story. There is so much resilience, resourcefulness, and zoomed-out “meta” creativity in her perspective and experiences.
I particularly loved hearing Savannah’s thoughts about unfinished projects. She talked about feeling an absolute need to get ideas out of hear head and into tangible space. Wonderfully, she doesn’t feel an equal need to finish each project.
She feels fulfilled by completing exactly as much as seems right. And when she looks over all of her fragments of projects, she sees “a beautiful mosaic of expression.” Ugh – book title alert! I love this idea so much. Amen!
Blacksmith Matt and I talked about so many aspects of creativity. But I think the thing I most want to share with you is Matt’s philosophy on ignorance…
Because blacksmithing is so dangerous and physically difficult, Matt has the opportunity to teach his apprentice smiths a lot about humility and pride, experience and the lack thereof.
I think we often forget that ignorance is just a simple, impartial fact about one’s level of knowledge on a subject. It’s not a character trait, it’s not a measure of one’s ability to learn, it’s wholly unrelated to a person’s intrinsic value.
Matt suggests thinking creatively about ignorance—having curiosity about it. “Understand what you do and don’t know, and move around that without pride.”
This is SUCH a wonderful value. And I would extend “ignorance” to any lack of skill or experience, as well.
I think for me, moving around my own discomforts and vulnerabilities without pride is paramount. I hope to really dig into these swampy topics this year.
I realize February 9 is a little late for resolutions, but I’d love to hear your thoughts about what values you’re hoping to stretch throughout 2022. It’s our own little personal Hallowed Wide, right?
As always, thanks for being here. It means the world to me.
Sending so much love!
Em
P.S. Have you heard my new single Quicksand yet? It’s the perfect addition to your 2022 Valentine’s soundtrack…