The Artist's Way: Identity & Embracing the Messy Journey of Art

Summary
In this episode of the Art and Artist Podcast, Kyle Ariel Knowles delves into the themes of creativity and artistic identity as he explores Julia Cameron's 'The Artist's Way.' He emphasizes the messiness of art, the importance of supportive relationships, and the need for artists to give themselves permission to create. Through personal anecdotes and reflections, Kyle encourages listeners to embrace their artistic journeys, overcome blocks, and engage in daily practices that foster creativity.

Takeaways

• Art is inherently messy and unstructured.
• It's crucial to embrace the messiness of the creative process.
• Supportive relationships can significantly impact an artist's journey.
• Identifying 'crazy makers' in your life is essential for artistic growth.
• Artists must give themselves permission to create without fear.
• Daily practices, even small ones, contribute to artistic development.
• Reflecting on past experiences can inform current artistic endeavors.
• Inspiration often comes through the act of doing, not waiting for the perfect moment.
• Engaging in enjoyable activities can enhance creativity.
• It's important to nurture the inner artist and encourage others to do the same.

Links

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Chapters

• 0:00 Embracing the Messiness of Art
• 6:53 Recovering a Sense of Identity
• 17:14 Navigating Relationships and Crazy Makers

Transcript

Kyle Ariel Knowles (00:00.014)
Hello there, welcome to the Art and Artist Podcast. My name is Kyle Ariel Knowles and today is week two, episode two of a 12 week special episode series about the artist's way, the book, The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron, who I called in the last episode, my sorceress. I have one thing to say about art. It is messy. It is not strategic. It is not calculated. Maybe it can be. I don't know, but I don't believe so. It's not business. It's not commerce. Taylor Swift, is she a corporation or is she an artist? Is she both? I don't know. I don't know. These are questions to ponder, but I'm just here. I've been trying to get a lot of stuff done today, but it's now or never for this podcast. And I wanted to do, this is the kind of vision I had for the podcast is to do a kind of shotgun a little more shotgun than I did last time where I just sit down for 20 minutes...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (01:07.602)
One, again, was the course and the book of the artist's way. Week one was about safety, recovering a sense of safety. Week two is about recovering a sense of identity. And I wanted to just start this week by just saying art is messy. And if you're watching the video, I can show you how messy it is. I have a project I've been working on that I've been writing and I have...podcasts I'm working on. got a newsletter that coincides with the Art and Artist podcast that I'm working on. But if you just take a quick gander at my desk, you'll see back here a mess. Art is Post-it notes. Art is a mixer in the midst of pens and paper. Art is microphones. Art is guitars on the wall, stuff on the floor.

Books, art, it's not perfect. It never is. It's messy. It's messy as hell. And this week I've really learned to embrace that because art is really now or never. You either do it or you don't. And I've got this set up right now because I'm recording, I'm trying to record some vocal takes. And yesterday it was crazy because I've been working on this song. I've had it written. I've had a really solid draft of it in Logic and I...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (02:42.192)
Because of fear, because of not recovering fully a sense of identity yet, I guess, that here I am, you know, a year and a half into doing the artist way, doing the morning pages, and I'm still not giving myself permission, and I want all conditions to be right, everything to be perfect before I sing. I want to warm up first. I want to have practiced it several times. But at the end of the day, whether you do it first take, whether you spend a year practicing for the song, it doesn't matter. It's just what matters is that you do it. And if you put it off, if you put it off till tomorrow, sometimes it will be put off for years. And I found a song from 25 years ago that I just posted on my sub stack and it's just, it's called Unexposed and one of the lyrics is all this film inside me unexposed. And really what it's tapping into is some advice that a elderly lady gave me years and years ago. I was on a Mormon mission, so I will call her what her name was, Sister Frances. And she was a older sister missionary. She was there with her husband. Suffice it to say, she gave me advice and she said, don't die with the music in you. When I look at my office and think about yesterday where I was just like, no, I'm just I'm going to record some vocals, whether they're good or bad. Today, same thing. I'm just going to record vocals. It was like now or never to draft this newsletter thingy for art and artists. It's now or never to record. And I wanted to be able to sort of shotgun this and show you things and talk about how messy art is. And we'll talk about week two, recovering a sense of identity. are a couple of things in there that are so great. She uses for a reason, because I think she had problems with alcohol, but she uses drinking a couple of times in this week's chapter, this week's course, where she, first of all, she talks about how people that are blocked artists themselves, they're not going to support you in the ways unblocked artists will support you. In other words, you might make them jealous. In other words, it might cause them pain...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (05:06.947)
that you're doing art and they're not doing art. You're pursuing your dreams, they're not pursuing their dreams. And so don't be surprised with reactions. And it's funny when I share songs with people and share my art and it's just interesting to hear the responses and you can tell blocked artists because instead of going, my gosh, that's awesome. And again, they don't have to be, I guess, overly enthusiastic about your art. But what I'm saying is you can tell by the reaction whether they are blocked or not. And some people that you just don't think are going to have that great of reaction have the best reactions. And I guess they're more secure with themselves or something. And they can at least comment on it and say, I like when the guitar came in here or something. They can at least make a comment. They don't have to say, this is great, but what I want from people is just to encourage you to keep going, right? And I hope I haven't been a stick in the mud when people have shared their art with me. The other analogy, so the analogy of drinking she uses is that, you know, if you're trying to unblock yourself, you're trying to become a recovering artist and you share your art with someone that's blocked, it's the same as if you're a recovering alcoholic in a bar with your friends. They're not gonna celebrate your recovery.

