Taking Credit and Taking Charge

I always find it difficult to take compliments for work that I have done and I can detach from criticism. I just don't feel like I own the product. At the same time, however, I feel proud of what I have done.

I've been reading Leonard Nimoy's I Am Spock, which is great if you want lots of Star Trek Trivia. But, at the same time, he spends much of the book talking about his relationship to "the pointy-eared guy", and how Spock has helped Nimoy to be successful. There are debates between the actor and the character over who should take credit for a compliment. Nimoy also has countless stories about going to the writers and producers to change scenes to adhere better to the essence of a character. If he was given a story line that required Spock to fall in love, for instance, Nimoy needed good reasons for an emotionless character to feel this.

It's an important thing to remember, and I've heard many directors say it: when all is said and done, the storyteller with the closest connection to the audience is the actor. After rehearsal, it's all about the people onstage. And in film, the lasting product that we see is the performance that the actor has given. There is, of course, less control in this process due to editing and such. You always identify with the actor however.

Considering that, I agree with Nimoy's insistence on keeping the character straight. I am sure some of the writers must have wanted to strangle him at times, but I feel I would do the same thing. The actor is the guardian of his character. Especially in a television setting, consistency is important.

And just one little note: it is also interesting to go from William Shatner's Up Till Now to I Am Spock, just based on their retelling of some of the same events, including Shatner's on-set pranking. They are very different people and especially different actors, and this has made for quite the extracurricular study session!

Bring it ON!

I'm in love with the idea of having my own company, with my contemporaries, all contributing to one altruistic goal of creating Great Art. And in a way I have it. I have the opportunity to work with my classmates and have access to these wonderful spaces. And, in this university setting, I've got an all-access pass to people of all different backgrounds and sensibilities. I'd love to get it going.

Sometimes, though, it is difficult to think of myself as an artist. Sometimes it is really hard to shake the desire to want an A- at least on a project that you're working on rather than getting caught up in the process. And sometimes it is hard to not create a project based on what you know the instructor likes.

The irony is that they are always telling us to do the opposite, to take risks and to not care what our grades are. "They really don't matter", one of my instructors has said. She waved the matter away with a flourish of her heavily-jeweled hand. "What I'm looking to see you do is to put yourself out there! Forget your fears. No one is judging you." But they are. We all are judging each other, to a certain extent. And despite its connotation, judgement doesn't always have to be critical.

It is finding that balance of reckless abandon that makes for creativity, the mania that infects us until we quench it by producing art. It is a divine energy, the same that has entered saints and mystics for thousands of years, telling them why things are the way they have become. In this world, we need to find a way to balance the rawness of the divine with the consistency that is the manufacture of art.

I found myself in a bad place about a week and a half ago, on the fourth. We'd just finished our end of the semester with the annual coffee house, and there were parties to follow. I watched all of my friends leave the building, forgetting I was there in their excitement. I walked home, sat on my bathroom floor and collapsed. Waves of powerful anger, fear and despair were coursing through me, and I wanted out. The next morning, I felt heavy, weak....but purged. I realised that it was everything I had held on to for the entire semester. All of the anxieties and stress that I felt I couldn't show in the semester had to come out sometime. That was also the night I took out my mother's rosary. I don't pray with it regularly, but I needed something tactile to reconnect me with God, with the heartbeat of everything else that was alive.

I truly believe that creativity is what joins us to our god, and the artist can experience periods of disconnect, which feel very hollow. What happens when we are alive and full of the energy is a high, and when we fall below neutral, it becomes hard to handle.

Part of tapping into the energy is being open. One needs to be healthy, rested, and willing to accept failure as well as success. And one needs to understand that nothing we do is something we can take credit for, not entirely at least.

I am thankful for having become more adult this semester, but I am also thankful for not losing the explorer inside of me; the little one who is willing to try anything, even if it means being laughed at.

You may hear more about Grenadine Dance later...