Listen carefully to first criticisms of your work. Note carefully just what it is about your work that the critics don’t like-then cultivate it. That’s the part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.
-Jean Cocteau
Note: A reader emailed a request I write about bringing beauty and creativity to nursing practice. Here goes…
Nurse as Sisyphus by jparadisi 2012
Finding beauty and creativity in our daily lives is vital for happiness. Art is a path along which the breadcrumbs leading us to both are found. This statement seems pretentious in a society cutting the study of art (music, dance, literature, painting, and drawing) from its educational system, regarding it no more necessary than so much fat sucked away through liposuction. Access to art is also eroding: on a recent trip, my husband and I paid $15 each for admittance to an art museum. Without funding, art, like health care, may soon be accessible to a decreasing number of people.
Art is essential in bringing beauty and creativity to nursing practice because it provides the humanitarian tools needed to find self-worth in a job that is complex, and often overwhelming, with waves of life and death crashing over our heads. It’s easier to empty a bedpan if you consider Prometheus and his love of humanity while you clean. For other nursing tasks, the punishment of futility dealt to Sisyphus perhaps comes to mind more often. The longevity of Shakespeare’s plays speaks to their grasp of human psychology and motivation.
Art and literature provide archetypes we can apply to our modern lives. Excluding the arts from a life science curriculum leaves us searching for meaning without a compass. The ability to apply meaningful ideas from art and literature to our daily lives promotes sustainable happiness.
Connecting patient care to images from art and literature fuels my writing and painting. It protects me from burnout. I credit it with the fact I still love being a nurse twenty-five years after becoming one. In the words of James M. Barrie,
“It is not in doing what you like, but in liking what you do that is the secret of happiness.”
I’ve posted a new blog at TheONC: How to Assess Whether You Need Creative Resuscitation.
The old studio had charming, arched windows. photo: jparadisi 2012
In December, I moved my studio. Construction needs of the landlord required vacating a few art studios, including mine. Fortunately, another was available in the same building. The caveat: I couldn’t move in until December 1, and had to vacate the old studio by December 31, 2011. Between holiday busy-ness, and increased census at work, I threw everything haphazardly into boxes, dumped them equally haphazardly into the new studio, and locked the door.
After the holidays, selling art, a new writing opportunity, and knitting socks distracted me.
This is the third studio I’ve rented since making that commitment to my art. I prefer studios in romantic old buildings. These often change owners, require new construction, or are torn down altogether. Renting studios adds a Bedouin characteristic to an otherwise stable life. In true nomadic spirit, I schlep boxes of art supplies, broken pieces of junk I hope to transform into art supplies, empty yogurt cups for mixing paint, notes from art school, good work from my student days, poor work from my student days, several unfinished paintings I intend to return to, and the equivalent of a paper ton in past issues of Art Forum, Art News, Modern Painters, Women in the Arts, and Cabinet magazines.
Now it is nearly March, and I begin the onerous task of organizing a new studio.
Opening its door, I confirm no “studio elves” have magically transformed my stuff into an organized workspace. Studio elves exist; they are called interns. They work for free, but you have to be a famous artist to have one. Or, if you are rich, they are called studio assistants. You have to pay them. I cannot afford one.
Friends offered to help, but I turned down their offers. The truth is, I want to sort through the fossils of my art life with the care of an archeologist. I’m not sure what I hope to find, but here’s some random thoughts I had while hauling bags of yogurt cups to the recycle bin:
My new studio is brilliantly illuminated by skylights. photo: jparadisi 2012
Obviously, this is a metaphor. Ideas and beliefs no longer serving us gather like old junk behind a closed door while we are distracted by new experiences. We lug them home and to work where they sabotage us. They are heavy, dragged from place to place, taking up space better occupied by a richer life.
I don’t write for children. I write, and someone says, “That’s for children.”
My job is to comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable.
-anonymous
What Success Looks Like, After via, via, via, via ...Facebook 2011 by jparadisi
Recently one of my friends on Facebook posted a drawing about success. I took the liberty of drawing a copy of it. In art school, copying the drawing of another artist, particularly a dead one, is acceptable if you write “After and insert name of the artist whose work you copied following the title of the drawing. In nursing, copying a written policy of another institution or department by using it as a template is legitimized by the phrase, “Don’t reinvent the wheel.” My point, is this: I copied the above drawing from an unidentified artist on Facebook, because it illustrates the path of success. Maybe not the path of your success, but certainly mine, and that of many artists, writers, and nurses.
The definition of success has plagued creative and ambitious people since, well, the invention of the wheel. Is success defined by external validation from society in the form of wealth, fame, and Klout score? Or is it generated within the individual, an internal sense of satisfaction derived from knowing that what one contributes holds merit, whether society recognizes it or not? This brings to mind the contrast between the fictional character Ebenezer Scrooge, who’s myopic vision of success impoverished his soul, and the nonfictional, archetypical starving artist Vincent van Gogh, living in poverty for the sake of his art. Both had destructive relationships with success. A similar disparity exists in nursing, which demands intellect, critical thinking, and expensive educations as avenues of success, but offers limited career paths and varying financial incentives in return. Nevertheless, nursing’s contributions to society, and those of artists, are not diminished, though some find it difficult reconciling commercial success with creativity, or caregivers.
While writing posts for this blog, I ponder the meaning of success. Success as a blogger, writer and artist is often hidden in the squiggles, but it is not lost in them. The blog bears fruit. It has attracted opportunities for the sale of my stories and artwork. Moreover, within the squiggles I have discovered an Internet community of artist, writer, nurse companions, and like-minded readers through blogging. With such camaraderie, getting lost in the squiggles becomes a camping trip instead of The Exodus.
If you are a passionate blogger, artist, or nurse currently lost in the squiggles on the Road to Success, keep going. You are not alone.
photo: jparadisi 2011
Grow old with me, the best is yet to be.
Robert Browning
Matt Lamb is an internationally recognized artist who uses his fame and resources promoting world peace. Umbrellas for Peace is one avenue of this global pursuit. I have not had the pleasure of meeting Mr. Lamb, but I have read his biography Matt Lamb: The Art of Success, by Richard Speer. Drawn to his story of finding his voice as an artist after a serious health crisis, and leaving a lucrative career, I found many of Mr. Lamb’s insights about life, death, and creativity resonated within me, a nurse, cancer survivor, and artist. I posted a comment on his blog, thanking him for sharing his story.
Last night, I was pleasantly surprised to find that Matt Lamb wrote a post about my work as an artist and a nurse. His respect for both professions is clear, and I am appreciative of his generosity and kind words. Be sure to check his art, his blog, and Like his Facebook page.
