We in educational theatre teach actors not to generalize. There are no generalized actions, emotions, or situations. Everything must be specific: the given circumstances must be specific, and the actors’ responses to those circumstances must be specific as well; this sometimes gives rise to some very specific emotions which are tied to the situation being acted.

It occurs to me that this need for specificity is required in other arts as well. It would be beyond difficult to compose generalized music, or to create a generalized dance. In other arts the difficulty may not be quite so obvious. For example, many are the authors who begin generalized written works only to find out that such are not only difficult, but generally uninteresting. The same holds true for any work of art. Artists need to know not only what they are trying to say, but must decide very specific aspects of that subject. To say that one is writing a play about business in America is a very nebulous thing; to say that one is writing a play about the machinations that go on in a real estate sales operation is a much more specific and practical thing that is far more likely to result in a significant, compelling dramatic work.

The same is true, of course, of painting or photography or poetry. To be really viable, the work of art, and thus the artist, must be very specific, very focused. It is only through the explicit that we can say the things that actually need to be said—without generating a generalized work that, even if well-reasoned, will fail to hold the audience.

But what if artists want to tackle large subjects? How should they handle that? The answer is to narrow their focus, hone in on specific aspects of the topic they want to broach, and by creating detailed and focused work, reflecting the larger topic. For example, can there be any stronger anti-war statement than an artwork which depicts specifics of human suffering as the result of war? Can there be a stronger indictment of unethical business practices than a work which portrays the human cost of such practices?

Not only can focusing on specifics make the work stronger, it can aid the artist in creating the work. Many times, one of the problems of the artist is having too much material to deal with, particularly when trying to tackle a big subject. Focusing on one specific aspect of the subject can help the artist limit the subject matter so that it is easier to deal with; the artist can focus on a singular part of the overall topic instead of trying to deal with a massive subject area that defies organization.

Concentrating on one aspect of a subject can also keep the artist on track in terms of realizing the project. The artist can check the relevancy of parts of the project as they are assembled, thus preventing digressions and irrelevancies.

So instead of wandering aimlessly around a topic or area of concern, artists who narrow their focus have a much greater likelihood of producing really concentrated, meaningful art than those who do not. It is certainly something to consider as we contemplate our upcoming projects.

A piece of mine that was just in a juried show was displayed in the center of a panel with two works on either side. To the left of my piece was a smaller piece, a watercolor, that was sold. Now, this particular show did not use the discrete quarter- or eighth-inch dots indicating that a piece was sold; rather they used red dots one inch in diameter. There was no question about whether the piece sold or not. What was apparent, however, was that that red dot influenced not only the piece to which it was “attached,” but the rest of the panel as well. It said, “Someone has paid hard cash for this piece, but not for the rest of these pieces.” It also said, “This piece is sold. Won’t someone buy one of these others?” It made viewers look at the other pieces on the panel differently.

Viewers were almost compelled to compare the pieces on the panel in ways that they normally would not. There was no question that the sold piece was good, but its status caused the viewers to examine each of the other pieces on the panel to determine whether they were actually of lesser quality, or whether the purchase was strictly a matter of individual taste. The red dot seemed particularly to invite comparison to the piece beside it. The pieces were not only different thematically, they were different media. No one would have ever thought to compare the two, except for that “sold” sticker.

In another part of the show, there were two pieces on an endcap. One was a framed oil painting approximately 24”x30,” and on a pedestal probably a foot away from the endcap wall was a sculpture about a foot high which was exceptional. I paused to look at the sculpture several times before I ever realized that the painting was there. Not only was it there, but it was excellent, and, incidentally, by the same artist who had done the sculpture. What was interesting was that the juxtaposition of the two pieces gave almost all of the focus to the sculpture. Had the painting been located anywhere else in the room, it would have been a stand-out. As it was, it was consistently upstaged by the piece of sculpture.

As usual, after I got home, I went through the catalogue of the show, and, as usual, found pieces that I don’t remember seeing in the exhibition hall. Now I wonder if I saw them, but they were located beside other pieces that took focus, either because of placement or quality or perhaps because of a red dot placed on an adjacent piece.

