A few months ago, after an unfortunate incident involving a melted chocolate bar and my cel phone in my car's console which rendered the latter useless, I decided to try a Blackberry. It was something I'd been debating with friends, family and myself for years. I was extremely hesitant. I would regularly interrogate the people I knew who had them as if they'd just casually used the Orgasmatron in Woody Allen's Sleeper.
"What's it like? Is it weird? Is it really that great?"
"Oh, yes!" They'd always exclaim. "Can't live without it. It's saves me so much time. I could be waiting in line at Starbucks and get so much done!"
I broke down at the cell phone store. I was so ashamed that I didn't even tell my sister when she was the first one to call and I held the thing up to my head.
I am not a Luddite nor a technophobe. Au contraire, I have always been an early adopter-- the first to have email, a website, etc. After all, painting is a technology. The very root "techne" derives from the Greek "art" or "skill." But when I go to the studio I leave all the gadgets at home. I figure that the people who must reach me will have my cell number. Other than that, I had avoided the Blackberry until that moment.
Around the same time, I watched this year's Super Bowl. During a break, there was an ad for a Bank--I think Chase Manhattan-- which showed a couple rock climbing near the top of a dangerous, devastatingly beautiful mountain that resembled Half Dome in Yosemite. In the commercial, as she dangles from the edge of a sheared cliff, her blackberry buzzes and she cheerily checks it and tells her boyfriend that it was her bank letting her know that her checking was overdrawn, but they fixed it. Blech! Did the ad executives really think that would be enticing? But yet, that was me, checking email after every conversation and at every stop light. Me and everyone I know, constantly in touch all the time.
I returned it two days later.
**
Although I have pondered the effects of technology's impact on daily life before, I do so now within the specific context of how it effects one's ability to be creative. I have come of age as an artist during the most accelerated period of connectivity our species has ever known. We have all been drunk on technology and only some of us are emerging from our collective haze. Last week, Mark Bittman of the New York Times extolled the virtue of taking an electronic Sabbath; The Dangerous Books for Boys and Girls fly off Amazon's shelves because young kids are so wired they forgot how to play; Tim Ferris' Four Hour Work Week is on the desk of every executive and Frontline's "Growing up Online" chilling account of the first generation of children to literally be connected all the time where texting is a right, and online exhibitionism is second nature. It's been a little more than a decade since it started in full force. But alas, it appears that we are finally starting to sober up and reacquaint ourselves with the Here and Now. Rules to navigate are being offered for all walks of life. I'm making one now: Artists shouldn't have Blackberries and here are four reasons why:
#1 Artists Need to Daydream
When I divided the creative process into eight stages (a la Kubler Ross' five stages of death), I started with Vision, which happens in an instant and sets an artist on the path of creation. But in hindsight, this was a mistake. The real first stage, the most important, doesn't have a name. It is silent. It's when the filaments of thoughts, the subatomic particles of ideas, are just lying around in the primordial ooze of your mind. It looks like a daydream or nothing at all, but this is the first real stage of the creative process.
When I studied biology, I remembered a curious anecdote about cell division. When a cell divides it also goes through five phases -- Interphase, Prophase, Meta Phase, Anaphase and Telophase. The first phase is "Interphase" and for years, scientists thought that this was when the cell was sleeping. All the visible action happens from Prophase onward-- the nuclei divides within the cell and eventually splits apart to form two. Eventually, when microscopes improved, scientists learned that this first phase was actually the most important part of the process when the DNA replicates. Even when I looked up Mitosis on Wikipedia (to provide you with a snazzy picture), they show imagery of all the phases but don't bother showing "Interphase" because there's simply not much to look at.
Whether within a day or a year or a lifespan, moments and periods of apparent inactivity are critical. We're always processing and receiving. We can't do this with constant chatter and interruptions. Like a "rest" in music we can't make music, or art, without it.
#2 Artists Tend to Be Compulsive
I use myself as an example, but before I create I need to have certain things in my own kind of order. I play certain music, I burn incense, get my materials together. Often I'll go for a walk. If I want to procrastinate, I'll clean and won't start until everything is perfect. One more thing to procrastinate or get off my plate before I begin is a BAD thing. I've interviewed a lot of artists here and they all have rituals they go through before they get into their "zones." Counter to our occasional reputation, artists are generally not mentally slovenly people who get to be flakey because they're "creative types." Instead, we have to exhibit fierce discipline and this is a crucial part of the process. When I had the Blackberry, I was corresponding with people all day long and more often even. By not compartmentalizing my accessibility, it became yet one more thing that either prevented me from starting or interfering with the zone that I worked so hard to create.
#3 Being Slightly Unreachable is Cool
Okay, I realize this is facetious but really, must we be available all the time? Whatever happened to the artists' mystique?
