Giving Dreamers a Bad Name or Bonnard vs Gauguin

Recently Lisa and I were watching Marriage Ref, a show where married couples have celebrities vote to see who is right viz a viz the couples' squabbles. It's a pretty humorous show and the host's wide-eyed innocence bit is rather comic.

There was one guest on the show who spent his all his time and energies facilitating a cross between theater and re-enactments, or really just enactments of medieval fantasies-- without making any money at it. Swordplay seemed to be a big feature of this, but he apparently also did a lot of writing for it. His wife wasn't on board with this, since the family had to subsist on her earnings as a teacher. He was working hard, but producing no income. He insisted this was his passion and calling, and therefore he was entirely justified.

The celebrities really wanted to let the man have it-- to set him straight, although one of them, Patti LaBelle, made an interesting gesture by getting up, walking across the stage, and kissing the man on the lips in a not particularly sexual manner. It was a gesture of blessing. (It reminded me of Father Zossima bowing down to Dmitry in Brothers Karamazov, for any Dostoyevsky fans out there.)

I've thought about what I would tell the man, if given the opportunity,and it would go something like this:

"Have you ever tried valuing your passion and calling enough to charge money for it? I have a nephew, Caleb, who paid for a big chunk of his college by organizing, directing and writing for community theater. (I'm his namesake in the sense that we both have Spencer for our middle name.) You seem industrious and hard-working enough. Why not take a shot at contributing at least something to the family upkeep with your calling?

"But beyond that, have you ever tried believing in the values you're acting out-- bravery, nobility, character, perhaps a little self-sacrifice, etc.-- enough to apply them to the other parts of your life? Yes, that may mean getting a non-theater job for a time-- if theater doesn't bring in any money.

"I know-- that feels like the advice-- in the realm of romance-- that says you'll just have to settle. But that's not what I'm advocating. (I didn't have to settle when it came to marriage, myself-- but that may be a discussion for another time.) I'm just asking you to consider doing your sword fighting against the mortgage bill and the food bill. It's not as exciting as the literal sword fighting, but it requires just as much courage. When it comes to long hours doing mundane tasks, it requires patience, which is courage in slow-motion.

" All the world's a stage, friend. Find a good role out there. Perform whatever work you do as a sacrament.

"I know-- it's often the case that those who are good at art are terrible at life. I don't want to rattle on naively on that score. Naivete is often the problem. It takes a certain childlike quality to be an artist. And like children, artists don't see through the bigger world. They don't imagine the world really is a stage-- a lot more smoke and mirrors than they would think. So they lack shrewdness. But you have to learn to be, as our Lord said, wise as a serpent and gentle as a dove.

"Above all, don't make a god out of your dreams, no matter how valid or grand they are. It's a big mistake. The best dreams can go horribly awry. A lot of Jesus' contemporaries had the dream of Messiah coming back and establishing God's rule in Jerusalem. That wasn't a bad dream in and of itself. It came right out of the prophets. But even in dreaming such a grand and glorious dream, the dreamer has to be in submission to God. And we all know how that turned out-- with Jesus hanging on a cross. Abraham and Sarah took the promise of being the start of a great nation into their own hands. Another disaster with repercussions to this day."

"Your dreams are given to you to point you and others and others to God-- not to become a god."

by Gauguin

So that's what I'd say to this man who gives dreamers a bad name. On this subject I think of two artists, primarily. I think of my mother at some point berating Gaugin, the French painter who left his family on their own and sailed to Tahiti to follow his artistic impulses. Not good. There are many other artists gone bad. Picasso is another. Apparently he was quite a monster toward women.

. Nude in Bathtub by Bonnard

And then there's Bonnard. I went to an exhibition of his paintings at the Denver Art Museum with my sister and her husband. Bonnard painted several paintings of his wife and we saw a couple of them at the exhibit, accompanied by material about their relationship. Here's what Sister Wendy says in Sister Wendy's 1000 Masterpieces:

"Theirs was a strange relationship. He lived with this neurotic and difficult woman for many years before they married, and although to his friends she was bad news, as it were, the relationship between them seemed to have been, artistically, intensely productive. Her need to immerse herself frequently in the bathtub drew from Bonnard a series of magnificent pictures, of which this is the last. Marthe never aged in Bonnard's imagination: she was always that slender, long-legged girl he found so enticing many years before."

After reading similar material and about how Bonnard took such care of his wife, my sister said, "Wow, that's unusual for an artist." Well, I guess it's a valid rap. Same goes for musicians. Still, something, in my unguardedness, is vaguely shocked when I hear the stereotypes. It doesn't have to be that way. All you quixotic saints who happen to be artists-- don't give dreamers a bad name.