In a juried show, the artist has very little, if any, say over where or how his/her pieces are displayed. Likewise, the artist has no control over which pieces sell and which ones don’t; indeed, a piece may attract no buyers in one show, but sell immediately in another. The takeaway can only be that how work is displayed and what the adjacent pieces are is in no way a reflection on the artist. Similarly, whether a piece sells may also be a function of placement and juxtaposition and not a reflection on the artist.

Several years ago, I wrote a post called “Context Matters.” Now I find that that idea may now need to be expanded and refined to say “not only does context matter, so does juxtaposition.”

Some artists make their art and call it done. The painting is finished; the character is complete; the novel is written; the photograph is finalized. The artist, content, then moves on to the next project. Once the work is declared done, the artist never looks back.

Unless he/she is in the class of an art teacher I know. He always, no matter how good the “finished” piece, asks his students, “Have you thought about… [some twist or slight modification to the piece.]”  There are some variations; sometimes it’s a different question entirely, or seems to be. And it’s not even a real suggestion, just a question, asked very gently. I’m not sure he’s really interested in the answer. What he is interested in is getting students to think beyond themselves, to consider possibilities that they haven’t considered, to understand that when it’s done, it may not be done.

Whether the students do anything with those considerations may also be of lesser importance. What is important is that that they think about his question. They may then attempt whatever suggestion was hidden in the question, or modify the piece based on a different idea, or, having evaluated their piece, decide to keep it as it is. Regardless, they have considered going further. And that’s the point.

Most of us reach a point in the creation of a piece of work when we declare it “done.” There may be a number of reasons: a deadline, thinking we’ve spent too much time on this project, anticipation of the next project, just getting tired of working on the project. Or it may be we actually consider the project done.

Many good artists, however—at least the ones I know—are seldom satisfied, no matter when they get to the point when, for one reason or another, they have to release their creations into the world. They may call it done, but they are still thinking about it. They suspect that there is something further that can be done.

This attitude was perhaps best expressed by Picasso, who suggested that the artist is never finished: “To finish a work? To finish a picture? What nonsense! To finish it means to be through with it, to kill it, to rid it of its soul, to give it its final blow the coup de grace for the painter as well as for the picture.”

And, like Picasso, we may never finish our pieces. Still, sooner or later, we must let our work be performed or published or shown or sold. But before we do, we need to look to our imaginations to see if we can make a little twist or slight modification that would make the piece better before its required release. This is not to suggest that the new piece will ever be finished either, only that we take it just a little further before we let it go.

Because we can always go further, this could be a never-ending journey. But isn’t the creation of art that already? Perhaps by making that small twist or slight modification we have not yet thought of, we can reduce our dissatisfaction with our own work. Perhaps we can make our work just that much better. And how could that be a bad thing?

We all have all have our comfort zones. Such zones can be physical, referring to space, time, environmental condition. They can be psychological, religious, philosophical, or even artistic. Many will debate the pros and cons of remaining a comfort zone in almost all of these areas—except artistic. If we are in an artistic comfort zone, we may soon find ourselves in artistic trouble.

Many of us have gone through several stages of development before finding ourselves in an artistic comfort zone. But once we’re there, we are inclined to stay put. Comfort zones are, by definition, nice places to be. We are without tension, stress, and particularly fear, all things that are said to hinder creativity.

And the absence of tension, stress, and fear is not the total benefit of such a place. In a comfort zone, we are not only lacking those negative things, we feel a positive contentment. What we do is “good enough” and may actually be good. Probably it is not great; probably it is not what it could be if we were to push a little. What it is is comfortable. The art we make there is satisfying in some—or perhaps many ways. It may even be fresh and new. It may be selling. It may not seem to be lacking in any way.

But it is. If we are producing good work and are comfortable with it, what’s wrong with that? Nothing—if that’s what we want to do. The problem is that when we are comfortable, we have a tendency to preserve the status quo because it feels so good. And that feeling good can lead to complacency, and complacency is a danger to any artist who wants to move forward, to say something, to impact his/her audience.

