The Greenhouse Journal

So what do you get when you put the world’s greatest violinist armed with some of the most brilliant music ever written and plunk him down in a subway station? The answer might surprise you…

For the story, check out: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/04/AR2007040401721.html

The truth is that we often only see and recognize beautiful art in the places we expect to find it. How sad that we miss so much as a result.

But it doesn’t have to be that way. As we become better artists, we must also become better at noticing beauty, stopping to take note of all the beauty that doesn’t always exist in the world of crowded concert halls, in the world of celebrity, in the world of mass media and silver screens and elite art galleries. There is beauty there, true, but there is something about those places that leaves me with a sense of… incompleteness. Perhaps it is that they are sources that are telling me what is beautiful, leaving me no say in the matter.

The fact is that the world is full of beauty. Some of it is corrupted, some is untarnished, but it is there, it is available.

It’s just that we must have the eyes to see it, the ears to hear it, if we are ever to recognize it.

Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

A great deal of talent is lost to the world
for want of a little courage. Every day
sends to their graves obscure men whose
timidity prevented them from making a
first effort.
– Sydney Smith, English essayist

You gain strength, courage and confidence
by every experience in which you really
stop to look fear in the face. You are able
to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this
horror. I can take the next thing that comes
along.’ You must do the thing you think you
cannot do.
– Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady, civil rights advocate, author & speaker

Twenty years from now you will be more
disappointed by the things that you didn’t
do than by the ones you did do. So throw
off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe
harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails.
Explore.  Dream.  Discover.
– Mark Twain, American author & humorist

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fear and courage.  What is this stuff called Courage that we all aspire to, that so inspires us, but in the end, even for the best of us, can be so tantalizingly elusive?  We lionize those who have the nerve to summon it up and make it stick, and rightly so.  So it has me wondering: Where do we find this Courage; where does it reside? What is the shape of Courage, and what does it look like?

As with every aspect of life that is worth mentioning, I’ve found that art and the creative process requires a significant deal of the stuff. As with every creative calling, true Artistry is surrounded by great Risk and Adventure, and when pursued whole-heartedly, it will ultimately require a great deal of Courage on your part, regardless of how confident you feel about the matter.

Of course, anything that requires real Courage, by definition, also will run the risk of hitting those occasional pockets where Courage is stolen away, where it is in rare supply, where you find yourself gasping for it like oxygen at high altitudes. Where you are dis-Couraged. I’ll admit that I pushed through one of those breathless moments of discouragement myself just the other day, and in a strange sort of way, I’m fairly happy to be able to say that. It’s not that I enjoy the feeling of discouragement, and to be quite honest, it isn’t something in which I recommend spending a whole lot of time. It’s just that the folks that I know who never experience discouragement are usually, though not always, the ones who avoid any situation that would require Courage at all. Because you can’t be truly dis-Couraged until you’ve had the occasion to have Courage in the first place. The fact that I was gasping for oxygen must mean that I was still climbing the mountain.

As creative artists, we can’t be those people who are content to live in what Theodore Roosevelt called that “gray twilight” where no risk is required.

In the midst of risk, unfortunately, it is easy to be disheartened by a lack of success. And if this is you at the moment, I can say that you are not the only one who has experienced that feeling.

I’ve heard from numerous truly creative people from all sorts of places and by all sorts of means who have confided in me their own personal times of discouragement in the pursuit of their own creativity, and it so often comes down to this: that despite their earnest and extended efforts, they have yet to see Success.  Very sincerely, they share with me how close they are to throwing their hands up and walking away because Success has seemed so elusive.

Some have even told me that Success seemed so elusive, so fantastically unattainable at the outset, that they decided not to attempt the pursuit of their Calling at all.

I suppose that, in the grand scheme of things, this is understandable.  We live in a culture in which Success, as it is popularly defined, is the gold standard by which all are measured and either celebrated or found wanting.  We see it as the standard in business, in government, in education, in the world of sports, entertainment, and sadly enough, in the creative arts.  It’s a world of “publish or perish,” “number one on the depth chart,” “highest salary,” “most powerful senator,” “youngest millionaire,” or “largest congregation.”

