The Surprisingly Gracious Thing I Can Do for You

It's a new year, and I'm feeling reflective. And generous. Sort of. 

For the past few months I have found myself in a small acting class with a few of my colleagues (we jokingly refer to this class as "faculty workout") taught by my friend Mark Lewis. I have never taken an actual acting class, in spite of my penchant for performance art and my history as a cartoon character  at Carowinds theme park (see picture below). The class has been a remarkable experience. 

This was my first job.

Mark has a remarkable way of dropping little pearls of wisdom. 

"The most generous thing an actor can do for us is to get more interested in what she is doing than the fact that they are doing it for the audience."

This particular one keeps coming back to me. When I first heard it I recognized that it was what I needed to hear in terms of my artistic practice. It's always a potential trap for me to become too focussed on audience, and I feel I planted my foot firmly in that trap this year- in spite of some warning signs.

So, for 2018 I plan to be more generous to you- by thinking about you less. That didn't quite come out right. I'm going to be more generous to you by spending more time letting the work lead wherever it will. I suspect that means I'm going to do/make some things differently. I want to revisit some past works, and revive some ideas for new works I haven't yet made because they aren't "practical:" they either are too big for me to store in my studio, or too expensive to make, or both. Maybe I can find some funding for them, and a museum to exhibit them. Who knows?

In any case I invite you to join me on the journey.