ART: ‘BE NOT AFRAID!’. . . PART I

‘Be Not Afraid!’ For thousands of years this simple three word statement has been uttered innumerable times by those who are considered to be wise. My son, Nathan, is about to enter into his third year of graduate school; you might remember, gentle reader, that he is a ceramicist. He has been thinking of the theme his work might take this year; he is also thinking of those who will gather to criticize his work. One critic, a critic with a number of ‘voices,’ resides within his heart; the others reside within his academic and non-academic world.

Any of us who offer our selves – our work, our ideas, our creations, our innovations, etc. – carry real and imagined critics with us. If we listen we hear a veritable chorus of voices – some are voices we remember hearing years ago, others are voices that have recently spoken to us and some are the voices we expect (or fear) to hear in the near future. When we are feeling good about ourselves – as persons and as professionals – we manage these voices well (or well enough). When we are in doubt we are open to becoming fear-full; ‘Be Not Afraid!’ becomes a pretty phrase.

Whenever we take the risk and share our ‘truth,’ our ‘beauty,’ or our ‘goodness’ we become vulnerable to our inner critic and to one or more critics that reside in our, or in ‘the,’ world. Because it is ‘our self’ that we are revealing through our work or art it is nearly impossible for us not to take any criticism personally. How could we not take it personally?

Each of us is unique; each of us is ‘different.’ Early on in our life we are challenged with embracing who we are; we are challenged with ‘not being afraid’ to accept and embrace who we are. My sense is that each of us has felt the pain of being different and the fear that accompanies that pain. As an adult – an artist, a professional, a parent, etc. – if we embrace our uniqueness and if we choose to ‘follow our heart’s desire’ we might well be misunderstood by the other(s). If we become fear-full we might well dampen or suffocate the fires of our passion and when the fire goes out we fill with dense smoke and suffocate from within (gentle reader, you might well know someone who has suffocated from within).

As human beings we want to be accepted (being shunned is one of the great destroyers of our humanness). Even more so, we want to be ‘understood.’ Acceptance and Understanding are affirmations we need as human beings. When we offer ourselves, via our work, to our world we have to embrace a dual risk: our work (that is, ‘we’) will not be accepted nor understood. We might be labeled ‘different.’ The paradox, of course, is that we are, indeed, different; we are unique – there is no other like us. Paradoxically, if we are ‘ourselves’ then we are out of the norm (consider if you will, that the ‘norm’ is composed of folks who have given up their uniqueness).

There is a reason why for thousands of years the wise ones have kept iterating and reiterating these three words – it is truly a daunting challenge to accept and embrace and live into and out of our uniqueness. As my son enters into his third year and as he searches to find and emerge the theme of his work for the year I offer him (and you and me) these simple words: ‘Be Not Afraid!’