In a recent post on Facebook I asked for newsletter topic … One wonderfully gifted friend presented this koan-like messge: “People write songs, some are good, some are not. The end.” Too true, like all things some things work, some things do not. Some things are exciting, some fall flat.
My thought on this reflection of creative expression is: does it matter if it is good or not? ...If it’s how one makes a living, yes, a level of proficiency and craft will keep food on the table. Yet even hit songwriters have days when the only song that makes it to the page is pure garbage. How many painters have stacks of stretched canvases in the back corner of their studio with botched attempts at capturing a feeling or an image. How many authors have pages and pages chucked in a bottom drawer somewhere?
Vance Gilbert in a class I took with him at Song School, recommended keeping everything. All the unfinished, dumb songs that, of themselves will never reach completion, and probably shouldn’t. What you can do with them, he said, put them up on blocks and strip them for parts, like a rabid classic car mechanic in a junk yard. Look for the good stuff and use it somewhere else.
Personally I call it “compost.” It is the junk that needs to get out of the way for me to find my best authentic voice as a creative person. In a recent interview with Greg Brown, he said the whole world is being recycled and reused. So go for it. Do your worst. And tell us about it at Art of the Song.org
Our neighbor CamiThompson is a world-class painter with a host of collectors and admirers. She sent us this beautiful painting October View and essay in response:
I liked your thoughts on bad songs that should be compost. However, I do not have bunches of stretched “Bad” paintings stored. As a matter of fact, I have only thrown out 3 paintings in my life and John salvaged 2. The cost of painting is too dear to be doing lousy work and then storing it. Even in my early days I made a point of selling everything so that I could paint more. I guess I only paint good paintings now, after 38 solid years at the easel, but I am not a “dauber”. So many painters like the exercise of spreading paint and do not know when to stop! As a teacher I noticed this trait and told my students to quit if they like what they’ve done so far, let it set up overnight and then go to it again when they are fresh. But, also to never wait for “the right mood” to hit them to go to work. Being able to be creative on demand is what I cherish and paintings done in the right technique can be reworked several times….even watercolors! One of my favorite professors of art taught us to “ruin” paintings and then bring them back. Quite a valuable exercise!