Contributor: “Dr. J”Dr. J offers his irreverent, slightly irrelevant, but possibly useful opinions on health and fitness. A Florida surgeon and fitness freak with a black belt in karate, he runs 50 miles a week and flies a Cherokee Arrow 200.
From my earliest memories, I have had an interest in art and its various media.
I was raised in the Chicago area and remember many trips to the Art Institute of Chicago. They had a large collection of paintings from the Impressionists through the modern era. Picasso and Dali were my favorites! Picasso’s blue period, and Dali’s “Persistence of Memory” stand out in my mind.
As a child, when I thought about what I wanted to be when I grew up, I had two dreams. One was to be a doctor, and the other to be an artist! Since art was offered earlier in my schooling, and playing doctor was fraught with risks, I began my artistic voyage as soon as I could.
My slice of the creative pie
However, I was not very good. This never stopped me from trying to be an artist, and with years of practice, though I’m still not good, I have gotten a lot better!
In many ways, I have learned to hide my artistic deficiencies. Recently I had the occasion to be visited by a very good artist. In my opinion, he had no deficiencies. He was a portrait painter from California and had painted many famous people over the years. I must admit I was a bit nervous, as I felt with his talent, his time could be better spent.
I was quite surprised with his reaction to my work. He kept asking, “Where did you get that idea, and how did you think of using those colors?” as he was intrigued by my creativity. I realized that in art, as in many areas of life, most of us have a slice of the pie. It is the rare artist or individual who possesses the skills and the creativity of the whole pie!
Opening up to criticism
One of the early lessons I learned as an artist was that criticism seemed to play a large role in the art world. We have heard of art critics, but I don’t think I have ever heard of anybody having the job of a doctor or medicine critic! (And complaining about doctors does not count!)
Really, do any of us like being criticized? I had a friend who was taking an art appreciation course (they don’t call it artist appreciation for a reason). She asked me to bring in a piece I had done so “the class could criticize it.” Now there was something I was really looking forward to! Maybe we need mal-artist insurance, except for the artist, not the viewer.
Yet being open and vulnerable, whether to criticism, or to life, is so very important for all of us.
It can be hard, being the artist, putting your work out there for others to see and react to. I know people who have stopped doing art because they couldn’t take the rejections that come with that tender territory.
Does it hurt? It sure does. My work has been rejected more times than I care to remember, but I have never given up. Perhaps I have a poor memory. Perhaps the desire to be an artist chose me rather than the other way around, and I have no other choice. Nonetheless, the rewards of being creative, whether to exhibit in a gallery, or decorate my home, have been worth the voyage.
The photo that accompanies this column is my sculpture, “Take another piece of my art,” a reflection of my feelings on the vulnerability of the artist.
To be vulnerable is to be human
There is a price to pay for being unwilling to show vulnerability. It is a loss of the humanity that comes along with being real. It also involves the loss of opportunity. The opportunity to grow, to love, to be all that one can attain. Always playing it safe, never putting oneself out there, is very limiting. Safety is numbing. Life is for those who will take that chance, run that risk, go for the gold.
It is important to move through our fears. Often our greatest joys can be found on the other side of our greatest fears. I am reminded of a friend’s story about how her father’s greatest fear was that his beautiful daughter would get pregnant! Well, she did! Now her father has a granddaughter who is the apple of his eye!
Vulnerability is one of the more highly valued, authentic, mysterious and yet obvious characteristics that makes a human being human. It is necessary for our true human development. Vulnerability is that genuine human characteristic that rather than a weakness, is a strength. Never mistake softness for being weak.
After all, “Those who are willing to be vulnerable move among mysteries.” (Theodore Roethke)
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