Complacency almost demands that we produce things that are not challenging to us. And if we do nothing challenging, we neither develop nor mature. As an unattributed quote that that I ran across last week says, “A comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there.” And therein lies the potential trouble.

If we want to grow as artists, if we want to produce work that is better than good, work that is outstanding and amazing and ground-breaking, we will have to move out of that comfort zone.

The question then becomes how to break free of this comfortable prison and produce more meaningful work. The answer is that we force ourselves, and the easiest way to do that is to take on a project that involves risk.

Risk is, of course, the antithesis of comfort. When we risk, we must acknowledge the possibility that we may not succeed. People who are content with being comfortable do not risk, because of the potential of producing something that our audience may not like, and thus the possibility of failure.

Risk is required for growth, and the problem with a comfort zone is that it does not allow that. If we want to make better art, we would do better to invite the possibility of failure which comes with the potential of amazing success than to die the slow sure death of complacency in the comfort zone.

That’s a statement that my yoga instructor is fond of making—not during yoga class—but other times when we’re talking about yoga. Having been in the class for about three years, I am forced to agree with him. My experience (and I think that of others) is that every day is a new day and what was easy yesterday might not be today and vice versa.

The same is true for art, I think. Oh, we may learn to use our tools better so that the manipulation of the medium comes more easily. We master brush techniques, learn more about the potential of Photoshop, make a breakthrough in our voice lessons, refine our approach to characterization, Develop new strategies for storytelling. We hone our work habits in order to maximize creativity and output. So in that sense it does get easier.

And, some of the things that we do every time we make art are like things that yoga practitioners do every time they participate in a class. Sometimes they are not only similar, they are exactly the same: staying in the moment, maintaining concentration, focusing on the task at hand. And then come the things that are perhaps not exactly the same, but are very similar: the recognition that today will be different from yesterday and tomorrow, the knowledge that on some days we may not do as well as others, or we may do better. The understanding that today, we might peak in an entirely different place than we have done before. We recognize that our routine, though solidly made and tested over time, may not feel the same today or function exactly the way that it did yesterday.

Additionally, as artists we hopefully keep growing and developing, which means that there is always something new, something untried, something risky. In that sense, what we are doing today is just as hard or harder than it was yesterday, or last week, or last year. Once again we find ourselves going through the pain and insecurity of creating artistic “children” and pushing them out the door and into the world. Once again we try to be sure that the ideas we have are communicated in all of their complexity and nuance, shaping the artifact to be say exactly what we need to say and not just approximating our artistic vision.

The other thing that does not get easier is putting ourselves, our souls, on display in yet another work, exposing our obsessions for the universe to see and being unsure of how they might be received. That was never easy and still isn’t.

And, as in yoga, we are obligated to remind ourselves that we are not really competing—at least during the creative phase of our work, and that it is, in fact, about the journey rather than any specific destination.

What we must recognize is that it that art is hard and really doesn’t get any easier, no many how many times we assume the role of maker. It is a humbling realization. And then we realize that we have chosen or have been chosen to go on this journey and that we must approach today as a unique opportunity to once again test ourselves, our focus, our concentration, our creativity, much the same as if we had entered a yoga studio and unrolled our mats. There’s a reason that it’s called practice.

With the beginning of the year come the inevitable superlative lists of the year past which include lots of things, including the arts. You can find lists of the highest paid musicians, the highest paid visual artists, the most paid for an art work, the best movies, the best songs (in all categories), the best photographs, the best new whatever or whomever. Americans, at least, seem obsessed with “best-of’s.” There are even best of best of lists.

And, of course, most of these lists will evaporate just like New Year’s resolutions and mean about as much. Some will have impact, e.g. when a list of best movies is tied to this or that award, it means more money for the investors and perhaps a larger paycheck for the star on his/her next project. And some will even provide the winner with a plaque or trophy to display.

