Claim the Artist’s Parallel Life

Do you call yourself an artist?

After spending the month of June in an online gathering led by author-choreographer-activist Andrew Simonet, I’ve been giving this question a lot of consideration. Andrew had us investigating the sustainable path – the ways we can live in the world while devoting ourselves to one or more creative practices. Claiming our status as artists is fundamental to this investigation.

While I was taking Andrew’s course, I was also drafting a chapter I’m contributing to a book Eric Maisel is editing, about the unfulfilled relationship between artists and psychotherapists. (Artists In Crisis: Rethinking the Mental Health Challenges of Creative and Performing Artists is forthcoming from Ethics International Press.)

The coincidence was brilliant. When the four weeks with Andrew and the group had ended, and I had turned in my chapter to Eric, I felt on firmer ground. I saw two things clearly: Being an artist is wonderful, not a source of shame. And we’re in this together.

The artist’s parallel life

To set aside time and energy for art, especially when it’s at the expense of more typically expected activities, may not be the norm. Yet it’s what artists must do, in order to do what we do, as much as we can. This is what I mean by living the artist’s parallel life. Artists live a second life, alongside the regular one that we all experience. Contrary to a stereotype, it does not require turning into an art monster or starving in a garret. It does probably mean making some tough decisions, turning away from most or all social media, and saying “No” more than your inner people-pleaser might prefer.

color photo of two six-paned windows, side by side in an exterior wall painted a deep blue-gray. The window on the right has one of the six panes (the middle pane on the left) flung open, to the side.

Let the sun shine in.
Image by Moshe Harosh from Pixabay

As a creativity coach, I notice that some of the deepest, most useful work between the client and me touches on this parallel life that we artists live. Consequently, one of my most valuable contributions to a session is the simple reminder: “What you do matters.”

Faced with the everyday late-stage capitalism in this corner of the world, it can be a struggle just to set aside time. A struggle to remember how to shift focus to inner sources of inspiration, rather than defaulting to more consumerism. A struggle to justify our commitment to work that isn’t – and may never become – profitable. A struggle to get the sustenance we need. And so on.

Changing my offerings

One of the results of this creativity intensive I’ve been immersed in is my decision to shift my professional offerings. When I reopen the doors in the fall – I’m taking a summer break from client work – I’ll be providing shorter-term services to a variety of creative artists.

For example, recently, I worked with a photographic artist in a series of four brief coaching sessions focused on taking the next steps toward embracing the life of a professional artist and engaging purposefully with the marketplaces for her art. The artist responded enthusiastically, and I had a blast participating in the shift, witnessing change as it unfolded.

I’m looking forward to offering more of these kinds of quick, focused coaching sessions, starting in mid-September.

Summertime plans

Meanwhile, over the summer, I’m devoting my time and energy to resting, and exploring different ways of sustaining my own creative life, now and into the future. There’s space and time for writing sentences. And the music-writing equipment, with its spaghetti of cables and wires, is once again operational after more than a year’s neglect.

It’s paradoxical, I realize, that one reason I can afford to take this break is that I worked too hard, for too long, toward the priorities and goals of other people during my twenties, thirties, and forties. My own creative life would have looked different, and I might well have more accomplishments to look back on now, had I provided myself more balance, and treated the artist’s parallel life with more respect during those years.

Your time budget

For those of you who can afford some repose now, I encourage you to offer it to yourself, with gratitude. For those of you who cannot practically make bold changes to your time allocations, it may be worth apportioning a little time to the “time budget” and other exercises in Andrew Simonet’s Making Your Life as an Artist Workbook. Andrew, founder of Artists U, is a generous leader who makes a PDF of this book available as a low-cost or free download (on a sliding price scale).

color photograph of a stack of silver-colored coins in the foreground, with a round wall clock out of focus in the background

How does an artist budget their time?
Image by Steve Buissinne from Pixabay

As you’ll see, he takes the position that artists are geniuses who can solve problems better, more effectively, and less expensively, than people immersed in the traditional world of business and capitalism. You’re likely to gain some confidence just reading his words, and more from digging into the exercises he provides. Going through the workbook in a small group with other artists will make the experience richer, with the added potential for longer-term mutually nourishing relationships.

What we do matters

Since taking Andrew’s course, I’m more inclined to view our struggles as collective ones, which is itself empowering. Together, we’ve got so much energy, so many ideas, so many out-of-the-box solutions, that there may, after all, be some hope remaining. Together, each one of us may find it easier to claim the artist’s parallel life and to declare, “What I do matters.”

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