The Vs. Studio Blog

Picasso was at a Paris market when an admirer approached and asked if he could do a quick sketch on a paper napkin for her.

Picasso politely agreed, promptly created a drawing, and handed back the napkin — but not before asking for a million Francs.

The lady was shocked: “How can you ask for so much? It took you five minutes to draw this!”

“No”, Picasso replied, “It took me 40 years to draw this in five minutes.” -story (probably apocryphal) recounted in the book “What They Don’t Teach You at Harvard Business School” by Mark H. McCormack

“My first novel taught me how to write and it took forever. It took thirty years I think, and when it was done I felt I was a writer. Which was an enormous kind of gratification for me because I hadn’t known this.” -Don DeLillo

“I began writing ‘Matterhorn’ in 1975 and for more than 30 years I kept working on my novel in my spare time, unable to get an agent or publisher to even read the manuscript.” -Karl Malantes, author Matterhorn

When you’re shooting for greatness, trying to make a masterpiece like Rodin’s “La Porte de ‘l’Enfer” (pictured above and took 37 years to complete), the question isn’t “How long will this take?” But rather, “Can I devote myself to this for how ever long it takes?”

It probably won’t take you forty years…But then again, it might. Keep going.

P.S. – “I’m Picasso!”

“Joy is the happiness that does not depend on what happens.” -Brother David Steindl-rast

“Joy for humans lies in human actions. Human actions: Kindness to others, contempt for the senses, the interrogation of appearances, observations of nature and events in nature.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

In the film Tender Mercies (one of my all-time favorites), Robert Duvall plays Mac Sledge, a down and out country singer who seeks redemption for past mistakes. He meets a young widow, Rosa Lee (played by Tess Harper), and her young boy Sonny (Allen Hubbard). Rosa’s “tender mercies” and love and affection give Mac a second chance. If you haven’t seen the film, it’s a must watch. Duvall’s at the top of his game (deservedly won the Academy Award for Best Actor) as is the rest of the cast. Playwright Horton Foote wrote the screenplay, the music is fantastic (Betty Buckley can absolutely belt out a tune) and the cinematography of Texas is stunningly beautiful.

There’s one scene in particular that gets me every time. I won’t say anything about it so as not to spoil the film, but Mac says to Rosa:

“I don’t trust happiness. Never did. Never will.”

The Stoics would agree. Happiness is a feeling. It’s fleeting at best and entirely dependent on external conditions going your way. How can you trust that?

Instead, we should seek and cultivate joy. For ourselves and others. Joy lasts even when happiness departs. Joy is within our control. It’s an action. Something we do and hold. It’s a continual process of viewing the world through an equananimous lens. Joy is not dependent on feelings to maintain. It lies within.

For all these reasons, we can trust it.

“As Martin Landau described it, Strasberg’s approach to emotion was to ‘find it, express it, then suppress it…find the emotion, and then find a way to allow it out, and then hold it back the way the character would, and if stuff leaks out that’s what’s supposed to happen.” -book, “The Method: How The Twentieth Century Learned To Act” by Isaac Butler

For the actor…

Feel. Then Conceal.

They key here is that you authentically have to feel something before you can conceal it. When you manipulate or go for an emotional result, we in the audience can tell.

Remember, it’s not how you feel up there.

It’s how we (the audience) feel out here.

“You’ll never have that kind of relationship in a world where you’re afraid to take the first step because all you see is every negative thing 10 miles down the road.” -Sean Maguire’s (played by Robin Williams) advice to Will Hunting (played by Matt Damon) in the film Good Will Hunting

Yes, our definition of art is doing something that might not work in service of others.

But what if it does work?

What if it works out better than you could have ever imagined?

What if it changes people’s hearts and minds?

What if it changes the world?

It could.

But how will you know until you try?

“Suffering is whenever we realize we’re not in control.” -Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning To see As The Mystics See

“Compassion is our capacity to relate in a tender and sympathetic way to what we perceive. Instead of resisting our feelings of fear or grief, we embrace our pain with the kindness of a mother holding her child…Compassion honors our experience; it allows us to be intimate with the life of this moment as it is. Compassion makes our acceptance wholehearted and complete. . .Compassion means to be with, feel with, suffer with. Classical Buddhist texts describe compassion as the quivering of the heart, a visceral tenderness in the face of suffering. In the Buddhist tradition, one who has realized the fullness of compassion and lives from compassion is called a bodhisattva. The bodhisattva’s path and teaching is that when we allow our hearts to be touched by suffering—our own or another’s—our natural compassion flowers. The bodhisattva’s aspiration is simple and powerful: ‘May all circumstances serve to awaken compassion’…To cultivate the tenderness of compassion, we not only stop running from suffering, we deliberately bring our attention to it.” -Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning To see As The Mystics See

“Life is suffering” as the Buddha once said.

But that doesn’t mean we have to suffer alone.

Making and sharing our art engenders empathy for the human condition. It opens our hearts to others suffering. Helps us realize “If not for the grace of God, go I.”

Which then inspires our compassion. Gives us the courage and strength to reach out to another and let them know…”Hey, you’re not alone. I got you. Let’s walk this path of suffering together.”

