The Lardner Report

Unleash your creative superpowers!

Losing Focus: It’s A Good Thing

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(Pic #1) Sharp focus – dull image.

“Focus!”  We hear it from teachers, coaches, bosses even spouses.

“Focus!” Put all extraneous thoughts out of your head and concentrate on the task at hand.  Focus is that single-mindedness that allows us to achieve. Without it, the greatest of intentions often disappear into the mist of fanciful daydreams. Focus can be your best friend when you are vigorously attacking your to-do list. But it can be your worst enemy when it comes to creating art.

Don’t get me wrong, attention to detail is important in art, and I suppose that requires some focus, but the engine that drives the artist is creativity, and that often requires the exact opposite of focus. It requires letting your mind run free, tuning into the seemingly random, unconnected sights and sounds that inspire great art.

Often the focused, crystal clear view of the world can mask an incredible universe of beauty that emerges when we blur our vision a bit.

(Pic #2) Sparing the details: the beauty of losing focus

In Kindergarten, I remember asking my best friend Tana Klugherz if she could “look blurry-eyed” at something – and do it on command, as I could. It was such a thrill to shift the world totally out of focus – into a palette of soft colors.  It turned everything into a lovely abstraction. Now I get to explore and change my view with technology and a good camera. Maybe not as fun – but still pretty magical.

On top of the page (Pic #1):  a shot of a bougainvillea branch in our backyard.  Nice photograph, well composed, perfectly in focus. No interpretation necessary, no imagination needed. Picture #2 (above) is almost exactly the same shot, but purposely out of focus.  Suddenly the colors and shapes become ethereal, suddenly they invite — in fact demand  — the viewer’s imagination.

Lose your focus — find your inner artist.

 

Lessons on Finding Your Joy And Just Going For It

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How my husband compared me to a goat… and it was a good thing.

Her name is Buttermilk, and she is a YouTube star. A precocious, ebullient, unstoppably joyful baby goat who’s excitement over being outside, being alive, just being a goat is a perfect example that you don’t necessarily have to look far to find your bliss. 

Buttermilk came my way in an e-mail from my husband. He sent me the link to the video with the subject line “You ARE Buttermilk!” See, that’s how he views me — capable of explosive excitement over the smallest things. That’s very sweet, and he’s right, but not completely. At my best, at my most “me” I am that goat, but too often I forget to be grateful for the sunny prednisone day, or the grass underneath my feet. I get bogged down by the assignment I haven’t yet completed, or the phone call I am dreading, or the Macy’s bill I know is on its way. And it’s not just my joy I allow to be foreclosed upon by those grown-up worries. It’s my creativity, my life force. 

So now when I feel the weight of responsibility closing in, I take a minute, and watch Buttermilk. She reminds me of the way I want to live. Unfettered, unafraid, full speed ahead. The Hell with Spartacus — “I am Buttermilk!” 

P.S:  My husband insists he is the black goat knocked on his butt by Buttermilk’s exuberance, but that’s a different post altogether.

 

Knowing When To Stop

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Guest post by Josh Kaplan

Did you ever watch Happy Days? I always used to be so envious of the Fonz, his confidence, his certainty that he was the absolute coolest guy in the room. Watch.

Everyone in this scene is trying to make sure they look their best before going out to face the world. Everyone except the Fonz. He takes one look and realizes nothing could improve on what he is seeing in the mirror.

Not many of us ever feel that way.

When you have been married long enough, you begin being able to understand the complex emotional tableau hidden in a simple word or phrase. One example in my house is the word “f**k.” When spoken forcefully, when it is the only word in the sentence, when it is delivered not with anger, but dissapointment, and self-recrimination, usually means only one thing. “I was working on a painting – it was really working, but I kept painting, kept adding layers, trying to make it perfect, and now it sucks.”  I’ve been through this with Lonnie a hundred times. It’s not unique to her, it is part of the yin and yang that lives close to the surface in any creative person’s soul.  The inner-critic, the subconscious naysayer that can cripple artistic expression.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for self-criticism. Bad things can happen when an artist reaches a point where the ability to judge one’s own work is silenced by success, or ego, or Jack Daniels. If you are looking for a tangible example, listen to a couple minutes of the Beatles “You Know My Name.” (Listen below.)

I think we would have all been better served if Lennon/McCartney had listened to a whispering voice of self-doubt.

But that’s an exception, for the most part our “inner critic” is just a roadblock between us and artistic viagra creation.

Yesterday, I saw what I considered a watershed moment in my house. One of the things Lonnie likes to do, is take one of my photographs, and use it as the literal canvas for one of her abstract pieces. Here’s an example  (Pic #1) — a shot I took of a rusty old bumper at a local junkyard.

(Pic #1) Left: Close-up, bumper 1940s era truck. Right: Same photo, w/Neocolor crayon markings

I love when she turns one of those quick unremarkable grab shots into something so much more interesting with just a few strokes of a crayon.

(Pic #2) Close-up photo of rattan roof - ripped, applied to canvas.

Earlier this week, she became intrigued by a shot I took of the rattan covering on our patio. Again, unremarkable. Her plan was to tear away the unnecessary parts, glue it to a canvas, and paint around it. When I next saw the photo, it was in fact, ripped along the edges, and glued to canvas. It was also hanging on the wall, a finished piece without benefit of any greater artistic embellishment. She had stopped along the way, looked at it, and decided that simple was better, that nothing more needed to be done, and pronounced the work complete. BREAKTHROUGH!

She took the time to breathe, to live with the artwork for awhile and silence the voices always screaming at her to do more.  Maybe those voices will be replaced by other ones, more supportive ones. Maybe in the meantime they’ll just be supplanted by a simple mantra: STOP. JUST STOP FOR A LITTLE WHILE.  Give yourself time to appreciate how good the piece really is, before you race to make it better. You may find it was like Fonzie’s hair — perfect all the while.