#4 Real Artists Would Have an iPhone
Let's face it, any self-respecting artist wouldn't be caught dead with a Blackberry. If you have any sense of aesthetics, you lust the iPhone instead. Just dismantle the email function and you'll be fine.
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First Person Artist is a weekly column by artist Kimberly Brooks in which she provides commentary on the creative process and showcases artists' work from around the world. Come back every Saturday for more Kimberly Brooks. You can view more columns and essays at www.firstpersonartist.com
Follow Kimberly Brooks on Twitter: www.twitter.com/artistkimberlyb
And now here I am typing this message when I should be painting.
Work WITH me Kimberly.
On a side note, wasn't there a show on MTV called "1980s House" or something? Kids had to live in a house equipped with 1980s tech (ie tape players, rotary phones with cords, no internet, no texting, TV with three stations etc.) for a month or two. Brutal.
http://moderationsmuse-about-art.blogspot.com/2008/03/and-this-guys-art-and-his-story-is.html
It's kind of a small world .... seems you have a kindred spirit across the pond.
While the internet can be a distraction at times, I still find myself amazed when I can click a button and instantly travel anywhere in the world to visit a painter's studio.
And Kimberly, keep up the good work. I'm looking forward to seeing what you've been up to in your studio.
How can a real artist settle for an iPhone?
And the wonderful thing is, when I want to, I can simply turn it all off for an hour, for a day, or - some day - for good.
I do kind of like the I-touch concept, and may go for that.
As I was researching weekly organizers online in January, I discovered there is a move afoot for people to go back to using planners with actual pages and give up on their PDAs. For many people, like myself, I do much better if I can hold something and turn the pages and write in it, rather than enter data into an electronic device to track daily/weekly activities.
I thought it was interesting that people were actively going back to real live books. Kinda cool.
I have ADD... I tell my friends that for girls/women that means Always Day Dreaming!
As a kid, I was dissuaded from being an artist by a jealous mom who told me I wasn't talented enough (after having won a citywide painting contest and having another painting selected to go overseas)... so I dropped it and became a scientist. I loved science too, I just wanted to be an artist.
Anyway, about 15 yrs ago I bought a home with a separate studio and took this as a "sign" I should begin making art again. So I started sculpting... and was successful from the get go. But the funny thing is, after about an hour of sculpting, I would have to go take a break and lie down on my bed to daydream... It was if daydreaming was required to fuel the creative endeavors.
I've been painting for about a year now and am ABSOLUTELY loving it... I finally just decided f*ck it, I'm going to paint. I love the immediacy and spontaneity of directly moving color around on the canvas... so much so that I haven't done much sculpting lately!
And a friend of mine who has been trying to paint for a decade asked me how I do it... and I said I get a mental image of the painting (the Vision as Kimberly describes it) and then I have to paint it... it morphs along the way and tells me more of what it wants to be... but it's a combination of day dreaming and flashes of images that start me sculpting or painting.
Great post Kimberly... love your columns every week. Thank you.
Steve
As for me, I like solitude. I especially enjoy taking long walks outdoors, preferably under trees or in a woodsy place, during which time I reminisce about various things -- often about time spent with those close to me. And, oddly, it's often during these walks alone that I notice things I hadn't noticed in the moment. I'll recall the expression on someone's face or the tone of voice and will suddenly understand something that person was trying to say that I hadn't heard when the conversation was actually happening. So, I find interestingly enough that solitude draws me closer to the people most important to me.
I like the picture of the studio. It's a very lovely room for work.
When the iPhone came out, I was disappointed that AT&T was the selected provided -only because they were willing to put in the RD that it took to support the iPhone. Again, I was left out in the cold, until... the iTouch came out last Fall. I was giddy! Since a travel art portfolio in any form is the demand of collectors, galleries, and mfgs, this tool is one of many fabulous marketing vehicles.
Again, being of that age bracket of not necessarily wanting too many gadgets in my purse, I do carry both my cell and my iTouch and I'm fine with that, but only as needed. I'd much rather have my camera or sketchbook in my hands exploring Spring in my neighborhood or new lands.
http://ecstewart.blogspot.com/2007/12/surprise-itouch-imarket-iconnect.html
I do not like interruptions or distractions.
Comments are not even allowed until each expression of my thought or impression of an object is complete.
Art is a product of the stream of consciousness.
I can answer phone calls when blogging or writing, but not when painting.
What does an artist need a Black berry for?
Had mine for a month and took it back. Best move I ever made. I got a mobile phone but I doubt I use a hundred minutes a month on it and that's usually from swap meets to check in about certain items.
Other than that...
Now my computer on the otherhand...well I'm very addicted to the information highway. But at least it can't go anywhere with me.