21. Combos, Man-Mom (2006)

I am in the shadows (but so is Batman)

I’ve been reading The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a book outlining a 12-week course in which the author - in a kind-vibed and very 1990s-in-California way (the cover blurb is by the author of Eat, Pray, Love) - proposes a system for repressed or blocked creative people to discover and recover their creatives selves.

Being historically bad at finishing projects that aren’t ads, I was gripped and inspired from the first page. Then about 25 pages in, I read a section describing ‘Shadow Artists’: “Timid young artists… often give up their sunny dreams of artistic careers, settling into the twilight world of could-have-beens and regrets. There, caught between the dream of action and the fear of failure, shadow artists are born.”

She goes on to give an example of a miserable stockbroker, who is rich but creatively unfulfilled and has settled for collecting art. Totally get it.

A children’s therapist who had spent 20 years encouraging her patient’s creative urges, but suppressing her own…

A young writer pressured into becoming a lawyer by familial expectations…

You get the picture. Compelling! And true!

I started aching for all the talented and creative friends and family members that had - by this definition - fallen into the shadows 💔

Then I kept reading…

Carolyn, the gifted photographer who made a successful but unhappy career a photographer’s rep. I know too many Carolyns! 💔

Kelly, who wanted to be a writer but settled being an agent for “really creative” people. I know too many Kellys! 💔

Jean, who yearned to write feature films, wrote mini-movies in her 30-second commercial spots… Oh. I see. Jean, hey?

There I was thinking about how spewing I was on behalf of shadow artists everywhere.

Then it turns out that I am one of the main, easiest-to-understand examples of a shadow artist.

Anyway, who cares. The joke’s on Julia Cameron and her gen-x bias.

How can she throw out the entire category of commercial creativity?

How can she think what we do isn’t legitimate art?