Embracing Limitations

Aden called to me from the office last night. "Come look at this, mom," she urged. "My art teacher showed it to us." It was after 7pm, I had a dishtowel in one hand and a greasy pork chop pan in the other, and I frankly did not want to look at anything other than my novel. But Aden can be a source of inspiration, and the TED talk she showed me was worth not just one viewing, but two. I've been thinking ever since about the surprising art and worldview of Phil Hansen, as explained in this talk http://philinthecircle.com/speaking.html.

A quick summary for those of you too busy to watch the ten-minute video right now; Hansen developed nerve damage in his hands after too many hours of working on pointilism, his favored art technique. His shaky hands soon made it impossible to do the type of art he loved, or any familiar style of art, so he quit art school and had a dark night of the soul - for three years. When Hansen finally decide to return to art he first saw a neurologist to see if his shaky hands could be fixed. The neurologist told him no, that the damage was permanent, and advised him to "embrace the shake."

The rest of the talk unfolds quickly as Hansen features many of his amazing new works, drawn, painted, blowtorched or etched on various mediums. He talks about how embracing our limitations can enhance our creativity, and how in a world where we are frequently paralyzed by a multitude of choices, getting "back in the box" can help us create freely. Hansen's words reminded me forcibly of a therapy session I had over the phone perhaps 18 months ago, when I was starting to heal but still wildly unsure of what I had left to contribute to the world. The bracing voice on the phone aked me: "what do you love to do?" and I said "write. . . . but I can't sit still for long and I can't even look at a computer screen for too long because it makes my head worse, so I don't see how I can be a writer."  She took me to task, and insisted that my preference for writing in short bursts could work to my advantage. "Write poetry," she said, "or pursue your blog entries and compile them into a book one day. No one said you have to sit down for eight hours a day to be a writer."

So, embracing my limitations became a source of my creativity. I'm still writing this blog and you're still reading it. Perhaps one day it will be a part of something larger . . . or perhaps not. The rest of Hansen's talk covers "letting go,"  but I'll leave that for next time.