6th
Wednesdays with Kirsten: New York, New York.
Well folks. This one blog might not be so tutorial. But perhaps just a bit more of what I was thinking while wondering around the amazing city of New York. Watching improv shows, talking improv, and doing a little. But more so.. just wondering around this city. Watching street performers, people on the subways, speaking with my friends.
This city is frenetic. It is non stop movement. People bust their asses day in and day out just to survive. And it was nothing of this cold hearted big city feeling I expected. People are chatty, they are friendly, they are interested and charming and present.
I had a very saccharin epiphany while standing in front of a Jackson Pollock painting. And that was… this was an artist, that was breaking all the rules…. that was pleasing himself..and therefore pleasing his audience. Did applying himself to his own good taste and not the archaic aesthetics of the art form make him any less dedicated? any less mindful and diligent and focused… i don’t think so. I am not a art history buff, so please just gleam my meaning if I am astray on the facts okay… because my point is…. i think…
You’ve got to work your ass of. You’ve got to work it so hard, and in the right direction. In the direction that is always going closer and closer to your own art…. your own specific “what you are” art. Whatever that may be… PERHAPS that does align with existing aesthetics…or perhaps it is something you’ve never seen and can only piece together from bits of inspiration and memory into a picture that only half exists of as now. But you must commit yourself to it.
Like any good improv scene, or relationship, commitment must exist. Other wise it is just a flight of fancy with no backbone, nothing to grip on, nothing to hold on to or remember.
Perhaps New York has put the apparently missing Bee in my Bonnet. People around me consistently comment on how hard I am working. And then I come to this city, and see just how much harder I NEED to be working. Well, thank goodness, i love what i do then.
There is a distinct and aweful (like full of awe) gap in between “good art” and.. “GREAT ART”. I want to make it great.
Ponderings and Philosophy brought to you by New York, New York. Perhaps more on the actual Improv I saw and did later, have not digested anything yet… been eating way too much pizza and cheesecake!
Happy Wednesday.
