Once upon a
time, I dated an artist. It was a very short romance. As most stereotypes, he
oozed charisma. His flirtations were a wide net and I was the catch;
inescapable. I had no chance the moment he put his arm around my waist and
whispered in my ear, “I think we’re going to be trouble.”
The hooks
were in deep. But then came the mood swings, the verbal abuse … the other
women. He no longer talked with me, but at me. All conversations were art
lectures, or therapist appointments in which I played the role of the incompetent
therapist. Listening for hours, not able to offer advice, and leaving more perplexed
about “us” then when I had walked in. His narcissism and womanizing revealed
itself soon enough and that lead to a swift demise.
I went to a music
concert recently and this quote from a song stuck out to me:
"Like a
flame not allowed to last very long but how fantastic and strong."
(Frontier
Ruckus - If the Suns Collapse)
From my end,
our relationship was as short as it was intense. But it was not all bad,
because I learned some invaluable lessons. I learned what I will allow and what
I will not. I learned that I want to be an equal in a partnership, not a fiddler
player of the background music to someone else’s life story. The question this
short relationship asked of me was, do I want to be the muse or do I want to be
the artist, the creator myself? I have learned I am the creator of my own life
story.
So this
afterthought isn’t about how to date a creative mind. This is about how to cultivate your own creative power, how to become
your own creator.
At some point you
must find the strength within yourself to step out from your partner's shadow. Living in
the shadow of an artist can be difficult. Artists are contagiously creative,
passionate, and emotional. They
brood in
thought and like a mood ring can be 50 colors in one day. Not all these
traits are bad. But they can effect you negatively if you let them. The
American photographer, Lee Miller, met surrealist artist, Man Ray, when she was
22 years old in 1929. She became his lover and muse. While with him, she
managed to learn from his photographic techniques, help run his studio, and become an artist. At 25, Miller left Man Ray and Paris to return
to New York and establish a portrait and commercial photography studio with her
brother Erik as her darkroom assistant.
She would go on to become an acclaimed photographer for Vogue, serving
as war correspondent during WWII.
Examine
yourself. Who are you and what are you creating? The painter, Frida Kahlo, once
said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the
subject I know best." Meeting the famous artist Diego Rivera at age 20,
Frida wanted his opinion on her work. He replied, “You’ve got talent.” This
encouragement and her perseverance would result in the Louvre buying one of her
paintings, “The Frame”; the first work by a twentieth-century Mexican artist to
be purchased by the renowned museum. Although Kahlo’s fame came posthumously,
her authentic sense of self has lived on forever in her art and its admirers. Your
creations are eternal.
I invite you to create a list of qualities you’d like in an ideal partner. In a 1981 speech given at Yale, the ground-breaking feminist, political activist and journalist, Gloria Steinem stated, “Some of us are becoming the men we wanted to marry.” Ask yourself if you have the qualities you would like to have in a partner. If you do, that’s great. If you don’t have them, focus on those qualities you lack and see how you can cultivate them. Remember to create your own masterpiece before giving all your paint away to a jackass. Your personal artistry will lead you to making your very own masterpiece if you let it.
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