My Art | Neal Lemery

By Neal Lemery

I can be a very rigid thinker, following the rules, the expectations others have for me, and the expectations and boundaries I set for myself. If I am, instead, open and not following pre-set boundaries, I actually do better in life. By being independent, willing to look at different paths, different and unexpected approaches to problems and thinking, I find new possibilities.

Not that I don’t think that structure and framework are important for a purposeful, successful life. Being organized and focused is very often essential in getting the work done that needs to be done. In me, that need for structure and “rules of engagement” can often come before that additional element of doing the work, that of being spontaneous and open to the Muse and the creative process.

Others have weighed in on this dichotomy of rule-driven motivation and discipline, and spontaneous creativity.

“Men like us often had a lifestyle guided by either/or logic. We think we must either conquer the challenge we see before us or we will be failures. We think loved ones must either meet our needs or they do not love us. We think we must either be perfect, or we are unacceptable.

“Let us now step back from the rigidity of such unhealthy logic. Most of human experience and many answers to our problems don’t come in neatly tied packages. As we learn to think and feel in more flexible ways, we find life gets better. Using our intuition at times, rather than always following rigid rules for life, improves the recipe. The arrogance of our thought processes has sometimes told us we had the answer, but it closed us to growth which only comes by trusting our feelings. If we make mistakes, we can learn from them and go on. Many of the most ingenious inventions came not by rigidly following rules but by following an inner feeling.”

—Touchstones: Daily Mediations for Men, May 28

In getting out of my ruts, my “tried and true” ways of approaching a problem or a situation, I learn more about myself, and I find myself opening up, becoming the artist I want to be.

I’ve been working on a painting, trying to be spontaneous and fresh. Yet, my rules and set formulas weighed heavily on my process and my work felt heavy and cumbersome. I struggled against myself and my old patterns, trying to break away and be bold and fresh.

I decided to act “outside of the box” and try new methods. I started the painting with acrylic paint, and then, the next day, “overpainting” with oil, thinning down the colors with additional oil, and moving my brush across the canvas boldly, spontaneously mixing colors and oil with abandon, playing with the light.

The carefree voice said “Oh, give it a try.”

“What if I screw up?” the critic in my head kept saying.

I might, and I probably am. I can fix my “mistake” with a paper towel, or a dry brush, removing some paint, or rearranging what I had just painted. Besides, I thought, maybe my “mistake” is the gift of creativity and spontaneity I had been looking for in this work. Let me be bold and innovative here.

I heard a poet say the other day, as they were struggling with their poem, “Let the poem form emerge and lead you.”

Ah, let the work lead you and reveal itself to you. The creative work will find its form and will express itself. I need to give myself permission to let go and let the creation find itself and become itself – unique and a creation in and of itself. It is OK to be gentle with myself and my creative spirit.

Creating art is always a lesson in letting go, of not being in control, letting things flow and come into themselves. I can be both an observer and an instrument of the creative process, and not the final authority on what is being made here. I can give up being in control. Creating art is a meditative practice of cutting ties, going beyond boundaries and letting myself and what I am creating be unfettered by my preconceived and “absolute” limits.

When I am in that “zone” and shut down the voices of limits and rules and earlier expectations, then I really become free and move toward the artist, the whole healthy person that I am seeking to become.

These acts of creation often become powerful metaphors for me in the rest of daily life. In these acts of creation, I am learning not only about the world and the creative work that is emerging, but more important, I am learning about myself. I am learning not to be afraid of letting go and more towards becoming.

5/30/2020

— Neal Lemery

“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.”

— Steve Jobs

Creativity is a door to be opened, letting in fresh air, ideas to be rearranged, reordered, pursuing new ways, the old redone.

Becoming Evolving Changing Growing Progressing — a human being, not a human doing

Artist Creative Painter Musician Nurturer Convener Grower Planter Weeder Harvester Naturalist Scientist Poet Writer Observer Listener Sensate Kind Intuitive Patient Tolerant Righteous Advocate Teacher Healer Mediator Verbal Curious Student Activist Doer Changer Leader Introvert Parent Child Partner Journeyer Traveler Understanding Compassionate Inquisitive Thoughtful Watchful Mindful

Looking at it from all angles, taking a different perspective, a fresh viewpoint

Not satisfied with others’ opinions and thoughts

Asking why, again and again

Enjoying the stillness, before the answer

Not the easy way out, the obvious

Taking the road not taken

Hearing the different drummer

“…

“For what is man, what has he got?
If not himself, then he has naught
To say the things he truly feels
And not the words of one who kneels
The record shows I took the blows
And did it my way.”

Space will open up, allowing the mind to breathe, to ponder, to be still. And, in that stillness, ideas which have been floating around, coming close, can be allowed to come into me and settle, to take form, and find expression, becoming thoughts. They will find form, and allow themselves to weave and dance with other ideas, new creations, almost ready to take on a name and an identity.

“As [Stone] was growing up in rural Virginia, she would be out, working in the fields and she would feel and hear a poem coming at her from over the landscape. It was like a thunderous train of air and it would come barrelling down at her over the landscape. And when she felt it coming . . . ’cause it would shake the earth under her feet, she knew she had only one thing to do at that point. That was to, in her words, “run like hell” to the house as she would be chased by this poem.

“The whole deal was that she had to get to a piece of paper fast enough so that when it thundered through her, she could collect it and grab it on the page. Other times she wouldn’t be fast enough, so she would be running and running, and she wouldn’t get to the house, and the poem would barrel through her and she would miss it, and it would “continue on across the landscape looking for another poet.”

“And then there were these times, there were moments where she would almost miss it. She is running to the house and is looking for the paper and the poem passes through her. She grabs a pencil just as it’s going through her and she would reach out with her other hand and she would catch it. She would catch the poem by its tail and she would pull it backwards into her body as she was transcribing on the page. In those instances, the poem would come up on the page perfect and intact, but backwards, from the last word to the first.”

Elizabeth Gilbert, on the poet, Ruth Stone

I dare to be different, to think outside the box, or not even believe in boxes, to imagine the “unbox” or the “anti-box”. I strive to celebrate my differences, to be and act different. Just me, without the need for others, for their defining of the creative, the becoming imagined, the shaper of the creation. It is enough for all that to be within and through me; the undefinable.

The Muse will come. The Muse has come in the past, and is present, or close enough to be felt in this here and now. I am merely the provider of the space, the place, the keeper of the kindling awaiting the match.

I am often only the vessel, the instrument, the mover of the pen or the brush, the picker of the guitar, the hand, the embodiment of the vibrations, the something through which the work is passing through.

And that is enough, in a moment. I am a holder of a space, that which embraces and gives shape and movement, the true expression to that which is moving through me in a certain space and time.

February 13, 2019