Why the Show Must Go On…Are Movie Makers Dreaming?

It’s mid-January, just a day before the opening of the Sundance Film Festival, and here in the Northeast, the indie movie business is revving up again. I have to smile at the unfailing drive of filmmakers to keep making movies regardless—or because—of the world around them. Movies live in a parallel universe, where things happen according to a set of rules that are created spontaneously and independently of any reality, but moviemakers have to live in this world. And, they are apparently finding funds, because (as a frequent indie crew member) I’m getting calls about new productions that are ready to start soon.

Filmmakers are the hopeful idiots of the world, ready to create what is essentially a digital dream for consumption…and nothing stops that creative leap. Not a housing crisis, or a crashed economy, not a war, and not even a hurricane.

Last summer I worked on the locations crew of a film production, Hello I Must Be Going, that was shooting on the East Coast when Hurricane Irene made her way to shore. (For those of you who don’t live here, that storm caused an estimated $7 billion in damage, killed 28 people, and wreaked havoc up and down 10 states).

The storm hit on Saturday, our biggest shooting day, and we were forced to shut down for the weekend, losing locations we had already secured. Throughout the next few days, most of the state was still on emergency status (meaning only emergency vehicles allowed on the roads), with downed trees blocking roads, flooding throughout the region, and whole towns closed for business.

And what were we doing? Furiously emailing and holding conference calls…Rearranging our shooting schedule to use the available talent we had staying in local hotels in the scenes we needed before they were scheduled to fly out. I was calling new locations as the writer was writing new scenes and the director was rethinking the look of the film and the producers were reconnoitering on how to keep the production floating along the streams of wreckage around a state that was still largely shut down.

We returned to a previous location we had used the week before, only now we had lost the whole basement to water, and the entire production space had to be holed up in one side of a garage while the caterer used the other. We sat in our cars with our laptops, we pulled trucks through mud puddles around giant tree branches, we parked cars in soggy fields, and we ate at tables crunched into tight, still-dry spaces. And nobody complained. Not the talent, and not the crew, who were putting in 16 hour days on what was turning into a somewhat miserable shooting experience due to weather.

And on Tuesday after the hurricane, we were back to shooting, rescheduling Wednesday on the fly. And on Wednesday, we worked on Thursday. It was our last week, and every day was a crapshoot—but we made it. It was truly a kind of Hell I would not want to cross through again, but we did make it. Me and 50 or 60 people who had been total strangers just one month before.

That is what amazes me about movie crews. They unite under a common notion that the “show must go on.” They don’t know each other personally, and there is little time to really share much about your life back home.  You don’t know who has kids or who’s getting married, or even where they come from. You come into someone’s life for 3 or 4 weeks, and the whole of every day is about the movie, the current shot, and making the day.

Movie people have a gift for staying on task. It’s how movies get made. You get up in the dark and show up in a parking lot before the sun is up for a breakfast burrito, and you stay on your feet for another 15 or so hours before you can drag yourself back home or to a local hotel for about 5 hours sleep before starting again tomorrow. You do it day after day, counting down the days, just like every other member of the crew. And each day, we show all up, until the movie’s done.

I know of no other field in the arts that comes close to the level of abuse a movie shoot lauds on its crew. Artists struggle for their art, but they don’t stand out in the rain for 6 hours in the middle of the night, directing traffic so it doesn’t cut through the shot. Like sane people, they would go home.

But here’s a lesson artists and writers can learn from movie crews: blind attention to getting the job done. It’s not your movie, or your idea, but you still give your full attention to your piece, and so does everyone else. There’s no time for second-guessing whether the project will turn out well, or whether you should have gone in a different direction. And it’s inconceivable to call in sick—you can pretty much only call in dead. There’s only the shot ahead, and the one ahead of that.

When you think of it, it’s a miracle there are films worth watching on the screen. It’s one of those weird things in life that often works, sometimes well, and on occasion, it works spectacularly. And maybe that’s why we do it.

In the fine arts, the artist focuses on executing their own vision, but in the performing arts you are but a tiny piece of the whole that must come together to form the director’s vision. On various mornings in those wee hours, we would stand around an ask ourselves why we were still there, showing up for one more very long day on a film that might never even make it to screens. But we don’t wait for the answer, because we all know what it is…the show must go on, and in a minute (tiny) way, each one of us knows we are making it happen.

