Okay…
Aside from the fact that it is really stupid and cruel to say this to a student taking your course on creativity, and I was stupid enough to listen to him without objecting…Aside from all that, when Robert Fritz says artists can’t use art to work out their problems, I say, Balderdash! SAYS WHO? SAYS WHO?!!!
Can you imagine what the world would be like without artists who did NOT work out their problems in and through their art? A world without the likes of, and I am just selecting a few very famous examples from all over the art world:
Edvard Munck’s numerous depictions…
Just in case you doubt that he was rendering his emotional turmoil in pastel and paint, he wrote these sentences on the frame of one of the four known original versions of what the world now knows as
The Scream:
I was walking along the road with two friends – the sun was setting – suddenly the sky turned blood red – I paused, feeling exhausted, and leaned on the fence – there was blood and tongues of fire above the blue-black fjord and the city – my friends walked on, and I stood there trembling with anxiety – and I sensed an infinite scream passing through nature.[9]
And where would the world of poetry be without Sylvia Plath. Surely it would be a milder and less rich place without her magnificent and moving poem, “Daddy”, which I will quote only in part below:
A contemporary poet who has for many years mined her life and traumas for art, is undeniably Sharon Olds. But one poet who made art out of exquisite spiritual agonies was the British Jesuit convert,
Gerard Manley Hopkins in the mid-1800s, who wrote what are now called The Terrible Sonnets, terrible because they portray with astonishing depth the suffering and spiritual anguish he experienced as a parish priest going through the dark night of the soul. I do not know of any poet, then or now, who has done it better.
This is one of my all-time favorites of Hopkins. But you really need to read it aloud…
Francisco Goya Saturn Devouring Son
But as Robert Fritz said to me in class, and I stupidly took to heart, “ARTISTS CAN’T USE ART TO WORK OUT PROBLEMS”…
Geee, they can’t? How dumb of me to think they can and do it, all the time.
Remember Franz Kafka? Why do I think he too might have been dealing with his authoritarian father in such books as THE TRIAL, THE CASTLE, THE PENAL COLONY or a story like “The Hunger Artist”…No, that is impossible, right? After all, artists cannot and do not do such things, not real artists…Not according to Robert Fritz, who is the arbiter of all things art!
Songwriters are notorious for displaying their hearts on their sleeves, as most of us know. But VIc Chesnutt, who later committed suicide, did this in spades, with his song, “Coward.” This song is far too raw and painful to me to place it here as a sound file. But I will give you the lyrics and tell you to look for a version of Vic singing it, as no one can do it better.
The courage of the coward
Is greater than all others
A scaredy-cat’ll scratch ‘im
If you back ‘im in a corner
But I ,I ,I, I am a coward
I, I, I am a coward
Courage born of despair and impotence
Submissive dogs can
Lash out in fear and be
Very, very dangerous
But I ,I ,I, I am a coward
I, I, I am a coward
Anyhow, I think I have made a case for stating that art — which can be used for a great many purposes, in fact can be used in whatever fashion and for whatever use you want to employ it, because truly there are no rules — most certainly one can work out one’s problems in and through using art. What better way to do so in fact? Better than taking a load of guns and shooting up the nearest _________! (fill in the blank with the most recent mass shooting locale.)
I welcome my readers to send me examples of artists who expressed themselves or used their problems to make art. I will add them to the list, especially if you provide a link to an example of their work.
Much love to all,
Pamela Spiro Wagner
Oh, I plum forgot! Here is my own example of using art to deal with problems:
WAGblog: Dum Spiro Spero 
I say, tee hee to your comments, both of them!! And much appreciated ! I will let you in on a secret about your comments being moderated, I too had to sign into my own blog! OUCH!!!! Love you! Pam
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Oh, so sorry you must moderate. I had my gravatar name with the Lady Quixote first and my pen name Linda Lee second, and some people were addressing me simply as “Lady”, which struck me as wrong, considering that I am not royalty. So I changed my gravatar name so that “Linda” is first, and, oh dear, more work for my blogging friends!
You know why Fritz couldn’t handle someone walking away while he was speaking? Fragile ego, of course, masked by a know-it-all narcissistic false persona. His, ahem, package must be very small, to have such an easily bruised ego. 😉
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When something is broken, or not working properly, it is said to be “on the fritz”. Now I believe I know where that saying originated.
Pammy, your awesome art and your brilliant wit never fail to amaze me.
((HUG))
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Pam, they do that to me, too. They insult us because they want us to fail miserably. Oddly, we haven’t yet.
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Yes, Julie, I know you were agreeing with me…absolutely! Yes! I know!
If I belabored the point, it think it is only because I did take his cruelty to heart way too much…
I could kick myself for doing that. Why do I listen to people who say NEGAtIVE things but not the people who say GOOD things??? It is crazy…If I listened half as much to those who wanted the best for me, and loved me, as I do to those who clearly hate and envy me, and want me to FAIL, wow would I be riding the wave but good!!! I think they do it on purpose, the negative people, because they WANT us to fail, to make their meager productions look better, at least to them, by comparison…Or something!
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Pam, I was agreeing with you! I guess I worded it funny. There’s NO PLACE in this world for discrimination. I just had to deal with it myself, actually. The past few days. And I did file a complaint. I’ll tell you later.
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Yeah, I get that. And I grok NOW that it was just a ridiciulous thing to say, but the problem is that I did not get it then. At the time I was still recovering from my long hospital stay, which they knew, and was simply being smashed and assaulted verbally in public, by an authority figure who made it his goal to do so every time I raised my hand to say a word in that class, and everyone in the class knew that would happen. That was how routine it was. I could not say a word without his picking on me, until finally I started to leave class early, and on the final day I refused to come back when, after Robert Fritz “dismissed class” then suddenly summoned everyone back for another longwinded discussion of whatever…and I was already exhausted with the bullshit and on my way out the door, so I kept going. But this apparently was such an affront to Fritz’s ego that he actually blacklisted me from the class! I mean this! It seems so silly but he refused to communicate with me after that and left my name off the class email list and I believe now that he would “excommunicate” any silly befuddled classmate should they get it into their heads to reach out to me, in friendship.
It seems incredibly bizarre for such an uncreative man to have such a hold on people. Or maybe not. After all, it is the glamor of power not art that he has…I did not see any art from him, only a nasty rigidity that bespoke a fear of creativity and an envy of those who actually have it.
Well, I should let it go, shouldn’t i? After all, for some reason (and I never said a word about this to anyone in that family, but one day they simply asked me if I wanted a refund, AFTER the class was over, by email, and of course I said YES,… so I got my moolah back, after the bullshit and personal smashings I had taken…Yes, they did do that, but without any explanation as to why). So Yes, I will try to let this go, But you know, I did not need my money back. I needed not to be abused in the first place. A little human decency goes a long way….But tell that to the Fritz’s, who are all about money, and abuse, and certainly do not know much about creativity or art, IMHO!
Peace, Julie.
Pam
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You are the creator and that means you are the authority on the act of your own creating. No one can tell you they know more about your own art than you! While instructors can advise, you’re still the artist!
Back in the day, when I studied music composition, I doubt my best composition instructors would have said that. Actually, it was all about notes, phrases, sounds, etc. Problems other than to do with the compositional process or various musical dilemmas were for outside of class. Or should have stayed there. Should we be working out anything of personal nature within our music, well, that was a rather private matter. Our music kept its secrets back in those days, but disclosed it from time to ime to those who listened well.
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