The artist date.
written by Julie R. Neidlinger 1 comments link this postThe concept of the "artist's date" sounded so lovely the first time I read about it in Julia Cameron's The Artists Way.
What is an artist's date? According to this web site1, it's:
- A commitment of time spent on yourself once a week.
- Time spent solely on you -- no companions allowed.
- A date with your inner-artist, or your inner-child.
Odd. Apparently my whole life has been one selfish artist's date.
I was first attracted to Julia Cameron's book because of her first name.
I'm not kidding.
Beyond that, her self-description (poet! playwright! novelist! filmmaker! composer!) attracted me because I've always wished I were a polymath, even in the loosest, most lazily modern sense of the word.
Alas, I'm merely a selfish artist, dating myself.2
I've got a fine collection of books like Cameron's, books to help me be more creative, a better artist, and a better writer. Prompts! Ideas! Suggestions! Organizational tips! Motivational lists! In the end, after reading so many of them, they seemed to be the artsy version of the "You Go Girl You Be A Diva Reward Yourself Clairol You're Worth It" line of thinking. Which bores me. Anyone can pander to selfishness and sell books. Do we really need to encourage people to spend more time on themselves? I mean, really?
I'm pretty good at naturally wanting to look out for Number One.
I'm sorry to say, but my "inner child" and "inner artist" are generally nasty little petty creatures prone to ruining my life. What's inner had better exist outer or I'll just end up...dating myself.
I pretty much just want to watch Murder, She Wrote, and call it a day. And come up with my own theories and systems for creating.
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1 The photo featuring the clown with the balloons that is found illustrating the article on artist's dates is very wrong.
2 In non-Seinfeldian ways.
Labels: art life, writing life
Copyright (c) Julie R. Neidlinger 10/04/2007 11:59:00 PM
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1 Comments:
Robert Frost wrote, "I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world."
I can see a little truth in that. But it's pretty melodramatic. It's worth knowing that Frost's own relationships (with humans, not abstractions) weren't the best. Maybe he could've worked on that quarrel too.
By 
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October 05, 2007 8:00 PM