There’s a legacy effect to working in the movies, where you are part of the experience behind the film, and no matter how miserable it gets, it’s still hard to walk away from. As the saying goes, “what, and give up show biz?”

I’m pleased to see that one of the films I had a small part in making is showing at Sundance this week. I have no idea how the film came together in post-production, but I trust–because of the work ethic we brought during the production–that it turned out well. I’d love to see it come to theatres. My congrats to the director, the writer, the actors, the producers, and of course, the crew!

© 2012 Arts Enclave.

2012 – Handle with care…

We don’t have to look back very far in 2011 to see the enormous and often bizarre challenges we were met with. By all accounts, it was a very difficult year. Here in the Northeast, it started with the endless winter that pushed straight through spring, followed the summer of the big hurricane, the fall of the blackouts, and the winter that tanked Halloween, so millions of tiny tots missed out on trick or treating as well as a white Christmas.

It’s a good year to have behind us, and one we can be proud we all survived.  The economy was as strange as the weather, with companies holding job fares and then closing their doors within weeks of each other. We lost big retailers like Borders Books, and Sears is imploding, closing an estimated 120 stores in early 2012. While scouting for film locations in Connecticut this year (one of my miscellaneous jobs in the arts), I saw hundreds of vacated properties—foreclosed and soon to be foreclosed homes willing to invite movie crews, and tons of businesses that had closed their doors. I had one assignment looking for old gas stations, but what I found were dozens of recently abandoned ones. One day they were open, and then next day nobody showed up to work.

I also visited a number of places in upstate New York that were so hard hit by the aftermath of Hurricane Irene. There were roads and bridges completely washed out, and towns dotted with FEMA trailers. For the first time in my lifetime, the evidence of the daily struggle for survival is all around us.

But we can hope we are through the worst of the worst of the storm, because the world platform also changed in big ways that will affect every day of our future. Osama bin Laden was caught and killed; the Iraq war formally ended without much fanfare and Kim Jong-Il, the mean little despot who ruled North Korea and menaced the free world passed away quietly, leaving a muddy pool of uncertainty behind.

And through it all, a new American Idol was crowned (although we care not who it was), Justin Beiber made many more millions touring, and Adele sold 5.28 million copies of her album “21” in 2011—more than anyone in the past 7 years (including GaGa and Katy Perry). The final Harry Potter film (Deathly Hallows Part II) broke all box office records, with both the highest grossing opening day and the highest opening weekend gross of all time, and a Picasso painting set an all-time record at auction at Christies, commanding $106.5 million, after a year of huge bidding for old masters such as Dali and Giocometti and other Picassos.

So at a time when the world seemed headed for darkness, people continued to find escape and inspiration where they have always found it—in the arts.

And if one thing survived the awful years we have come through, it is Hope. Let’s ignore the dark pundits planning for global disintegration in 2012—because if it happens, we’ll never really be ready anyway. Let’s live every moment that we have in the fullest expression of who we all are. Let’s paint and draw and sing and dance and write and make the world a better place one single moment at a time.

…So this is what I’m going to do—be me, only more so. I want to make sure I really become the person I planned on being. And now that I now know the universe is completely in charge of how that plays out, I can relax and stop trying to control it. I cannot plan for success or love or even how a painting or something I’m writing may turn out. All I can do is do it, and leave the rest to Providence, and believe that in the end, good things will come of it all.

What we need from artists in 2012 is truth. Don’t paint what you think we want to see, or sing to the beat that everybody else does. Paint what you see, sing what you hear, write what you believe. And somewhere in all of that, we will all find our way out again.

To quote a Kenny Loggins* song, “There’s a whole other life just waiting to be lived…one day we’re brave enough to talk with conviction of the heart.”

Welcome to 2012…and a delicate new world full of possibility!

Happy New Year from Arts Enclave!

© 2012 Arts Enclave.

  This video is from the Live at the Redwoods DVD, the song is from the Leap of Faith album – both available at KennyLoggins.com

…Because the World is Blue (Man)

It’s better to arrive late to the party than not at all. I finally went to see Blue Man Group live in Boston at the Charles Street Playhouse—I’m not exactly in front of the trend here, since they’ve been around since 1987—but like the Statue of Liberty (which I also haven’t been to) Blue Man Group is one of those things lots of people have heard of but don’t think to see for themselves.

