"As you take the normal opportunities of your daily life and create something of beauty and helpfulness, you improve not only the world around you but also the world within you." -President Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Imagine I bring you a plate of brownies. They are delicious looking, cut in perfect little squares, still warm from the oven, sprinkled with a touch of powdered sugar. I hand you the plate and the warm, moist aroma causes you to start salivating. Then I say, “Oh, before you eat any, you should know that I dropped a little piece of dog poop in the mix when I was making them. It was just a little piece of poop and shouldn’t affect the taste much. You probably won’t even notice it’s there. Bon appétit!”
So tempting! (Photo: Food Network)
As you probably already know, I stole this analogy. I’m not sure who originally came up with it, but it sure is a good one. It’s usually used to explain to teenagers why their parents don’t want them listening to music or seeing a movie that only has a little bit of bad stuff in it. The idea is that if you won’t eat a brownie with a only a little piece of dog poop in it, why would you listen to a song or watch a movie with only a little bit of immorality?
I think this same analogy works for us as artists and writers. Over the years, I’ve often found myself tempted to drop just a little piece of dog poop in my work. It sounds ridiculous when I say it like that, but it’s true.
You see, I most often write fiction and most of my characters are teenagers. I’ll be writing along and ask myself, “What would a real teenager say or do under these circumstances?” The answer is often that they would respond with profanity, vulgarity, and immorality. Not all teenagers, of course. There are some amazing adolescents out there that keep themselves clean even in the most difficult of situations. But I’ve taught high school for eleven years. I’m not even remotely naïve to what spews from many teenager’s mouths. There have been days at school where I wished it were possible to remove my brain and bleach it to get the memory of the things I heard out.
Does that mean that because a real teenager might say or do these awful things, I should portray it that way in my work? Of course not. Ephesians 4:29 tells us, “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.” This applies as much to our work as it does to our conversations with our family and friends.
Anyone can see that they don’t want to have anything to do with the dog poop on the back lawn without having to go out with a knife and fork to eat it. Likewise, it doesn’t take a very talented writer/artist to find a way to show how debased a character might be without making the reader/viewer ingest filth.
I will be the first to admit that in the past, I have sprinkled a fair amount of dog poop into my work under the pretext of “keeping it real.” However, in more recent years, as I’ve learned to rely on prayer and the Spirit more and more in my work, I’ve found that it’s quite possible to keep it real and keep it clean. They are not mutually exclusive ideas no matter how much some writers and artists might try to convince you otherwise. We can tell the truth, even difficult and disturbing truths, without resorting to profanity or graphic scenes of any kind. In fact, I would argue that it will make our work stronger, more unique, more profound, and certainly more palatable as we strive to keep the dog poop out.
If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s dreams. I don’t mean the kind of dreams that are synonymous with goals and aspirations, of course. Those kinds of dreams are vital to progression and a happy life. I mean the kind of dreams you have at night while you’re asleep. I can’t stand them. I don’t usually have bad dreams, but they’re almost always very vivid, very real, very memorable, and very exhausting. And sleep shouldn’t be exhausting! For once in my life, I would love to sleep all through the night with no dreams.
A few years ago, I started keeping a dream journal in a desperate attempt to understand why I’m so plagued with dreams. I discovered some interesting common themes. The most consistent theme that is in almost all of my dreams is a labyrinth of some kind. It’s never a literal labyrinth or maze, but more like something complicated and difficult that I’m trying to make my way through. These labyrinths usually take the form of complex buildings, caves or tunnels, city streets, or trails through mountains and forests. All the other factors in my dreams change, but this one thing stays consistent: I’m always struggling to find my way.
Detail of "Theseus and the Minotaur" by Master of Cassoni Campana
As frustrating as this can be in my dreams, I suppose it’s only fitting since that’s what writing, art, and, I suppose, life in general are all about. So it’s always nice when we find a guide or some good advice to help us along. That’s where guys like this come in handy:
Brian Kershisnik is an artist living in Provo, Utah who has already traveled much of the artistic labyrinth. In a video made by Steve Olpin, Kershisnik shares five great insights for the rest of us who are struggling to move forward. Though he is an artist, his ideas are equally valid for writing and other creative endeavors. (If the video isn't working, you can watch it on YouTube here.)
I listed each of Kershisnik’s ideas below and added some thoughts of my own:
1.Work Hard:
One of my favorite quotes by any artist has to be Michelangelo when he said, “If people knew how hard I worked to get my mastery, it wouldn't seem so wonderful at all.” It’s so easy to forget when we look at beautiful art or read an amazing book that the person who created it didn’t just whip it out on a whim. It took them untold hours of hard work and effort. (At least 10,000 hours if what journalist and researcher Malcolm Gladwell tells us is true). If we want to aspire to be like these amazing people, then we too must put in the work.