The impulse to look back and evaluate a past block of time is understandable. What is troubling about at least some of the lists that have been recently published, however, is the “small print,” or more accurately, the invisible print. Some organizations are up-front about what the rules and criteria are. The Academy Awards, for example, have page after page on rules and eligibility. The Golden Globe Awards do not seem as transparent, given the controversy over Scarlett Johansson’s ineligibility this year for her performance in Spike Jonze’s Her.

Many lists come with no apparent rules at all, but it doesn’t take long to discover the bias of the compiler. For instance, many “best photographs of the year” lists have crossed my newsreader screen in the last week and a half. Although some are travel images, most of them are really “best photojournalism of 2013” lists. The notable exception is Rangefinder Magazine, where the editors compiled several lists, and often organized those lists into categories.

There is certainly nothing wrong with photojournalism; it has produced some of the most memorable images ever made. What is wrong, at least in my mind, is to suggest, even by implication, that photojournalism comprises the totality of excellent photography created within a 12-month span.

Aside from the need to summarize the past, I suspect that the impulse to incorporate art works into lists are bragging rights—the ability to be able to claim that the compiler was the first to recognize the worth of a work that becomes iconic at some future date. But some of the most iconic works of art didn’t receive the prizes they were up for. Case in point: Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? did not win the 1963 Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The lack of the award did not prevent the play from being one of the best of the twentieth century.

It is certainly a good feeling to appear on a list of winners, whether it is the list of those accepted to a juried show, or the list of those who won an award of some sort or a list of the best whatevers of whatever year.  But it’s not why we do what we do. It is doubtful that Scarlett Johansson took the role in her, thinking she might get a Golden Globe, just as it’s a stretch to believe that Albee sat down to write Virginia Woolf with a Pulitzer in mind. We make our art to say what we have to say in the best way we know how to say it using the best tools we have. Sometimes we make it onto a list; mostly we don’t. That’s just fine.

In a recent blog, Seth Godin makes the point that if we think we are supposed to like something, we probably will. He uses the examples of laughing more at a comedy club, liking the food better at fancy restaurants, and feeling like we have a bargain if we buy it at an outlet store. In other words, the venue influences the perceived value of the experience.

Reinforcing this idea is the Washington Post experiment instigated by Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Gene Weingarten and implemented by Grammy Award-winning violinist and conductor Joshua Bell. Bell, lightly disguised, played as a street performer for 45 minutes at L’Enfant Plaza in Washington DC on January 12, 2007. Only seven people stopped to listen and he collected a total of $32.17. Earlier the same week, he had played the same concert to a sold-out $100-per-seat house.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright David Mamet once compared New York and Chicago theatre audiences in what seems to be a comment on the same phenomenon, “In Chicago, we just presume that the best theatre is going to be in somebody’s garage.”

This about more than the environment in which an art work exists, it is about the perception of value (the qualitative portion of audience expectation) based strictly on venue. Because of the prices we pay, and the location of the theatres, we expect New York theatre to be the best in the world, and consequently we like it more. As we move away from Manhattan, our expectations shrink and we expect to like what we see less; we are hardly ever disappointed. We look at the environment and adjust our expectations. Is it a union house? Are the actors professional? Are they students? Whether consciously or unconsciously, we modify our expectations according to the venue. We expect less and like it less.

This way of thinking does not apply only to theatre. We base our expectation of the quality of any art on the venue and the location of the venue. So when we walk into the hole-in-the-wall club in Tennessee, we do not expect to hear world class music.  When we visit an outdoor art fair in Texas, we do not anticipate seeing mature, masterful work. We do not really expect world-class anything outside of the “proper” context.

Like many of the passersby in the Washington Post experiment, many of us are so locked into the idea of how we are supposed to respond (according to location and situation) that we cannot hear the actual quality of the music or see the real quality of the art.

An earlier installment of this blog, “Context Matters” said, “The ambiance surrounding works of art, seeps into the work, and fuses with it. It impacts the work and cannot do otherwise. It’s part of the art transaction that cannot be avoided. The trick then is to be able to mentally decontextualize the work, so that you can be sure that you are actually appreciating the piece, not the context in which you find it.” Although certainly a desirable ideal, the more I learn, the less sure I am that decontextualization is a real possibility—at least for most people.