I’ve seen performances on TV, especially their Blue Man Tour on PBS, and for years I planned to go, but just never seemed to arrange it. If you’re like me, you keep thinking this is something that would probably be fun, but you don’t really need to see it.

Stop that kind of thinking right now! We all need a little shake up now and again, and the Blue guys will throw you right into the blender of their weird and wonderful show. You’ll come out exhausted and delighted, and you’ll never look at simple human rituals the same way again.

Listen my children and you will hear–three guys playing on PVC pipe…

(This is the larger version of Rods and Cones from the National Show).

 

Spoiler alert!  No matter where you see it, the show elevates the notion of simplicity to a stratospheric level, with no dialog, few costumes, basic sets, props from your garage or kitchen cabinet, and storylines that are straight out of Dick and Jane. And it works. Because they ride the many circuits of our common language, reminding us of how a simple movement, like the waving of a hand, or a nod can convey a world of information—or misinformation.

My son went with us, the same son who spent years struggling with the nuance of human interaction due to his Aspergian approach to life. (See my other posts on Aspergers).  Subtle communication has always stymied him, and yet this show laid out the folly of human reaction in a clever display that was as instantly accessible to him as it was to me.  He rumbled with the rhythms they played on paint-splattered drums and rocked to the pvc pipe music. He stomped his feet, raised his arms, and shouted out loud like the rest of us in completely accurate response to the prompts of the show.

It’s really all about communication, and the many levels on which we do it. For me, the most fun of the night is a simple and very quiet routine in which the Blue 3 find an audience member to join them at a table on stage, where for nearly 10 minutes they quietly share a box of Twinkies. It’s a riveting and hilarious interaction that illuminates how much expectation we transfer to each other.

I can tell you all about Blue Man Group, describing even the smallest detail of their show, and you would still not get the experience. This is where performance art takes a leap inside you—you really have to be there. The live event of each show is different, as the energy comes from the audience involved—and involved they are.

Check out the website to see some of the things that will be flung your way:  things like toilet paper, marshmallows, paint, and supersized beach balls. If you think things like this aren’t worth the price of admission, then you really must go, as this show challenges all of your thinking about things you see in everyday life, like cell phones, plumbing, and, well, Twinkies.

Here they are, explaining it themselves…but if you want to be surprised, skip the video and go for the real show!

The two roads conundrum…and the artist’s mindset

It’s pretty obvious I’ve been away from this blog for a while. In fact, I’ve been away for a while  in general.  My quest: to explore all of life’s possibilities, a large number of which seem to present during the summer.

This summer I’ve made trips to Lake George to teach a writing workshop, toSaranacLaketo cover a plein air festival—and again to step into the life of a full-time plein air painter. I came back to my freelance writing  job for a few weeks and then promptly took work as Locations Manager to a feature film shooting inConnecticut. None of these jobs have regular hours. They all bleed into each other, and into every corner of my personal life. In future posts I will explore/explain what I learn on these individual journeys, but for today I want to share a poem that keeps resonating in my head, because it completely nails my own personal life M.O.

It was more than a year ago I heard this poem read at a reading inNorth Easton,Massachusetts. The poet, Craig Fredericks, gave a wonderful reading that night, opening by saying, “there is an ancient Hebrew Law, rediscovered with the dead sea scrolls, that prohibits ‘saying anything stupid on the Sabbath.’ With that in mind…”

With Apologies to Robert Frost

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood. The path to the left was more travelled by and that’s the way I went on my first walk, hoping it led to, I don’t know, a fishing hole or a secret circus. I did meet a nice couple out walking their dog.

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood. Next walk I took the path less travelled by. It led first to some stone walls and then someone’s back yard. Retracing my steps, and finding an even less travelled by path, I came upon a hunting perch high in an old oak tree.

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood. My third walk I started out on the less travelled by path and then after ten minutes bushwhacked left through a clearing I expect formed over a shallow New England ledge, climbed over a couple car sized glacial erratic, then though an aspen grove until I found again the more travelled by path.

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood. Looking to make a day of it I brought a small pack containing water, a ham sandwich with hot honey mustard, some chips and a coupla apples. Bug spray, some of that stuff you put on cuts so they don’t get infected, a sweat shirt, flashlight, and compass. (I also had my wallet, pocketknife, lighter and tissues I always bring on these walks.) Lastly I brought a roll of Christmas red ribbon which I tied to branches to mark new trail.