What’s interesting about Kershisnik’s point on hard work is that he’s really talking about developing our own personal style (I also think these same ideas apply to the even more elusive “voice” for us writers). In what at first seems like a paradoxical statement, Kershisnik tells us that if you directly try to invent your style, it will be inauthentic. It sounds almost like a Zen koan. Maybe it would go something like this:
Artists and writers over the millennia go on pilgrimages to find their own style and voice. After many years of desperate searching, they finally arrive at the top of a mountain where a wise old monk sits meditating beneath a cherry tree. They ask him, “Master, where can I find my own unique style and voice?” The master says, “If you seek style and voice you will not find it. You will only find it only when you no longer seek it.” The artist/writer pilgrim then exclaims, “What? You’ve got to be kidding me! After all this searching?” Then the master adds, “Oh, and did I mention it’s only after lots and lots of hard work…maybe 10,000 hours or so?”
I imagine my monk to look like Mater Shifu. (Artwork: "Inner Peace" by Misty Tang)
Kershisnik’s tells us that style will emerge on its own after, not 10 or 20 pieces of work, but more like 50 or 500 pieces. Not one or two novels, but five, ten, or 100. We just have to be patient, try not to think too much about it, and have faith that it will eventually happen.
2.Follow the Thread:
Most of us have heard of the ancient Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. In case it’s been awhile, here’s a very fast refresher: Theseus needs to navigate a labyrinth to find a big scary monster called the Minotaur and kill it. He also needs to find his way back out. Like all men, he can’t do much of anything without help from a woman. In this case, the woman is the local princess, Ariadne. She helps Theseus by giving him a sword and a ball of thread. She tells Theseus to unravel the thread as he winds his way into the labyrinth so that he can find his way back out after the nasty killing business is all done. Long story short, it works and Theseus returns as a conquering hero…thanks to Ariadne.
"Ariadne Giving Theseus the Thread..." by Pelagio Palagi
Kershisnik is telling us to follow our own threads in order to navigate our own creative labyrinths. What are these threads? Well, Kershisnik explains that no one can actually tell you. It appears that the labyrinth is different for every individual. In what appears to be another Zen-like paradox, we learn that we have to find your own way through our own unique labyrinth following our own threads on the paths we need to be on.
I think the reason no one else can tell us what these threads are, where to find them, or where they will lead exactly is because these threads come from within us. They are our own ideas, interests, curiosity, and whimsy which we follow according to our individual creative instincts and aesthetic intuition. Kershisnik is saying that we should follow our ideas and interests as long as they seem to be getting bigger and better. How do we know if they’re getting bigger and better? Well, we use what he calls our “internal sense”, our instincts and intuition. When we come to a dead end, we back track and try again. Slowly, with lots of hard work, we make our way through the labyrinth and create something beautiful and meaningful (and maybe even slay a monster while we’re at it).
3.Enjoy Yourself:
Kershisnik says, “An artist’s work is stained by the circumstances from which it emerges…If an artist isn’t enjoying himself, the work can’t help but reek of that.” On the flip side, he says, “If the artist is enjoying themselves, that essence comes through.” Does that mean I have to be cheerful all the time when I’m writing or my work will stink? No, of course not. I think we need to recognize the broader and deeper meaning of the word “enjoy”. We can enjoy something even if we’re not always having fun and feeling all hunky-dory.
For instance, one of my hobbies is canyoneering. This is the sport of exploring narrow slot canyons like the ones commonly found in southern Utah (think: “127 Hours” minus the amputation). This sport involves hiking, climbing, rappelling, swimming, and crawling through dark, narrow labyrinthine slot canyons. Most often canyoneering is fun, but sometimes it just feels like work and sometimes it’s downright miserable and scary. However, I always enjoy it. That’s because enjoyment is more profound than just fun. It can encompass things like struggling to overcome challenges, perseverance, and intellectual and physical exertion. We can enjoy many things that are not necessarily fun at all.
Me exploring a slot canyon in Zion National Park. (Photo: Gary Davis)
So when Kershisnik says we should enjoy ourselves, I don’t think he’s saying we have to always be having fun while we work or our creative projects will end up stained and reeking. No, I think he’s saying we need to focus on the work that fascinates us, that we find meaningful and important, that we feel drawn to, that we revel in. Not the work we think will make us the most money or bring us the most fame.
If we are doing the work that makes us feel complete or whole or like we are doing what we were born to be doing, then we will be enjoying ourselves in the deepest possible sense of the word and “that essence will come through.”
