Artists and Other Endangered Species (Notes from a composing fellowship residency)
Ucross. Light. Time. Hills. Non-human companionship. Human conversation (limited). Safety. And the FOOD. Beautiful, soulful, nutritious, abundant, gorgeous.
I cannot offer a sound bite about how much this experience means to me, how magical the moments, how lucky I am.
No, for me this is a back-from-the-edge-of-artistic-extinction moment. I’ve been put back onto the Endangered Species List where at least I can safely rest. My time at the Ucross Foundation Campus amounts to a transcendent intervention, a last minute pardon from the gallows. It is nothing short of a mythic rescue from the falling, falling, falling into the morass of conventional busyness.
An artist can be busy. An artist can be productive. People can look at an artist, see work, and say, “She is creative.” But an artist cannot make authentic work unless she knows who she is. Perhaps she doesn’t always experience it this way. She is constantly floundering to find out. But from time to time, from rock to rock crossing the stream, she must know her own specific gravity in her bones. Her first artistic duty is to loyally and carefully follow the trajectory of who she was born to be.
Grizzly bears cannot thrive while constantly being harangued and harassed, pursued, persecuted, interrupted. In the physical and psychic realms, we put ourselves in great danger if collectively we hold no space for the Great Bear and other relative rarities, including artists. In the real word we misunderstand art and mishandle the gift, mostly by way of bobbling at the receiving end. But also by the constant encroachment on habitat, the ceaseless interruption of process.
At Ucross, there is healthy habitat for artists. There is quiet and a respect for process. There is the nuts-and-bolts nurturing of good (really good) food. Perhaps most important, there are other members of the group. There is not an animal, even the Great Bear, who can survive entirely alone.
I will not offer a sound bite. The meaning and depth of this experience is rich and complex. This place is no less than a monastery. The genius elements, large and small, alchemically combine to create a place of active rest. A place where art can be born, live, and ultimately pass into the collective body of work upon which we all draw daily, whether we know it or not.