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood…. I know where they go.

Since he sent me the poem, Fredericks has made changes, mostly to the last line. His most recent version is “I think I know where it goes,” although another version had “I know that patch of trees.”

But for me, the version I heard that night is the one I can’t let go of….because I do approach life by going down every path just to see where it goes. Once I know, I don’t have to go again, unless it interests me, and then I continue further, maybe stepping off the path into the woods, maybe just examining it from a different point of view.

Either way, I think this line speaks to the artist in all of us. We look at things we pass by every day, and then we look again. The more common path is the easy one, but the other one calls to us with promises of something more. Art tries to make sense of the world and everything beyond—a task that is by definition unachievable. Still, we try. And the way we do it is by taking the familiar one step further, and maybe another, until we are well beyond the normal comfort zone of the common path. And this is how we find the delight in life, by looking past the ordinary.

The original poem that it honors, The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost, was all about choice, because the traveler could not take both paths and had to choose the common path from the one less traveled by. It was about loss, and wondering what might have happened on the other path. Frost leaves the other path for another day, knowing he will probably never go there anyway.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

The Fredericks homage poem presumes that time allows us both options—and most of us would still choose the same path again—most of us, except for poets and artists, who are driven to look beyond.

Two paths diverged in a black pine wood—and now I know where they go. This is the unexpected gift I received by attending a poetry reading with a friend last year, just to keep her company. You never know where inspiration will present itself.  Thank you Craig Fredericks for adding to the lyrics of my life.

 Obviously, since Craig and interpreted his, and the original poem differently, there are many ways to hear a poem. Please share what you hear…

The Gathering of the Vibes Hits Bridgeport in 2 Days!

If you’ve never been to an outdoor festival and you can make it to CT this weekend, Gathering of the Vibes is where the music plays!  It’s a four-day festival in the old rock tradition, built on the memories of Grateful Dead concerts–but with plenty of new talent to keep all ages entertained. Last year I interviewed the VIBES Director and originator, Ken Hays about the festival, and where live music is headed.

Try to catch this great event if you can. Tickets are still available by the day for the performances – check out the schedule. Bands like Dark Star Orchestra and FURTHER, featuring Phil Lesh and Bob Weir are long-time favorites at the Vibes. This year the new headliners include Elvis Costello and Jane’s Addiction. Definitely one of my favorite CT events!

  © 2011 Arts Enclave. All Rights Reserved.

Ah, the Plein Air of the Adirondacks

Plein Air painting conjures images of lazy summer afternoons where Frenchman long now passed on once stood in a field or beside a stream, painting masterpieces that would last beyond their lifetimes.

Impressionism was literally born from the plein air experience, as the artist worked quickly to capture the impressions of an outdoor setting through a few hours of changing light. And change it does, moment by moment.

Last week I followed a large group of exceptionally talented painters (about 87 of them) from around the country (and one from Russia) who made the pilgrimage to upstate New York for a 5-day plein air festival, high  in Adirondack Mountains. This festival was generously sponsored and coordinated by the publisher of the  newly relaunched Plein Air Magazine, with the help of local plein air painter, Sandra Hildreth from the positively inspired arts community of Saranac Lake, NY. (Saranac Lake will be holding their 3^rd Annual Adirondack Plein Air Festival August 18-21—don’t miss it!)

As a writer, you capture these things differently, intellectually mulling it, to paint a  mental picture that express the feelings they evoke (check out my workshop next week on doing just this). But for these 5 days, I stepped behind the easel to view this pristine world as only an artist can.

We started at Paul Smith’s College (the only 4-year college in the Adirondack Park), where many of these well known artists spent the first day painting on the grounds around the college’s VIC (Visitors Interpretive Center), despite the rain and slight chill to the air. The grounds of Paul Smith’s offer  trails and many lake views, along with the convenience of bathrooms—so everyone could ease comfortably toward the true plein air experience.

Saranac Lake artist Sandra Hildreth paints from the shores of Bog River Falls.

The second day, these now Adirondack-hardy souls left the comfort of the college for trails unknown (okay, they were known, but I didn’t know them). I stayed with the local leader, Sandra, a talented plein air painter herself. The caravans followed Sandra like a sherpa into the misty wilderness near Tupper Lake, where we stopped beside Bog River Falls.