But I would suggest that this is not the true measure of artistic or creative success. The longer that I walk through this weary world, the more I am impressed by and drawn to people who are willing to travel off the beaten path. And that takes a great deal of courage: to try something that doesn’t fit the formula — not necessarily out of reactive nonconformity, but out of a sense of adventure and calling — is, to me (and to any audience worth reaching), much more impressive.

What is the shape of Courage, and where does it reside?  Courage is discovered only in the midst of fear – courage without fear is not courage, it is bravado – and so we must each intentionally enter in and do that thing of which we are afraid.

So what are you afraid of? Got that firmly in mind? Okay, good. Get your stuff, let’s go do it.

Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

We can be so eager to capture life in our art that we forget to experience life.

I don’t know about you, but I can get so focused on doing my art, that I forget that, for the artist, art is the natural overflow of a life well-lived. Experience is an important source for all the things that should be found in our art — creativity, inspiration, perspective, understanding, depth, etc. I have to be careful to make sure that I don’t get too overly-focused on making the art, and instead that I continually go back to living and experiencing a real, full life so that I have something from which to draw my art.

People can get themselves into trouble when they only focus on the art itself, without looking up to see what is going on in the world around them. History is replete with artists who have become unhealthy by forgetting to do so — often with disasterous results. Even great artists have cut their own potential short by a failure to stay grounded in the truth, beauty, and goodness that filled the world around them, simply because they didn’t lift their eyes, their minds, their hearts and souls to see it and experience it.

As artists, we must be careful to not do the same. Our art is a mirror that reflects the world around us, and in order for that to happen, we must know how to spend some time in that world.

– Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

Art is a process. Learning to be an artist is a journey of the entire person — the creative, the emotional, the spiritual, the physical, the intellectual. There is the learning, the understanding, and the doing. It is about more than just the final product; it is also about the process that leads up to the product.

If that is true — and history has demonstrated time and again that it is — what responsibilities does that give us as artists on a day-to-day basis?

– Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

Those of you who were at The Greenhouse on Sunday evening, what were your thoughts on the insights that our guest, Joanne Baron, offered regarding creativity, fimmaking, and talent? Give us your responses here. Did you agree, disagree, or have further questions?

Let us know what you think!

The Greenhouse

Nothing in the experience of life can be perfectly predicted. Which is what makes formulaic art so distasteful — because it makes predictable that which is not predictable. That is, it portrays an unpredictable life in a way that the reader or the viewer or the listener can predict.

“I saw the ending coming a mile off.”

Those words are spoken, in nearly every instance, in the pejorative. Because life is full of surprises with unseen and unknown causes, should not the art which imitates life do the same? Even those causes and surprises that can be explained in retrospect are permissible, as long as they are true to life.

– Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

Slow down, you’re doing fine
You can’t be everything you want to be
Before your time
– Billy Joel, songwriter & musician, “Vienna” (The Stranger, 1977)

Slow down and enjoy life. It’s not only the scenery
you miss by going too fast – you also miss the
sense of where you are going and why.
– Eddie Cantor, comedian, singer & actor

To go faster, slow down.
– John Brunner, novelist (The Shockwave Rider, 1975)

Some of the secret joys of living are not found by
rushing from point A to point B, but by inventing
some imaginary letters along the way.
– Douglas Pagels, author (These Are The Gifts I’d Like to Give To You, 2002)

One of the most wearisome parts of being human is the amount of time that it can take to get anywhere, especially the places you want to go. It can be oh-so-difficult to have a vision of what should be, of what could be, of what exists so clearly in one’s imagination and faith – and yet have it just out of reach for what seems to be an interminable amount of time. The desire to see the vision materialize into existence may prompt an individual to keep working toward the goal, but for some reason that same desire almost never makes the goal arrive any sooner than it is supposed to.

I’ve had the opportunity to learn that lesson over and over again, and find it at work even as an artist. Maybe especially as an artist. It’s just that I can see the goal so clearly. It’s inspiring! It’s pristine! It’s glorious! I can point it out to the people who are going there with me and describe it to those who are encouraging me along the way. But aside from diligently plodding along, putting one foot in front of the other, I can’t seem to make the trip go any faster.

Apparently, that isn’t up to me, no matter how much I pick up the pace.

