New Beginnings
Sunday, 25. August 2013 23:19
If you have an academic day job, as I have, you know that it is the beginning of the new school year. It’s the time for meetings and planning and looking ahead. People have ideas about how to do it differently this time. They are certain that this year will be better and that more and better education will occur. Almost all of my academic colleagues are of the same mind. And even if you have a twelve-month gig, as I do, it’s still very like the New Year. Everyone has new resolutions, new approaches, new techniques that they are anxious to try. And the good news is that we also get a new year at the same time everyone else does, because—at least in most places—the New Year brings a new semester, and we get, yet again, to start over.
But academics are not quite as lucky as artists. As artists we get to have a new beginning every time we start a new project. Never mind that there are three projects in limbo and two others in progress, every new one offers a brand new beginning, so every time we have an idea that we decide to pursue, we have the opportunity to make it better than we ever have, adding new ideas and experiences to this newest piece of our work.
Actors get a fresh start with every new role. Each new production is a new beginning, even if they have played the role before. There are new things to learn, new approaches to the character, new techniques for communicating the new insights to the audience, and again, new life experiences and new ideas to bring to the stage or screen this time around.
As it is with actors, so it is with directors and choreographers: a new show means a new approach, a reevaluation of old ideas, a fresh canvas, a new opportunity. A new production means a new beginning, even if it’s an old problem, a work that has been done before repeatedly. And if it’s a new piece, that’s even better. Even if you’re working with the same actors or dancers or singers that you collaborated with on the last project, there is new opportunity that can only happen with new material. And that new material provides an even more exciting chance to try out new ideas, new methodologies.
So it is for painters, photographers, sculptors, print makers. Artists are fortunate. Unless they are remarkably imaginative, most non-artists are confined to one renewal a year—on January 1; academics often get two. Artists get to have a new opportunity every time a new project comes up, which, thankfully, is quite often. Even if it’s the same subject matter, or the same series, or the same technique, or the same philosophy, each new work presents the occasion to do something new, something different, something that will advance our art.
There are many advantages to being an artist, not the least of which is the structure of the work. Many jobs require continuing attention to an ongoing never-changing stream of data or sales or development or whatever. Art, on the other hand, while equally never-ending, divides itself conveniently into projects. And in that is salvation. As artists we are not confined to the treadmill of continuous mind- and soul-numbing repetitive work. Rather, we originate, develop, and complete a project, then move on to the next one. And each interval between provides a respite, and each new project provides a renewal, a freshness, a new beginning.
We are indeed fortunate to be in almost constant renewal. What other profession presents that possibility? So let’s take a moment to appreciate the structure of our work. Here’s to new beginnings.
Category:Creativity | Comment (0) | Author: Jay Burton