When to Create by Feel
A few months ago, my brother and sister-in-law sent me a video of their daughter, my niece Mabel, dancing at her first recital, and I know it is a trite phrase but it is the most fitting: Mabel was born to dance.
Readers will wonder how reliable a narrator Old Aunt Callie is, so to make good on my sentimental overture, I’ll bring in other eye-witnesses.
“Look at this!” I said to Hadley, shoving my phone in her face one evening after she’d just walked in from soccer practice.
“WOAH,” Hadley said. “That’s Mabel?”
“You gotta see this!” I said to Harper, also shoving my phone in her face when she came home from swim practice.
“She’s really good!” Harper said.
“Good God!” Jesse said.
It was all very much a mountaintop experience. The four of us watched the video several times that day, smiling and so proud. I can’t say for sure, but I think Mabel compelled us to go about our days—music and soccer and homework and swimming and engineering and cooking and writing—with the same amount of vibrancy and delight and confidence as Mabel had when she is dancing.
And then the next day happened, and Harper realized on the way to swim practice that her contacts were in the wrong eyes and Hadley got a crummy grade on a test, and nobody wanted to cook anything because we were all tired from the day and there were no dishes to cook with because the dishwasher seems to have not been loaded or reloaded since the pandemic, and Jesse has more work then he has time for, and my writing seems to have stalled and the grace and joy, confidence and delight in our efforts were nowhere to be found.
One literal and also figurative mucky day, I read an essay from a friend an fellow writer Jenny Floyd, who went through a scary period where she’d been hospitalized due to loss of vision. She is OK now, but when her fear and vision were at their worst, she writes that she found herself thinking of the French painter and sculptor Edward Degas. “He also began losing his vision in his 40s,” Jenny writes. “This did not prevent him from continuing his creative work.” Jenny tells us that Degas “leaned into sculpture,” because “he could create by feel.”
Jenny too, has a daughter who dances with that same vibrancy and delight Mabel does, and she admits to her readers that she never thought she’d be a dance mom. She tells us how nervous she was before her daughter’s first performance: “Did I not prepare her at all for stage fright and what it’s like to be on the stage in front of people? Will she cry if she gets scared? If she makes a mistake?” None of this happened though, and the way Jenny tells it, I imagine my niece has a kindred spirit who dances with the same courage and spunk as one who was born to do it. “I’m understanding the grit and resilience that lies underneath it all. I never realized what it would be like to learn what it means to be courageous from my seven year old daughter.”
Degas too, had to have grit and resilience and courage, especially after he was losing vision. You would have to in order to create by feel. Jenny, whose daughter dances in a studio where Degas’ paintings hang, took a picture of her daughter dancing next to one of Degas’ paintings. She writes that she wouldn’t have seen this moment had it not been for her love of Degas’ work, and at the risk of sounding presumptuous, I don’t know if Jenny would’ve tied together her own story with Degas’ and her daughter’s had it not been for her loss of vision. I’m not suggesting that scary and awful things are actually gifts in disguise, but I do believe that when we are in dark situations, we have the choice to lean in and create by feel. Thank goodness for those who’ve gone before us who were willing to show us an example of how that works.
Jenny says, “appreciating the work of others compels us to create it forward.” Her writing reminds me of the lotus flower, that begins in muck. It needs the darkness to grow. Joy and delight and confidence can begin there, where you cannot see what it is you’re becoming.
Try It
What artist helps you “create it forward”? Write a poem about an artist, a piece of art, or the feeling of appreciation you have after experiencing art.
Featured photo by Irene Steves Creative Commons, via Unsplash. Post by Callie Feyen.
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Jennifer Floyd says
Wow Callie, thank you so much for your generosity and kindness here. I really loved this
Sandra Heska King says
“Her writing reminds me of the lotus flower, that begins in muck. It needs the darkness to grow. Joy and delight and confidence can begin there, where you cannot see what it is you’re becoming.”
I love this!