Do you feel like you are so stuck in the day to day of having a successful Art career, that the muse has left the building?
Are you feeling uninspired and frustrated?
I mean, there are only so many hours to the day, and all that is expected to be Full Time in today’s industry requires so many THINGS:
social media posts
email marketing
networking
staying up on newest tech advances
learning the newest techniques for your craft
booking
lining up gigs….
The list goes on and on!
It can feel like you are a one person operation and the whole reason you got into this was because you LOVE your work!
But, where in all of this administrative WORK is there time for creating?
Time for play?
Time to just ALLOW the muse to come and whisper in your ear?
It would be amazing to have a team that could take all these things off your plate, but that’s just not in the budget right now.
So, how do you balance the business side WITH the creation?
Because I imagine, it feels like you have to choose, and that can just feel awful. When your Art starts to feel like a job, you just don’t want to do ti anymore. So, you may go back to part time or full time work that is not your heart’s desire.
And that’s not why you are here. So, we return to the HOW. You see successful artists all around you.
What’s the secret?
One of my favorite podcasts is Alec Baldwin’s Here’s the Thing.
Every week, this podcast feeds my inspiration as Alec interviews some of the top Artists of our time including Billy Joel, Itzhak Perlman, Barbara Streisand, and Carly Simon.
This week I found myself mesmerized by lilting piano music, and his interview with world renowned pianist, Lang Lang. A prodigy who won his first competition at the age of 5, he has gone on to global acclaim, breathing new life into classics, and moving audiences around the world.
Alec was asking Lang Lang what inspires him, and he shared how he loves to listen to jazz and new contemporary music in his free time. He spoke of jazz,
The music is reflecting your life, the changing of harmonies, so related to us.
Then Alec asked,
What IS it about music that touches people this way?
Lang Lang replied,
There are so many different layers and those layers are representing our emotion, our memories, and our different aspects of culture. Everyone of us is a piece of that. Music gets into a different stage of your heart, of your mind. It can get into very deep layers of your heart and your senses. Once you are there, everything else is blocked. This is why your emotion becomes so pure, so genuine.
You become who you are.
This is why we get tears in our eyes because we are so focused and we let music take us to when we started our life, the first day of our memory. When we play the music, we feel we all know each other, and that’s the power.
Recently I was listening to Barbara Streisand sing Papa, can you hear me? She held this long note, and I literally stopped breathing, and tears welled in my eyes. All thoughts stopped…it was just the note opening me wide.
I’m re-reading the Harry Potter series, and a smile washes over my whole being as I read the words. I feel such joy connecting to these characters.
Seeing the award winning documentary last year about Fred Rogers, Won’t You Be My Neighbor, I was mesmerized and amazed at the work he did for humanity, for children, and helping us all to feel our feelings. I left the theater so inspired, and hopeful.
This is the power of Art.
Lang Lang is using music as the context, but I have experienced this same pureness of emotions across ALL the mediums.
And what about you?
What was a movie, book, song, or painting that just opened you wide, where all that was present WAS the moment itself?
Where you possibly found yourself back at that childhood place, before you learned to armor your heart?
How did that feel?
This is what we need to remember.
When we are in the midst of so many things that feel so driven by our head and by the clock, we forget the largest power we have as Artists,
Our Heart.
It’s our heart that translates into your words, painting, music, and dance.
And it’s the heart that opens BECAUSE of your work.
This is what your audience feels.
This is why they come back,
and buy another ticket,
another book,
another chance to connect.
This is what you offer, not only to yourself, but to all who witness your art.
In a world where we so easily disconnect with technology, we have the beautiful privilege to re-connect our audience to their heart.
And if you ever doubt how in demand this is, just look at someone you admire, an Artist who IS Full Time. Lang Lang spoke of how people around the world clamor to hear him play. They even open up their home in case he needs a “place to practice” as he tours.
The reason? They are hungry…starved for this connection.
It’s no small thing, and it’s your gift.
So, open back up.
Re-connect yourself to what inspires you, and allow your muse to express your heart.