The New York Times T-magazine from April 18 contained an article titled “A Shared Devotion”. Written by Megan O’Grady, it discussed the value of friendships between artists. Friends play different roles in our lives, as evidenced by the fact that we will call certain friends when we are having relationship problems, but others when we need help solving a problem with other things. The friendship between artists is a unique one, though, and such friendships have helped me navigate the coronavirus pandemic.
As O’Grady put it, “… a real friend can also be counted on to tenderly shelter our idealism in a transactional world: That person who might help us believe, against all odds, in our own consequence as we go about the delicate business of composing a self – an act of imagination in large part, after all. The moral anxiety of any creative practice – standing, as it does, uncredentialed and fiscally insecure, in dubious relation to necessity – can be acute, and it does something to you when someone else believes in you.”
And who better to understand those forces and that anxiety than another artist? Despite our differences in how we go about making our art, my artist friends understand the relentless questioning about the value, quality and meaning of what we do. When I doubt, they hold me up. When they feel hopeless, I am there for them to do the same.
O’Grady again: “The truth is, none of us do it on our own. Transcendence requires human scaffolding; immortality, a benevolent witness: that fellow traveler holding a lantern in a dark wood, telling us like we are.”
As we slowly emerge from the darkness of the pandemic into the light, I am so grateful for my artist friends. I gain courage and insight from them that I don’t get from any other source. With them at my side, I feel that anything is possible.