Other days found us outside of Lake Placid on the Adirondack LOJ road, taking long views of the distant mountains in one direction and the Olympic ski jump in another, or viewing the misty mountaintops from the Saranac from the Fish and Game Club, where the painters lined up with their easels, silently chasing the clouds on their canvasses.

Shoot out at the Saranac Lake Fish & Game Club

 

 

Painters defy death at the Wilmington Flume

But my favorite location was sitting at the base of the Wilmington Flume,  the rush of the AuSable River careening towards me. Okay, I painted rocks—just a few rocks. (If you’re read my posts on my bad guitar playing, I’m even worse at painting.) This experience helped me appreciate those artists who took positions with their easels at the top of the gorge, precariously set just feet from the gorge where the water rushed below them. I’ve heard art was dangerous, but I didn’t know what that meant before.

An Adirondack painting waiting to happen...

As a writer, it literally opened my eyes to sitting still and taking in the surroundings. It’s hard to appreciate how much these landscapes can permeate your mood and edit your thinking without actually being there—unless your eyes fall on a painting that can take you there in your mind. And of course, without artists, few of us could ever really experience the wilderness—because we’re too busy driving past it with our IPODs blasting.

For a photo tour of the entire series of events, go to Plein Air magazine’s online page.

Special  thanks to B. Eric Rhoads and Plein Air magazine for giving me total access to the events, and to Sandra Hildreth, for taking me along on her adventures.

 All content and photos © 2011 Arts Enclave.  All Rights Reserved.

An Adirondack Retreat for Writers to Explore Their Creativity

Writers are a funny bunch. We don’t usually think of ourselves as artists. We’re the sturdy pragmatists, the realists among creatives, the artistic souls who live amongst the others, buried in civilization, drawing our witty references from the dingy side of life. We don’t need that wimpy, outdoorsy, ferral inspiration that feeds painters and poets. We write WORDS, forged from hours with a laptop baking through our thighs, by the light of an energy-efficient desk lamp. Nature is for those artists who need to clear their heads—we like it musty and dark and lonely and smelly and….wait….okay…maybe there’s something to reconsider here…

 

late afternoon on Lake George, 2007

Guess what? Creativity flourishes in sunshine. It loves to swim and lie in the summer grass. And a few days spent by a beautiful lake, eating great locally grown food in the company of writers invested in the process will improve your writing much more than a weekend spent in the AC and watching TV reruns. You can have a good time and the WORDS will come to you without struggle. I’ll help you look at your work in new ways to improve structure, plot, strengthen characters and make it all your own!

“Write Your Heart Out”  -  An Adirondack Workshop for Writers Ready to Commit to Writing

The Lac du Saint Sacrement on its regular run...

 

This summer, you can take a weekend at a writer’s retreat to replenish your writing spirit, and bring new levels of richness and depth to those big personal pieces you have been working on. The “Write Your Heart Out” weekend workshop will help you explore new ways to enrich your writing, and find a process to finish that big, defining novel, novella, or screenplay.

Join me from Friday July 8^th- Sunday, July 11^th for an intensive writing experience by the shores ofLake George,NY.  Invite your writer friends–men are also welcome as guests of women staying at the retreat!

Visit the Wiawaka Holiday House Retreat website to register and book your stay:  http://www.wiawaka.org/registration.html.  We will have workshop events right through to Monday morning breakfast, for those who want to stay.

 

The end of a beautiful day....

We’ll explore your thoughts on paper and air them in nature. I’ve worked with many talented writers developing their first screenplays and novels, and the best way to improve your writing is to learn to relax and listen to your own voice. At the end of this weekend, you’ll feel rested and whole, and most importantly, you’ll feel accomplished as a writer.

Come to Wiawaka Holiday House Retreat to refresh your muse, July 8th – 11th.

 

   © 2011 Arts Enclave. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

 

Before you buy that next movie ticket–

I’d like to share with you one of the best kept secrets on the East Coast: the Middle-Aged Movie Maven (on Facebook), who will clue you in to what’s really worth that hefty ticket price these days.

