Living Artfully, Prospering Professionally

By Richard Russey

The thing about art is that it is inextricably linked to life in all its forms, variations, and manifestations. That makes the arts in all its forms (visual, dance, music, theater, media, including endless combinations and adaptations) a perfect reflection of life.

Writer John Cheever once said that “art is the triumph over chaos.” If that is true, the statement implies that there is an organization, an arrangement, or a configuration that can be applied to life that assists us in sorting out the chaos.

Those learned in experiencing art have long used a methodology for making sense out of art, thus life. It consists of a step by step approach that leads along a gradual path of gathering essential information, scrutinizing and considering that information, construing meaning from the analysis, and finally forming an opinion or deriving a conclusion from the process.

Gathering Essential Information
One can listen to a piece of music by Johann Sebastian Bach or John Lennon, experience a theatrical performance written by William Inge or Wendy Wasserstein, revel in a dance choreographed by Twyla Tharp or Alberto Alonso, or study a painting by Henri Matisse or Julian Schnabel, and the approach to experiencing the “art” is essentially the same. By attuning to the elements utilized in an art form (line and color, rhythm and pattern, words and point of view, tone and tempo) the essential components of artistic construction become clear.

Scrutinizing and Analyzing
Emerging from the wondrous blending of the basic artistic elements, the impact of one element on another begins to take on importance and serves to push the essential content of the work of art forward. It is this essential step that serves as the basis for construing meaning about the work of art be it a theatrical production, a dance performance, a musical composition, or a two-dimensional painting. One can look closely at the essentials that serve to comprise the art form, examining and exploring the “dance” of artistic elements such as line, color, form, texture, and rhythm. Meaning surfaces through the analysis of the artistic elements.

Construing Meaning
The miraculous result is that the meaning may be universally understood, or very personal to an individual. The significance and the consequence of one’s interpretation of the experience of art is as critical as it is to the interpretation of the experience of life writ large. Construing meaning doesn’t imply agreement or disagreement with the content of the artistic message – rather, solely that meaning has emerged and is apparent to viewer and/or listener.

Deriving Conclusions
Finally, one can derive conclusions related to the content of the message, one can form judgment. At this point the judgment is fairly derived, where it would have been premature to jump to judgment upon the initial gathering of visual and auditory information.

So What?
So, what does the experiencing of art have to do with prospering professionally? Is there an art-life connection that lives outside of the direct experience of an art form? The answer is as simple and as complicated as applying the same step by step approach to one’s everyday moments and professional life that can be applied to experiencing art in any one or all of its many forms. That is, to:

· carefully and expansively gather essential information
· scrutinize and consider that information through analysis
· construe meaning (interpretation) from the analysis
· form an opinion and/or derive a conclusion

Think about, and most importantly, practice this process. The one very important thing this does is to prolong the urge to form an opinion (or, judgment) until AFTER the necessary steps of preparation have been accomplished. The extraordinary amount of strife and discord in the world and workplace makes it clear that there is a huge tendency to jump to judgment rather than to engage in the carefully constructed practice of gathering and processing information prior to making judgments.

The next time you are enjoying a symphony, beholding a dance performance, sitting in rapt attention as a member of the audience at the theater, reading a particularly good novel, or standing in awe transfixed by a painting’s bold and beautiful message, make an attempt at s-l-o-w-i-n-g down the process of absorbing, analyzing, and interpreting the input received by your eyes, ears, heart, and mind. Then, consider how this same process can be applied to the experience of hearing a new idea in a business setting, meeting a new colleague (or better yet, a competitor), or handling a particularly challenging situation.

So “triumph over the chaos of life,” specifically your professional life -- you can indeed live artfully, and prosper professionally!