They're not, they're just not gonna celebrate you recovering from drinking or saying you're not drinking anymore. So when you're a recovering artist and you're sharing your art, she talks about, you know, protecting yourself and just knowing who you can share and who you can't share things with. And in fact, one of the exercises is to basically identify people that are inside your circle and outside your circle, people to kind of steer clear with when sharing art and people that you can share it with because they're supporters maybe patrons of your art. So that's the first alcohol reference. The second alcohol reference is when she talks about when you're doing your art and you, she uses the word something like, don't, know, people recovering from alcoholism shouldn't take the first drink and you as a recovering artist shouldn't take the first think. Meaning it's very easy to...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (07:37.103)
start thinking and overanalyzing the art you're creating, comparing it to, you know, masterworks of people who have been doing it a lot longer than you have, and then getting discouraged and blocking yourself again. So anyway, let me record a couple of vocals, then I'll sit down and we'll go through the chapter. I'm gonna just open the book and just kind of highlight some of the things that I thought were cool. But this week has been very interesting, and again, messy.

I can't stress enough to you how messy art is. had this, I challenged myself and I talked about it with Kat Lane when I had her on the podcast and we were talking about the artist's way and I told her during the conversation that I was going to do a series for 12 weeks going through the artist's way and she thought that was a great idea, it was cool. And there's an artist, I'm gonna butcher it, I wanna say Dolce, Dolce but she won some awards recently. I'm not familiar with her, but I do know I've seen a couple of clips where she, years and years ago, was basically documenting her artist's journey and talked about the artist's way. And I saw an awesome clip of her recently where she was speaking truth to power, talking about some of the failures of the Trump administration and deportations and ICE and things like that. And I thought, wow, she is so cool.

So I want to find out more about her, but she talked about the artist way. What I'm saying is that I'm actually on week three of the artist way and in my journal and everything, but I'm now recording week two. So I've had to go back, go back in time and go back even though I'm in week three. So I'm just saying it's messy, but I committed to do this. I'm excited to take more of a gorilla sort of style to these. Maybe the vocals aren't going to be as great because I'm recording with my AirPods. I'm not running this through my Rodecaster, which makes it sound awesome. But I wanted to kind of film and be on the run and show you things, kind of give you a glimpse into my artist's way as I talk about the artist's way. So anyway, I'm going to do a few more vocal takes because it's now or never.

Kyle Ariel Knowles (09:56.559)
I can be as noisy as I want. I closed the blinds because I didn't want, got some people across the street and so forth. I don't know if you can see, but I don't know. guess I'm just insecure about singing, but I'm giving it all I've got. And maybe you'll hear a take or two if there's anything good here. Otherwise I'll just edit it out, but I'm going to set you down for a second. I don't even know if this will show. It looks like it will. Oh, hello there.

