I love not being uptight and I aspire for that
Some thoughts on artistic maturation via Collier Schorr, Pauline Oliveros, and Charlotte Gainsbourg
What does it mean to mature as an artist? Recently, I ran across an interesting answer in a 2015 interview with the photographer Collier Schorr, talking about her book 8 Women, which spans work from the mid-’90s to the early 2010s. (It came out in 2014.) She said:
I think maturing as an artist means respecting what you were able to do on instinct alone and never lose that. But try to capture everything with more nuance and always try to make pictures you are afraid won’t look good. I’m constantly devastated and disappointed in shoots thinking I missed something, or that someone else would have done it better. I’m sure that what is awkward and potentially a failure has the most chance to rise. It’s the really good-looking pictures that can start to become dull. I love to make a conversation between the subjects in my work, either variations of one person, or in the case of a show, the women in the room interrogate and seduce each other. I love not being uptight and I aspire for that. That would be some kind of maturity perhaps.
There’s a lot of wisdom here, but I was especially struck by that last part, which reminds me of a Pauline Oliveros proverb that I have pinned to the bulletin board in my office:
This is a lesson I’m trying to learn lately, as I put the finishing touches on my next book—more on that below—and also just in general. (Being “relaxed” has never really been my forte, in writing or in life.) And as I was thinking about whether or how to write about this today, Instagram served me the following clip:
In the clip, from a 2017 interview, the actress and singer Charlotte Gainsbourg says:
I think for years I was looking at my feet, I couldn’t look people straight in the eye, I was uncomfortable, I mean uncomfortable all the time, whereas today I enjoy being uncomfortable. It amuses me to understand that, yes, I have many doubts, that is what makes me alive, in fact. It allows me to move forward, I really like it.
Pauline Oliveros says that the maturation process is about learning how to relax, but I like Charlotte Gainsbourg’s version even better: It’s about learning to be comfortable with discomfort, to enjoy it even. I think if you can do that you can do anything.
BOOK = DONE
More than two years ago, I mentioned in the newsletter that I had finished the draft of my next book. At that moment, I thought I had another few months of work ahead. As it turns out, it was more like twenty-five months of work ahead. Maybe at some point I will explain why this project took so much longer than I anticipated, and how I somehow ended up writing three and a half different versions of the same book before it really cohered (talk about artistic inefficiency!). For now, I am trying to believe that it is almost done—I turned in the ending the week before last; now I’m working on edits and looking at cover directions—and also trying to believe that this version is good enough to release into the world. I think it is. I love not being uptight and I aspire for that.
WORM ZOOM
If you’re looking for some extra accountability and camaraderie in your creative practice this spring, may I recommend my morning Worm Zoom sessions? A group of us gather virtually every weekday morning at 6am Pacific time, say a quick hello, and then turn off our cameras and get to work for two hours (though you can join late and/or leave early).
Knowing that others are setting aside that time to concentrate, and that we’re all banging our heads against the wall together—it provides just a little extra oomph to my morning writing sessions, which as it turns out is really valuable. The sessions are open to all paid subscribers to the newsletter—join us anytime.
RELATED ISSUES
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Congrats on done!! Such an achievement and can't wait to read it
Congrats! I forgot all about that Pauline Oliveros — fits in well with Abraham Maslow: “The most mature human beings are also childlike.”