Practice

Work: Sustaining the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

–by Scott Pinkmountain

Practice

Part 3: The Ocean

Even beyond this deep level of the mine, there are convoluted passageways that seem to go on forever and ever. They’ll be hidden or inaccessible at first, but the more familiar you are with this fundamental territory, the more comfortable you become. Your eyes, so to speak, adjust to the light, your lungs and blood adjust to the pressure and depth. You are accustomed enough with the shattering beauty and profundity of the infinite-seeming object that you can afford yourself a look around for something else. You gain enough trust in yourself and that unnamable other to relax just a little bit.

If you follow any one of these passageways down, unfathomably deep, eventually it will lead to a great cavernous cistern. As you work your way out the very end of what you might still perceive of as “your” mine, you’ll find a dark cool cave containing a vast, horizon-less ocean that flickers with the reflection of some invisible sun. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

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Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.

–by Scott Pinkmountain

Practice

Part 2: The Mine

Each of us is a mine. The physical body is the entrance, the mineshaft, the part which the rest of the world sees: the face, voice, actions. The mine itself is our internal identity: the mind, the consciousness, the memory, the soul, whatever you want to call it. The first chamber in the mine is the part of us that’s most accessible to the world. Our surface characteristics are on display here, the ideas, opinions and personal stories we talk about, share on a daily basis. They’ve been polished presentable. The chamber’s well lit. It might even have extra chairs for visitors, a high ceiling. Then maybe there are a couple little side chambers. We might let a few select people in to see them, friends and family, lovers. Maybe they glow in a warm candlelight that casts intriguing shadows. There are some out there that never even enter these chambers of their own, and others for whom the chambers are quite publicly exposed.

As you move further into the mine, you encounter murkier regions of the subconscious. You enter the world of psychology and private memory here: personal thoughts, imagination, un-shared experiences. Now you’ve got your miner hat on with a light attached to the front. You’re in your work-suit because it’ll likely get messy. This part of the mine has been excavated, maybe there are supports, maybe even some buzzing electric bulbs strung up, but it’s hot, uncomfortable. Maybe you’ve got a map, or a guide rope tethered around your waist with someone, say an intimate, a parent or a therapist, up at the top of the mine pointing a flashlight around, talking you through your excavation. You’re digging into muddy walls and finding large chunks of semi-recognizable ore – treasure that you can carry up to the surface and examine in the light of day without much difficulty. Continue reading →

Work: Surviving the Arts

Posted on by

Exploring issues of sustainability in the arts.  

–by Scott Pinkmountain  

Practice

Part 1: Do

 

The most important thing is that you do. Everything will evolve from the doing. When you start, maybe there’s one question. It doesn’t have to be too big – an “Is there a god?” type thing. In fact, it’s better if it’s not too big, though of course it needs to be big enough. Open. Flexible. Most of all, genuine. You have to not know the answer, or sincerely believe you don’t. If you have one good question, it will generate others, but only if you do.

It’s also important that you not worry about doing well. Quality will suffer from overt desire. What will enable quality is the parallel development of two functional identity states. One is the generator, the maker, the improviser. The other is the critic, the editor, the composer. In order to achieve quality, they must be kept distinct. Their separation is what makes this path so difficult. But without the separation in place, you’ll either become paralyzed as a perfectionist, unable to release into the world, or you won’t be able to see anything through to the end because you’ll become over-enamored with the generative process. Continue reading →