Okay, so I'm going to do a few vocal takes. It's not very flattering to be on the side there, so maybe I'll do it back here. again, if you want to talk about messy, I have this podium in my office taking up a big space because I do have ideas and I have a project I'm working on that will include this podium as actually a prop and part of my project that I'm working on that I hope to finish before the end of the summer, and then I can share more with it about you. But there there it is and you can't see but I have an American flag and I've got a picture of a church that was a gift to me 25 years ago actually a wedding gift from a graphic designer named Jill Schwartz. I love pictures of old churches there's something really cool about them but I have this kind of Proc back here because the project I'm working on, will include, you know, this authority sort of figure. And by the way, I have the Rubber Side Shakespeare on here, because it looks like a big, maybe possibly a big Bible that I can flip through. But yeah, so art is messy and you just have to do it. You can't wait. You can't wait to take another course. You can't wait until you know everything about logic or whatever digital audio workstation you're working with or the tools you have. You don't wait to know every chord or be an awesome guitar player. Write the song now with what you do know. When I listened back 25 years ago when I had a handful of songs and went into the studio and recorded them, it's like, I don't even know what I'm playing, but just because I got a guitar, I mean, it was an instrument to write songs and songs poured out of me.

Kyle Ariel Knowles (12:17.271)
Of course, I did a creative U-turn after that and kind of went down the corporate path and left my art to the side. It wasn't practical. And I'm back. There's been three times in my life where art has been very important to me, specifically music and songwriting. Each time it was at the end of something. So the end of high school, I had a gap year before I went on a Mormon mission. And Craig Nybo and I, I think I mentioned in the last episode, but he and I wrote like five, I mean, I...I wrote my first song, was a, it was the cover of Louie Louie, but there was a girl I was dating named Corey. She was a homecoming queen my senior year, but I didn't know her at all. I mean, I could sing it to you right now. It was two Louie Louie. As I knew those three chords, I could play it on the bass. I could play it on guitar. could play it on keyboard. And my friend Craig Nybo had a karaoke, two track karaoke machines. had two cassettes that you could record on one, then play one, record to the other, and so forth, and just keep changing the cassettes until you lay down each track. And the first song I recorded ever, and the first song that I wrote and recorded was to the melody of Louie Louie, and I changed the words, but I could sing it to you right now. 

She was the homecoming queen, my senior year, but I didn't know her at all. Then I saw her in the play, wearing that dress, not wearing a shawl. I said, Cori, Cori, she's an actress now. I mean, that was it. That's what came out. And I did it. I didn't know what I was doing, but I made something. 

Craig was just... Craig had permission to do his art. That's what's amazing about Craig Nybo. mean, first of all, he was musical. He knew how to read music. I think he played trombone or something in a band, but then he became the band. What's the main dude in a band? The band conductor, basically, in a marching band. He was a year or two younger than me. Anyway, the summer before my mission, we would get together when he'd get off work, like at 10 o'clock at night, and we'd till midnight, we'd spend a couple hours, several nights recording songs, and he wrote...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (14:42.263)
a song called She's Ugly. We were doing such cool things. And again, this was like almost 40 years ago. So there was the end of high school. I got into music. I had a bass that I had gotten when I was 16. Didn't really know how to play it. But then eventually I had a drum machine and I had this little cheap keyboard. I had a guitar. When I was getting ready to go on my mission, my dad said I had to contribute money. So I had to sell all my gear. I had this huge bass amp as well. Anyway, so we wrote several songs, one of which we performed at the Hello Assembly at the high school right before I left on my mission. And we did a bunch of rap songs. And we did some innovative stuff. In fact, we were running vocals through my electric guitar distortion pedal, all kinds of things like that. But he wrote a song called She's Ugly.

I did the music, he did the lyrics, just a musical genius. She has a face of a newt that sums her up. I don't think she has a neck. Let's see, I don't think she has a head. I think her neck threw up. She's ugly, she's ugly. And again, we were running that through distortion and flanger pedals that I had. But yeah, and then we did perform at the Hello Assembly. It would have been 1987, early, late August, early September, right before I left on my mission and we performed as a duo and he came up with the name of the group. It's just so funny, but my rockin' grandpa, Rodney, brain dead. And we performed that and I remember the night before just sitting in my car for two or three hours just trying to memorize the lyrics, just saying them over and over. And what's funny is I did the same, I think for the third verse, I think I did the same words as the first verse.

