How has lockdown been for you? Have you finally found the time to get down to your creative passions or have you run into an impasse? It’s not easy and I freely admit that, amidst the liberal creative play that I now enjoy on a daily basis, there have been times when all I could manage was bingeing on Netflix or gazing distractedly into the sky. This virus is scary and news is chaotic in terms of weighing up the real facts. My strategy has been self-isolation with my composer husband Michael and our border terrier Tristan. A few days into the lockdown it dawned on me that although this is a time of terrible unexpected tragedy my creative being was feeling very alive and open to the idea of new creative possibilities. Every upcoming performance I am involved with is cancelled: my opera Artemisia, my commission for Spitalfields Festival. Instead lies an extended period of time in which I can really search inwards. This is an unprecedented opportunity to open up to an inner space though a:
Liminal dream-like state. This leads on to allowing myself to take up unexpected directions and engage with creative flow. The key to its motivation and effectiveness is to allow myself to be playful. Therefore as soon as I took up this approach I realised that setting specific project objectives was a mistake. Instead I have decided to use this unique opportunity as a way to see where zany ideas may lead. On a practical level I set up my recording studio in the loft in my home in North Norfolk. I already paint there. I made sure that I could see the beautiful field view from my computer desk, replenished my paint supply, stretched a large canvas, gathered fire wood for the wood burner, burnt wild sage and created a shrine in the niche of the loft’s entrance. Situating a double bed under the velux windows allows for extended moments of sky gazing and doing nothing. Feeling fully relaxed and being receptive to each moment is now available because I don’t have to rush to get to a city or another country for a gig, a presentation, a pitch.
This state is what I have been waiting for all my life, but it was never going to happen because I normally use my drive to power me through. Perhaps I do this because I feel direction gives my life meaning. Don’t get me wrong, I am not knocking drive but rather than fighting with the reality of the current situation I have laid myself open to the idea of Wu-Wei or letting go as suggested in Zen. Flexible thinking I am discovering is very powerful and inadvertently has already led to an invitation to perform online in America. In creative flow playing and mucking around rules. To strive for discernible goals at the moment is rather tenuous anyway. Alongside my artistic indulgences I also set out to facilitate the creation of a beautiful composing studio for Michael in a separate space. Immediately I saw him transform in a new and vibrant way.
My Loft Studio
Then one afternoon last week Michael sent me an email titled: Some Deep Thought About Jungian Psychology...
Western man, Jung saw, always wants to do something, to “get somewhere”; this kind of restlessness is characteristic of us all. A few years later, when Jung met the Pueblo chief Ochwiay Biano during his trip to Taos, he told Jung that the whites were always dissatisfied, and that this led to their cruelty. The kind of consciousness Jung encountered in North Africa was content with what is. At an oasis, Jung felt that “everything here was exactly the way it should be and the way it had always been.”28 Westerners usually feel this only after a few drinks or under the influence of drugs, hence their popularity. We find it inordinately difficult to relax, but what Jung found in North Africa was a consciousness that allowed the ego to slow down and sink into the warm embrace of the unconscious, as if after perpetually treading water, we suddenly discovered we could float.
― Gary Lachman, Jung the Mystic: The Esoteric Dimensions of Carl Jung's Life & Teachings
Jung suggests that being driven can lead to a form of internal capitalism whose primary goal is to quantify and package. In contrast the arts have the potential to create universal connection with the artist performing the role of an intermediary vessel between universal human need and available materials.
...the shaman descends to the underworld to find a cure, not just for his or her own psychic wounds but for those of all the community.
Small, 1998: p180
Shrine to Art: Self 2020.
Curiously meaningful and powerful art often emanates from artists who abandon success and financial reward as a primary objective. Instead the motivation becomes the desire to push out the question ‘what if I do this now?’ The painter Van Gogh and composer Charles Ives both earned virtually nothing from their output yet ultimately they became key players in their fields. The power of art making is therefore so much bigger than money or internal capitalism, likewise so are we as human beings. This is why we demand a free NHS and that is why we really need the arts to nurture our lives. As a creator I am holding two qualities:
1. Allow myself to play at all times and not stress about a result.
2. Be receptive to receivers by creating socially interactive work.
Lockdown has resulted in what should have been done by publicly funded organisations decades ago: Allow free online access to performances so that productions for example from the National Theatre and Royal Opera House are available to people who live too far away or who cannot afford to watch their productions on a live stream in a cinema. This leads to art being socially inclusive with the potential to increase our humanity and make a better society. Returning to my newfound liminal space, here is a link to one of my lockdown installations: Island Dream. It comprises smooth vocals and synths composed and sung by myself with video footage from my kayak in the North Sea. The 3-minute installation ends with the word Sadika which means a woman of good deeds in Sanskrit and Hebrew.
Click on this link to view https://vimeo.com/409182248https://vimeo.com/409182248
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