The Dilemna of the artist…
“For the artist, the dilemma seems obvious: risk rejection by exploring new worlds, or court acceptance by following well-explored paths. Needless to say the latter strategy is the overwhelming drug of choice where acceptance is the primary goal. Make work that looks like art, and acceptance is automatic.”
Art & Fear, David Bayles & Ted Orland, p43.
I spent much of my life growing up dealing with an overbearing mom. I was adopted and it was always being rubbed in my face how special I was and how I was not living up to her expectations for me, so the fear and reality of rejection was every where in my life. I always loved to draw and paint, but other than in high school had very little formal instruction in art. I was discouraged from studying art in college by a grandmother who made comments to me about being a starving artist the rest of my life. That was until I spent one year in seminary…
When I went to seminary the man who would become my icon teacher was offering a once a week class at night on painting Byzantine Icons which only cost $50, or roughly enough to cover the cost of materials. I had developed an interest in icons a year earlier and at first I was very hesitant about responding to the information on the class. Eventually I got over my fear and told the person who was spreading the information on the class that I was interested. Thus began my love of iconography which has lasted to this day. I would love to tell you that my work in iconography was purely spiritual. It was not. I think there was something subconscious which drew me to the icon, beyond the spiritual beauty of iconography. I saw in iconography a very safe, defined realm of art that I could work in and produce quality work, without having to put very much of my own person into the work. I saw an art that was accepted as high art and was seemingly beyond rejection. Little did I know…
Copying icons is easy. Maybe someone is reading this right now thinking “What? How are icons easy?” If you are simply copying an icon, to me that is very easy. As long as you make a solid pattern from the original, are willing to learn the technique, and as long as you understand the prayer that goes into the painting of an icon, once you learn how to paint icons the technical part of iconography, it is very easy. Icons are highly constructed. They have a very clear beginning and a very clear end. You can find entire instruction manuals on how to paint them. As a matter of fact I even wrote an instruction manual for my student during the 7 years of teaching her. And yet icons are considered high art and highly regarded by many. Do you know what is not easy? Having the trust in your own abilities as an artist to draw your own pattern for an icon that is rare and not very well known. Having the faith in your own abilities as an artist to draw your own icon pattern and trust that people will recognize what icon it is!
And yet, even with iconography I still faced much rejection. Sure many, many people loved my work. I sold many, many hand painted icons and countless prints of my work. But even so there was a ton of rejection. There was rejection from those who paint in egg tempera and don’t feel that icons painted in acrylic are Orthodox enough for them. Say “Orthodox” with your nose to the sky as if you were Thurston Howell and it will come out something like “otto-ducks” and you will understand what I think of those people. There was the rejection from people of Greek /Russian /Ukranian /Serbian /Lebanese /Etc backgrounds who wondered what a convert like me was doing painting “their” icons. There was the rejection of the people who told me that I simply was not holy enough to paint an icon, even though every time I tried to quit painting I would get floored with enough commissions to keep me painting for another year or two. There was a lot of rejection of my painting icons from members of the Church, the very people who should have been accepting of my work. Up until about 2010 most of the people who did accept and highly regard my iconography work came from OUTSIDE the Eastern Orthodox Church!
Then we come to the moment of the ultimate rejection, the day in 2014 when the entire world exploded on me in one enormous moment of rejection. I did not realize until much later that this moment had been brewing in the persons mind of my former best friend and wife for quite some time. I should have noticed all of the signs of how she would belittle me in public to my friends. Instead I tolerated it out of fear that she would leave me and reject me. The priest of the church which we were attending did nothing to stop the divorce from happening, and many other priests and bishops from multiple Orthodox jurisdictions worked very hard to make sure it did happen. All but a half dozen of my closest friends abandoned me and all of my family abandoned me except for my dad. If you can picture the scene in Pink Floyd’s movie “The Wall” after the wall is torn down and people are scurrying about to clean up the debris, that was me. Except in my case, the only person left to clean the debris was me. SHE had fled to the protection of the Church. I literally thought that I would die from emotional pain that day. But on the contrary, a new me was born that day.
Artistically icons are easy. What is not easy is having the confidence and trust in your abilities as an artist and not being afraid of rejection enough to do your own work. As I alluded to earlier, I have painted my own icons based on my own patterns for icons that simply never existed before. I did this for St. John the Dwarf, St. Abgar King of Edessa, The Saints of Africa and the family icon which I painted for my dad for his birthday, among other icons. And yet none of these were nearly as challenging as the day when my divorce was final in 2016 and I needed to let out some serious emotions artistically and knew that I could not do so while painting an icon.
I could not paint an icon that day, but I knew that I had to let my emotions flow artistically. I grabbed a large canvas and got some old left over craft paint and just exploded in a fit of color on the canvas, letting out a whole range of emotions until I felt the piece was done. And then I took a photo of it and sent it to Rhoda to see what she thought. To my surprise, she loved it and wanted me to produce more. And so I did, and then more, and more. She and other friends compared it to the work of Jackson Pollock, which was a compliment to me. But a few months after that I moved and all artistic endeavors dried up due to the reality of my new place and the area which I planned to be my studio space being filled with my belongings.
Out of the mess that was the rejection from the fall out of the divorce, there slowly came a new me. A me who was no longer afraid of rejection because I had already faced the worst rejection possible. And yet I was not drawing until one day in Feb. Rhoda had an open studio which I brought a canvas to and just started drawing on it in sharpie. I finished this piece and she encouraged me to produce another. These pieces were done in ink and watercolor pencil, and eventually I began drawing on one of the myriad of drawing pads that I had. I had an enormous stack of drawing pads laying around in hopes that one day I would get past the fear of drawing. I did not know that day would actually come. The watercolor pieces eventually led to abstract drawings in the drawing pads. Very quickly I learned that I loved to draw and no longer had a fear of drawing.
The few people who I have shown the abstract drawings to have received them very well. The people who I have shown them to are those whose taste in art and skill as an artist I trust enough to share my voyages in new directions with. Both Nick and Rhoda have encouraged me to produce more work and to not be afraid to explore new ideas and techniques. It has been very helpful to me to have these supportive, encouraging and experienced artist friends to help me along the path as I have broken free of the fears of my youth. I still have far to go, and am not completely sure where my art will lead me. I do know that I plan to get back to painting icons, even if it is just for my own personal use (once I get caught up on my commissions).
And so this brings us back to the quote in Art & Fear and to my counselling session today in which we dug deeply into how much I let the fear of rejection control my life for the first 40ish years or so. I can’t explain how good it felt to get to the heart of the fear of rejection in working with the psychologist today and understand that it no longer controls my life. Creating well-explored art might be the drug of choice, but I dare say that if you want to truly be alive as an artist, you must move past the well explored art and be willing to create new, fresh art, which engages the viewer. Even if you are simply working in the sacred realm of Holy Iconography this is still true.
Glory to God in the highest!
