Finding Your Own Art

One thing that I’ve learned through marriage (the list is long) is that doing/ creating/ practicing some kind of art in your own individual way helps each partner to flourish, alone and also together.

Nothing Really, or Really Something

Yesterday at school, by the downstairs water fountain, I had a brief conversation with an 11th grader whom I had just met when I came into her English class. I went partly to give them a brush-up on the “Xello” platform — a college and career exploration resource — that every student can access through their school gmail. They can start by investigating aspects of themselves (“About Me”) and then prowl around to consider various pathways, learn what people have to say about careers, imagining their own futures. They can dream, and they can also plan.

The girl I met after class told me that she was benefiting from time spent in her account. When I asked her about particular extra-curricular activities that she enjoyed, she shrugged and said, “Nothing really; I do some art.”

I appreciated her modesty, and I also concluded that what she’s doing is likely far from nothing.

He Paints

As many of you already know, my husband is a talented (mostly self-taught) painter. He loves to fool around with colors and what he produces is both intriguing and appealing. Here’s the image on a card he gave me for my birthday a couple of years ago, for instance. What’s that streak of yellow doing on a red field, or –wait — a red cloth through which you can see the sky, perhaps? We don’t know, but we like it.

I Play the Piano

I’ve never developed confidence bringing a blank canvas to life this way, but I have delved into another art form — classical music.

Starting with the basics in fourth grade and plodding through exercises in junior high, I realized around 10th grade that playing the piano could actually enhance my life, that being able to play a Brahms Opus 118 Intermezzo, even if I hadn’t composed it, could bring me — maybe even others — joy.

And now, many years later, I try to re-claim at least some sections of the wonderful pieces, turning torn pages, frequently daunted by the difficulty of the passages that I used to fly through. I get encouragement from my husband, the guy who might just be coming up from the basement where he was painting. He’ll say, “It’s so nice to hear you play.” We can be each other’s first audience, offering applause whether or not we get it away from home.

Earlier this week, Unleash Lit, the same publication that kindly published a sliver of my book manuscript back in September, printed a follow-up interview with me. I was the one who sent in the responses to the questions, but still I cringed when I read over some of it, like someone who looks in the mirror and sees a bulge or a stain that dominates the whole view.

In this section, I’m expressing some confusion about my young adult time as an instrumentalist (musician?) and a student playing by the rules:

Polly Ingraham (PI): When I was around 10 years old, I used to head into the woods near our house, bringing a notebook and a pen with me. I’d find some cozy place, often in a tree, and then start writing—about the birds that were fluttering around me, and about my thoughts. This was how I began paying attention and reflecting, during moments of solitude. A bit later, I started studying classical piano and discovered the joy of bringing this kind of beauty to life, but I rarely improvised. Throughout high school, college, and graduate school, I was frequently moved by what I was reading and became proficient at writing academic essays. Still, I didn’t feel much like a creator myself.

Leaning on Composers (Who Are Not Me)

It’s not so easy for me, still, to discern when I’m actually creating something new — either at the piano or on the page: maybe much of the time what I’m doing is more interpretation, less breakthrough. Dutiful, but not really original.

On the other hand, and perhaps this is just the effect of the mellowing that comes with time, I have a hunch that it doesn’t matter all that much where I am on the creativity scale (particularly for piano time, not true for trying to get a book manuscript out!) What counts for more is that I’m absorbed by the process and that, when I really focus, I can not only re-learn the particular Preludes and Fugues from good ol’ Bach that I used to know but also, like an explorer, embark on new ones, without any teacher, and maybe even give them tones of meaning that will seep from my (older) soul out through my fingers. Each pair of pieces is amazing, with the Fugue always giving you a run for your money: it can be wise to focus on just two measures at a time. Here’s a clip of Praleudium Number 1 from yesterday morning, as the sun poured through the windows. You’ll see a photo of our family from about 15 years ago next to me.

What I know for sure is that when I reach for Bach or the Beatles songbook and play, mistakes aplenty, “If I Fell” or “Here, There, and Everywhere” or “My Life,” I have lift-off from whatever humdrum tasks and anxieties I’d been experiencing moments before.

With Valentine’s Day coming, I just might — shhhhh — spend some time with the spooky-looking guy on the cover of this book, because he happens to be one of my husband’s favorite songwriters (he tends towards performers with gravelly voices or ones who talk as much as sing, like the group Cake.)

Here’s one of the best things about marriage, if you ask me: I never would have given this song book a second look if I’d come across it before meeting Rob. There are definitely no popping colors, only a kind of bleak feeling, at first. But when I first listened to “Picture In A Frame,” I was sold. Get past the ads when you click in to this link, and you’ll hear a mighty love song.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RO-MpoBL7CA

“I’m gonna love you/ Till the wheels come off” — brilliant. So for the past decade or so, this guy in the cloak has been hanging out on my piano with Bach, Beethoven, Chopin and the Beatles. They all seem to get along just fine.

If you’re so moved, please leave a Comment about what kind of art (maybe more than one) provides you — either as a practitioner or an appreciator — with ongoing sustenance through the tumult of this life we are so lucky to be in.