Tiffany Chantel Studios

Art, Blasphemy, and Business

Okay, what is it with everyone wants to be an artist? I personally feel that we are all artistic... it's part of our birthright as human, co-creative beings.

However, I sense that art and marketing are intertwining in such a way that art is the cool new business strategy. The fallout is that our creative impulses are being driven by a business plan and business objective rather than a passion for creating beauty and commentary on the human condition.

There is an intrinsic connection between business, "art" and money, because to be financially successful, to eat, and pay bills, art must get sold. But it seems that art as a business concept has gotten out of hand. Andy Warhol was brilliant and very lucky. The avant-garde artist today, however, seems to just as likely have an MBA as an MFA, and sees art as a brilliant commodity rather than an angst-driven need. Perhaps its evidence that the artist is simply getting more savvy and independent, taking the business reigns into her own hands rather than paying for agent to help with such busy work.

Or is it because we are in America and here we expect to realize the great American dream of making millions, so we'll do it by whatever means seems market-friendly or predictive at the time? Perhaps we are channeling our creativity into conceiving of ways to make money rather than writing the next big opera... because, for some, making money is its own art form. Is this true? Is it enough? Will there ever be enough?

How do I experience my experience?

It is my experience that time is just enough when you use it in a way that serves the moment for the greater good on the path you tread. Forward motion is gained by letting each moment lead your steps. You can’t walk the 10th step if you are only on step number 2. That is the way of incremental progress. It is achieved by being in the Now and positioning yourself for what’s to come.

At work, being in the Now is alien to being locked by Fear. I have found in my years in business and marketing that many offices are ruled by Fear, or a distrust and a mechanization of the human factor. Perhaps a past event burned a bridge or singed a soft spot of indulgent understanding. Maybe you were overly personable with an underling causing a riff with other staff or, much worse, leading to a lawsuit.

For whatever reasons (low self-esteem, business insecurity, wobbly client relations, feeling under-appreciated), offices too often turn into microcosms of what the world does bad: mistreat its own. The concept of teamwork for many organizations is still a foreign term. Do they really know what it means? How do you apply the concept of “team” to excel in the workplace? We all know, actions speak louder than words.

Let's look at one of the most team-reliant realms this country knows: basketball. How, we must ask ourselves, would basketball ever "happen" if the players were backstabbing, manipulating, non-disclosing, or dis-enabling their teammates on the court? Sure, we all know a jocular jab or spiteful shove between players happens from time to time, but it’s not the norm. If it were the norm, there would be a lot of disembodied, disemboweled basketball ghost towns this side of the Atlantic. To run the play, sink the shot, make the playoffs, teams must be in sync, harmonize, communicate, and groove to the same shared tune of their common goal: success. Every player has a role, and every play calls on the strengths of its players in order to execute swift and graceful fake-out, body block and slam dunk action. In the flow of the game, in the rise of its passion, fear has no place here.

While adrenalin is ever-present in team sports, adrenalin and fear are not the same. With an aim to produce, adrenalin feeds, whereas fear taketh away. Fear is about lack, limits, seeing the dark side and the glass half empty. Adrenalin is pulsating passion directed at getting the job done. Adrenalin surging your veins is nature’s way of pumping you up and tuning your courage. Adrenalin is about creating. Fear is about destroying.

Music is much the same. Too much discordant, shrieking, withholding or poorly timed sound is not music it is agonizing noise. When the notes slip, seemingly effortlessly, into a natural rhythm, they interact, tickle one another, entwine, effervesce and embody melody. This is a case of cadence, pitch and sound working together as perfectly paired teammates to create something beautiful, even transcendent. It reminds us how brilliant our potential is.

For some unenlightened offices, the idea of “brilliant potential” is an alien, misty notion… and perhaps hasn’t yet materialized as a notion, so perhaps calling it one isn’t quite right for this example. The point is, some offices have not yet learned, based on how they run their enterprise, the ancient (some are so behind-the-times that they’re not quite human yet) concept of teamwork. This one word is based on the fact that the human race is, in fact, one gargantuan team of billions. Face it, whether you like to work alone (like I do sometimes) or in a room of 50 cohorts, we’re all on the same team playing the game of life. Denying this fact will cause a few, unfortunate outcomes:

1. You burn your bridges by mistrusting everyone around you and fail to seize opportunities with new, savvy business associates because you are locked in fear and low self-esteem, all of which lead your business to stagnate and never reach its full, incredible potential.
Season rank: An embarrassing 2nd to last place

2. You play to win only, which means that you create a stealth (constantly rotating) team organized to take over the industry of your own little niche, but in the process you run over staff, excise budget-conscious clients, work with shady dealers, and sacrifice your reputation as a humane, credible and earth-friendly enterprise. And, your stock plummets the moment you announce your plans to conquer markets in Europe, China and Australia. (No one likes a big fat business hog!)
Season rank: Sank from league leader to dead last

What does teamwork mean to you? Can you see its "brilliant potential" in your work environment? Like an orchestra ready for its premiere performance, “teaming it up” with balance and synergy can make all the difference between agonizing attrition and seismic success. Take the first step now and gather your group, communicate your shared mission and forge your path to greatness.

Intuitive Wisdom Comes to Town

Just when you begin to doubt that there really is universal wisdom, when you feel buried beneath a brownish gray heap of colluding, mixed up colors... a glint of harmony ushers in from no where.  Stop thinking. Let your shoulders drop. Exhale. Then inhale. You are floating in warm water in your mind. And you remember that this is actually your natural state of being, prenatal, post-life, and the hear and now. You merge with your timelessness. You feel the water flowing around you and then a sunbeam soothes your face with warm light. This is creative wisdom transmitting itself into you.

Currents of art, creativity and healing

What do art, creativity and the healing process have in common?

A:  They each express UNIVERSAL LIFE FORCE = ENERGY (aka, chi/qi/ki)

The core energy engaged in healing and making art is very similar, almost identical. Think of calligraphy -- have you seen the Chinese film called "Hero"? It came out on DVD two or three years ago. The film is like a ballet of flowing color and Kung Fu acrobatics filleting the air. The movements are based on, we learn in the story, the sacred art of calligraphy. The connection is both physical in that calligraphy brush strokes mimic the natural flow of universal energy, which is expressed in martial arts... and emotional in that the peace and serenity found when you are at peace with the brush is akin to what you feel when you are centered in this same energy in martial arts... or really just about any concentrated creative state.

When I paint, I can easily enter this kind of focused flow. It is like dipping into an altered mindset or dimension of reality in which you access your muse and dance. This is true of any creative experience, including the healing of body, mind and spirit.

I see healing as a return to bliss -- the organic, primeval quality of being at one with your soul. When you enter this awareness, your life energy, or qi, moves freely and naturally, dissolving any physical and imaginary blocks. Joy surfaces like a great whale cresting the ocean. There is no fear. There is no limitation. Nature is at peace within us and we express our unique magnitude, our art of living. Creating your life in this authentic way is really a healing process. Connect with this part of your being -- groove it, spoon it, love it, engage it -- and you create your healing experience.

Making art is transcendent, meaning its source is not of this world. Social living is based on the collective illusion of separation -- from self, nature, spirit, oneness. It seems to me that great art, great expression, to be achieved, must rise above the illusion of form and opinion to find its true, unadulterated voice. There is no judgment here, no condemnation, though some art produced is social, spiritual, political commentary. The process of getting it out, of birthing it begins in the emotional and energetic realm of our being, our passion to express. The form it takes is almost immaterial... except as a record of our creative process. This is art's eternal beauty.