Written by my sister, Nancy, who has long been my own personal movie critic, this new Facebook  page will give you a heads up on what to see—because I guarantee, she sees it first. Nancy sees most movies on the day (or at least the weekend) they are released. I often work in the movie business (which I’ll save for another post), and just as often, I miss something that’s already left theatres. When I do go, she’s my trusty guidepost.

I think it started sometime in the late 70s when I had a date to see Bobby Deerfield.  “Oh, it’s pretty bad,” she said. “I saw it twice.”  I should have listened. We could have saved the $3–or whatever it was back then.

Well, since then, Nancy (who also writes the Craft to Heal blog)  has become a savvy critic who will not sit through a bad movie twice. Sometimes, she has even been known to walk out of a movie (like Accepted). Others she will sit through, but begin complaining about before the ending titles start. Her years of dedicated movie-going have sharpened her senses to where she can whittle out the point where the movie goes wrong—or right, and she divulges just enough to help you decide whether you to what to run to the theatre yourself.

So far, Nancy  has hit 4 movies in 10 days. Visit her page for reviews on Bridesmaids, The Hangover II, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, and Thor. I’ve seen two of these myself and agree with her—see if you do too!

So here’s a special bonus for you, to guide your summer movie-going enjoyment:

Middle-Aged Movie Maven with Nancy Monson

**Make sure to “like” it when you get there!

 

 

7 Rules for Watercolor…Writing

Did you think we  were going to talk about writing about watercolor painting? If it happens, it will only be by accident, as the real purpose of this post is to bring painting skills into a less concrete realm—the written word. Like a watercolor, prose or poetry can be delicate or dark, softly shadowed or brightly highlighted. It can define small details with great precision, or suggest large landscapes with subtle washes of color.

"Up River" watercolor by Suzanne Lebeda. Prints of this original watercolor are available through the Adirondack Artists Guild website.

The main thing to know about watercolor is that you can’t control it. My recent playtimes with watercolor painting have helped me to appreciate what a cerebral art form it is; first you think, then you paint.  It occurred to me that the process of expository writing is, at its best, similar. As with watercolors, you don’t want to rework exposition because it gets clumsy and loses shape. You want each written passage to flow naturally from one thought to another, taking in the details of the time and space your story moves through. There’s a lot going on, and you can’t stop to write it all in or you’ll end up like Prof. Grady Tripp (Michael Douglas) in Wonder Boys (equally good as a book by Michael Chabon) whose unfinished novel was over 2500 pages.

 So here I’m adapting some of the basic rules of watercolor painting to help you in your creative writing:

1)  Think it through first.  Because watercolors don’t leave much room for erasing, and the colors can easily become muddy if overworked, you want to make sure you think through not only your concept, but also the steps you need to take to get there. This may seem backwards to writers, who are usually taught by well-meaning, but ignorant writing instructors to “just do it, and the words will come.” If that were true, how did we get the stereotypical image of the writer stuck behind the keyboard, facing a blank screen? Too many writers sit down to write when they have nothing ready to come out. You have to tell yourself the story first…and then let your fingers bring it out.

"Reflection" (62" x 45") Watercolor by Tim Fortune

2)  Look at the world around you, and bring it into your writing. Painters are forever examining flower petals, sunsets, ripples in the water, pebbles on the beach. Meanwhile, writers sit quiet room on sunny afternoons, scraping the surfaces of their own creativity to invent many things that already exist in the world. Why not just start there? Sometimes it’s best to let the real thing speak to you. Sit by a lake, or on a mountaintop, or on a subway car. Look, listen, and feel. Take in the smells. See the big picture and the small details. And scribble a few notes as you do it. Think of your character sitting there, in the context of whatever their plight may be―because all characters have plights―and let them experience the scenery. You’ll be surprised to learn what they’re thinking, and all you’ll have to do is get it down on paper.

3 )  Go with the flow—literally. Watercolors, especially when applied to wet surfaces, will run in all directions. The trick is to enjoy the ride and let it happen. Add other colors and see what they do. It’s about fearlessness, because you are not in control here. This is hard for writers, who tend to be the most anal of the creative bunch. We choose writing because it’s easy to stop and examine our words, erase or backspace, and then rethink. Try not doing that. Go back to steps one and two (from this little instructional guide). Tell yourself the story, and open yourself to what your character is feeling. And when it becomes so real that it flows in your mind like your own memories, then sit down and let it out in one session. No stopping, no rewriting. 

