Since episode 3 was a rare (for the podcast) interview, I’m linking here for the full version. I will try to get a transcription soon.
Greetings and Salutations, and welcome to Vesperisms: The Art of Thinking for Yourself. I’m here to help you recalibrate toward an artistic worldview. So grab your coffee, and have a seat in my studio, and let’s have a chat.
One of the foundational principles of Vesperisms is that an artistic worldview is human-centered, and that this takes place both inwardly, in our relationship to our own bodies, and outwardly, in our relationship to others. Today, I want to explore the first part of that idea further, namely, understanding our relationship to our own bodies. This is Vesperisms Season 1, Episode 3: Embodiment.
In our last episode, Creating During Upheaval, I touched on embodiment in light of what we’re all experiencing during this pandemic that’s gripped the world. Just saying that—“gripped the world”—has a bodily connotation to it. Who of us is not walking around with a pit in our stomach right now? I don’t know about you, but sometimes I feel like I’m wearing a straitjacket. Confined, not just in my home, but in my body. Now more than ever, I want to escape confinement. I want to go, I want to do. If I were a character from a play, I’d be Action from West Side Story. In fact, here’s a secret—when I get wound up, I actually tell myself, under my breath, “Cool it, Action.” I just wanna bust!
But there’s a level of this that’s true at any time, this desire to bust out of our skin. Times of crisis bring it to the forefront, sure, but I’d venture to say we all have conflicting relationships with our bodies in one form or another, whether it’s from injuries or eating disorders or feeling inadequate about how we look, or frustration at not being able to push our bodies to perform the way we want. So today I want to shift our focus from the current events of the pandemic, to a broader understanding of how we can think about our bodies through an artistic worldview, and I believe that will trickle down to the particulars that you and I need in any time.
Let’s talk about the five senses. Take yourself back to first grade or whenever you can remember learning about them. Maybe you did a little construction paper project with cutouts of an ear or a nose. Remember? Take a moment and listen to this afresh: Your eyes see. Your ears hear. Your nose smells, your mouth tastes. And your skin feels. Isn’t that incredible? Have you ever really connected with this simple truth—that these are things your body does? Not your mind, not your will, not your emotions, but your body. It’s like your body is a big sponge, always taking in information and sensation. We’re sensual beings. That’s not a dirty word. We perceive the world around us, all the time, every day, by what our bodies absorb, through what we see, what we hear, what we smell, what we taste, and what we touch. Let that sink in a moment—isn’t it a miracle?
Now take it out a level to what we think about what we take in—that these little parts of our flesh—the human eye or ear or mouth—are the vehicles through which we perceive something like…beauty?
And then, think about your hands. Many artistic media are created through the hands—visual art or playing an instrument, for example. Think of the intricacies of the tiny little bones and muscles and nerves that have to happen to make these precise little micro-movements, in order to communicate a Bach fugue or an oil paint glaze.
And oh my goodness, the fact that your senses can work in cooperation with your hands? That you take sensory information in, it goes to this organ in your skull, and processes through your fingers? That you can see with your eyes that run of 16th notes on a page and immediately (or in my case, over the embarrassing course of hours) translate it through your hands to something your ears then pick up and then perceive as beautiful and even heartbreaking, even as you’re creating it? I’m overcome just thinking about it.
But artists struggle just like anyone else with their relationships to their bodies. Some negate and ignore their bodies, by not eating or sleeping. Some abuse their bodies, through alcohol or drugs or food or self-harm. For some of us, it becomes so much about the work that we wish we could detach from our bodies completely in order to have more purity, more muse, more—here’s an unpopular word—transcendence. And so we separate ourselves from every other part of our bodies except these tiny sensory organs and our hands.
But what if the rest of our bodies are calling out to be just as much a part of our creativity as those little parts? I know one thing visual artists are prone to is back issues, for example. But what if our spines were as important as our hands? What if our legs, getting us out for a daily walk, were vital to the creation of our novels? And in fact, a healthy majority of authors would tell you that’s true. Right now we’re living with a lot of fear about our health, and it can cause us to be divided from ourselves in a way. So what does it mean to fully occupy your own body?
I recently spoke with my friend Troy Bronsink. He’s an author and director of The Hive: A Center for Contemplation, Art and Action in Cincinnati. He’s the perfect person for me to talk to about this, because he helped me with my own struggle with reconciling my relationship with my body, specifically as it relates to making work. I thought he could help all of us think about this, and not only that, but put it into practice. Here is the full interview with Troy.
As I’ve been speaking about the concept of embodiment today, I’m not simply talking about self-care. That’s incredibly important, especially in stressful times and situations. But on a deeper level, what I hope you understand from this is that your body is worthy of respect. It does a lot for you. It breathes, automatically, so you can have oxygen to fuel your brain and your movements. Your body is your work’s greatest and most precious tool of creation. It’s more priceless than a Guarneri violin or an extra large tube of cadmium red. Your body is the home of your soul and your mind, and you cannot create without either your body or your soul. You are more than your body, but you are not less than your body. Come back home into your own skin.
THIS WEEK’S RECOMMENDED READ:
Isn’t a book. It’s a practice. I want to encourage you to put Troy’s meditation into practice this week. Maybe there’s an app or a piece of music that you like. Two that I’ve been using, which are spiritually focused, are the One Minute Pause app, and the new Steffany Gretzinger album, Forever Amen. But choose whatever helps you to calm your instinctive mind, the one that wants your body to key up for fight, flight or freeze. Whenever you notice tension or pain or anxiety, take a moment just to slow your breathing and be still, even for one minute. You can do it wherever you are, no matter what position you’re in.
Thank you for being a subscriber to Vesperisms. You can follow me on Instagram @vesperillustration, become a paid subscriber here on Substack, Patreon or Locals (all are just $5 a month) and subscribe to my newsletter at vesperillustration.com to get news about my work, and a free outtake chapter from my book, A Cloud of Outrageous Blue, which happens to be about a girl discovering her creative gifts at the onset of the Great Plague of 1348. My NEW book, Berliners, is available now for pre-order, and comes out in October.
If you’re a listener to the podcast, I’d love if you leave a 5 star review on iTunes. That’ll help others find Vesperisms, and spread the message of an artistic worldview to more people.
Your voice is important. Your contribution matters.
Just remember:
Work isn’t everything, but everything is The Work.
See you next time.
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