Artful Endeavors New England: Intimidation: Picasso and Bachelder Together

What on earth has gotten into me?

Whatever has possessed me this morning to have the audacity to put a drawing of mine on the same page with a drawing by Pablo Picasso, one of the 20th Century's most gifted masters of the line?

It's not because I think I've earned the right to belong to Mr. Picasso's legendary Charmed Circle of gifted artists -- not at all. After all, this ridiculously precocious, enormously capable, profusely productive, ever-evolving savant of the imagination has intimidated tens of thousands of aspiring artists -- people who have looked at his several decades of master drawings and yearned to cup the glowing firefly of his fierce creativity in their hand, if even for one magical, ephemeral moment.

I have most emphatically stood among those legions of The Easily Intimidated, blushing inwardly at the crazy incongruity of any sort of proximity to this man of incendiary intellect and protean energy. To even think of myself in context with the man seems an act of utmost absurdity, wrapped in self-denial and cushioned by specious arguments like "If only I had had HIS upbringing!" or "Guys like him, pampered and privileged, had the TIME and MONEY to get where they got!"

And yet...

And yet I must confess that as a proud and devoted disciple of the New England Transcendentalists -- I studied them, passionately and idealistically, in graduate school -- I am required by the laws of decency and proper acknowledgement to live the values they espoused, including the one value I have cherished the most in the years since my immersion in Emerson and his ever so erudite Concord companions: the supremacy of THE INDIVIDUAL over what a modern-day thinker might describe as "groupthink" or a certain crippling conformity to whatever philosophy, including shameless self-indulgence, might reign supreme at a given moment.

"The Headache" by Ross Bachelder

Given this rather Utopian stance against the world, why ought I to feel compelled to apologize for hanging one of MY more curious drawings (see attached image) on the same wall with one from the incredible outpouring of the MASTER?

The message I've been so verbosely leading up to is that allowing oneself to be intimidated by the works of more accomplished, more famous, more gifted practitioners of the artform you so lovingly embrace is purely and simply an act of the most self-abasing futility -- and act that can only lead to self-doubt, second guessing and an almost cryogenic freezing of the creative juices coursing through your veins.

A better way to deal with people like Picasso -- or Nevelson or Kandinsky -- is to think of them as Living Churches or Elite Schools, then STUDY them. Your time -- and only a modest amount of that -- would be best spent paying your most profound respects for their gifts, through either the most humble prayer (Dear God, how come THEY do this stuff so damn well?) or ardent academic inquiry (I'm gonna read myself silly -- find out what makes these dudes tick, even if I go blind and it KILLS me!).

Only JUST ENOUGH time, though. That's because in order to become and then continue to BE an artist -- to catch that elusive firefly that lit the way for Picasso and Nevelson and others -- you must ultimately serve YOURSELF and answer to your muse and no other. To do anything less than that will keep you away from your own canvas and those inspired dreams of eloquence that keep you coming back to your studio in the dark of the night, sleepy but wired, full of feelings and in immediate need of expressing them.

Intimidation is a self-imposed, diabolically tailored straight jacket. It has neither the mercy nor the patience to wait for you to believe in yourself. It will hold you in its claustrophobic grip and drain you, Dracula-like, of all of the creative gifts that want and deserve a forum. So have a good look at these luminaries, pay your respects, then close that book and get down to your studio -- even if it's only your kitchen table -- and answer to your muse.

-- Ross Bachelder
May 11, 2012

The Life We're Living: November 16, 2020, 2020

December 22, 2020

Dear Readers (of life-enriching books) and Sharers (of heartfelt, well-informed convictions):

We're only human.

Am I not right about this? I think I am right, though there will always be a small handful of people who, on the basis of their inhuman conduct probably don't deserve to be included in that esteemed number.

So! Given our shared humanity, there are certain yearnings that all of us have, even though we're not always able to satisfy or even articulate them.