And although we know very well that quality is not related to venue, as artists we need to be aware of this phenomenon and realize that where we show our work does indeed matter to the majority of our audience. We may not like it, but we had better learn to deal with it.

Last week’s post included the sentence, “Few of us end where we were aiming when we set out, and we may find that we’re really glad that we learned to sing somewhere along the way.” Since writing that, I’ve thought about it and decided that maybe it deserves some more discussion.

The fact is that most of us do not end where we were aiming when we set out. This is an idea that can be taken at least two different ways, both of which are, I think, valid. In one sense we do not end at the target we set when we set out on our life or professional journey. In another sense, the work that we create often does not end where we planned for it to go.

In both cases, many of us end up at a place that is far superior to our original target.

The process of making art requires that we leave room for discovery and serendipity as we follow where the process takes us. For example, writer Austin Kleon started making the trailer for his new book with all sorts of plans; however, he soon discovered that there was much to be eliminated and even more to be modified. He says, “I like the idea to change as I’m working.…Even if you have to throw half your work out, it’ll lead you to something better.….Let your “mistakes” during the process actually feed back into the idea. Absorb the mistakes into the piece.” The work that results from such an approach has a tendency to be more organic than work that is totally and completely preplanned.

An approach such as Kleon’s, however, does not mean that planning should be dismissed. Many artists, Kleon included, begin with a very firm plan in mind. The trick is to be adaptable and to allow ourselves to be open to new ideas and pathways as they arise.

This is true of our careers as well. The blog Brain Pickings quotes Bill Watterson, creator of Calvin and Hobbs: “The truth is, most of us discover where we are headed when we arrive. At that time, we turn around and say, yes, this is obviously where I was going all along. It’s a good idea to try to enjoy the scenery on the detours, because you’ll probably take a few.”

Again, planning is not to be dismissed. My constant advice to students is for them to decide where they are going. Of course, like almost everyone else, the vast majority will end up somewhere different, but the selection of a target and the movement toward it is hugely important. Otherwise, they have a tendency to go nowhere, in almost every sense of the phrase. Once a goal is targeted, movement starts, and those detours that Watterson mentions happen along the way. Like the accidents in making art, they often lead to more and better opportunities for satisfying work.

Some people do end up where they started to go, and good for them—so long as the work is satisfying. Most of us, however, end in a very different place than the one we imagined when we first started out. Again, the test is not whether we got to our original target, but whether where we got to is fulfilling.

Likewise, if the art that we make is exactly what we imagined when we started, good for us. If, however, we incorporate mistakes and let he idea change as we proceed, then good for us as well. What matters, after all, whether in our professional journey or in making art, is not the initial impetus or whether we stayed on track, but what the journey taught us. It’s called process, and it takes us where it will. We can only benefit.

A couple of weeks ago, I exhibited in an art show to which almost no one came. So we stood around and chatted and nibbled the refreshments and wondered why, not that that information would have really been useful. Then, last week I wrote a blog that seemed to have been read by no one, to judge from the lack of feedback.

In both instances, final outcomes were not what conditions would have predicted. An “I’ll-get-back-to-you” at the art show actually did, and purchased three pieces. And statistics showed that an average number of people read the blog; they just hadn’t seen a reason to comment on it or press a “like” button.

But these instances did make me think about the connection between our work and our audience. Theatre, the textbooks tell us, requires an audience—it’s an essential ingredient. At the other end of the spectrum are visual artists and bloggers, of course, who are pretty sure that no one is paying attention to anything they are doing. Does this then mean that the connection of the audience to art varies with the medium? Or is it that different artists approach the question of audience differently? Or is this one of those questions that requires that we look deeper?

A starting point might be to try to determine the relationship between creating art and the audience for that art: do we make art for the audience or some other reason? The answer probably depends on what sort of art we are making as well as how much we are willing to cater to audience taste.  Commercial art, for example, must please a certain audience; pop art usually caters to the perceived taste of the anticipated audience.