4.It’s Important to Feel:
My parents own a house near Bear Lake, Idaho. It was originally built in the early 1900’s and then later added onto. The oldest part of the house has a cellar. A dark, cramped, cluttered cellar. Let’s go in, shall we?
To get to it, you have to go through a hatch hidden beneath the carpet of the back bedroom. Most people who visit never know there’s a menacing cellar right beneath the pillow where they lay their head to sleep. You roll away the carpet and find a trap door. There’s an old metal handle that rattles as you grab it and the hinges groan as you lift. A puff of cool, moist air hits you in the face. Air that makes you think of earth worms, tree roots, mold, and… grave robbing. You brush away the cobwebs and start down the narrow, wooden stairway careful with each step, feeling the old planks flex and creak beneath your weight. You hear other sounds as you make your way down, sounds of scurrying feet and long tails disappearing into dark holes. The darkness is palpable. It feels like cold, blind hands groping at your face. At the bottom of the stairs, you find a dirt floor, soft and spongy underfoot. Why is it so soft, you wonder, what frightening mysteries might I uncover if I was to dig? You reach out blindly, feeling for the string hanging from the light in the middle of the room. At first you feel only spider webs breaking across your fingers, but after you fumble around for a while, you feel the string, almost greasy in your hands, and pull it. The cellar lights up with the glaring yellow light of a single bare bulb. It’s like the interrogator’s light, swinging slightly back and forth making the room rock and casting deep shadows into every corner. You feel the room almost flinch. The light feels alien here. This is a place without eyes, comfortable with blackness, used to hiding things, and unused to the light. But you’re here, and the light is on, so you look around…
Each one of us have a cellar like this in our minds. A room where we put stuff that we don’t want to deal with, think about, or feel. A place where we tuck away difficult experiences, painful memories, and unresolved issues. You might even think of these things as our own personal minotaurs we have to slay. We don’t usually like to enter this room. But we must. If Theseus had simply wandered the labyrinth and returned alive without killing the Minotaur, would he have been a hero? No. We have to slay some monsters while we’re there. We slay them by looking them in the eyes and feeling. As Kershisnik tells us, it’s our job as artists and writers to feel. If we insulate ourselves from feeling, our work becomes shallow, unenlightening, and cliché.
Just to be clear, I don’t think Kershisnik is saying we should all write confessional poetry and air our dirty laundry for the world to see. Not at all. But we can fill our characters with genuine emotions, make them face real issues, add a sense of sincerity to our work by tapping into these often difficult to face feelings that we have personal experience with. Kershisnik warns us that this can be dangerous, slaying monsters always is, but if we process these feelings in a productive way, it will “lead to profundity” in our work.
5.Don’t Force Symbols:
Kershisnik advises us to let symbols emerge naturally and organically as we work. They should have a life of their own. He warns us not to come up with a symbol first and then “impose it on a canvas and inflict it on the world.” That would be like bringing your date a bouquet of plastic flowers. The flowers might look real at first, but she’s sure to notice that they feel wrong, they lack fragrance, they lack the innate vitality we all sense in a living thing. Sure she will get the idea, she knows what the plastic flowers stand for, but I doubt you’ll get a second date.
This last idea of Kershisnik’s surprised me. Not that I don’t agree with him, because I do. I just didn’t expect it to be so high on his list of important advice to give. But it makes sense when we look at how his way of discovering symbols fits in with the other four ideas he presented.
They are all about finding our way through our individual labyrinths. How do we do this? We listen to Kershisnik’s advice: We follow Ariadne’s thread.
Since this thread is made up of our own curiosity, interests, and ideas, we will naturally enjoy ourselves as we follow it. If we are enjoying ourselves, it will shine through in our work.
Sometimes the thread will lead us into dark places. Places where our personal minotaur is waiting. That’s okay, every labyrinth has a dark cellar we must pass through and a monster we must slay. We kill him by looking him in the eye, listening to what he has to say, and really feeling. Then we continue along our way, holding to our thread. Only now, we notice that our work is glowing with an inner light of profundity.
As we continue to travel our labyrinth, we will stumble onto symbolic flowers growing naturally along the path. They’re ours to take. We can present them in our work to whoever will accept them. Maybe it will even cause them to fall in love with us.
At some point, a long, long way into our labyrinth, after we have worked very, very hard to get where we are, we will pass by an old monk meditating under a cherry tree. There’s no reason to say anything to him. He will look up at us and nod knowingly as we pass because he can see that, without necessarily meaning to, we have developed our own unique style and voice.
Now that we have a voice and something worth saying, we can truly speak.