So I kind of screwed up on it, but he was he was on beatbox for the intro of the song. And then we we actually sang a song called Is It Love or Is It Dyslexia? And it's again, musical genius Craig Nybo. He had permission. He was in the comedy troops. He was in the band, whatever environment he grew up in. He was always created and he has ever since he always had permission to create. And he's written novels. He's had...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (17:00.737)
He's been the host of the Gangrene Film Festival that happens every year up in Davis County. Multiple records he has transformed. He's with his friends. They jam, they write songs, he writes songs, he does Facebook Lives where he's writing songs. And I'm just so jealous of that, that he had that permission. I never had that permission. So I was so excited to have that time with someone that was really musical and just a lyrical genius writing these songs and producing these songs together. I was contributing, you know, the beats and, know, cause I had the drum machine and I knew a few things on the bass. So I was playing slap, slap and pop bass on some of the things, very simple, wasn't any good, had a distortion pedal. So we used that a lot with guitar. He eventually got a guitar and was just making stuff up. He's just so musical.

Anyway, we did that for like 90 days and it was the funnest time in my life, but I knew it was gonna end because I was going on this Mormon mission. Sold out my gear, again, end of high school, really into music, sold out my gear, went on a mission, came home, went to college, got married, had kids quickly. So no music going on. And then when I decided to get divorced, the first thing I did was buy a synthesizer workstation, a Roland XP-50 for those of you who know what that is. And I would record songs on that. didn't, I was so terrible with the sequencer trying to just lay things down, but that helped me as a single dad, just kind of pound out some things. I wrote a few songs with that. And then in, so as a single dad, the end of a marriage, get into music again, start writing songs, get married for a second time four years later after getting divorced before I even met my wife, I bought a guitar for $250. It was an ovation and it had a laminate top. wasn't spruce top. It wasn't koa wood like my nice tailor over there. I had this, so I had kind of a crappy guitar, but it worked for me. And I wrote a whole bunch of songs there in this...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (19:16.717)
very dark time in my life as a single dad, trying to make ends meet, wrote a bunch of songs and went into the studio and recorded them. And then just, you know, the past 16 years, I've been major heads down in corporate life, had success in corporate life, but always have been a shadow artist wanting to do things. Finally, a couple of songs that I'd written years ago, putting some stuff out on Spotify.

And now at the end of my corporate career, I have been not working for six months, but still not giving myself permission to do art. And I'm just so jealous of Craig Nybo that who always had that permission has always been doing it. And I don't ever want to lose this. And I'm trying to overcome myself, recover a sense of identity, recover a sense of safety, and going through the artist's way is really going to help. If there's anything that I've learned being sort of in this mini retirement sabbatical is that you will do as much art as you're willing to do no matter if you have a full-time job, if you have kids, if you have a busy life. If all that went away, you're not all of a sudden going to spend eight hours a day doing your art because if you weren't doing it for 30 minutes a day or five minutes a day before, you're not all of sudden going to do it.

And so I encourage all of you just to do the thing. What is that thing? Do a little bit of it today and every day and it will add up. It's just like putting a brick down and brick by brick day by day. All of a you have a house or you have a fence or you have created something and you will be able to finish if you work on it a little bit every day. Even if you have reluctance, even if you don't feel like you have permission, do it. I give you permission. I grant you permission to do your art and I hope you will grant me permission and I hope that I will recover my sense of artistry and nurture this child inside of me because our artists are children and we need to talk to them gently. We need to encourage them. I end up maybe because of religion, maybe because of shame...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (21:40.619)
from being a bastard, being adopted, whatever it is. I can't blame religion. I can't blame my parents. I can't blame being adopted. I can't blame my birth mother. I can't do that because it's up to me now. I'm 56 years old and it's time for me to give myself permission to do my art. She also talks about in this chapter, in the week two course, Recovering a Sense of Identity, she talks about crazy makers and a lot of artists associate themselves. crazy makers, you might have had a boss, you might have had a friend, you might have had someone but crazy makers. To me, they're the ultimate narcissists. They care only about their schedules, they don't care about yours. They are energy vampires. They will suck you dry. And they are only interested in themselves, they're not interested in you. Believe me, I've had some crazy makers in my life, and they do. They require all your time and attention. You need to identify these crazy makers and somehow understand what you're dealing with and not let them prevent you from doing your art. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen. By the way, as far as the journal goes, this morning I wrote a good chunk of my newsletter, because I woke up like four o'clock this morning. I've been thinking about what I'm gonna write about this week, and I remembered that it was 30 years ago this month that I graduated with an English degree from the University Utah, and how it took me nine years after high school to graduate college. And there was a lot of reasons why, but anyway.