“Time is not the sun going up and down. It is not a clock. It is not a calendar. Time is an eroding, infinite mystery. Time is, in fact, a son of a bitch.” -Preston Jones, playwright

(Hat tip to my friend Summer for inspiring this post during during last night’s discussion of the play “Lu Ann Hampton Laverty Oberlander” by Preston Jones. If you haven’t done so already, definitely read. You can get it Here.)

The playwright makes the story and the world.

The actor makes the moment.

The audience makes the meaning.

P.S. – Check out Summer’s beautiful book of poetry Here.

P.P.S. – Thanks to my friend Gareth for bringing in this terrific play for yesterday’s Vs. Tuesday Night Reading.

“If you’re just letting the time pass at your job, it’s just dead time and you’ll never get it back. If at that job you’re learning and you’re observing and you’re seeing about people and connections, it’s suddenly alive time.” -Robert Greene

Vvivre Sans Temps Mort (Live Without Wasted Time) -1960’s French political protest slogan

How much time did you spend today in reactive mode? Responding to emails, prior work and life obligations, putting out fires, etc…

How much time did you spend today being proactive? Learning a new skill, building a new habit, working on your passion project, getting a little closer to your dream.

The writer Robert Greene terms it “alive time” versus “dead time.’

Start adding it up each day, If you have far too much dead time for far too long, it’s probably time for a change.

You only get one chance to be alive. One life. Live it!

“To put it another way: having gone about as high up Hemingway Mountain as I could go, having realized that even at my best I could only ever hope to be an acolyte up there, resolving never again to commit the sin of being imitative, I stumbled back down into the valley and came upon a little shit-hill labeled ‘Saunders Mountain.’

“Hmm,” I thought. “It’s so little. And it’s a shit-hill.”

Then again, that was my name on it.

This is a big moment for any artist (this moment of combined triumph and disappointment), when we have to decide whether to accept a work of art that we have to admit we weren’t in control of as we made it and of which we’re not entirely sure we approve. It is less, less than we wanted it to be, and yet it’s more, too—it’s small and a bit pathetic, judged against the work of the great masters, but there it is, all ours.

What we have to do at that point, I think, is go over, sheepishly but boldly, and stand on our shit-hill, and hope it will grow.”
― George Saunders, A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life

In his excellent book “A Swim in a Pond in the Rain” (I’ve previously recommended in a post here and here), George Saunders teaches his students a cutting exercise…

Take a piece of text and eliminate as many words as you think possible. Then ask yourself if the cutting improves or worsens the text. (He describes the exercise in detail in the Appendix. Get the book and read it. You’ll become a better writer and gain a deeper appreciation for Russian literature.)

Here’s another writing exercise you can do. Maybe even have your kids do as well? (You’ll likely have to bribe them to do any kind of extra academic work)…

Write a three page essay about a topic you care deeply about.

Compress it down to two pages.

Compress it down to one page.

Compress it down to three paragraphs.

Compress it down to one paragraph.

Compress it down to one sentence.

This works especially well if you’re thinking of starting a new business and want to hone your “elevator pitch.”

P.S. – While you’re at it, practice your compression on this blog post. How many words can you eliminate? Send me your thoughts and results!

P.P.S. – Hat tips to Ron for recommending the Saunders book and Bruce for recommending that Little Red Schoolhouse writing class in college.

Do you want your art to be picked?

Or produced?

I know, I know, you’d like both. Who doesn’t? Institutional validation is a powerful thing. And let’s face it, it’s far easier (and cheaper) if someone else does the heavy lifting of producing.

The first question to ask…How important to you is this particular piece of art that you created? Is it disposable? Meaning, you finished this one and it’s on to the next. Which is perfectly acceptable.

Or…Is this one so important, so personal, so meaningful, that even if it’s not chosen by an institution for production, you’d still produce it yourself?

If yes, why not pursue two paths at the same time and set a deadline. Submit to those institutions you admire and respect and think would do a kickass job with your art. But if by the deadline date your art is not chosen, be ready to step up and produce it yourself. (And when you do, make sure you send a thoughtful invite to those institutions you first sent your art to. Play the long game.)

“The greatest gift one can give is thanksgiving. In giving gifts, we give what we can spare, but in giving thanks we give ourselves.” -Brother David Steindl-Rast, Gratefulness, the Heart of Prayer

“Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.” -Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

Before you can express any kind of gratitude, you first have to notice. Notice things. Notice your thoughts. Notice life. All its profound beauty. Notice. Notice. Notice!

The bird chirping outside your window.

The sun shining on your face.

The birch tree branch swaying in the wind.

The click clack of the dried leaf as it ambles down the asphalt street.

The dog splayed out, napping peacefully under the big, bay window.

The ferocious and never-want-to-let you-go hug from your child.

The infectious and all-is-right-in-the-world laugh from your spouse.

John Lennon’s voice in your headphones asking you to “picture yourself on a train in a station with plasticene porters with looking glass ties.“

The magical town of Shermer, IL and the genius of John Hughes.

The metronomic beating of your heart against your chest.

The cool air your breathe in. The warm air you exhale out.

That you can see, smell, taste, hear, feel.

That you can walk.

That you’re alive!

Notice and be grateful for ALL of it. (Even the suffering.)

Happy Thanksgiving dear reader. Know that I notice and am grateful for you every single day.