Let's Talk About It

The art of not hiding and not over-exposing

There are two parts to your - my - our work.
There’s the work itself.
And there’s the talking about the work.

Let’s talk about
talking about it.

I was coaching a client yesterday
who’s working on a brilliant and tender book.
She’s about to see some of the people in the book.
Those people are happy she’s writing it.
Or so they say.
And so she believes.
And it may be completely true.

But over the years I’ve had so many clients show up deflated
After talking about their project.
Sometimes because it was undercooked
and they weren’t ready.
Sometimes because they told someone without ‘the ears to hear’.
That might mean a person we’re close to
But who doesn’t get ‘the process’.
Or it might mean someone who feels threatened by their work,
Those people sometimes claim to want us to do the project.
They might actually believe it.
But underneath there is something else.
A current of resistance.
Because this would mean change.
The creator will be - free, famous, depressed, evolved, less stuck etc.
Different.
Which will change the relationship.
It might have to do with being competitive.
Or protective.
Or both.
They can sincerely want the book/show/project to be successful for you
and simultaneously be threatened
by what its existence will change for them.

On the other hand if you don’t ever talk about the work
You end up living in an airless room with it.
You want to somehow steer away from being either
Over-exposed
Or hidden.
The Scylla and Charybdis of talking about it.

Talking about the work should help the work.
That’s what we’re aiming for.
Both in the way it becomes itself
And in the way it finds people.

I’m also at the point in developing It’s A Lot
When I am starting to have to talk about it.
Yesterday we finished the press release for the shows at The Lyric.
Writing it made me realize I need to go back and refresh the touring packet.
The show keeps becoming itself.
Therefore the language around it keeps changing.
But finding the language also helps the show become itself.
It’s the best kind of feedback loop.
It has to happen a bit at a time.
Because as always…
The path reveals itself as you walk on it.

I remembered recently
An early victory
Was winning the senior art prize at Brown.
My advisor told me confidentially
I hadn’t received it for the work itself
(photographic monoprints)
But for the way I had written about the work.
Honestly? I was hurt.
It hadn’t occurred to me I was being rewarded for writing
Or that writing would always be the lamp lighting my path.
I didn’t really get that, and I used the money
to build a darkroom in my first place in NY.
Never once used it.
Moved on to making one-of-a-kind books.

But here’s the thing.
As necessary as talking about the work is.
There will always be something in your work
that can’t be talked about.
That’s just for the people who are there.
In the room, the book, the theater, the gallery.
That magic thing.
Shhh.

With Infinite love and gratitude,
Beth

PS The thing itself at the Lyric Hyperion. I’d love for you to be in the room with me. Tickets here.