Terms of Endearment – Patron

And notes on creativity as a practice.

Patron = Pat Ron

_{(an additional pat on the head to everyone who supports the work of artists)}

Yesterday, while discussing a conceptual art project that would take thousands of dollars to execute, my friend says to me smiling, “Ron’s your patron.” I think she meant how he’s been covering our household while my day job’s income tanked but my fire for life and making stuff has approached top velocity. I’ve been blessed with time every day to write and make art, and that’s largely due to his support.

Ron hasn’t complained about covering me, he just mutters something about how “the world needs people who do what you do.”

I found this view surprising, and honestly, never thought about how the world needs the work of artists. I beginning to notice how Musicians, Visual Artists, Writers, Poets, Actors and Filmmakers – the folks who bring inner experience and channeled inspirations into form – are more important than ever.

You know, with the fascism and all.

It’s a practice, not a talent, nor a gift.

If I could repeat something here, it would be that no one will ever really give you permission to make things, even if you have a patron. And even with support, it still takes daily courage to keep being honest in your process. We’ve been well trained to utilize our creative gifts in service of commerce, to support civil communities that only wriggle inside known patterns, to build stuff people will approve of and buy… and we are nudged to sublimate the rest.

Using your creativity in service of society is not the same as creating because your soul compels you to.

Some of the things that have grown you into the brave being you are today aren’t pretty, or will make sense to anyone but you. This is okay, that’s what the process of crafting ideas into form is for. It is a healing modality, a bridge between heart, soul, darkness, mind, and body. The process needs every aspect of you to be great, but it never needs to make sense in any particular way to be worthy of existence.

So, I hope to give you a supportive prompt today, to practice. To make something, anything, tiny or mighty, that comes straight from your down deep burning, buried soul, or your high-flying, cosmic kind of sprawl. Any form will do. I use my out-of-date phone to make much of my new work, because ultimately, the medium doesn’t matter. No huge studio or even the finest tools or materials will make you an artist… the only thing that will is you making matter that matters to you.¹

Thanks Ron and thank you to the patrons of the ages, without whom we would not have many of the greatest works that have helped so many of us move forward in difficult times and boring, ordinary days.

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FOOTNOTES

1. I’ve been lightly obsessed about bringing consciousness confections into matter. It’s a heck of a process with loads of energy stored in the pieces you make. See this post if you want to explore some more. ↩︎