“I’m anxious about the episode, Sam. I don’t know if it will connect with anyone. I don’t even remember what I said.”
I’m a hopeful person. It’s one of my strongest and most consistent attributes, but I’ve felt so hopeless. My pandemic experience isolated and tried me at every turn. I had victories, modest immaterial ones. Enduring was useless. This has become the longest marathon of our lives, and therefore we persist. Hope is like a gas tank; without constant fuel it dwindles to nothing.
Filmmaker Sam Tilson called me out of the blue in January 2020. He wanted to feature me for a second season of his docu-series, Why Art?. As luck would have it, he had family in Columbus.
We scheduled a shoot for late February 2020 so I could fully recover from what we now recognize as Covid. Truthfully it was our second attempt at an episode; the first time in May 2019 I was reeling from work trauma. I used white on white fur, which was impossible to see on camera. I didn’t realize at the time I wasn’t ready to be seen. Why Aren’t You Happy? felt more accurate.
Between the two sessions six months apart I couldn’t remember how it landed. The pandemic stretched this brain fog over three years. I’d been largely reclusive despite loving the stage, avoided opportunities to teach and share. Why Aren’t You Working?
“Do you want to watch it first? Let me send this to you.”
I’ve been scanning the horizon for the path forward with marginal success. But here was this beautiful younger version of me assuring myself, all of us, relevantly and mysteriously on-time.
“It’s been very hard and it highlighted that even though I love my job and I love what I do and I’m very passionate about it” — my voice falters— “sometimes this job kills me. Sometimes it siphons my energy faster than anything I feel ambivalent towards. It gives me immense pleasure when it’s working and immense pain when it isn’t.”
I forgot how to be a student of life, which is easy when life is unpredictably terrifying for too long. I measure my growth against outside experiences, conversations with people and adventure, myself as the barometer.
The pandemic forced inner expansion. My internal gauge is shot from excavating and carefully inspecting every dark corner usually reserved for quieter times. The inner critic has been loud, not quite as loud as the world catching fire. Why Art Thou so Afflicted?
I like many others aspired to some sort of personal gain from “focused time at home.” It didn’t happen. I accept this. Of course I hoped for better abs after my time in solitary confinement. Where Art thine Abdominals?
“You don’t control the box you’re put in or the way people perceive your box. You control how you behave, respond, and react to these challenges… at the end of the day, whatever comes of it and what it becomes is not up to you.”
I said, not knowing I would spend almost three years in a literal box.
I have been asking myself why. Why am I doing this? I love art and yet the work has never been more thankless. It has never been more difficult to connect. There are more obstacles than ever before, and yet I’m the grumpiest when I’m not building something. So Why Aren’t you Quitting Then?
Nobody wants to shine a light on the paradox. This is both the most fulfilling and elusive existence. It is both. You have control over your tiny canvas, how far you’re willing to go, and what you’re ready to say.
Younger Me didn’t know the global lockdown would begin in two weeks or anticipate three years of pandemic birthdays. No knowledge of the odds stacked against independent creators, nor the myriad of possibilities awaiting her. These factors were important but not critical.
How Art? was a more valuable question. Not how as in *aghast* In this economy?? but How will art find a way through sorrow and restriction? Is it possible to innovate when the world is scarce and scary? How will we persist?
“There’s always a lag time for what you see for yourself and what other people are willing to accept from you. That lag time is so frustrating because it’s… realizing the only reason these people finally hired you is because it’s been proven beautiful, effective, and profitable.
“That is the worst part of being an artist, needing people to check out your ‘box’. When people finally check out your box it’s old *laughs* and moldy... And you’re tired.”
One step at a time.
The How slowly unfolds over time. Sometimes we cannot HOW?! so life asks us How?? and how? and h o w then h o w ? until we respond to a manageable tempo. Our safety, sanity, how we are feeling, is a major factor in showing up.
“I am not my art. My art is an output,” I heard myself say. “My art cannot come first. I have to come first.”
For me The How looks like words, as Sam says. He twangs like a car salesman as he teases me, “You want words, I got words! Spoken words, written words, picture words words words— come on down!”
And he’s right. I am for better or worse producing words faster than my hands or lips can catch them.
If you’ve followed my career for any amount of time, first of all, thank you. You’ve seen me write, speak, interview, draw, bake, animate, and sculpt. I play both the star and the assist. The talent and the crew. How spans a myriad of complicated feelings.
The Why is the thread connecting every version of me to every version of you.
Words are my How. Connection is my Why.
The How is our compass, the key to the stars. The Why is our North Star.
Enjoy more episodes of Why Art? releasing on Youtube Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays. Catch Season One here.