A few questions for the author:
What is the first creative moment you remember?
Re-enacting Jennifer Beals’ dance moves from Flashdance when I was 7. We didn’t have a cassette player so I would just rewind the VHS
over and over to listen to “What a Feeling”. I wasn’t in any formal dance classes yet and had no idea what I was doing, but I would roll around on the floor anyway–just owning the movement. We didn’t have the tape that she used on her feet so I substituted scotch tape to wrap ball of my foot and cut off the toes of black socks to make legwarmers. A poor kid’s version of an 80’s icon.
Was anyone there to witness or appreciate it? I used to call my father and his friends in from the dining room to watch me roll around. They would sit on the sofa and the love seat and were so patient, sometimes watching me 2 or 3 times before returning to their conversation. I remember a lot of blank stares, but at least they endured.
What is the best idea you ever had? To stop following the path everyone else wanted for me and try to find my place in the art-world.
What made it great in your mind? After 3 years of service to the status quo I went with my gut instead of my head. The art-world is a tough life. It’s not easy to preserve a legacy and create a history for yourself. But I needed to put that aside and follow my heart anyway. Twyla Tharp once said, “Going with your head makes it arbitrary. Going with your gut means you have no choice.”
What is the dumbest idea? Taking things for granted or feeling a sense of entitlement.
What made it stupid? I read something from Crazy Horse: The Strange Man of the Oglalas by Mari Sandoz. In it, Crazy Horse believes that he will be victorious in battle, but if he stops to take spoils from the battlefield he will be defeated. When you begin to accept things too easily or as they are, it makes you ripe to fail.
What is your creative ambition? To be constantly evolving. I never want to feel stunted.
What are the obstacles to this ambition? The pressures of life as a young woman living in New York City. You have to really go out of your way to enrich your life.
What are the vital steps to achieving this ambition? I need to focus on what I want. Once I’m not running in a million directions I believe success will come.
How do you begin your day? I wake up at 5:00 a.m. make some coffee, settle into my chair and write for at least an hour. Then I take a yoga class at either 6:30 or 7:00 am by 8:50 I’m showered, dressed and heading to the office.
What are your habits? What patterns do you repeat? My morning routine is the same. On the subway I read The New York Times, the Arts section first, then the Metro section and move on from there. Then I’ll head onto Le Monde, The Daily Beast and WNYC. Once I get to work the pattern ends. I try to vary my evenings.
Describe your first successful creative act. When my sister and I were really young (I was about eight, my sister three) we only had one another to play with. There was a time when we would be confined to the living room which was decorated with this multi-blue-hued carpet. Because we couldn’t leave the room I used to pull her onto the couch and play a game we eventually called, “Baby Ship” (about 2 children who survived a boat accident and were lost at sea). I used to sway her back and fourth in my arms, telling her that the couch was an abandoned dingy and the area around us an ocean. We played the game constantly; every time I would make up a new adventure for us and use all that I could to re-create what it might feel like to be on the rough or gentle seas.
Describe your second successful creative act. When I created a children’s book out of Slaughterhouse Five (and yes, Kurt read it and loved it).
What are your attitudes toward: money, power, praise, rivals, work, play?
Money: I get stressed when I need it and hate that I want so much of it
Power: It’s tough if you don’t have it, especially when you have something you’re fighting for
Praise: Is only important when it comes from within
Rivals: I don’t need them to motivate me
Work: Play
Play: Work
Which artists do you admire most? There are so many. Sherrie Levine, Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Rothko, and Kurt Cobain.
Why are they your role models? They all sacrificed their Life for their Art. They believed in what they were doing and were unique visionaries for their time.
What do you and your role models have in common? I aspire, I approach and I mature. I hope that my work, like theirs, ends up light years beyond where it started.
Does anyone in your life regularly inspire you? A friend of mine and his ongoing discipline, constant ambition, his efforts in self-education and expansion, his grace, his selflessness and compassion. He has real ingenuity.
Who is your muse? My friends that are constantly trying to create and explore.
Define muse. That for whom you long to labor.
When confronted with superior intelligence or talent, how do you respond? I listen carefully. I observe. I try to immerse myself with it if the opportunity is there.
When faced with stupidity, hostility, intransigence, laziness, or indifference in others, how do you respond?
Stupidity: Run, don’t walk
Hostility: Deep breaths
Intransigence: With compassion
Laziness: Walk away
Indifference: Move on
When faced with impending success or the threat of failure, how do you respond? Success: It’s so rare, but I sometime suffer from foolish hope and stray from my original goals.
Failure: Delve deeply back into work after I make myself green tea and watch a martial arts movie.
When you work, do you love the process or the result? The process. The beginning of a project is always so exciting: when you’re not quite sure what you’re doing or how something is going to turn out. The sweat. The gnawing. It’s the journey that makes it all worth while.
At what moment do you feel your reach exceeds your grasp? I rarely do. I’m guilty of underestimating my reach if anything.
What is your ideal creative activity? Writing that inspires.
What is your greatest fear? Never finding a Great Love.
What is the likelihood of either of the answers to the previous two questions happening? Possible and inevitable, respectively.
Which of your answers would you most like to change? I’d like to think that there is always hope of finding someone to really love.
What is your idea of mastery? Having the experience to know what you want to do, the vision to see how to do it, the courage to work with what you’re given, and the skill to execute that first impulse—all so you can take bigger chances.
What is your greatest dream? It’s always changing. Ask me again tomorrow.
