The masters of my universe bestowed upon me a small travel budget to do some auditing visits to 14 of our European sites. 14 is a far cry from the 80+ anual trips I've been making for the past five years but I'll take what I can get because since Feb I have been confined to an overly air-conditioned office and a job that consists of brain sucking conference calls and e-mail.
Since my grounding I've been able to take a couple of paying photo gigs which at least keeps me from forgetting how to hold a camera. On one particularly depressing day at work I decided that I should devote more time to being a rock star so I bought a new bass, cleaned out the back of the kitchen and set up a music room.
Contrary to everything I held to be true, a shiny new bass did indeed make me a better musician- or at least made me think so. It sounds so ridiculously obvious but after 24 years of playing I had forgotten the 1:1 correlation between playing more and getting better. I think I simply assumed that I was as good as I was going to get and putting anything more than minimal effort it took to learn whatever crap my bandmates wanted to play was a waste of time better spent watching TV.
Encouraged by my experiences on bass I pulled my guitar out of the closet, bought a stand for it, set it in the living room and spent several days eyeing it cautiously. When I finally did pick it up I found that with it too, the more I played the more my fingers seem to hit the right notes. I might just be on to something here.
I started taking my camera with me more and, amazingly, each time I went out, I came back with a good shot or two. How could this be happening? Was someone trying to tell me that putting forth an effort, even on activities that I pretty much assumed I'd peaked at, actually paid off? Maybe there is no theoretical maximum for creativity. Maybe the reason I get jaded and stuck and bored with my art is simply because I don't do it enough; don't force myself to crank it up a notch and figure out the bass-line to Won't Get Fooled Again and actually conceive of a vision of how I want my photos to look and learn how to make it so.
This should have come as no surprise but you see, I am a lazy bastard and the few tricks I have I never really had to work at. In fact, I used to think that if you had to work at it, you weren't really that good at it in the first place. I was (am) a firm believer in natural ability but what I missed was that a gift is only a starting point and I was seeing it as the destination.
Overcoming the laziness is phenomenally difficult for me: my default mode is to sink into bed, a sofa or a depression and moan about all my unappreciated tallent. I need a support group who will keep me pushing forward, keep me motivated, driven, an AA for polymath layabouts.
My friends are helping. I'm plugging in a bit more with people living the way of the artist. Last month a couple of friends and I had a "bring your art to dinner" evening which broke down a few more walls. What I would like is an Algonquin Round Table without the booze. Just a place where smart, interesting people with a passion for art, music, writing, life, anything really, could sit across from each other and talk; then later put the talk into action. Creative collaboration has never been one of my strong points- I prefer to assume a lone-wolf, suffering for his art persona. However, it would seem that I've worn that suit for far too long. Time for a change of attitude, outlook and clothes.
Anyone have a round table, some crazy ideas and some free time at lunch? I'm there.
