12 Secrets: Focus and Persona

12 Secrets of Highly Creative Women:
Secret #5 Committing to Self-Focus

This week McKeekin asks us to commit to self-focus: the difference between focus and selfishness, what is essential to creative time, moving away from unrealistic expectations of what is feminine and making a shift towards self care.

I laughed out loud when I came across the phrase, "There is a myth that says really creative women are impossible and difficult people...especially for artists, devotion to their work means madness or isolation."

I can't tell you HOW many times guests will visit my home after a performance or know me only through my studio work and look utterly confused, maybe even disappointed. They are disenchanted when they realize I don't live in a dungeon, that there aren't small mountains of cocaine on the coffee table or that I don't sleep upside down wrapped up in my own wings. While talking to an audience member after a Famous Graves show, the man actually took my hand and seemed relieved as he said, "Wow, you're much nicer than I thought you'd be." What the hell is that supposed to mean? I understand that when I'm on stage I adopt a berserker persona but it's just that, a persona. I don't run around my apartment screaming at my cats or listening to Doom metal in the shower.

"Rabbit Hat" by Molly Roberts. Available for sale here.

Sometimes I think people have difficulty separating what has been made from the maker. Emotions aren't all you are. Emotions are simply your reactions to experiences and your art is an expression of those experiences. For instance, if you experienced a car crash and wrote about how frightened you were, you are not a car crash. You are responding to the accident.

The myth that artistic women have a few screws loose is deeply embedded. Needless to say, as makers, performers, writers, and dreamers we know this to be false....well, mostly false. Hehe! As far as being "impossible" and "difficult"--if sticking to my guns and following Spirit is unreasonable and a sure sign of insanity or being devoted to my work and causes is illogical then I am proud to be incurable.

“Those who dance alone are considered
insane by those who can’t hear the music.”
—-George Carlin

Here's to stubbornness, self centeredness,
Madness and impossibility!

Merry Making, Friends~*