We always want, for instance, the Holiday Season we're currently immersed in to be at least as fulfilling as, if not more than, the one we were immersed in the year before.

But I also think it's safe to say that this year's Holiday is going to go down in history as one of the most painful, heartbreaking, and challenging Holiday Seasons in recent memory.

As we near the end of the year 2020, we know, to our anguish, that we've lost more people through to the grossly incompetent mismanagement of the Pandemic than in all the world's wars since the year 1900.

We're all struggling, some valiantly, to get past the most amoral, ruthless, corrupt, and politically inept Administration in the history of this country.

Unemployment, underemployment, and homelessness are easily as bad as they were during the Great Depression, more than a century ago.

It has become painfully obvious that our beloved, vaunted Constitution lacks the power -- the critical apparatus -- to put an end to a Presidency -- and a President -- who finds a perverse kind of joy in violating laws and moral precepts, destroying careers, and rewarding gross incompetence and criminal conduct with grotesque perks and blatantly unwarranted pardons.

The unavoidable deficiencies in remote learning are causing anxiety, depression, and educational chaos in America's families, and in our public schools and universities.

Contempt for and distrust of science and higher learning is at an all-time high, and the current President of the United States is more responsible for it than anyone else on this troubled planet.

White Nationalism -- bigotry of every imaginable kind, driven by an amoral President and the rampant re-emergence of the Neo Nazis and other hate groups -- is spreading across the globe at breakneck speed, and with terrifying consequences.

Lawlessness has become fashionable, in traffic, in stores, in churches, in schools, in police departments, in courtrooms, and in America's very centers of government--those grand edifices in every state where laws are written for the protection of everyone who calls him- or herself an American.

Countless people across the country are either undernourished, hungry, or starving thanks to a collapsed economy, unemployment, and an alarming inability to buy food and put it on the table.

And it's not just the physical and economic wellbeing of America's citizens that are being crippled by the greed and indifference of the One Per Cent -- it's also their mental and emotional health. People are going begging for psychiatric help, and suicides among farmers, doctors, first responders -- and even children -- are occurring at an alarming rate.

I'm not going to make an ass of myself by suggesting for one minute that I have solutions to any of these problems. But I know one thing, deep within both my heart and my intellect: the answer is not in religion, flags, and jingoistic patriotism. Nor is it in violence, bigotry, and sanctimonious pronouncements.

All I feel qualified to offer my readers this evening is a modest, well-meant handful of reasonable, rational, practical, heartfelt recommendations:

1. Read worthwhile books -- a great many books -- but don't bother with books that lack substance and preach hatred, and learn to recognize the difference.

2. Question authority. Too many Jews, Immigrants, children, people with disabilities, and People of Color have stopped doing so over the centuries -- have caved into manipulation and discrimination, bigotry and brutality -- and they've paid for it with their dignity, their humanity, and their lives.

3. Be kind -- to your friends, to your relatives, to people anywhere who serve you in any capacity in the marketplace, to your neighbors, and to any people you come across at random in your daily affairs.

4. Be helpful. I've found, as I age, that the more helpful I am with people from every walk of life, in any manageable situation, the better I feel, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. (No, I am not a formally religious person -- not at all -- but I believe there's a spiritual component in all of us -- a proclivity to kindness, a drive to be good -- which, with or without religious influence, I'm more than happy to call spirituality.)

5. Have the courage of your convictions, but not if they're designed to insult, demean, or cause pain to the people around you.

6. Know the difference between constructive and destructive behavior, and teach that difference to your children.

And this, as I see it -- and for what it's worth -- is the life we're living as of December, 2020 -- soon to be Christmas Eve and with a New and Better Year close on its heels.

Thanks for reading this outpouring, and may you find as much joy as you possibly can in both the Holiday Season we're immersed in and the New Year that will soon be upon us.

Ross

12/22/20

Artful Endeavors New England

Tabs

Intimidation: Picasso and Bachelder Together

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