4)  Use all the colors in your palette. Watercolors capture tremendous variation in color. The painting is layered, with the lightest colors applied first and building to darker tones, while leaving other areas simply untouched. Each color is made warmer or cooler as it darkens by using complimentary colors, which are allowed to “act” on previous layers. Nothing is simply one color, but a combination of shades. Trees may have green, yellow, orange, blue and purple, and so will water. The same is true in writing. No scene or paragraph is simply performing one function. It should have depth and color. Darks and lights. Warms and cools. If one sentence doesn’t absolutely shine, then look for other ways to express that idea with words that challenge each other, as this will make for a much more interesting read. (For example, a “cloudy day” becomes one where “the shadows of the sun fell unevenly on the sides of the houses, the color concentrated where the thick gray clouds allowed just a few rays of light to filter through…” 

5) Draw the eye to your subject.  Painting, especially watercolor painting, doesn’t try to recreate every single detail, but rather to suggest the entirety of the picture. Some things will be given great attention with individual brush strokes, while other parts of the painting may be rendered with large washes from a broad brush. This helps draw your eye to the part of the painting the artist wants you to see. When you write, you can’t give equal attention to every detail. Not only would it take forever to write, but you would lose the reader in the vast landscape of minutiae. You don’t want to slip into the “and then, and then, and then,” kind of writing. What you do want to do is set the scene with a broad wash of color―long descriptive sentences―and then jump into action with short, pointed phrases, as with fine brush strokes.

"Massawe Pie Pitchers" watercolor by Sandra Hildreth.

6) Organize your subject. Watercolorists edit nature. They group trees, add rocks, brighten sunlight, and heighten shadows. They change backgrounds and foregrounds and times of day and seasons, and combine landscapes to make new ones. A watercolor painting is entirely an “impression” of the moment as the artist views it, whether the subject is a person or a basket of fruit. Similarly, the best fiction writing doesn’t merely report the story, but it organizes the information, steering us toward the elements that will paint a picture in the reader’s mind very close to the author’s imaginings.

7) Paint a written picture.  This really summarizes what I’ve been saying all along: you have to approach the whole of your written piece as you would a painting. You are literally taking mental pictures from your own mind, complete with millions of details, and translating them into words. Those words then travel from the page or screen to persons unknown who reassemble the picture in their own minds. And so often, what appears at the other end bares no resemblance to the original image. Remember, at its core, writing is essentially a visual medium. Use the tools of visual artists to enhance what you are trying to say and it will get much easier.

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Take your writing all the way–to completing your first novel or screenplay–at the “Write Your Heart Out” women’s weekend workshop July 9-12, 2011 in the spectacular Adirondacks. Using natural settings, we will explore ways to bring out your voice and enhance and extend the boundaries of your creative writing.  We’ll specifically focus on bringing dimension and natural momentum to longer pieces (such as novels and screenplays) through character development, dialogue, and expository writing.

To make it easy, the workshop is set on the beautiful shores of Lake George at the historic Wiawaka Holiday House Women’s Retreat. Registration is limited to provide the optimum experience for all participants and the chance for everyone to get personal appraisals and guidance to complete their first major written work.  Please go to the camp website  (July 9-12, 2011) for more information, and to reserve your space.

The watercolor painters  whose work is represented here live and work in the quintessential arts enclave of Saranac Lake, NY, just outside of Lake Placid. Their work is available for sale on the following sites:

Sandra Hildreth and Suzanne Lebeda are both members of the Adirondack Artists Guild; their  work is available through the Guild  website.  More of  Suzanne Lebeda’s work is also available via her own website.  

 Tim Fortune, a founding member of the AAG, works out of the Fortune Studio in Saranac Lake.

© 2011 Arts Enclave

One Cool Cobra on the Town

New York City’s most cultured denizen is now slithering along downtown visiting the hottest cultural venues–the one’s so many of us are missing. The Bronx Zoo Cobra that was rumored to have escaped yesterday is really just enjoying some R&R in the formerly–and to many still–Greatest City on Earth.

He’s been tweeting his observations from the Guggenheim and Metropolitan Museums, he’s toured the Empire State Building and visited Wall Street. Follow the new NYC tour guide through the underbelly of  the city to see what really makes it great: ART and CULTURE.

This cobra ain’t never leavin New York!