I thought of this, because I was tossing and turning after four o'clock this morning, and I thought of it and thought, late bloomer, I'm a late bloomer. There are several reasons that it took me nine years to graduate from college. I'm gonna outline that in the newsletter this week. But I did write a good chunk of it, probably took a page of my morning pages this morning. And I find that's very refreshing to do that. If I have an idea, start drafting it in my...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (23:48.629)
Morning pages, first thing in the morning if I have ideas. Anyway, just something to think about if you're doing the morning pages. Don't be afraid to write presentations, write chunks of dialogue. If you're writing a script, write lyrics, write a poem, whatever it comes to mind in the first thing in the morning. Let's see, recovering a sense of identity. Some big words she has in there. Poisonous playmates. Okay, so going sane. She talks about.

As you do this, and I experienced this starting to write the morning pages a year and a half ago, I did establish a sense of safety with myself. I recovered a sense of safety, recovered a sense of identity, and it did feel like I was going crazy because I was becoming something else. I was becoming more assertive. We'll talk about, I think, in the next...next week about anger and how it's such a useful tool because it tells you who's betrayed you. It tells you what you're longing for. It points the way. It doesn't point the finger, it points the way. Unless you have some psychological issues or chemical imbalances, I guess. She says in here, going sane feels just like going crazy. And people that aren't supportive of your art aren't going to appreciate you being more assertive and asking for what you want.

So just as a recovering alcoholic must avoid the first drink, the recovering artist must avoid taking the first think. For us, that think is really self-doubt. I don't think this is any good. I don't think this or that. I mean, as soon as you move from your heart to your mind, art can easily disappear and you can be too judgmental of yourself. So she talks about poisonous playmates. Do not expect your block friends to applaud your recovery. That's like expecting your best friends from the bar to celebrate your sobriety. Crazy Makers, the most poisonous playmate of all, Crazy Makers talks about, Crazy Makers are the kind of people who can take over your whole life. To fixer uppers, they are irresistible, so much to change, so many distractions. And she recommends if you are involved with the Crazy Maker, you probably know it already, and you certainly recognize the thumbnail description and the paragraph above. So Crazy Makers like drama, Crazy Makers, again, aren't...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (26:13.505)
They don't care about you or your schedule. They care about theirs. The rules of the road. And these are awesome rules to keep in mind. I'll just read a couple of them. She lists 10 here. Rules of the road. In order to be an artist, I must show up at the page, use the page to rest, to dream, to try. Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work. And just laying down these vocals, even though they're crap, at least I'm moving towards it. I'm getting a feel, a sense for what I need to improve and doing some writing this morning on the project. I mentioned just getting some words down, spending 15, 30 minutes scribbling out words, even if I don't use any of them. I'm working towards completing the project. I'm doing the work and it makes me so much happier just to do the work. So I love that. Remember that it is far harder and more painful to be a blocked artist than it is to do the work. She has some tasks in here. The one that I found most interesting is a task number three. List 20 things you enjoy doing. Rock climbing, roller skating, baking pies, making soup, making love, making love again, riding a bike, riding a horse, playing catch, shooting baskets, going for a run, reading poetry and so forth. When was the last time you let yourself do these things? Next to each entry, place a date. Don't be surprised if it's been years for some of your favorites. That will change. This list is an excellent resource for artist dates. And I did this a year and a half ago and continues to be on my list, but I like shooting baskets. I like kicking a soccer ball against, because of the artist way, because of going through the course.

I bought a bounce back net so I can kick a soccer ball against it, which I did so much in my youth. And there's the rhythm and the physicality of it, trapping the ball, kicking it with my left foot, kicking it with my right foot, the inside of my foot, the outside of my foot, the laces, just kicking a ball against the net and then stopping it, controlling it. It brings so much satisfaction to me that just doing it, I did last night, I shot...

Kyle Ariel Knowles (28:40.151)
100 baskets last night, I kicked the soccer ball 100 times against the bounce bat and it just gave me a sense of fulfillment that I don't get from going to the gym or going for a walk. So doing some of these things that you have on your list is very important and it was my favorite task this week. Don't be surprised if you feel like you're going crazy going through this course and doing your morning pages and doing your artist date.

Do your art. Remember it's messy, but just do it. Don't wait until finish the course. Don't wait until you know how to play every chord on the guitar or piano. Don't wait for inspiration. Just start doing it. The inspiration seems to come as you start doing the work. Some days are better than others, but go do

Until next time, this is Kyle Ariel Knowles and this has been the Art in Artists Podcast. [Human] Creativity in the Age of AI.

Kyle Ariel Knowles (29:54.069)
We're so lucky to be here.