Regardless of what we are creating, at the most fundamental level, we make art for ourselves. Then consideration of the audience comes into play. How much consideration is given to the audience depends on the artist and the work. For example, those who work in performing arts take audience expectations into consideration—will the audience understand it? Will they like it? Will they hate it? And it’s not all trying to please the audience; in some cases, performing artists will push the envelope of audience acceptance for a variety of reasons. Playwright Harold Pinter has been noted to perceive the audience-play relationship as a battle.

On the other hand, those visual artists and writers mentioned earlier who don’t yet have an audience or who are completely removed from the audience seem to be completely unaffected by any potential viewers or readers. It’s not that they are more “pure;” it’s just that they are, for the present, unaware of how people might react to their work so they don’t think about it.

Like them, we continue to make art for ourselves, maybe considering the audience or maybe not. Then we abandon it to whatever audience is available. That audience responds to our work in some way or the other, and thus exists a conversation between the artist and the audience. It can be can be warm and friendly or, as in the case of Pinter, it can be adversarial, or it can be anything in between. And it can operate on an emotional, intellectual, and spiritual level or some combination. And it certainly can be and almost always is asynchronous. And in that conversation is the importance of art.

No matter why we set out to create art, no matter how much or how little consideration we give the audience during that process, the fact is that the audience functions as the other party in the conversation that is our art, and, for good or ill, completes our work.

When I was an undergraduate, I had an English professor who said that the accomplished student of literature should be able to read a poem and separate the quality of the work and whether or not it was personally appealing. The implications, of course, were that not all poetry is created equal and that liking something has nothing to do with whether it is good or not.

This has not been a popular position in the postmodern world, where all work is pretty much equal. And although postmodernism is, according to some, dead, it left a legacy. Daniel C. Dennett has said, “Postmodernism, the school of ‘thought’ that proclaimed ‘There are no truths, only interpretations’ has largely played itself out in absurdity, but it has left behind a generation of academics in the humanities disabled by their distrust of the very idea of truth and their disrespect for evidence, settling for ‘conversations’ in which nobody is wrong and nothing can be confirmed, only asserted with whatever style you can muster.”

And as elevated as the egalitarianism of postmodernism sounds, most of us who work in the arts know that it simply isn’t true. There is good acting and bad acting, good directing and not-so-good directing, good writing and bad writing. There are, in fact, qualitative differences in the performing arts. And other arts are no different. Given that, the problem is articulating what constitutes good art and less good art, and that, in turn, requires that we be able to distinguish art from non-art.

Although many have attempted this, novelist Leo Tolstoy is one of the few who not only distinguished art from non-art, but articulated the conditions which determine the qualitative levels of art. Tolstoy collected his views in a book called What is Art? It is not an easy read. Fortunately, Maria Popova has summarized and presented Tolstoy’s ideas in a recent posting to Brain Pickings. Essentially, Tolstoy said that art is a union between the artist and viewer or receiver of the art that allows the receiver to feel and experience the feelings and experiences that the artist put into the work. Additionally, this union works not only in one era, but across time and cultures. He says that what distinguishes real art is the presence of this infectiousness.

He goes on to say that the stronger the infection, the better the art, and that the degree of quality is dependent on three conditions:

1. The individuality of the feeling being transmitted. (More is better.)
2. The clarity of the expression. (Clearer is better.)
3. And the sincerity of the artist. (Sincere is better.) This is the most important condition.

Sincerity in Tolstoy’s view is what gives art it’s power and is the source of its infectiousness: “The chief peculiarity of this feeling is that the receiver of a true artistic impression is so united to the artist that he feels as if the work were his own and not someone else’s — as if what it expresses were just what he had long been wishing to express. A real work of art destroys, in the consciousness of the receiver, the separation between himself and the artist.”

Whether or not we fully agree with Tolstoy, or even understand him, most of us instinctively know that all art is not created equal. There is excellent work and there is crap, and there are all sorts of levels in between. Most of us know that. It’s time that we quit pretending that it’s all about individual expression and acknowledge that Tolstoy has a point. Art is not just a matter of preference.