To create or not to create. Why is this a question?

"The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake." -Kurt Vonnegut

For those of you who have read my other blog, Metro Reader, you'll know how much I love Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut did not have a very easy time of it during his 85 years and yet he understood the importance of making art, and how it can heal you and feed you no matter what you're going through. I have to say that the first thing to pull me out of a dark place is always some form of art. I'll read a bit of poetry, I'll watch a good show (yes that's art, people!), I'll listen to music etc.

As I write this, I'm listening to one of my absolute favourite pieces of music: Benjamin Britten's War Requiem. This is a shining example of art dragging someone out of a dark place. Of course nothing will heal the effects of World War II on anyone who was scarred by it. But the message it relays to further generations is extremely important. War is wrong. Through this piece of music, the words Wilfred Owen wrote in the trenches of WWI come to life. Wilfred Owen was not writing these poems in hopes of fame or fortune or even to be published in the local literary magazine. He was merely trying to find some kind of vessel for his feelings as he fought to his death for his country. Creativity may have been his only consolation. 

Thanks to men like Wilfred Owen I'm not currently fighting any wars. I'm sitting here comfortably in my Doctor Who shirt listening to beautiful British music and drinking a cafe au lait. I'm pretty fancy right now. Although I am grateful to be in this situation, I feel that my current comfort is part of the reason why I find myself dissatisfied creatively. I do not have a dark cloud hanging over me forcing me to expressively create my way through desperate times. I can choose to make art or to rest on my couch-shaped laurels.

Saint Cecilia by John William Waterhouse

When I was in high school I wrote ALL THE TIME. Perhaps it was from waging my war with teenage angst or whatever. Since starting opera training I have written less and less because I thought that just by singing I was being creative. I no longer believe that. I'm not saying that other opera singers should seek creative outlets beyond singing opera. For some, that is enough for them. But I'm realising that for me it's just not. How am I being creative if all I'm doing is singing what is on the page in the way that my teachers and coaches have told me to. No wonder I go home unfulfilled from a long day. The only time I feel challenged these days in terms of my creativity is when I'm acting. THERE I get to make my own decisions, albeit within the confines of the music.

I'm thinking that that's what happened when jazz was born. What a difference from classical! All of a sudden people could do whatever the heck they wanted! They demanded freedom from the constraints of perfection. And yet through it, they attained their own version of perfection--individuality. Jazz singers are encouraged to find their own voice in the music. To change things; to improve upon things; to use their own voice as a means of creativity.

No I'm not going to become a jazz singer. But I am going to start singing things that make me feel freer. I need to find what it was about singing that made me feel good and made me feel like I was doing good. Wars were waged so that we could be individuals and create art no matter what the canvas or which brushes were used. Yes I just compared WWII to my own First World Problems. You all followed me, admit it!

I suppose the reason I haven't written a blog post in a while is because I've felt a bit uninspired by my own life. I'm going to take Vonnegut's advice and hopefully soon this will change. Make art, people. Not war.