That is the irony of our respective journeys – we have stewardship over the process of the journey to the destination, but it seems that we have little, if any, control over how long that journey is going to take. On second thought, scratch that. I should say that, by all appearances, we have plenty of ability to hamper things on our own – by our distractions, our indecisions, our over-analysis, and our hesitations, all of which we seem to have in abundance – but we don’t seem to be able to arrive at our destinations before their time.

To everything, according to one songwriter, there is a season, and just to add to the angst, a completely different songwriter assures us that the waiting is the hardest part. Perhaps this comes from a fear of being late, even though the promise is that all things will be made beautiful in their own time. And so we find ourselves cursing the slowness by which we head towards our goals.

A couple years ago, I found myself in a place in life in which I couldn’t drive my car for several months. In the vast sprawl that is Los Angeles, getting very far was nothing short of frustrating.

So a generous friend bought me a good bicycle. It was a terrific blessing, and one for which I was truly grateful (you who did it, you know who you are) – and for more than one reason. Yes, it got me where I needed to go, and, sure, it got me in pretty good shape, but that bike helped me to do something even more substantial and worthwhile. It got me to slow down.

Suddenly (if I can use that word in the context of ‘slowing down’), I was traveling not at the breakneck speed of the typical Southern California automobile driver, but at the pace of the urban bicyclist. No longer able to use the freeway system, I was forced to find alternate routes, side streets, and hidden neighborhoods that I never would have sought out if I were in a car. And the strange thing is I came to realize that, in spite of my slower pace, I was enjoying myself. I could catch the smell of spices as I passed through various ethnic neighborhoods. I received a smile and a wave from the mother and her little girl playing in their tiny yard. I could hear neighbors chatting with each other over fences. I could see the small mom-and-pop shops and the wares they displayed in their windows. I could read clever graffiti on the sides of buildings (well… some of it was clever).

And all these were things that I never would have had the opportunity to experience if I had been going as fast as I wanted to. All of a sudden, the world was bigger because I was going slow enough to see the small details. And so, oddly enough, I was thankful for this pace, which I would have otherwise considered sluggish, because it left me with a sensation that I was increasingly… alive.

I felt sorry for all those motorists who were unaware of this breathing world that existed at the slower tempos. I felt bad for those drivers who had their feet clamped down on their accelerators and who couldn’t be engaged in all the life that was going on around them. I pitied the quick and the dead.

These days, I’m back in the driver’s seat of my 1995 Toyota Camry, hoping that perhaps someday a generous friend will buy me a better, faster car (you who are supposed to do it, you know who you are). My right foot is clamped down on the accelerator in my effort to keep up with the speed demons of the freeway. In the midst of the frenzy, however, I’m haunted by spices and chatter and clever graffiti and a thought that slowly takes shape in my mind like all those goals and destinations I can envision so clearly, and that thought is this:

Faster is not always better.

– Shun Lee, Actor & Writer

Welcome to the first post of The Greenhouse Journal, the official blog of The Greenhouse!

The Greenhouse exists to bring creative artists to life. Its mission is to maximize the potential and productivity of individuals engaged in the fine arts by equipping them in all areas of life – the physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and creative – through relationships, mentoring, group discussions, and artistic projects. It seeks to engage and enhance culture locally and globally through superior artwork and entertainment. By seeking to value, serve, and equip artists and the artistic community, and by maintaining a commitment to creativity and artistic excellence, The Greenhouse will provide people with the opportunity to create quality art and entertainment that explores meaning, moves emotion, sparks imagination, and enlightens the soul.

No matter what type of creative artist you are — filmmaker, writer, actor, poet, photographer, or otherwise — the concepts of creativity and artistry overlap, and so we can all learn from one another. So this Journal serves as a means of exploring artistry and creativity, with all sorts of musings on life and art, including interesting and humorous news on the culture around us. The Greenhouse Journal is written by the staff of The Greenhouse: Shun Lee, Caren Bream, Chris Shomo, and Kat Grace, but as with any good blog, its success will depend on responses from you and others. We encourage you to bring other people from around the world to the discussion, no matter what sort of artist they may be!

You can learn more about The Greenhouse, its monthly meetings, its growing Production Program, and the number of ways you can get involved at its website, www.GreenhouseProductions.com.

We look forward to getting to exploring life and art with you through The Greenhouse Journal!

– Shun Lee

Actor, Writer &

Creative Director