{"id":773,"date":"2024-01-18T08:45:00","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T14:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/doartproductions.org\/?p=773"},"modified":"2024-01-26T15:08:21","modified_gmt":"2024-01-26T21:08:21","slug":"drawing-in-front-of-others","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doartproductions.org\/staging\/2101\/drawing-in-front-of-others\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Look at Me! Drawing in Front of Others"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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He wanted to play a song for us, but first he told us to get out of the room.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was visiting a friend in Austin, TX.  Her 5 year old son\u2013as passionate, brilliant, and tempestuous as any 5 year-old I\u2019ve ever met\u2013had seized on her red guitar.  He\u2019d seen her start to play it as he emerged from his bedroom, and immediately wanted to play himself.  So he sat in an armchair and told us to get out of the room as my friend set the guitar\u2013bigger than he was\u2013on his lap.  He plucked at the strings as best he could, his little fingers sounding out notes by intuition, as my friend and I listened from the hallway.  We\u2019d clap when he was done, but we were not<\/em> allowed to look at him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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\"Chet<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

All at once I found myself flashing back to the first time I\u2019d played piano.\u00a0 I was her son\u2019s age, or younger, visiting my grandma.\u00a0 She had an old upright piano in her living room, a well-loved piece of equipment that few people in my family could actually play.\u00a0 One of my earliest memories is of sitting on the piano bench, feeling the keys with my fingers, colliding notes much as my friend\u2019s son would do almost thirty years later\u2013not attempting to make anything like a \u201csong\u201d or even a melody.\u00a0 Rather, I\u2019d play a note, and then another note, and if the crash of the notes together awakened something in me I\u2019d try to recreate it, then again, and then again, until I got bored and started to feel around for some other collision of notes that would excite me.\u00a0 Then, when I found something I really<\/em> like, I\u2019d call for my grandma in the other room.\u00a0 I wanted her to hear what I\u2019d done, I wanted her approval, but as with my friend\u2019s son she was not<\/em> to actually watch me do it.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Performer’s Jitters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Almost everyone who has to suddenly shift to making art in the privacy of one\u2019s own studio to producing art IN FRONT OF other people will probably understand the petulance of these two children.\u00a0 There is something that happens<\/em> when other people enter our creative space.\u00a0 Words that once came easily to us suddenly fly out the window.\u00a0 Long-practiced movements become clunky.\u00a0 The freedom and sense of power<\/em> we had when we were alone is replaced by insecurity, and if our eyes dare to look out to the crowd, even friendly eyes can suddenly appear distant and judgmental.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n

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\"Graphic,<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
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